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I briefly tried spatial audio watching Greyhound from Apple TV+ on my phone. Very cool effects. It sounds downright boring when I toggle spatial audio off. What is lame about it is that it doesn't work on my iPad Pro 10.5. I really would love to know why that is, as the iPhone 7 and iPad 6 both use the A10 chip and spatial audio is supported on them.

From what I've read, it's because it does not support bluetooth 5.0 on the older iPad Pro 10.5. I'm not 100% sure of this, though.
 
I was chatting with my friend on Instagram and she attached YouTube videos she shots yesterday of her daughter’s birthday (daughter was interacting with classmates on laptop)

Spatial audio seemed to be working on the YouTube videos.
That's odd.

A couple of days I tried a few YT videos marked "Spatial Audio" and they did not work. I then did an Internet search for "youtube spatial audio" and quickly landed on an official YouTube support document that listed the two Spatial Audio formats that they currently support and it had nothing to do with Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 7.1 or Dolby Atmos.

A search for Vimeo resulted in another first-party support document that was even more explicit. Vimeo does not support Spatial Audio at this time. All videos uploaded to Vimeo with such audio are converted to 2-channel stereo.

If you think you have found a YT video that works with iOS 14's Spatial Audio, please post the URL here for peer review.
 
That's odd.

A couple of days I tried a few YT videos marked "Spatial Audio" and they did not work. I then did an Internet search for "youtube spatial audio" and quickly landed on an official YouTube support document that listed the two Spatial Audio formats that they currently support and it had nothing to do with Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 7.1 or Dolby Atmos.

A search for Vimeo resulted in another first-party support document that was even more explicit. Vimeo does not support Spatial Audio at this time. All videos uploaded to Vimeo with such audio are converted to 2-channel stereo.

If you think you have found a YT video that works with iOS 14's Spatial Audio, please post the URL here for peer review.

It’s private...sorry.
 
Here's the YouTube document that specifies currently supported Spatial Audio formats:


No mention of multi-channel Dolby or Dolby Atmos. Since both Dolby and Atmos are trademarked and have extremely high consumer recognition if they were supported they would be mentioned.

Here are two Vimeo support documents that clearly state that spatial audio is converted to two-channel stereo:

 
It’s private...sorry.
Okay, let's put it a different way.

YouTube is by far the most heavily used online video service on the Internet and pretty has been since it launched.

If they supported Spatial Audio with the AirPods Pro, there should be hundreds and thousands of YT examples posted by MR forum participants by now.

Right now: crickets.

You are the only person here who claims that YT videos have Spatial Audio and yet the one example you have is private and unavailable for peer review. Not a very convincing argument in light of the total absence of support and mention by other MR posters.

Now it is theoretically possible that every other single MR forum participant has blindly walked by YT's fabulous Spatial Audio support, failed to report it here and you are the only person on MR to have experienced this wondrous feature.

What are the chances of that?
 
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Are you sure? That’s just the Atmos demo Dolby have had on their website for a while. Spatial Audio isn’t the same as Atmos.
Since no one else has bothered to mention this clearly, Spatial Audio is not something unique to Apple.

Spatial Audio is a pretty generic term like "widescreen video" that encompasses a large array of implementations.

The Spatial Audio versions Apple iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 support are currently limited to Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) 7.1 and Dolby Atmos TrueHD. Note that the Apple presenter (Federighi?) during the WWDC keynote specifically mentioned these three audio format types.

Apple does not currently support DTS, DTS-HD MA, DTS:X spatial audio. DTS is a direct competitor with Dolby. There are other more obscure Spatial Audio formats as well. While their goal is the same (three dimensional audio) the technology used is proprietary.

If you buy a new A/V receiver today, you will likely get a unit that has support for multiple formats, at least some of the Dolby formats and some of the DTS formats. This was not always the case. And guess who is paying for it? You are. The licensing fees are buried in the price of the A/V receiver.

Content producers (like the film studio that releases a Blu-ray) will often prefer one format for the best lossless/high-quality audio track and offer their competitor's as a lossy alternative. Thus one can get high-resolution DTS-HD MA or Dolby Atmos but not both.

If you are like me and you have source material encoded in DTS that you want to hear in Spatial Audio on your APP, it needs to be transcoded into a Dolby format like AC-3 for it to be recognized as a valid Spatial Audio source playable by the TV iOS app and the AirPods Pro.

The same original DTS content works fine played back on my $60 Raspberry Pi 4 running Kodi/LibreELEC when the audio is passed through to my consumer-grade Sony A/V receiver. Kodi has wide support for a variety of codecs and file containers (like MKV) that Apple's own first-party apps don't natively support.

The limitation here is Apple's narrow choice of which spatial audio codecs the AirPods Pro currently support. Could Apple add DTS support in the future? Possibly. Would they need to pay DTS licensing fees? Undoubtedly.

Would Apple consumers be happy to see those extra codec licensing fees passed down to them? I don't know. However Steve Jobs famously called Blu-ray a "bag of hurt" and refused to pass on the substantial Blu-ray playback licensing fees to Apple customers.
 
