2021 new gen Apple tv 4k Dolby Atmos Problems

[Robert D]

I'm day dreaming of smashing the Apple tv 4k with my sledge hammer.

 

[user 49813]

I'm day dreaming of smashing the Apple tv 4k with my sledge hammer.

LOL I do empathize with this! Sorry to hear you encountered the "issue"; it's incredibly frustrating. But, on the bright side for the rest of us, it does give us more data to go on. It seems that maybe it is a software issue after all, considering our assumption that your new unit fixed the problem and led us to conclude it was fixed on some new units. Now we know they are all (in this thread) affected. I suspect others stating there is no problem on their unit have simply not put it through enough proper use to flesh out the bug.

Again, sorry it happened for you.

 

[Robert D]

LOL I do empathize with this! Sorry to hear you encountered the "issue"; it's incredibly frustrating. But, on the bright side for the rest of us, it does give us more data to go on. It seems that maybe it is a software issue after all, considering our assumption that your new unit fixed the problem and led us to conclude it was fixed on some new units. Now we know they are all (in this thread) affected. I suspect others stating there is no problem on their unit have simply not put it through enough proper use to flesh out the bug.

Again, sorry it happened for you.

Lucky for me the frequency was quite low. Happened only 2x during a 2 hour movie, and both happened at about the 30 minute mark.

Is anyone having the problem on the apps HBO max and Apple tv+?

 

[IraG]

So far no Atmos issues on my replacement ATV4k that I received last week (more details in my 1st two posts last week that just became visible). I am still on tvOS 14.7. I hesitate to update after reading of some tvOS 15.x audio issues.

 

[JLasher22443]

Just experienced my first issue with HBOMax last night while watching the new Matrix. The issue only came up after I had paused the movie for a few minutes and only once. The noise was very faint but even my wife heard it. Netflix is still horrible. Had to finish the new season of The Witcher in my bedroom that has a Sonos Beam sound bar because it was unbearable to watch in the theater. Shame because I am an Apple fan.

 

[user 49813]

So far no Atmos issues on my replacement ATV4k that I received last week (more details in my 1st two posts last week that just became visible). I am still on tvOS 14.7. I hesitate to update after reading of some tvOS 15.x audio issues.

If it were me, I would hold off on the update, unless there is something in 15 that you value more than lack of Atmos issues. I received a replacement ATV w/14.7 and used without issue; problem returned after updating to >=15.

 

[Robert D]

So far no Atmos issues on my replacement ATV4k that I received last week (more details in my 1st two posts last week that just became visible). I am still on tvOS 14.7. I hesitate to update after reading of some tvOS 15.x audio issues.

Well, my Apple tv was screwed up since March when they were released on day 1. I pre-ordered mine

So if its due to an OS, every OS since it's inception has the problem. I can attest to that because I've always upgraded with each update, hoping the next OS would fix the issue. I've only not installed this latest version because I thought my problem was solved. Well after watching Netflix last night ,I can say it's not.

So I had the issue using whatever OS you are using now.

It's obvious at this point that Apple is in over their heads with Atmos, and they have no idea how to fix it or they aren't smart enough to figure out it's a real problem. Sometimes it seems as if they blame the problem on other devices like our receiver or TV.

I think the main problem is that this issue affects such a small number of it's customers that they could care less. The average customer has the Apple tv plugged directly into a TV and that's it. Sales of the device are probably through the roof. Only if the problem affects their pocketbook will they be concerned about it.

I'm at the point now that I dont want to waste hours more on the phone with them. Screw it.

 

[JLasher22443]

Well, my Apple tv was screwed up since March when they were released on day 1. I pre-ordered mine

So if its due to an OS, every OS since it's inception has the problem. I can attest to that because I've always upgraded with each update, hoping the next OS would fix the issue. I've only not installed this latest version because I thought my problem was solved. Well after watching Netflix last night ,I can say it's not.

So I had the issue using whatever OS you are using now.

It's obvious at this point that Apple is in over their heads with Atmos, and they have no idea how to fix it or they aren't smart enough to figure out it's a real problem. Sometimes it seems as if they blame the problem on other devices like our receiver or TV.

I think the main problem is that this issue affects such a small number of it's customers that they could care less. The average customer has the Apple tv plugged directly into a TV and that's it. Sales of the device are probably through the roof. Only if the problem affects their pocketbook will they be concerned about it.

I'm at the point now that I dont want to waste hours more on the phone with them. Screw it.

I've never experienced an issue with Apple TV+ or with Movies I have purchased. So I don't think it is an Apple Dolby Atmos issue its an issue for Applications like Netflix who are causing the issues. Also if you just Google Netflix App Sound Issues it is happening on Windows 10 devices as well.

Again I'm not blaming Apple for all of the issues because I've never experienced them on their TV App or Movies. My assumption would be if it were an AppleTV Atmos issue then all Atmos Content coming from the ATV4K would experience the sounds right?

 

[JonFo]

Just watched The Unforgivable on Netflix. About 33 minutes into the movie the sound dropped out for about 15 seconds then came back on. Then about 3 minutes later it dropped again. It was ok the remainder of the movie, 1 hour 54 minutes long total.

I paused and rewound the movie, then played again. It didn't happen the 2nd play through, so it's not bad code.

I've been stating my playback has been flawless this past year, well, I finally experienced exactly what you report when I played the Netflix original movie "Don't Look Up", about 20 to 30 minutes in, a 10 to 15-second audio pause, then 15 or so minutes later another, and (IIRC) a thrid one another 15 minutes later. The video was perfect the whole time, the only issue was the audio.
This movie is all the beans: 4K Dolby Vision with Atmos, and judging from the video quality, a high-bit rate stream (at least for me).

