SPOTLIGHT Apple TV4k TIPS, TRICKS and TRAPS

QuadraphonicQuad

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I’ve been an Apple user since I got an Apple //e in the early 80s. Overall, I like their products and they do tend to “just work” for me.

But I’d offer a lot of money (donated to charity, of course) to have Tim Cook sit down next to me at my computer so I can go through a few things and ask, “What the eff, Tim?!”

We’d have a whole section of that time dedicated to Apple Music on the Apple TV. Among the things we’d cover:
  • Nag prompts for upgrading. (Just need it once. I’m smart enough to know if I want to upgrade of not. If other people want ongoing prompts, great. But give users the option to “Skip this update.”)
  • Searches that don’t give you something close for when you mis-type or mis-speak something. (I’ll never be able to appropriately pronounce lots of classical artist names, nor do I wish to type in the longer ones. Give me some help... y’know, like Google does for searches.)
  • Search results that seem so sure of themselves you’re not given other options. (I'd ask Tim to do o a voice search for the Mongolian group “The Hu”.)
  • Lack of a Favorite Albums section that operates like a Recently Added section. (Perhaps along the lines of what @humprof is talking about. It should be really easy to store your favorite albums in a section that isn’t like a traditional playlist.)
  • How adding a song to a playlist from an album in Recently Added will see that song deleted from a playlist when you you delete the album from Recently Added.
After covering other topics, we’d wrap up with his commitment to release an anniversary edition of the Apple // with full software emulation. (He could probably buy the app from the developer of Virtual ][ to make things easy.)
 
Does anyone play HDR 4k ripped movies on the ATV? Is Infused a must have, or are there any other options that work well? MrMC maybe? Thanks in Advance.
 
Anyone know why the Apple Music app on my IPAD correctly labels recordings that are Quad or 5.1 as “ Dolby Audio” , but on Apple TV version, it shows these recordings as just Lossless? No label for “ Dolby Audio”?
 
Anyone know why the Apple Music app on my IPAD correctly labels recordings that are Quad or 5.1 as “ Dolby Audio” , but on Apple TV version, it shows these recordings as just Lossless? No label for “ Dolby Audio”?
Because it's Apple? ;)
 
TVOS 16.3 which was released today supposedly includes improvements to Atmos playback…..anyone noticed any difference?
 
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TVOS 16.3 which was released today supposedly includes improvements to Atmos playback…..anyone noticed any difference?

According to what? Is it in the release notes? The Atmos stream is created by the content providers and decoded by the receiver. I don't see where there would be any place for the AppleTV to mess with it and make it worse or better. Headphone playback would be a different story as Apple does do the decoding/rendering in that case.
 
Quite a few people on AVForums reporting improvements to Atmos playback via ATV following update!
Here is a link to the page where the discussion starts. It seems Netflix boosted the bitrates according to a link someone posted. Nothing specific to Apple Music Atmos that I saw.
 
Okay I have read this entire thread and I don't think that I have seen the answer to the question that I have, I have the newest Apple TV 4K with ethernet and 128 GB coming tomorrow. I have no other Apple devices and swore that I would never have an Apple device in my possession. Anyway. I have tried and returned both the Amazon Fire Stick 4K Max and the Roku Ultra. The Apple is my last ditch attempt. My goal was to get garden variety 7.1 to my AVR from a Dolby Atmos track. I thought that maybe like 4K discs, the streaming version of Atmos might have a serviceable imbedded 7.1 track that my receiver would recognize like it does with those discs. So at this point I have no interest in a new Atmos receiver as I find the 7.1 fine. So I have a 4K Dolby Atmos compatible audio extractor in between the streaming box and the receiver. I have this extractor set to 7.1 output. Is there any way that use of the apple will result in 7.1 coming into my receiver? So this would initially be for Netflix, Plex, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+. Later I might try the Spacial Audio on Apple Music.
 
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Okay I have read this entire thread and I don't think that I have seen the answer to the question that I have, I have the newest Apple TV 4K with ethernet and 128 GB coming tomorrow. I have no other Apple devices and swore that I would never have an Apple device in my possession. Anyway. I have tried and returned both the Amazon Fire Stick 4K Max and the Roku Ultra. The Apple is my last ditch attempt. My goal was to get garden variety 7.1 to my AVR from a Dolby Atmos track. I thought that maybe like 4K discs, the streaming version of Atmos might have a serviceable imbedded 7.1 track that my receiver would recognize like it does with those discs. So at this point I have no interest in a new Atmos receiver as I find the 7.1 fine. So I have a 4K Dolby Atmos compatible audio extractor in between the streaming box and the receiver. I have this extractor set to 7.1 output. Is there any way that use of the apple will result in 7.1 coming into my receiver?
I take it you have no HDMI input on the receiver?

Yes, the streaming variety Atmos is like the 4K Atmos discs, and includes a "bed" that can be reproduced with a standard non-atmos receiver. I have my Apple TV connected to my Oppo Blu-ray player, via HDMI input, and it shows 7.1 when I stream Atmos songs on Apple Music.
 
There is HDMI on the receiver. I have no problem getting 7.1 audio from files on the Oppo 103 and 4K discs on my Sony X800. From reading this thread I assumed that the "bed" in streaming Atmos was 5.1.
 
There is HDMI on the receiver. I have no problem getting 7.1 audio from files on the Oppo 103 and 4K discs on my Sony X800. From reading this thread I assumed that the "bed" in streaming Atmos was 5.1.
Plug the new Apple TV into the receiver (HDMI) and you should get the 5.1 bed. I don't know why the Oppo shows 7.1, but it does with the Apple Music app, streaming Atmos music files.
 
Getting 5.1 is not an issue. I want 7.1 from the stream. The outcome may be possibly different from something like an Atmos stream on a Marvel movie on Disney+ and Atmos music from Apple Music. On one the bed may be 5.1 and the other might be 7.1, I don't know. This is what I want to know. Does anyone only have 7.1 capability on their receiver and not Atmos? They could answer this question that I have. What are you getting on said receiver when playing Atmos movies from Disney+ for instance and Atmos music from Apple music? 5.1 or 7.1?
 
Getting 5.1 is not an issue. I want 7.1 from the stream. The outcome may be possibly different from something like an Atmos stream on a Marvel movie on Disney+ and Atmos music from Apple Music. On one the bed may be 5.1 and the other might be 7.1, I don't know. This is what I want to know. Does anyone only have 7.1 capability on their receiver and not Atmos? They could answer this question that I have. What are you getting on said receiver when playing Atmos movies from Disney+ for instance and Atmos music from Apple music? 5.1 or 7.1?
I was always under the impression that lossy, streaming Atmos, is always a 5.1 bed while lossless, Blu-ray Atmos, is always a 7.1 bed.
 
Actually I just connected the ATV and I am getting 7.1 from anything on it that is Atmos. This includes movies on Disney+ as well as all Atmos music on Apple Music. So I have accomplished what I wanted to do. The trick is to split the audio and video from the ATV using an audio extractor box. The video out from the extractor goes into the HDMI on the TV and the audio out from the extractor goes to the HDMI on the receiver. If I just plugged the single HDMI going from the ATV directly into my TV I would be hogtied by the fact that the TV only has optical out to my receiver so I would be stuck with a maximum of 5.1 channels. Of course if I had a receiver capable of passing 4K video through it and not just 1080P I wouldn't need all of this to get the 7.1.
 
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