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I know it’s technically different but has anyone else noticed some general surround virtualization going on with the AirPods Pro and the Apple TV since the update?

this was advertised as a feature (at least not with the Apple TV) but across the board the AirPods are definitely making the audio coming from the Apple TV more directional. Nothing like the effect you get from the iPhones with turning your head etc, but a pretty good improvement. And it seems to be working with anything that is in surround sound. This is on an Apple TV 4K.

I have only been using the AirPods Pro with an AppleTv for a couple of weeks, so it could have always been this way or I could just be crazy.
 
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It’s probably a bug and could be fixed in the future updates.
To fully experience Atmos though you need something like a war movie where the sound typically originates from everywhere.

There is two types of spacial Audio. One that follows you (which can be turned off) and one that doesn’t.

Basically one is Atmos, and the other is Atmos with follow.

Personally, I turn it off. It reduces sound quality, and I see no virtual need to simulate sound coming from my phone.

It can be turned off in the accessibility settings. And you can still use spatial audio, it just won’t “simulate” the sound coming from the phone.

And it sounds much better, fuller, and of course - 3D
 
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There is two types of spacial Audio. One that follows you (which can be turned off) and one that doesn’t.

Basically one is Atmos, and the other is Atmos with follow.

Personally, I turn it off. It reduces sound quality, and I see no virtual need to simulate sound coming from my phone.

It can be turned off in the accessibility settings. And you can still use spatial audio, it just won’t “simulate” the sound coming from the phone.

And it sounds much better, fuller, and of course - 3D
The plot thickens & gets more confusing...
 
There is two types of spacial Audio. One that follows you (which can be turned off) and one that doesn’t.

Basically one is Atmos, and the other is Atmos with follow.

Personally, I turn it off. It reduces sound quality, and I see no virtual need to simulate sound coming from my phone.

It can be turned off in the accessibility settings. And you can still use spatial audio, it just won’t “simulate” the sound coming from the phone.

And it sounds much better, fuller, and of course - 3D
Did you just make that stuff up about two types of Atmos?:rolleyes:
 
I wondered the same thing. I created a thread with all the apps that use spacial audio.

 
ya, I’m seeing the same thing. Thanks for running this down for us all, but it seems like there are some significant kinks that need ironing.

Spent a couple of sessions with Support so far. Today they loaded a diagnostic Bluetooth profile onto my phone and collected some logs/diagnostics whilst i reproduced the issue.
 
Is there tech in the Airpods Pro that aren’t in the Powerbeats Pro that makes this possible? Just curious. Tried on a pair of those yesterday (brother owns them) and didn’t mind the in-ear setup. I imagine the AirPods Pro fit similarly?
 
Is there tech in the Airpods Pro that aren’t in the Powerbeats Pro that makes this possible? Just curious. Tried on a pair of those yesterday (brother owns them) and didn’t mind the in-ear setup. I imagine the AirPods Pro fit similarly?
Pretty sure only the APP have gyroscope and accelerometers.
 
Does any one know if Spatial audio will work with Audio share ?

Obviously with both AirPods supporting spatial audio (latest gen AirPods , AirPod pro, Apple TV+ content with Dolby vision etc)

when i tried to share, it didn’t seem to support spatial audio when there were 2 listeners
 
I finally got it working on my Pros and iPhone X. It works.....not ground breaking though. Like someone said prior, the snare drum was stationary it seemed as my head moved. Cool I guess but meh.
 
I’ve noticed some content sounds better to me with spatial audio turned on. Stereo is fine, but spatial audio breaking out the center channel helps the dialog float above the effects, incidental music, etc.
 
Spatial Audio effectiveness depends heavily on the way the content's audio was mastered and the nature of the audio source.

The effect is far more pronounced with a fast moving audio source(s) like battle scenes or motor vehicles versus something fairly static and unidirectional like music or dialogue.

Dolby's own Atmos demo content is carefully selected to provide content type that emphasizes immersive audio effects.

Watching a random video from Apple TV+ will give random results.
 
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I briefly tried spatial audio watching Greyhound from Apple TV+ on my phone. Very cool effects. It sounds downright boring when I toggle spatial audio off. What is lame about it is that it doesn't work on my iPad Pro 10.5. I really would love to know why that is, as the iPhone 7 and iPad 6 both use the A10 chip and spatial audio is supported on them.
I have yet to get an answer as to why it works on an iPhone 7 and not my iPad Pro 10.5. Makes no sense to me at all.
 
It wasn’t until they other day that I worked out what the spatial audio Feature was. I’d been using my AirPods for YouTube videos and couldn’t tell the difference. Then a few days ago I was watching a French Police drama on my iPad pro 11 that I had purchased from itunes with my airpods. It sounded like I was listening without headphones and had a full surround sound system around me. It was awesome. I had to turn if off just to check if it really was the spatial audio feature. It was!
 
I am loving spatial audio on iPad Pro, surround sound with headphones on, hard to believe how convincing it is. Also music sounds better with more depth and movement. Works on any audio source but best with Dolby encoded soundtracks.
 
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