Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I’ve never gotten surround sound to work in any Apple device ever. At some point I just accepted that while half a century ago, before anyone had a computer anywhere, people could listen to Pink Floyd albums with 4 discreet audio channels playing to 4 different speakers that would image the sounds in 3D space as designed, but in the tech era, I’m forever stuck with a L and R channel.

I mean, the first thing we should have seen a decade ago was the iMac, with its little stereo output, able to combine whatever external speakers with its internal speakers into a surround array, which should have become more sophisticated with automatic distance & obstruction measurements as time went on. yet still in 2020, an iMac, with a new worlds worth of tech in it, has little more than a 1960s stereo output. Frustrating.
 
Thank you, Jeff!

Netflix on the Apple TV doesn't output surround sound, either.

Open the Netflix app and search for Test Patterns.

Sound is played in stereo, not surround.
 
Last edited:
Netflix (surround channels) seem to work fine here - both with Change Format enabled and disabled. (connection is HDMI, ATV 4K -> AVR) And that's what has been so confounding with this tvOS 14 bug - it affects (or doesn't affect) folks differently depending on their set-up.

"Listen for the subwoofer... it's absent. One can't hear it at all."

BTW, as I understand it, the lack of true LFE channel content is generally an indication of a down-mix using Dolby Pro Logic. But I have no real evidence that's what going on here.
 
The surround sound problem is related to the language menu disappearing and reappearing.

When I play a movie with a secondary language in stereo the language menu appears.

When I play a movie with a secondary language in surround the language menu disappears.
 
Thank you, Jeff!

Netflix on the Apple TV doesn't output surround sound, either.

Open the Netflix app and search for Test Patterns.

Sound is played in stereo, not surround.
I did it on mine. I left ATV to Auto for Audio. So now its MultiChanel PCM output on ATV. The test video on Netflix plays the audio test in 5.1 surround. I have a 7.1 system, and since ATV forces PCM multichannel, my Onkyo doesn't process it to 7.1, it just goes into automatic Multichannel mode. I can't apply any processing to the incoming signal from ATV. Maybe my Onkyo is a bit too old, it simply just takes the PCM signal as it is with ATV and plays it channel per channel.
 
here, dev for Surround Speaker Check. Just so you guys don't drive yourselves too crazy with this, you should know there are serious bugs with tvOS 14 and surround sound. Ever since tvOS 14 came out, I've received *lots* of emails from folks reporting or asking about surround failing on Apple TV which previously worked fine on tvOS 13. Most of them are using optical connections (and turning on Change Format), but I have received a couple emails reporting issues with HDMI connections.

I have spent days on this covering all possible encoding and meta variations trying to find a workaround and in December I finally resigned to the fact this is out of my hands. I believe all we can do at this point is keep filing those bug reports so Apple devs get some hard data to work with.
Hi Jeff.
I am the user of your app on tvOS.
Strangely enough, tvOS 14 brought no audio playback changes or problems for me, as my aTV is directly connected to AVR.
But I can see, that apple must be catering HomePod users first, then HDMI users second and probably has forgotten about those wo still use their optical outs from TVs.
 
Hi Jeff.
I am the user of your app on tvOS.
Strangely enough, tvOS 14 brought no audio playback changes or problems for me, as my aTV is directly connected to AVR.
But I can see, that apple must be catering HomePod users first, then HDMI users second and probably has forgotten about those wo still use their optical outs from TVs.
Thanks for the report. Yes, I have to wonder if they'll drop optical support for surround altogether on the next gen model? As it is, when an optical user confirms turning on "Change Format" in tvOS 14, they're greeted with a message that says the content might play back in stereo only. (I forget the exact wording at the moment.)
 
But I can see, that apple must be catering HomePod users first, then HDMI users second and probably has forgotten about those wo still use their optical outs from TVs.
It affects HDMI ARC too though which is still a current technology. There are plenty of new TVs and AV receivers which don’t have eARC, so it would be a weird move for Apple to drop support for mixdown/passthrough of lossy surround formats... but hey it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve made a “bold move”.
 
