There is only one way that you will ever get immersive audio from the Apple tv and that is for apple to passthru or bitstream the audio to the HDMI output and allow the AVR equipment to take care of the decoding.
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Immersive audio..
- Thread starter thomasfxlt58
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I'm somewhat amazed when I read that people prefer Plex and at the same time insist on audio bitstreaming. Last I checked a few months ago, Plex transcoded all audio formats except AAC and AC3 to AC3 when using an ATV4, which obviously degrades the audio quality. Has that changed recently?
When I watch movies I use plex on my shield. Not the atv. I haven't looked in to the details of what plex transcodes the audio in to recently. I do use plex on atv for my shows and my kids and wife will use plex for everything on the atv.
But most people who use an apple tv don't seem to care about audio so plex simplifies many things for them.
Similar pattern for me. Wife and kids use Plex on atv. When I'm involved I switch over to media pc with Plex media player so I can get hd audio bitstreaming and atmos of my blu ray rips. Although thinking about getting a shield so less hassle with the occasional hiccups with a media pc. Still hoping we find out atv 4K will pass hd audio but seems very unlikely.
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Hm, frankly, I don't see how Plex is any simpler to use than Infuse, and that gives me full audio quality in all cases (well, with the exception of Atmos, but I don't have Atmos-capable AVR and speakers anyway).
Setup was easier. And infuse is slow.
Plex has the added advantage of being available on everything. Not locking you in to any one platform or type of media. This allows me to encode one video and audio stream in HVEC and it works on everything. And it also serves to friends and family outside the home.
Plex has the added advantage of being available on everything. Not locking you in to any one platform or type of media. This allows me to encode one video and audio stream in HVEC and it works on everything. And it also serves to friends and family outside the home.
Yeah, back in post #98 I posted links that I found on another forum, but here it is again, with a brief summary:
• So, for everyone with the Atmos and lossless audio questions, there is an answer, and you won't like it. •
Apple supports DD/DD+ (up to 7.1), decodes it, messes with it, then outputs either LPCM multichannel or DD5.1 (or Stereo if you so choose), please see:
http://developer.dolby.com/News/Dolb..._Apple_TV.aspx
and: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204069
Note that, with some tvOS update, the menu names have changed since that article was written, but the function is the same:
- "Auto" has become "Best Quality Available"
- "Dolby Surround" has become "Dolby Digital 5.1"
This actually better describes the function, (Best... will use DD+ if available, decode, etc., output LPCM, DD5.1 forces output to DD5.1 for audio devices that can't handle LPCM.)
As far as we know ATV 4K is going to work exactly the same way (for audio) as ATV4. LPCM does not support metadata, nor will it, so, unless apple gives us the ability to pass audio, Atmos is not an option, (Atmos is not a codec but adds metadata to DD+ or True HD 5.1 or 7.1 codecs).
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Hm, I don't see how setup could be any easier, expecially given that it doesn't need server software like Plex. And slow in what regard?
Not saying it was hard. Was just clunky. I hate that my folders don't just show up. I have to add them as favorites. I don't like that I can't filter but rather have to add another favorite. For example I have a movies folder. If I want to sort by Unwatched movies I have to back out and go to the Unwatched movies folder. So then rather than having one movies folder I can sort in plex I now have many in infuse.
It's slow to load cover art and synopsis. Navigating around.
I also don't care for having to pay a subscription for infuse pro. Granted it's cheap. If just bugs me.
I think this is the working assumption but we won't know until developers and users get their hands on it. I doubt iTunes will have Atmos otherwise Apple would have promoted it and suspect audio will continue to be handled the same for iTunes and apps that use native video player. However using non native video players like infuse atv4 can bitstream untouched. It's just limited to DD and DTS. Need at least DD+ to support Atmos. So we'll just have to see if the hardware, using non-native video players, will allow passthrough of DD+ or better. Agree it's unlikely but remains an unknown.
Uhm, when did you last try Infuse? You are aware that it has a library view?
Nothing slow about it.
You can still buy a version with a perpetual license if you prefer.
I last used it a few days ago. It's rather slow for me. And i'm on a gigabit network. I did not see an option to buy a license. It gave me only one choice. I just did it two days ago.
