ATV 4K Audio settings

[scouser75]

Sorry, I would be only guessing here, because I never had a Onkyo receiver. So I can not speak from personal experience.
You can download a channel test file from Dolby: https://www.dolby.com/us/en/guide/test-tones.html
and play it back from iTunes library to aTV and see how it is reproduced.
They have Atmos sound in Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 encoding, hence play back as PCM Multichannel 5.1 on aTV.
DD+ 7.1 channel check you can find here: https://www.demolandia.net/downloads.php?id=27781967
But because it's in MKV container, you need to use eg Subler to remux it into mp4 for iTunes compatibility.

Thanks pritv8. I'll give that a try later this afternoon.

 

[scouser75]

Pritv8 I managed to get it sorted and audio is now playing in 5.1 PCM. Thanks for your help.

 

[priitv8]

Pritv8 I managed to get it sorted and audio is now playing in 5.1 PCM. Thanks for your help.

Glad to be of help!

 

[yiasou]

Wow so confused by all this. I’m about to update tv to the Sony x8500e and want to connect my ATV directly to the tv and ARC the audio to my older AVR(that doesn’t support 4K pass through).

On my (current Samsung) that I’m testing this out with, I have the ATV set to output Best Available. On the TV I have the audio set to:
HDMI AUDIO FORMAT: Bitstream
AUDIO FORMAT: PCM

PCM is the only option available when on the springboard for ATV. When I load Netflix and load a 5.1 audio movie, the TV automatically changes the audio format to DOLBY DIGITAL. so I think that’s all working fine yes? I believe my setup is working fine, as the amp also shows 5 channels being received. And when browsing the ATV springboard it goes back to 2 channels which is correct.

Just got worried reading everyone saying that ARC only sends back 2.1!

 

[oskarbar]

Wow so confused by all this. I’m about to update tv to the Sony x8500e and want to connect my ATV directly to the tv and ARC the audio to my older AVR(that doesn’t support 4K pass through).

On my (current Samsung) that I’m testing this out with, I have the ATV set to output Best Available. On the TV I have the audio set to:
HDMI AUDIO FORMAT: Bitstream
AUDIO FORMAT: PCM

PCM is the only option available when on the springboard for ATV. When I load Netflix and load a 5.1 audio movie, the TV automatically changes the audio format to DOLBY DIGITAL. so I think that’s all working fine yes? I believe my setup is working fine, as the amp also shows 5 channels being received. And when browsing the ATV springboard it goes back to 2 channels which is correct.

Just got worried reading everyone saying that ARC only sends back 2.1!

Hi, I`ve got a Samsung UE55JU6640 and the behavior is exactly the same.

- In the ATV menus the TV is only showing PCM in audio format, but I can hear sounds from rear channels (maybe the receiver is making prologic processing)
- When I open a movie (in Netflix, Infuse 5, etc), the menu changes to Dolby Digital.

I think this is the correct configuration.

By the way, my TV is 4K but in theory, non HDR; the reality is that I can play HDR content with no problems. The TV passes the HDR test made by the ATV, all the applications show HDR when the content is available in that format, etc. The same occurs with the integrated Samsung Smart TV apps

Any way to confirm that I'm playing the HDR content properly?

Regards,

 

[rpgonzalez]

I need to stand corrected. Because ARC is functionally equivalent to the S/PDIF optical link, it only can send compressed 5.1 audio (Dolby Digital or DTS). Only 2 channels of uncompressed (like PCM) audio are supported. And that is not a limitation of the medium, but intentional due to missing copy protection on the link.
Source:
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/hdmi-arc-faq,news-26262.html
https://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_1_4/hdmi_1_4_faq.aspx#15

My bad, sorry!

oskarbar, please refer to this quote. I think the answer is that the 5.1 you are seeing while watching netflix is "regular" Dolby Digital which has always been compressed and passable via S/PDIF. Your receiver shows the DD signal that is essentially being downsamples by the TV (or rather the HD audio stripped and left with a "core" Dolby Digital lossy version). From what I can tell, and using the argument from priitv8, you should look at ARC on any device as basically being an optical S/PDIF connection.