Is the Apple TV 3 capable of Atmos and 24Hz (23.976)?
It is to get the Apple TV+ software after all.
It is to get the Apple TV+ software after all.
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Is the Apple TV4 actually compatible with Atmos or Just the Apple TV4K
- Thread starter Openaperture
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No! Apple TV 3 plays out everything at 30. No Atmos for the ATV 3 but then bless it, it is from 2012 with that pretty decent A5 chip. Beautiful little thing for many years and a true Apple bargain when it was sold for £59!!!!! I remember truly loving the ATV3 and controlling it from my iPhone 4S with the remote app! It was the lil box that made me at the time throw out my disc players, satellite TV box and subscription along with LoveFilm contract!
That is incorrect. Apple Atmos IS available on some titles even if you just own the HD version. For example, you bought a title elsewhere in HD and it ported to iTunes via mpviesanywhere so you don't get the 4k upgrade. It will playback in 1080p with Atmos sound.
That is not in question...I assume you’re using an ATV 4K/5th gen. ...those with the ATV (now called HD), the 4th gen. 1080p version that also uses tvOS are not able to get better than DD+ 7.1. I don’t know of any technical reason the ATV HD couldn’t stream Atmos, in fact, except for Atmos, both units have identical audio capabilities (FLAC was added w/tvOS 11, both units are capable of FLAC playback)...it’s either a marketing decision, or licensing...perhaps Dolby charges differently, IDK. ...The ATV 3 can do DD+ 7.1, BTW.
I was simply replying to someone who stated Atmos was only available on a 4k stream. It is not.
I was alluding to exactly what you are saying. Apple has Atmos on some of their 1080p streams, it must either be a marketing decision why they don't allow it on the non-4k ATV or there is some limitation we aren't seeing.
ATV3 only streams video at 30fps.
TV+ will come to ATV 3 via a “channel”, so, it won’t have things like Siri universal search. It will probably replace the Movies and TV “channels” since apple is moving these from iTunes to the TV app. Whether it will have “Up Next” or not, I am not sure, but I would guess it would, but may have limitations.
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There is no limitation, most blu-ray players play discs with Atmos audio, no one had to upgrade, however, the AVRs/decoders needed to be firmware updated or replaced with upgraded model. Since the ATV is soc and audio is mainly a software thing here, tvOS 12 could have brought Atmos to all ATVs capable of running tvOS 12.
It is either marketing or licensing decision...something most people don’t know is that device makers pay licensing fees to Dolby and/or DTS, perhaps Apple would have to pay Dolby more, but, I think it was more of a marketing thing, similarly, some studios put Atmos on the 4K/UHD blu-Ray disc, but not on the HD nor HD 3D version, while others put Atmos on all versions...some are trying to use immersive audio as a reason to buy the 4K/UHD version.
Then again, because tvOS does internal decoding and reencoding of DD+ 7.1 Atmos into PCM with embedded object- and metadata streams, it might require more horsepower than aTV 4 is able to provide.
Just my speculation, I’ve got no idea what this process involves computationally.
Just my speculation, I’ve got no idea what this process involves computationally.
Audio, no matter how complex, is not going to gobble up processing power, even at the most audio takes a fraction of processing over video. All Atmos adds is metadata, it’s not like adding additional channels to the mix. And, since the ATV works with DD+ as the source, DD+ (Atmos) maxes out at 6Mbit/s, but, you’d have to use all 15.1 channels available to use that much, typically, DD+ streams are well below 1Mbit/s, even with Atmos. The 64-bit A8 is certainly capable. I’m not a dev, but, I do understand a bit about how digital video and audio work.
Atmos indeed adds also object essences for every object (up to 16 possible in eac3 spec). These are monaural audio clips that are encompassed with cartesian coordinates to bring them to life in room space.
What good would plain metadata do?
Dolby’s own RMU is heavy piece of kit, although I admit, it has much more computations to do than the decoder.
Again, I would love to know more about how it’s done, but Atmos has to be quite more complex than the plain DD+ processing.
PS There is single new piece of metadata associated with Atmos in MP4 eac3 track’s Magic Cookie - complexity index which indicates the total number of bed objects, ISF objects and dynamic objects inside the stream.
All details are laid out in ETSI TS 103 420 v1.2.1 from October 2018.
What good would plain metadata do?
Dolby’s own RMU is heavy piece of kit, although I admit, it has much more computations to do than the decoder.
Again, I would love to know more about how it’s done, but Atmos has to be quite more complex than the plain DD+ processing.
PS There is single new piece of metadata associated with Atmos in MP4 eac3 track’s Magic Cookie - complexity index which indicates the total number of bed objects, ISF objects and dynamic objects inside the stream.
All details are laid out in ETSI TS 103 420 v1.2.1 from October 2018.
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I agree Atmos is more complex than 7.1, however, I cannot agree that it is so complex it is beyond the 64-bit A8 processor’s capabilities...I have to stress again, processing video is much, much more complex. I am not a dev, however, I understand enough that I seriously doubt adding Atmos would be too much for the ATV HD to handle, this cannot be why apple isn’t enabling the ATV HD to utilize Atmos.
I agree, AVC or HEVC decoding is more intensive. I am sure, though, Apple has resolved them in hardware for recent A-CPU's. They even have video encoding in hardware now, for things like AirPlay Screen Mirroring and FaceTime, for example.
I wish someone with real insight could explain it to us here...
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