Dolby Atmos on MacOS

[mkt]

One option is to extract the Atmos audio stream from the MKVs using the “MKV Cleaver” app, then rename the resultant “.undefined” files to “.MLP”

I am only seeing MKV Cleaver for windows. Is that right?

Another is to use MakeMKV to create a Blu-Ray folder. Then, open the folder in AudioMuxer or DVD-Audio Extractor and rip the Atmos audio as a “direct stream demux”. You’ll probably have to rename the resultant “.truehd” files to “.MLP”.

The DRP will only play TrueHD/Atmos as .MLP files and DD+/Atmos as .EC3 or .MP4

This worked! Thanks!

In DVDAE, I selected the "English TrueHD (48kHz 6Ch) audio stream (and hoped that the 6Ch part was not right). Then "Direct Stream Demux" which produced a .thd file for each track, which I renamed to .mlp. mediainfo tells me:

General Complete name : 01.mlp Format : MLP FBA 16-ch Format/Info : Meridian Lossless Packing FBA with 16-channel presentation Commercial name : Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos File size : 69.4 MiB Overall bit rate mode : Variable Audio Format : MLP FBA 16-ch Format/Info : Meridian Lossless Packing FBA with 16-channel presentation Commercial name : Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos Bit rate mode : Variable Maximum bit rate : 5 247 kb/s Channel(s) : 8 channels Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs Lb Rb Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz Frame rate : 1 200.000 FPS (40 SPF) Compression mode : Lossless Number of dynamic objects : 15 Bed channel count : 1 channel Bed channel configuration : LFE
Does 8 channels refer to the 7.1 "bed"? (I don't know what I'm talking about here)

What does "16-channel presentation" mean? When I opened the .mlp file in DRP, I had to select "16 channel" under DOLBY TRUEHD DECODER options to get 5.1.2 (my output configuration). When it was on "automatic" I got stereo and thought it was not working.

My usual blu-ray ripping method is makemkv (Mac) + DVDAE (linux) -> 5.1 flac, so this is not too different.

 

[mandrix]

Looks pretty normal for Atmos. BTW I've had some M4A Atmos files I could play with the DRP by changing the extension to MP4.
VLC and PowerDVD will play MP4 as well (bitstreamed).

 

[Franck]

I just upgraded to Ventura 13.2 and there are now a couple of more options in the speaker setup under Audio Midi Setup.

Finally I get 5.1.4 similar to what is in Logic Pro. I had to get the utility Loopback to get my Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 recognized for Dolby Atmos. Loopback just acts as a pass through.

Quicktime still cannot play a DD+JOC mp4 file in Atmos, I get only 5.1 outputs. I got the Dolby Player, which is not public but it is a good software to check movie files in Dolby Atmos.

 

[humprof]

I just upgrade to Ventura 13.2 and there are now a couple of more options in the speaker setup under Audio Midi Setup.

View attachment 88052

Finally I get 5.1.4 similar to what is in Logic Pro. I had to get the utility Loopback to get my Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 recognized for Dolby Atmos. Loopback just acts as a pass through.

Thanks for that update. Still no way to bitstream those Atmos options to an AVR via HDMI, though, I take it?

 

[Franck]

Thanks for that update. Still no way to bitstream those Atmos options to an AVR via HDMI, though, I take it?

I don't have that setup, so I don't know. I think people said it works, but may be that was on AppleTV.

 

[mkt]

Anyone using an aggregate device on macOS with sucess? @sjcorne?

I just started playing around with aggregating an 8-channel DAC (octo) with a Focusrite 4i4. It is sort of working. It drops down to 5.1 sometimes when starting a new track, and then I have to switch back and forth between the aggregate device and the 8-channel DAC, as well as restart the track to get the heights going again. This happens in Apple Music and in the Berliner streaming site. Dolby reference player seems OK but I'm not sure that I've got the channel order right. I'm on Monterey. Does it matter which one is the clock source?
EDIT And this is all intermittent and hard to reproduce consistently

 

[sjcorne]

Anyone using an aggregate device on macOS with sucess? @sjcorne?

Yes, I’m using HDMI for channels 1-8 and a Behringer UMC404 for 9-12. HDMI is the clock source. I haven’t had any issues with Apple Music or the DRP.

 

[Franck]

Anyone using an aggregate device on macOS with sucess? @sjcorne?

