Dolby Atmos on MacOS

[jimfisheye]

Same exact deal on Macs. The Music player app can only decode the streaming Atmos and you only get the controls to enable it un-blanked if you also have one of their approved devices connected. The only choice for lossless Atmos decoding is the reference player. The Music player app with an approved connected device will still not play lossless Atmos.

HDMI out... HDMI extractor... Holy Rube Goldberg Batman! That sounds impressive just making the routing work. Accolades there!
More straightforward here with audio interface -> stand alone DACs -> three 2 channel amps and one 6 channel amp at present.

 

[Misterbee]

I’m getting ready to set this up, using a mac mini and a couple of AVRs. My current set up is 5.1, but I have some extra speakers i will add for the heights and surrounds.

Slightly OT, since my listening room has several Ethernet ports around the room, is there any way to send the audio signal over Ethernet? It would save me a lot of wiring hassle.

 

[pti]

I’m getting ready to set this up, using a mac mini and a couple of AVRs. My current set up is 5.1, but I have some extra speakers i will add for the heights and surrounds.

Slightly OT, since my listening room has several Ethernet ports around the room, is there any way to send the audio signal over Ethernet? It would save me a lot of wiring hassle.

There are very expensive ways of doing that using Dante Virtual Sound card on the Mac and Dante-to-Analog adapters at the destinations.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...te-avio-dante-2-channel-analog-output-adapter

 

[himey]

I don't know how to use multiple amps for 7.1.4 Atmos without the Dolby Reference Player on a pc.

I don't have a Mac, but I think I remember reading that if you stream Apple Music, the decoding is done in the Mac, so in that case, you wouldn't need DRP. For Blu-ray rips, yes, you would definitely need DRP.

 

[jimfisheye]

The Dante virtual device bundle is $60 I think. Install it and turn a computer into virtual Dante interface. Both computers (one on each end) would need the licensed virtual app installed and their own connected hardware audio interface. The hardware devices (expansion cards for mixing boards and audio interfaces) are astronomically expensive. The virtual device is not but having a whole computer and audio interface on the receiving end could be considered expensive (if it wasn't already there for something else).

 

[barfle]

Slightly OT, since my listening room has several Ethernet ports around the room, is there any way to send the audio signal over Ethernet? It would save me a lot of wiring hassle.

If it’s just copper with no Ethernet switch involved, it’s just copper, and the twisted pairs should be able to handle line-level audio with no problem.

But if there are Ethernet switches involved, that’ll be more money. It might be worth disconnecting the switch and splicing the twisted pairs.

 

[mandrix]

I don't have a Mac, but I think I remember reading that if you stream Apple Music, the decoding is done in the Mac, so in that case, you wouldn't need DRP. For Blu-ray rips, yes, you would definitely need DRP.

Me either. I only know how on the pc.

 

[mandrix]

Same exact deal on Macs. The Music player app can only decode the streaming Atmos and you only get the controls to enable it un-blanked if you also have one of their approved devices connected. The only choice for lossless Atmos decoding is the reference player. The Music player app with an approved connected device will still not play lossless Atmos.

HDMI out... HDMI extractor... Holy Rube Goldberg Batman! That sounds impressive just making the routing work. Accolades there!
More straightforward here with audio interface -> stand alone DACs -> three 2 channel amps and one 6 channel amp at present.

Yeah the HDMI extractor was just because I did not have two HDMI capable AVR's at the time. One was analog in only. I now use the analog input AVR to run my side and rear surrounds with my TX-RZ50.

 

[mkt]

I don't have a Mac, but I think I remember reading that if you stream Apple Music, the decoding is done in the Mac, so in that case, you wouldn't need DRP. For Blu-ray rips, yes, you would definitely need DRP.

Atmos in Apple music -> USB (multichannel DAC / audio interface) -> active speakers is a minimalist solution that works for me. Then DRP + MMH for blu-ray rips.
EDIT Also works for streaming atmos of the Berlin Philharmonic but none of the other streaming services that I know of.

 

[jimfisheye]

I know one of the ways Apple is working their planned obsolescence around this is calling the computer itself a supported device. That lets them omit older models that are fully capable and compatible from the whitelist and lock you out (unless you connect another approved device like an Apple TV). Only some of the newer post-Jobs models with their soldered in hard drives are whitelisted at present. Someone find the database file to edit for this, please and thank you!

The other solution for streaming might be to figure out how to present an incoming stream to look like an mlp file and use the reference player. The reward for all this work would be lossy Atmos with 128k mp3 audio quality. Kind of a moot point until something changes. Yeah, there are some mixes out there only made available on streaming. There isn't enough left of them to pursue this IMHO. Curious as I might be, I'll stick with the blurays and downloads for now. But if someone finds the file to edit, this would be convenient enough using the Music app for streaming to say what the heck.

