Apple Seeds Second Public Beta of tvOS 12.2 for Fourth and Fifth-Generation Apple TV

[MacRumors]

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming tvOS 12.2 update to its public beta testing group, one day after providing the beta to developers and a week after releasing the first tvOS 12.2 public beta.

The tvOS 12.2 public beta can be obtained by going to the Settings app on the Apple TV and navigating to the Software Updates section under "System." "Get Public Beta Updates" will need to be toggled on, and once it is, the Apple TV will download the beta software.

tvOS 12.2, paired with iOS 12.2, lets users ask Siri to play specific media on an Apple TV from an iOS device. You can, for example, ask Siri to play Modern Family on the TV in the living room. This works for music and TV content.

No other new features were discovered in the tvOS 12.2 beta as of yet, and it's often difficult to determine what's new because Apple does not provide release notes letting us know what's changed.

Article Link: Apple Seeds Second Public Beta of tvOS 12.2 for Fourth and Fifth-Generation Apple TV

 

[kagharaht]

How about passthrough audio so that my receiver can do the decoding.

 

[bommai]

How about passthrough audio so that my receiver can do the decoding.

Will never happen!

 

[iAdamator]

How about passthrough audio so that my receiver can do the decoding.

I didn't know our AVRs didn't already do the decoding! So it's done on the Apple TV box? I have my sound output sent to Multi-channel. Always thought my AVR did the decoding...

 

[iReality85]

I didn't know our AVRs didn't already do the decoding! So it's done on the Apple TV box? I have my sound output sent to Multi-channel. Always thought my AVR did the decoding...

That's correct. At least for now/temporarily. Happened sometime around tvOS 11.3, I believe.

I'll use my receiver as an example. When I play a Dolby Atmos movie from my UHD BD player, my receiver displays "D.Atmos." Pretty straight forward; the player is passing the audio to my receiver to be decoded, which reads it as Dolby Atmos (because it's seeing the Dolby Atmos container).

The Apple TV 4K, however, does the decoding itself. It decodes Dolby Atmos first, and then sends that audio on as an uncompressed LPCM stream. As a result, my receiver displays "Multi" when I'm playing a Dolby Atmos movie from Apple TV 4K since the audio is being read as LPCM.

 

[raindog999]

That's correct. At least for now/temporarily. Happened sometime around tvOS 11.3, I believe.

I'll use my receiver as an example. When I play a Dolby Atmos movie from my UHD BD player, my receiver displays "D.Atmos." Pretty straight forward; the player is passing the audio to my receiver to be decoded, which reads it as Dolby Atmos (because it's seeing the Dolby Atmos container).

The Apple TV 4K, however, does the decoding itself. It decodes Dolby Atmos first, and then sends that audio on as an uncompressed LPCM stream. As a result, my receiver displays "Multi" when I'm playing a Dolby Atmos movie from Apple TV 4K since the audio is being read as LPCM.

Hey There,

I do notice on my Yamaha receiver when playing a film with Dolby Atmos from apple tv 4k:

1)Receiver lights up with "DTHD"
2) Then " Decoder"
3)Then finally ends on "ATMOS/PCM"

I did read its some type of newer ( or older) dolby container. But yes, at the end of it: the Apple tv is doing the decoding and my Yamaha ( thank goodness ) lights up "ATMOS/PCM" and its does sound pretty damn good ( most of the time) in case anyone is interested the receiver is a YAMAHA RX-A770

 

[iReality85]

Hey There,

I do notice on my Yamaha receiver when playing a film with Dolby Atmos from apple tv 4k:

1)Receiver lights up with "DTHD"
2) Then " Decoder"
3)Then finally ends on "ATMOS/PCM"

I did read its some type of newer ( or older) dolby container. But yes, at the end of it: the Apple tv is doing the decoding and my Yamaha ( thank goodness ) lights up "ATMOS/PCM" and its does sound pretty damn good ( most of the time) in case anyone is interested the receiver is a YAMAHA RX-A770

I use a Yamaha RX-V583. Yours is a bit better than mine I think.

The way I would read your receiver’s display is “Atmos via PCM.” If I were to guess, Apple probably made this change in 11.3 to allow for compatibility with older receivers. If ATV4K passed DA to a receiver that didn’t support DA decoding, there wouldn’t be any sound. Having ATV4K decode it and send it as PCM solves that, although you are limited to 7.1 channels (I think). Some might consider this “fake” DA but it is better than nothing and a 7.1 setup gives pretty darn good sound.

What the receiver displays probably varies depending on model. I’ve read that for streaming services, DA is actually encoded within the DTHD/DD+ container, hence why your Yamaha initially may detect it as DTHD.

Audio quality should still be better if you’re connected to a receiver, since AFAIK even though the ATV4K is doing the initial decoding, the receiver still does the processing of the uncompressed PCM and then out to your speakers.

 

[iAdamator]

When I play an Atmos movie from my ATV4K, my Denon X4400H also lights up with Dolby Atmos on the front. I always figured the AVR was decoding it. Is it just basically passing it through and playing it? What device decides where the sound goes based on my speaker configuration?

 

[raindog999]

When I play an Atmos movie from my ATV4K, my Denon X4400H also lights up with Dolby Atmos on the front. I always figured the AVR was decoding it. Is it just basically passing it through and playing it? What device decides where the sound goes based on my speaker configuration?

Hey There,

From my understanding and from reading multiple posts on the forums: The APPLE TV 4K is doing the decoding/unwrapping of the audio and sending that to the AVR for processing. The audio files that are embedded in the movie file for streaming platforms I.E. VUDU,itunes,prime video, netflix etc... are handled differently by the streaming device ( I think ) roku, apple tv, firestick etc. I think most people wish Apple would just let the audio "passthrough" to our expensive AVR's ( as it used to ) that are built for this specific purpose. Some people tend to think we are getting a "dumbed down" version of ATMOS via streaming anyway. That the true ATMOS can only be achieved via bluray player sending it directly to AVR. I myself would love to take the "pepsi challenge" ( old reference for anyone under 25) to hear the difference. Most of us have either a 5.1.2 or 5.1.4 or 7.1.something. I dont have a massive theatre room with 24 speakers so... I do the best with I got....