Here's the perpetual version:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/infuse-pro-5/id1136220915?mt=8
But I think the subscription is a much better deal since they keep updating the app frequently (e.g. recently they added hardware-accelerated H.265 support, which will become available in iOS 11 and the next tvOS). They will also support 4K and HDR on ATV4K and compatible iOS devices.
That shows on my app store. But how does that transfer to atv? The atv doesn’t give you an option to buy.
That includes both the iOS and ATV versions. It'll show up in your purchased section on the ATV.
Trust me. Don’t buy a shield. I’ve owned one for around 4 months and it’s an absolute shambles of a device.
I find infuse much faster than plex. Plex’s scraper is really poor (in comparison to infuse and Kodi), it can’t handle collections and it can’t play iso files. I can live with Kodi. Plex i can’t live with
I have no issues with the plex scraper. Or the speed of plex.
I'm using infuse at the moment. Library view won't update. But my pinned favorite views do update. Scanning a large video library it's loading the cover art each time and it takes time. Video is slow to load. It's scraper is good. Same as plex. Video quality is fine.
I don't know what your issues are with the shield but it's flawless for me.
Did you set up the source folders in the library settings?
I only use library mode. I have several thousand movies and TV episodes on my NAS. The initial scanning of the library and downloading of metadata and covers took a long time (a little over an hour), but after that everything is fast. Updating the library after adding new files is automatic and takes just a few minutes.
Yes, 2 of my folders show in library view but There should be 5 folders. The tv show folder updated when I set it up a couple of days ago but hasn't updated since. But the pinned favorites did update so I'm playing with those in the mean time.
I have had no issues with plex either. Wouldn't Infuse fall to the same problem that plex or any other player that is loaded up on the ATV? Since there is no passthru, the ATV will be handling your sound. Or am I missing something?
The Problem with Plex is that it apparently cannot even get any audio tracks that aren't AAC or AC3 to the ATV without quality degradation, since the Plex server seems to transcode everything to AC3 when sending it the ATV Plex client.
It's only sort of a Plex issue. They made a design choice to use atv native video player and it can only accept ac3 or pcm. On other platforms, shield for example, it will bitstream all audio formats. I do wish they did what infuse did and use their own video player to get around some of those limitations.
It’s a shame library view won’t update for you. Because this fixes the slow cover art issue you speak of. Try contacting the developer. They are incredibly responsive.
The issues with the Shield TV are very well documented. For example, it does not change resolution automatically. So if you’re watching something in 1080p, you need to manually change to that resolution. If you leave it in 4k, it upscales...I could live with this however, the scaler is incredibly bad. It softens the picture to the point where it can actually hide film grain. Motion panning can also reveal artefacts in some scenes with the upscaled image. In addition to this, when you change resolution, it defaults to a Rec 2020 colour space and its colour space conversion is also inaccurate (again well documented and measurable). So, not only do you manually have to change resolution, you have to change colour space too. It doesn’t always consistently change refresh rate to native 24p either. A quick check using my amp will often show it at 60hz when it should be at 24....explaining the pulldown judder I was seeing. When this happens, a reboot of the shield is required because no amount of changing resolution, refresh rates or restarting the movie fixes it. Netflix and the other internal streaming apps can only output at 60hz whereas my tv’s in built apps can output at native resolution.
Despite acknowledging all of these issues, the last firmware update was around 6 months ago. And the issues have existed far far longer than that. The person who calibrated my TV told me that the device lasted around a week in his system before he binned it. I’m actually just about to shove it on eBay now. I’m going to buy a Vero 4k player at just over £100 instead.
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Did not know about all these Shield issues. That's annoying. Well I may just stick with my media pc (repurposed laptop) which is solely used as a Plex server and media player so I can get 24hz and bitstreaming of hd audio and Atmos from my blu ray rips. Have atv 4K ordered. Oppo 203 ordered. Will hopefully soon be upgrading to lg oled (have 1080p Samsung plasma). Between built in lg apps, atv 4K, oppo, and my media pc hopefully I'll be satisfied but it's always evolving.