 

[sjcorne]

Only some of the newer post-Jobs models with their soldered in hard drives are whitelisted at present.

Atmos playback from Apple Music has been supported since the “Monterey” OS. I was able to update to Monterey on a 2014 Mac Mini and a 2015 MacBook Pro. Can you really play the “planned obsolescence” card when this is doable on models from a decade ago?

Yeah, there are some mixes out there only made available on streaming. There isn't enough left of them to pursue this IMHO.

The selection of Atmos music on disc or download is paltry compared to what’s up on streaming. Even if you ignore all the new stuff, there are hundreds if not thousands of catalog remixes. UMG alone had been stockpiling Atmos mixes for two years prior to the launch of immersive streaming. Are all of them good? No, but there are still a lot worth hearing.

 

[jimfisheye]

You need both Monterey or newer and also an approved device. I'm not hallucinating the controls blanked out. I'm looking right at the blank spot where they are supposed to be when booted into Monterey, Ventura, or Sonoma. I don't own an Apple approved device. Don't want to buy something just for that software access and then have the privilege of trying to kludge the audio from it back to my main system. I suppose I could get a minimum Mac Mini or something and try to justify the purchase. I try to do a lot for a little you know. I don't have corporate connections and my customers are broke musicians. I have no business being in Atmos to begin with! But I scavenged 6 more channels. I've scavenged some pretty powerful and even boutique hardware over the years. Getting hit with an approval whitelist is infuriating.

 

[mandrix]

It may sound strange, but I've not ever even seen but a few Mac's. A few of the corporate mucky mucks where I used to work had them, and the server system at work was on HP mini's for the most part, but most people had pc's. I did have a pc at work that ran some testing equipment that used the P-Pascal OS. IIRC was sort of like early DOS on steroids. Gave me a fit. Finally we got all the lab equipment running on pc's with Windows, although I did have one set of in house built equipment that ran on good old line BASIC until I rewrote it in QuickBASIC, but eventually it was replaced with a purchased unit that ran on Windows.

 

[Peeties]

Hello has someone already experience playing music with dolby atmos on an apple macintosh with a virtual machine like parallels or vmware fusion with par example windows 10 and VLC, with a connection over HDMI to an AVR? Has he get more than eight channels? So 7.1.4 with dolby is in that case possible without using a virtual soundcard in MacOs?

 

[himey]

Hello has someone already experience playing music with dolby atmos on an apple macintosh with a virtual machine like parallels or vmware fusion with par example windows 10 and VLC, with a connection over HDMI to an AVR? Has he get more than eight channels? So 7.1.4 with dolby is in that case possible without using a virtual soundcard in MacOs?

Why?

 

[jimfisheye]

If you have an approved Apple device connected, you have the controls revealed for Atmos in the Music app. If you don't have an approved device connected, running Windows isn't going to help work around that. Probably more challenging.

If you have an Atmos decoding AVR you can do passthrough from Mac or Windows. This is the consumer scenario Dolby is pushing for to sell those AVRs. It has to be a newer Atmos decoding AVR. This can't be added to older models.

Software decoding:
Lossless Atmos: Dolby reference player (only), both Mac and Windows
Lossy Atmos: Approved device connected and Monterey or newer required, appears Mac only

 

[Peeties]

Why?

With my macOS I have limitations for Dolby Atmos, system has max 8 channels over HDMI I need 12 channels; I want to know of this limitations also exist for windows, and if not is it than possible to run windows in a virtual machine on my Mac and play a music file with Dolby Atmos over hdmi to my AVR with 12 channels

 

[mandrix]

If we're talking Atmos bitstreamed over HDMI, then no, Windows does not have an 8 channel limit into a proper decoding device.

 

[jimfisheye]

If something appears to be limiting the channels on pass through and if the AVR really has the Atmos decoder, maybe check the cable. A poor quality HDMI cable may work at reduced data rates but not full spec. These systems are programmed to reduce bandwidth if needed so they throttle instead of throwing up an error. I've seen this with USB cables too. Troubleshooting gets real interesting here in the digital age!

 

[himey]

With my macOS I have limitations for Dolby Atmos, system has max 8 channels over HDMI I need 12 channels; I want to know of this limitations also exist for windows, and if not is it than possible to run windows in a virtual machine on my Mac and play a music file with Dolby Atmos over hdmi to my AVR with 12 channels

Are you decoding the Atmos and then sending 12 channels of PCM, or simply bitstreaming Atmos to an Atmos capable receiver? HDMI is limited to 8 channels of PCM on receivers. I am shocked that Macs don't support Atmos passthrough to an Atmos receiver, if that is indeed what you are trying to accomplish.