Yeah, you're right lossy and lossless codecs are all compressed, however, lossless does not lose any of the actual sound information.
Where I do not agree with you is that you're implying lossy DD (Dolby Digital), running at max 640Kbs, is going to sound exactly the same as Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA, which can go up to 18-24Mbs. This is total bunk. My ears are not making **** up. I hear the difference between DD 5.1 and lossless audio. At first I didn't know what was going on, but, in REALITY, there is actually MORE sound, because, the lossy compression, TAKES AWAY SOME OF THE ACTUAL SOUND, that's why it takes less space. There are better codecs than others, but, any lossy codec is
not going to give you the same results as lossless. Period. There is a trade-off. This is my point.
I guess I was not using proper terminology, I should have said that with lossy compression, you lose some of the
fidelity over lossless, (rather than dynamic range).
"Lossy audio compression algorithms provide higher compression
at the cost of fidelity and are used in numerous audio applications. These algorithms almost all rely on psychoacoustics
to eliminate or reduce fidelity of less audible sounds, thereby reducing the space required to store or transmit them." (from wikipedia)
It is the same with video. I prefer blu-rays over streaming/VOD because with the lossy compression, you lose some information, and the result is some loss of detail, which can show up in a variety of ways, including banding:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/03/the-ars-itunes-1080p-vs-blu-ray-shootout/
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DD+ is becoming the standard for streaming as it has more capability than DD, it can do 7.1 channels, and Dolby Atmos. Netflix, VUDU and others already stream DD+ Atmos, though, with limited titles at this point.
yes, this is where I first saw DD+ Atmos.
DD+ uses up to 6Mbs, depending on sampling rate and number of channels, however, it is a lossy codec and will never be the same as lossless Dolby TrueHD, (which can go up to 18Mbs). It is a more flexible lossy format than DD in that it can be set to use as little as 32Kbs and has available more sampling rates, channels and metadata (Atmos adds metadata to 5.1 or 7.1 audio formats).
Apple isn't blocking anything. What they are doing is decoding the audio before sending it out the box. They could change this. Similarly, most blu-ray players have the option to "decode" the audio by setting it to "PCM", it decodes the audio codec before sending it through the HDMI output. This way, whatever is driving the speakers doesn't have to have the ability to decode all the different formats, (sound bar, TV speakers, or older AVR, etc.). When a blu-ray player is set to "bitstream" it sends the audio bitstream out the HDMI output for decoding by whatever you connect it to. This is also called "pass-thru", as it passes the raw audio information through without processing it.
So, the limitation is with what codecs and sampling rates Apple's decoder is compatible with. They aren't blocking anything, they just only support certain ones. A solution for this would be for apple give us the option to "pass-thru" the audio, like blu-ray players do, and let the AVR (or other audio source) do the decoding. Another solution would be for apple to make it work with more formats. I think it may be more likely for apple to add Atmos decoding for DD+ than for them to give us a pass-thru option, though I would prefer the latter. (However, I am not sure how much of this is hardware dependent and how much is software changeable.)
(VOD/Streaming) One thing to keep in mind, the studios are likely only providing whatever audio codec they want with the VOD/streaming version of their content. This is most likely going to continue to be DD or DD+. I'm not sure what would motivate them to provide us with lossless audio.
If the data uses less space after encoding than before, that's the very definition of compression. There are both lossy and lossless compression schemes.