Last edited:
It affects HDMI ARC too though which is still a current technology. There are plenty of new TVs and AV receivers which don’t have eARC, so it would be a weird move for Apple to drop support for mixdown/passthrough of lossy surround formats... but hey it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve made a “bold move”.
Going via TV is a bad idea to begin with, because you get one unknown middleman - the OS inside your telly.
Usually their computing power lags badly behind specialised boxes and audio routing from HDMI IN to ARC/TOSLINK is not the main priority - this means format support is weak and control possibilities over the routing/transcoding process are rather limited.
 
If they drop support for optical audios i may have to buy a new receiver to get around the issue; not the end of the world, but not ideal either; i'm, hopeful that because surround sound works correctly for streaming apps and content streamed from apple's cloud; hopefully it is just a bug, we shall see
 
Going via TV is a bad idea to begin with, because you get one unknown middleman - the OS inside your telly.
No, it’s only a ‘bad idea’ or ‘unknown’ if you don’t know the specs of the TV.

A TV with ARC and DD5.1 passthrough works perfectly well with tvOS 13.
 
No, it’s only a ‘bad idea’ or ‘unknown’ if you don’t know the specs of the TV.
A TV with ARC and DD5.1 passthrough works perfectly well with tvOS 13.
I know. But IMHO a TV is still the weakest link in this audio chain.
 
I purchased an Apple TV 4K at Costco today; it came with tvOS 13.4.8.

Settings --> Video & Audio --> Audio Format --> Change Format --> On --> Dolby Digital 5.1

I now have surround sound again. It works perfectly.
 
Getting sick of dismissing the update nag screen... common Apple fix it already!
If your router has the option, block the Apple TV from accessing these addresses and It will no longer try to update or nag you:
mesu.apple.com
appldnld.apple.com
swscan.apple.com
xp.apple.com
gdmf.apple.com
 
  • Like
Reactions: Not@ndy
So glad I found this thread - just got a new TV and it was driving me nuts.

I can confirm it works again in the latest 14.5 beta - fingers crossed for the final release.
 
I purchased an Apple TV 4K that was delivered yesterday, and am also having this same problem. The ATV ran the OS14 update after set up screens, and all audio sent to my AVR are 2 channel regardless of the AVR input settings. The AVR multi-channel audio was working fine before I installed the ATV 4K. I have tried resetting the ATV 4K to factory default settings and reinstalling, and tried every audio configuration in my AVR available and still not working. I installed Surround Speaker Check, and all output was 2 channel stereo. Very frustrating first experience with ATV.
I may elect to return the ATV 4K if Apple can't resolve this problem soon.
 
I purchased an Apple TV 4K that was delivered yesterday, and am also having this same problem. The ATV ran the OS14 update after set up screens, and all audio sent to my AVR are 2 channel regardless of the AVR input settings. The AVR multi-channel audio was working fine before I installed the ATV 4K. I have tried resetting the ATV 4K to factory default settings and reinstalling, and tried every audio configuration in my AVR available and still not working. I installed Surround Speaker Check, and all output was 2 channel stereo. Very frustrating first experience with ATV.
I may elect to return the ATV 4K if Apple can't resolve this problem soon.
Which receiver are you using? ATV is connected directly to the receiver or TV?
 
Audit13, it is an Onkyo TX-NR646, and the ATV is connected directly to it via an HDMI 2.2 cable. The Onkyo is running the latest OS.
Weird that it doesn't give multichannel sound.

Are you able to try connecting the ATV to the TV and use ARC to feed audio to the receiver?

Tried different HDMI inputs on the receiver?

Tried different HDMI cables?
 
Main thing to note is, that aTV does not bitstream. It decodes Dolby Digital (Plus) internally and outputs multichannel PCM.
Therefore ARC will not help. Only eARC.
Cable is also not very likely culprit - audio capabilities of the sink are announced over I²C serial link via DDC protocol. That is a very low-speed link (100kbps or 400kbps).

I would try first to set aTV to change audio format and output Dolby Digital 5.1 and see if that works.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JeffPerrin
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.