Apple Broke Dolby Digital 5.1 Output on Apple TV 4K

Apple Tech support: Can you please respond to these posts/thread regarding the loss of Dolby 5.1 encoding after Apple TV 4K’s were updated to iOS 18. Some acknowledgment of our posts would greatly be appreciated.

kind regards.

 I had a play this morning and connected my Apple TV 4K 1st Gen tvOS18 to my LG SN9YG (plus wireless rears) via the HDMI connection on the soundbar. Unfortunately it made no difference. Atmos is fine, but everything else is PCM 2.0. No PCM multichannel and no DD.5.1 even though the Change Format option shows DD.5.1 selected. Reconnected the Panasonic 4k blu ray player to the soundbar and it plays Atmos, DTS X and DD5.1. So, it's got to be tvOS 18 that's broken audio for the Apple TV. Nothing else to do but keep bunging in feedback to Apple and wait I guess. Frustrating doesn't come close. I (and I'm sure many others ) have invested a lot in Apple movie purchases, and at a stroke those purchases have effectively been downgraded in quality. At least they can't remove DD from a Blu ray or DVD.

Here's what I've observed on my two ATVs (3rd generation HD, and 1st generation 4K) since installing tvOS 18.0. I have about three Dolby Digital 5.1 compatible sound systems that I use interchangeably. If I disable Change Format, one of the sound systems (Marantz AVR) receives multichannel audio. The other two don't. If I enable Change Format and choose "New Format: Dolby Digital 5.1", none of them receive multichannel audio from either ATV. I'll admit, I'm old, and I couldn't care less whether the audio is described as PCM or Dolby Digital or Atmos. But (on a good day) I can still tell where sound is coming from (at full frequency range, at least).

I have an Apple 4k (1st gen) and off-brand earbuds that are seen as "AirPods" but couldn't get this to work. I wonder if it's because they are off-brand or some other reason. Are you running 18.0 or 18.1?

Amazoon has got a Fire TV HD Stick on sale for less than $20 today. (Fire TV 4K is $25).

Both claim to do Dolby Atmos.

But that would be an awfully big investment.

Though their web page says you can "Save 20% with Trade-In". That would certainly help.

I am experiencing the same issue after the tvOS 18 update. I contacted Apple Support and opened a case. They informed me that the issue will be escalated to the backend engineering team and addressed in the next tvOS update, which is expected to be released in a couple of weeks.

I am experiencing the same issue after the tvOS 18 update. I contacted Apple Support and opened a case. They informed me that the issue will be escalated to the backend engineering team and addressed in the next tvOS update, which is expected to be released in a couple of weeks.

I also shared this discussion forum link with them so they can read posts from people experiencing the same issue.

Apple TV 4th 2nd gen to AVR onkyo 5.1 Dolby decoding no longer available, just 2.1 PCM since the 17.04 iOS software update. I’m a french customer, for what it’s worth. Apple Tech support, please do something soon

Thank you.

Ah yes, I did see that post. Assuming I read the post correctly the method did not fix the issue for me.

Assuming they meant press and hold the TV button on the remote, swipe to Audio, select a different speaker and deselect TV speakers, then deselect the other speaker and re-select TV Speakers.

Correct Payton. So far it continues to work for me. Not the best solution, but works until an actual fix is released.

For instance, i go into netflix and choose a movie (not play it yet). Choose both tv speaker and homepod. Play a bit of the movie in stereo only. Get out of the movie back into the movie menu. Change the audio to turn off the homepod audio leaving only the tv speaker. Play the movie again and dolby comes on. It stays on as long as I dont leave netflix app. If i change to any other app like apple library or Max or Amazon movies, dolby goes away but just repeat the same process of switching speakers and comes right back.

The only option I have here is to remove user from Apple 4KTV.

Problem is, I have 2FA turned on and an iPad that isn’t up-to-date (and can’t be updated anymore. I have no way to log back in again as I can’t remember my password.

I updates to the latest “B” version today and now I am getting Dolby Atmos on streaming services like Disney plus. However I am still getting stereo pcm on YouTube videos that are suppose to be Dolby Atmos. Sometimes i get multichannel PCM 5.1 on the exact same video, it seems a bit random.

Using a Sonos system

Oh my god, I am so glad I found this forum. Currently I have a slightly older Sony TV (75x900f)with only Arc (no eArc), Apple TV 4k, and a Bose 900 sounbar with woofer. Since the TV only passes through up to DD 5.1 and can't pass through Dolby Atmos, I had learned to be content with that for the past year or so. Then I noticed last week that the soundbar suddenly only output LPCM 2.0 on all Apple TV content. The Sony TV's native apps output DDP 5.1 no problem, so I knew it wasn't the cords or ports fault. I spent hours last night troubleshooting, swapping wires/configurations, resetting devices, etc, until a couple google searches in this forum popped up. Glad to know it's at least not a hardware issue and to finally have an answer.

For reference, it's an older 4k Apple TV (maybe 2020?). I have it connected to the Sony TV and passed through to the Bose 900 soundbar via Optical (I had used the Arc HDMI channel for awhile, but it was unreliable, and wouldn't pass through Dolby Atmos anyways since it wasn't eArc so there was no real advantage). While troubleshooting I used an older HDMI audio splitter from HDfury/Arcana and was able to get the Apple TV to send Dolby Atmos to the Bose 900. BUT the HDfury has always been temperamental so is not a long term solution.

At least no I know the issue is Apple's OS. I have hope they'll figure it out in the near future now that they're aware.

The newer Apple TV downstairs in the movie room is on version 17.6 and is working fine with the receiver and outputting Dolby Atmos and multi channel fine. So I turned off auto updates just in case.

I was getting my hopes up, after reading posts that the latest b version works regarding 5.1 dolby digital.

As far as I can tell I have also updated to the latest b version. But unfortunately for me it still does not work. My Logitech z906 does not receive an encoded doldy digital 5.1 signal. This is very frustrating, because when I bought the apple tv, it did work. I just don't understand why this is still not working. I have to use my old Xbox One machine to watch Apple TV on in dolby digital. How crazy is that.