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Apple Reveals tvOS 12 With Dolby Atmos Support for Apple TV 4K, Aerial Screensaver Updates, and More

MacRumors said:



Apple today announced that the Apple TV 4K will gain support for Dolby Atmos surround sound technology. When the update appears later in the year, iTunes will automatically update compatible movies with Dolby Atmos support for free.

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With the addition of Dolby Atmos, Apple said that this makes the Apple TV 4K the only streaming box with support for both 4K and Atmos.

Other features coming to tVOS include "Zero Sign-on," so that if you're on your TV provider's broadband network, Apple will securely unlock all apps connected to a subscription service.

For the Apple TV's Aerial screensavers, you'll be able to tap to see descriptions of where each video was shot, and can swipe between screensavers. There will also be new Aerials of Earth taken
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RamGuy said:
Dolby Atmos is great and all. But until services like Netflix, Amazon Prime etc starts offering TV-shows and Movies with Dolby Atmos (they are mostly offering Dolby Stereo and Dolby Digital Plus) I won't really benefit anytime soon.

Sonos is also going to announce something new for the living room in two days and I'm eager to see if that might be a new sound bar solution offering Dolby Atmos. It would be the perfect timing.
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Cmon Sonos! Don’t let us down!
 
MacRumors said:
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With the addition of Dolby Atmos, Apple said that this makes the Apple TV 4K the only streaming box with support for both 4K and Atmos.
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Technically, Apple said the ATV is the only streaming box that is both DolbyVision HDR and Dolby Atmos Certified, which means Dolby has certified the capabilities and licensing.
ThatGuyInLa said:
All of FOX’s new 4K releases use DTSX. So I wonder if Apple will convert to ATMOS? Or only output DD+ for those?

Kind of odd they finally add ATMOS but leave out DTSX.
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I think you're talking about discs. VOD/Streaming content is typically DD or DD+ (...VOD/Streaming Dolby Atmos content will be DD+ Atmos, not lossless Dolby True HD Atmos.)
 
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archer75 said:
Atmos and audio passthrough is all I want. It's perfect after that.
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Audio passthrough worked with 3rd party video players but they (intentionally?) broke support for that in tvOS 11.3 - I wouldn’t hold my breath for it.
 
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ersan191 said:
Audio passthrough worked with 3rd party video players but they (intentionally?) broke support for that in tvOS 11.3 - I wouldn’t hold my breath for it.
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Not for TureHD/DTS-HD MA. That's all I care about. Yes, infuse can decode and pass it out and that's fine. But I still want a real passthrough solution. More questions need to be answered as to how they've implemented atmos on it. It could be possible with this update. Hopefully someone can get an answer to that at WWDC this week.
 
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ThatGuyInLa said:
All of FOX’s new 4K releases use DTSX. So I wonder if Apple will convert to ATMOS? Or only output DD+ for those?

Kind of odd they finally add ATMOS but leave out DTSX.
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Are you crazy? Also supporting DTS might make unit costs go up maybe 41* cents or something like that. What are you trying to do- break Apple? ;)

* Note: that's just a joke ADF. I don't know what it actually costs on a per-unit basis to license DTS. However, it can't be too high as some pretty cheap devices license it (see disc players retailing for well < $100).

I share the desire for :apple:TV to also directly playback DTS and True too. Make it fully toe-to-toe with the "bag of hurt" on both audio and video quality levels. ATMOS is a big, positive step. Fill in the gaps and step up the video hardware in the "6" so that BD players have no advantage in those two fundamentals.
 
I'm not quite clear on the aerial screen saver update.

I thought she mentioned that users could swipe to the next aerial? So does that mean that we can change the aerials at anytime?

Also noticed there wasn't any updates in the arena of gaming for TVos .....I'm wondering if there's still going to be a focus on the casual gaming market for Apple TV.
 
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No news about single sign on (or zero sign on) for Comcast customers. If Steve was still alive, then Comcast would have been onboard by now.

Sucks to be a Comcast customer since we have to sign into pretty much everything, CNN, HBO, CBS, etc etc etc etc.
 
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archer75 said:
Not for TureHD/DTS-HD MA. That's all I care about. Yes, infuse can decode and pass it out and that's fine. But I still want a real passthrough solution. More questions need to be answered as to how they've implemented atmos on it. It could be possible with this update. Hopefully someone can get an answer to that at WWDC this week.
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DTS-HD/TrueHD do not pass through at all, and DTS doesn't any more as of 11.3 - that was my point. Audio passthrough seems to have been intentionally blocked by Apple and I don't think it's coming back.
 
ersan191 said:
DTS-HD/TrueHD do not pass through at all, and DTS doesn't any more as of 11.3 - that was my point. Audio passthrough seems to have been intentionally blocked by Apple and I don't think it's coming back.
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I am aware. Though infuse can decode and send PCM it's not true bitstreaming. Same diff. But the nerd in me wants bitstreaming.