I just started playing around with aggregating an 8-channel DAC (octo) with a Focusrite 4i4. It is sort of working. It drops down to 5.1 sometimes when starting a new track, and then I have to switch back and forth between the aggregate device and the 8-channel DAC, as well as restart the track to get the heights going again. This happens in Apple Music and in the Berliner streaming site. Dolby reference player seems OK but I'm not sure that I've got the channel order right. I'm on Monterey. Does it matter which one is the clock source?
EDIT And this is all intermittent and hard to reproduce consistently

You may want to try to put Loopback from Amoeba as a virtual device before your physical devices. I found out it has a better interface to the MacOS (Apple Music would not recognize my outputs). And I can now control the volume from the keybard. Before I had to turn the volume button on my Focusrite.

 

[sjcorne]

You may want to try to put Loopback from Amoeba as a virtual device before your physical devices.

Or if you don't want to pay for Loopback, Existential Audio's Blackhole will work too

 

[mkt]

This is probably obvious but I don't understand how to use Blackhole (or Loopback)

Is it
Apple Music -> Aggregate device that has Blackhole as sub-device -> ??

Now I have:
Apple Music -> Aggregate device that has two physical devices (connected to active speakers) as sub-devices.

I don't have a DAW or anything.

 

[jimfisheye]

Anyone using an aggregate device on macOS with sucess? @sjcorne?

I just started playing around with aggregating an 8-channel DAC (octo) with a Focusrite 4i4. It is sort of working. It drops down to 5.1 sometimes when starting a new track, and then I have to switch back and forth between the aggregate device and the 8-channel DAC, as well as restart the track to get the heights going again. This happens in Apple Music and in the Berliner streaming site. Dolby reference player seems OK but I'm not sure that I've got the channel order right. I'm on Monterey. Does it matter which one is the clock source?
EDIT And this is all intermittent and hard to reproduce consistently

I use aggregate device configs often.

They are made to work just like a connected hardware audio device. Treat them the same way. Clocking is matter of fact as always with multiple digital devices. Choose the best or most convenient device for master. The issue of course is when clocking over the data connection or clocking a virtual device. You can't choose a hardware connection! You can experiment with the drift or re-clock feature in Audio MIDI setup where you create the aggregate device. Tick the drift correction on for the virtual device, for example. (Usually the 1st choice to try.)

Absolutely only use word clock or a digital audio connection for any live performance or when recording! But I find you can get away with a lot with virtual devices and sync over USB. I do my home theater setup that way and I can't remember the last time anything crashed. I'm using a Loopback virtual device most of the time.

If your audio setup is changing... some audio using app is sending requests. If system audio is using the connection, make sure nothing is set weird. Do you have system audio pointed to this output? That's absolutely fine as long as everything involved plays nice. But if some app tries to request a different output format it can end up turning other things off.

There are a few things to know about how Apple handles Atmos and locks out controls and mutes height channels depending on your subscriptions and connected devices. The Dolby reference player will be unrestricted and the Music subscription should reveal the Atmos controls in the Music player. I posted this when I first set up for 7.1.4 and discovered some of this:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...aphonic-to-dodecaphonic-sound-ie-atmos.34651/

 

[jimfisheye]

I've just been playing my bluray rips so far and I'm working on a few mixes with a couple different bands. I haven't tried listening to streaming Atmos yet. Procrastinating I guess because I don't feel like getting pissed off right now by whatever hurdles I'll discover with that!

 

[Franck]

I just upgraded to Ventura 13.2 and there are now a couple of more options in the speaker setup under Audio Midi Setup.

View attachment 88052

Finally I get 5.1.4 similar to what is in Logic Pro. I had to get the utility Loopback to get my Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 recognized for Dolby Atmos. Loopback just acts as a pass through.

Quicktime still cannot play a DD+JOC mp4 file in Atmos, I get only 5.1 outputs. I got the Dolby Player, which is not public but it is a good software to check movie files in Dolby Atmos.

It seems all these options are gone. I can only see 5.1.2 and 7.1.4
My setup still work in 5.1.4 but I can no longer configure my speakers or I will loose it
I filed this ticket: Feedback Assistant

 

[jimfisheye]

It seems all these options are gone. I can only see 5.1.2 and 7.1.4
My setup still work in 5.1.4 but I can no longer configure my speakers or I will loose it
I filed this ticket: Feedback Assistant

Did you try it with default 'no selection'?
Delete the device. Create it again. This time do not click on configure speakers. Just skip that part!

Now are the height channels passing through unmuted?

If not, try a different media player.
For example, VLC player looks to see a selected speaker format in core audio and if you leave it not selected as I suggested it will give you an error alert and only play stereo.
VOX player on the other hand will pass all 12 channels of 7.1.4 to the audio device selected when you use this trick. (Select an output format - eg. 7.1.4 - and now ch 9-12 are muted for VOX. Dolby reference player in the only media player app with permission to use the heights.)

If there isn't a different media player choice to try... well, shit then!
I still haven't decided to raise my blood pressure by jumping into streaming audio yet. I know there will be more fuckery like this!

