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Not getting Dolby Atmos with paired HomePods?
- Thread starter MiamiC70
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Strange, is not dead for me.
Not my case. For example, in Disney+, if I have the internal speakers of my TV selected, the Atmos logo appears in content with an Atmos track. However, if I choose the Homepods in the control center of the ATV, a 5.1 tag appears instead of the Atmos one.
This is was also the case with Netflix and Itunes Movies/Apple TV+ prior 14.2 when outputting the audio through the Homepods. No Atmos logo. Now, after 14,2 update, it appears.
It doesn´t appear in Disney yet, maybe the app needs to be updated to support the home theatre feature of the homepods.
Sorry you can’t seem to get it to work
simple as it may be. Mine is working and there is a clear audible difference. All I’ve done is update all to 14.2 AppleTV and HomePods set to default speakers and done. I have no time for the hostility so good luck.
For what it’s worth, I connected my stereo paired 14.2/updated HomePods to my 4K Apple TV and am very impressed with much better they sound compared with the powered stereo speakers I usually use.
Agreed. Very impressed with the raw power and enveloping sound.
I hope that Apple keeps improving the wireless connection between the Homepods and the ATV, and in the future you can add two more homepods for rear/ discrete surround channels.
I think much of this will be on an app by app basis on how it will be displayed. I haven’t selected my HomePods from Control Center since the update. There’s probably bugs will need to fix, but I’m satisfied. Everything I’ve watched, no matter the format, has sounded better.
I notice, that Atmos tracks get different treatment already from the studio. Take Beatles' recent Abbey Road as an example. It has 3 renderings of the same soundtrack:
- Dolby Atmos
- PCM 2.0 (192kHz, 24-bit)
- DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (96kHz, 24-bit)
And the Atmos track has got significant bass treatment compared to the other 2. So the difference is not only thanks to format, but comes from the mastering.
But I am more interested in how do the HomePods handle Atmos' height channels?
As soon as I saw that HomePod can do Dolby Atmos I purchased another HomePod. I got it yesterday and started testing and comparing to my current Sonos Playbase setup. The HomePod's are better for dialogue but don't have anywhere near the bass that the Sonos Playbase has. I want to make sure wifi usage doesn't get out of control before I switchover but I think I may end up ditching the Sonos.
What about height channels? Atmos is not about bass, but about additional layer of sound, coming from your ceiling. Some call it nicely - "Voice of God".
How do HomePods handle that? Their only upfiring speaker is the woofer, though. I do not understand, how is it supposed to work?
I dont understand it either. But there are "ceilings sounds" -excuse my English-. Lots of directionality, spatial sound, very dynamic and fulfilling soundstage. Left to right, right to left, up and down. I would compare it to a 3.1 system with upfiring channels. What I didn´t experience at all is rear channels/surround efects. Nothing behind me. Still, the result is very impressive for what the speakers are.
I'm definitely no audiophile. I did notice much more of a 360 degree sound with the HomePods and that's actually really nice. We can hear just as well in the kitchen off to the side as sitting on the couch in front of the tv. I need to do more testing however; I didn't get a whole lot of time to play around with it yesterday.
So it seems HomePods are definitely processing that additional information and uses HRTF to achieve virtual height sound effect.
Thank you for the hint on Dolby Summit app, will definitely take a look!
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The question is... if the Homepods can process the Atmos metadata and simulate height channels, how come they cant do the same with rear/surround channels?. The sound is enveloping and fullfilling, and the soundscape impressive, but the sound is definitely in front of you.
Could this be improved in future software updates?
Like many things I am 100% sure they can and the ATV be made to decode and output L/R/C/R and by adding EQ LFE. Now whether our Apple overlord will ”allow” it is another story.
I would kinda love it if we could use HomePod Minis as surrounds. I've been using Sonos Play:1's as surrounds for a while; same principle - no?
The hypothesis, that’s been floating around here and on Reddit, for why we can’t is because the minis aren’t a good match for the full size HomePods. So in order for them to sound cohesive the full size HomePods would need to have their sound diminished in order to play nice with the minis. That’s a sacrifice wasn’t willing to make.
I don’t know if it’s true or not. I’m not a speaker tech geek.
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That is what aTV already does. It is now a question on how does aTV really send the sound to HPods. AirTunes used to be decoded ALAC stream. But in the era of AirPlaying movies, the whole unaltered stream seems to be just copied to the AP target. This would actually leave stream decoding to HomePods. Which they should well be capable of.
Well, you don't have to. Just trust your ears.
But in my opinion it is difficult not to notice the difference between big speakers able to generate sound pressure and small ones without it.
You don't need full range speakers for RL & RR channels. However, I agree that the "ideal" setup would be full size HomePods all around + a sub which in the scheme of things would not be very expensive and could sound pretty darn good and much easier for the average Joe to setup than a dedicated 5.1 system.
If you are using a pair of Homepods with an AppleTv4K, can the AppleTV remote adjust the volume of the HomePods? I want to be able to use a single remote and not a phone app.
Thanks. Having a single remote is important for she who must be obeyed.
And she’s right! It’s 2020 we shouldn’t have multiple remotes in the streaming age!!!!!