But passthrough appears to be necessary for atmos as atmos is dynamic and adjusts to the number of speakers you have it would require a receiver that knows how many speakers are connected and in what configuration to process and send the correct sounds to.
 
lparsons21 said:
BTW, the claim that ATV will be the only streaming box with Atmos and HDR is not true, the FireTV does it now.
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The ATV is the only streaming box with Atmos and Dolby Vision HDR, so their statement was correct. FireTV does not support DV.
 
archer75 said:
I am aware. Though infuse can decode and send PCM it's not true bitstreaming. Same diff. But the nerd in me wants bitstreaming.

But passthrough appears to be necessary for atmos as atmos is dynamic and adjusts to the number of speakers you have it would require a receiver that knows how many speakers are connected and in what configuration to process and send the correct sounds to.
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It'll probably do what they do now with DD where they re-encode everything to Atmos (even if the source is Atmos) when you enable it - otherwise their reduce loud sounds dynamic range thing wouldn't work.
 
ersan191 said:
tvOS got straight up shafted this year. They spent 10 minutes talking about aerials for gods sake. I’m extremely disappointed. The ATV 4K is selling so well that you’d think they would spend at least a little development time on it...
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The bigger issue with TV content is striking deals. Apple have been slowly working on this for a long time, and it's not really their fault that the cable companies are so slow in accepting change.
 
Great update. Now give us quickly changeable users, especially needed for kids, and a web accessible tv apps store!
 
So when Apple remarked about cable boxes being a "thing of the past," will a future AppleTV box have a port to accept the cable signal over an f port? My internet still comes in via coax, and I need a cable modem to convert it to ethernet before it goes to the router, right?
 
Mgkwho said:
So when Apple remarked about cable boxes being a "thing of the past," will a future AppleTV box have a port to accept the cable signal over an f port? My internet still comes in via coax, and I need a cable modem to convert it to ethernet before it goes to the router, right?
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I assume most cable companies will be converting over to IPTV for this (most already use it anyway). You will connect your cable to your cable modem and then ethernet to your cable box of choice. In this case, it appears it will be an app on the Apple TV. I hope other cable companies can adopt this as well and charter doesn't have some exclusivity agreement with apple. When I lived in Switzerland this is how my cable box connected - via DSL, through my DSL modem and then out via ethernet to the cable box.
 
jermwhl said:
I assume most cable companies will be converting over to IPTV for this (most already use it anyway). You will connect your cable to your cable modem and then ethernet to your cable box of choice. In this case, it appears it will be an app on the Apple TV. I hope other cable companies can adopt this as well and charter doesn't have some exclusivity agreement with apple. When I lived in Switzerland this is how my cable box connected - via DSL, through my DSL modem and then out via ethernet to the cable box.
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...so you will still need a cable modem? Or are you distinguishing a "cable box" separately from a "cable modem?"

I took Apple to mean cable boxes that are provided by those companies AND cable modems, since if you have a cable box you don't need a cable modem, correct? I'd sure love to get rid of the cable modem altogether and just use one device...let's resurrect the airport router while we're at it and just do a small AppleTV box...or is that crazy talk...?
 
tennisproha said:
That zero sign on is ********. It's not going to work just like single sign on currently doesn't work. The problem is the providers also need to support that feature and they don't. When I try single sign in with directv now, it just gives you an error. And even when it used to work before, you still had to individually sign in the each individual app.

Apple's pretending like everything is Kumbaya, when in reality none of it actually ever worked.
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Not only does it not work with our cable provider, but every couple weeks I have to sign in AGAIN to pretty much any app I haven't used in a while. Getting real good at typing in those stupid 6 digit access link codes...
 
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Mgkwho said:
...so you will still need a cable modem? Or are you distinguishing a "cable box" separately from a "cable modem?"

I took Apple to mean cable boxes that are provided by those companies AND cable modems, since if you have a cable box you don't need a cable modem, correct? I'd sure love to get rid of the cable modem altogether and just use one device...let's resurrect the airport router while we're at it and just do a small AppleTV box...or is that crazy talk...?
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I'm talking about a separate cable box, in addition to a cable modem. I'm not aware of any way to completely eliminate both devices. You'd need one or the other. I'm also not aware of a cable box (tv box) that doubles as a internet router (although I could definitely be wrong about that part). I've always bought my own cable modem, rather than rent from the cable companies. I've never had the option of owning my own cable box though, so if apple (and other companies) can really replace traditional cable boxes, I'd be all in on that. Not much different from what direct tv is doing now, actually.
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ignatius345 said:
Not only does it not work with our cable provider, but every couple weeks I have to sign in AGAIN to pretty much any app I haven't used in a while. Getting real good at typing in those stupid 6 digit access link codes...
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Ugh, that must be frustrating.
 
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