I have 4 Loopback devices I created to select between:
5.1 48k (Audio MIDI Setup 5.1 speaker output selected.)
5.1 96k (Audio MIDI Setup 5.1 speaker output selected.)
7.1.4 48k (Audio MIDI Setup speaker output specifically not selected!)
7.1.4 96k (Audio MIDI Setup speaker output specifically not selected!)

I need seperate devices for 48k vs 96k because the main audio interface is a MOTU with ADAT/SMUX ports where the number of I/O switches and routing changes.

 

[Franck]

Did you try it with default 'no selection'?
Delete the device. Create it again. This time do not click on configure speakers. Just skip that part!

Now are the height channels passing through unmuted?

If not, try a different media player.
For example, VLC player looks to see a selected speaker format in core audio and if you leave it not selected as I suggested it will give you an error alert and only play stereo.
VOX player on the other hand will pass all 12 channels of 7.1.4 to the audio device selected when you use this trick. (Select an output format - eg. 7.1.4 - and now ch 9-12 are muted for VOX. Dolby reference player in the only media player app with permission to use the heights.)

If there isn't a different media player choice to try... well, shit then!
I still haven't decided to raise my blood pressure by jumping into streaming audio yet. I know there will be more fuckery like this!

I have 4 Loopback devices I created to select between:
5.1 48k (Audio MIDI Setup 5.1 speaker output selected.)
5.1 96k (Audio MIDI Setup 5.1 speaker output selected.)
7.1.4 48k (Audio MIDI Setup speaker output specifically not selected!)
7.1.4 96k (Audio MIDI Setup speaker output specifically not selected!)

I need seperate devices for 48k vs 96k because the main audio interface is a MOTU with ADAT/SMUX ports where the number of I/O switches and routing changes.

It is working now, and this is to listen to Apple Music. So I don't want to touch it.
I need to figure out what is the plist that stores this config and see if I can edit it manually without having to use this UI.

 

[Franck]

It is working now, and this is to listen to Apple Music. So I don't want to touch it.
I need to figure out what is the plist that stores this config and see if I can edit it manually without having to use this UI.

Well I checked the documentation. coreaudio allows the following Atmos formats

You can find it under core audio types, AudioChannelLayout, Audio Channel Layout Tags

I also found out my 5.1.4 setup in the com.apple.audioSystemSettings.plist, so I should be able to have 5.1.4 by editing this file directly, in case I loose it.

 

[jimfisheye]

There has to be a permission flag that controls muting the z channels in x.y.z in there somewhere. That would be useful to find!

We say the word "blacklist" but Apple style is using a white list for permissions, FYI. They don't have a list of denied. They have lists of allowed. You have to find that and add to it.

I imagine my 'leave it blank/default' trick works because the system doesn't see a "z" in that case. It just sees 12.? and passes it to the 12 channel audio device it's pointed to.

 

[Franck]

There has to be a permission flag that controls muting the z channels in x.y.z in there somewhere. That would be useful to find!

We say the word "blacklist" but Apple style is using a white list for permissions, FYI. They don't have a list of denied. They have lists of allowed. You have to find that and add to it.

I imagine my 'leave it blank/default' trick works because the system doesn't see a "z" in that case. It just sees 12.? and passes it to the 12 channel audio device it's pointed to.

I guess, you can see from the developper doc there are a lot of speaker options there is even a coordinate system that allows you to place speakers in an x,y,z space. I guess we will see more of that with the VisionPro.

If others can comment my feedback report or open one, that would be awesome, I'm just a lonely voice and tickets get processed when they fix things for many people: Feedback Assistant - No longer a 5.1.4 option in configure speakers in Audio Midi Setup

 

[mkt]

I guess, you can see from the developper doc there are a lot of speaker options there is even a coordinate system that allows you to place speakers in an x,y,z space. I guess we will see more of that with the VisionPro.

If others can comment my feedback report or open one, that would be awesome, I'm just a lonely voice and tickets get processed when they fix things for many people: Feedback Assistant - No longer a 5.1.4 option in configure speakers in Audio Midi Setup

With what macOS are you seeing that behavior? Did you update something?

 

[Franck]

With what macOS are you seeing that behavior? Did you update something?

As you see from the posts in this thread I used to have 5.1.4 for speaker configuration on Ventura, it is not there anymore (I have latest Ventura) and it is not in Sonoma either (checked on another system).
My setup still works in 5.1.4, I found the plist that does the core audio config. I have changed my audio interface so I was looking at the setup when I saw the option was gone.
For me it is the UI, which has less options than what core audio can do.
After all Logic Pro uses coreaudio and the setup there is 5.1.4. There is no 5.1.2.