So I'm going with the thought that this is a software glitch, either in the Netflix App or in the underlying TVOS, as AppleTV+ and DV + Atmos content from the UB820 UHD player all deliver uninterrupted playback.

Since it is not perfectly repeatable (i.e rewind and reply same segment works), it seems a timing related bug, which are some of the hardest to fix. But figure they'll eventually nail it.

 

[JonFo]

My assumption would be if it were an AppleTV Atmos issue then all Atmos Content coming from the ATV4K would experience the sounds right?

In general, yes, a reasonable assumption. However, how an app uses the APIs of the OS might surface a bug in the underlying OS implementation, but then the answer is "don't do it that way" ;-)

I think TVOS is fine, and that Netflix, with their multitude of encodes (for varying line capacities and quality), are running into issues when dynamically switching from max-high-res encode to super-high-res encode, as in that case, there is very little time to re-adjust decoders and time-align the audio. Guessing if they miss a specific time window, they (or the OS) need to re-handshake the Dolby MAT 2.0 protocol with the AVR, which from my experience with the A16 Headphone processor, is around 10 seconds.

 

[Robert D]

I've never experienced an issue with Apple TV+ or with Movies I have purchased. So I don't think it is an Apple Dolby Atmos issue its an issue for Applications like Netflix who are causing the issues. Also if you just Google Netflix App Sound Issues it is happening on Windows 10 devices as well.

Again I'm not blaming Apple for all of the issues because I've never experienced them on their TV App or Movies. My assumption would be if it were an AppleTV Atmos issue then all Atmos Content coming from the ATV4K would experience the sounds right?

It was happening on Apple tv + service for me prior to me getting the replacement box. So for me it wasnt just isolated to Netflix. It was Netflix AND Apple tv +. For some reason Apple tv + service is no longer screwing up for me. Im glad to be sure, but in the past the problem went across at least 2 Apps for me.

 

[Robert D]

I've been stating my playback has been flawless this past year, well, I finally experienced exactly what you report when I played the Netflix original movie "Don't Look Up", about 20 to 30 minutes in, a 10 to 15-second audio pause, then 15 or so minutes later another, and (IIRC) a thrid one another 15 minutes later. The video was perfect the whole time, the only issue was the audio.
This movie is all the beans: 4K Dolby Vision with Atmos, and judging from the video quality, a high-bit rate stream (at least for me).

So I'm going with the thought that this is a software glitch, either in the Netflix App or in the underlying TVOS, as AppleTV+ and DV + Atmos content from the UB820 UHD player all deliver uninterrupted playback.

Since it is not perfectly repeatable (i.e rewind and reply same segment works), it seems a timing related bug, which are some of the hardest to fix. But figure they'll eventually nail it.

Man, we are going on 1 year now that the problem is there with the new device. When I was researching online back in April I found cases reported of this happening with the last gen Apple TV 4k too. So apparently its not new. Some users were experiencing it with the last gen. I dont know about before that. I feel like they will never fix it.

 

[Robert D]

In general, yes, a reasonable assumption. However, how an app uses the APIs of the OS might surface a bug in the underlying OS implementation, but then the answer is "don't do it that way" ;-)

I think TVOS is fine, and that Netflix, with their multitude of encodes (for varying line capacities and quality), are running into issues when dynamically switching from max-high-res encode to super-high-res encode, as in that case, there is very little time to re-adjust decoders and time-align the audio. Guessing if they miss a specific time window, they (or the OS) need to re-handshake the Dolby MAT 2.0 protocol with the AVR, which from my experience with the A16 Headphone processor, is around 10 seconds.

That sure sounds like what it could be. How can they fix that? Its just software?

Their very own service Apple TV + was doing it to me up till this past summer when I got a replacement box from Apple. Somehow the new box had zero problems and I figured it was a hardware issue, Then last night you guys had me watch Netflix, BANG its back again! It maddening. Lucky for me, i only had 2 hiccups during the near 2 hour movie.

 

[IraG]

If it were me, I would hold off on the update, unless there is something in 15 that you value more than lack of Atmos issues. I received a replacement ATV w/14.7 and used without issue; problem returned after updating to >=15.

That's my plan. There is nothing in tvOS 15.x that I care about. It would be nice to get rid of the update notifications, though. I have watched the entire 1st season of The Witcher without issue with my replacement ATV4k, where I was having multiple Atmos dropouts per episode with my original unit.

I believe there was a hardware issue in the initial batch of 2nd gen ATV4k units, because I had no Atmos issues with my 1st gen ATV4k, and because the Atmos problem occurred across multiple apps and tvOS versions. I believe the tvOS15.x issue is a new software issue, since reports suggest it to be Netflix only and tvOS 15.x only. My guess is that both issues affect Atmos because Atmos may be more sensitive to timing errors or software glitches.

I also wouldn't rule out that this latest issue is on Netflix's end, since there seems to be reports of audio issues on other platforms. I expect a lot more people are streaming over the holidays, so perhaps some isolated issues are due to higher than normal network congestion.

 

[IEnjoyOLED]

It's obvious at this point that Apple is in over their heads with Atmos

Hah! I see what you did there.

 

[Bonscott]

I have a solution to the problem. Take out every device that uses HDMI. There you go problem solved

 

[Robert D]

That's my plan. There is nothing in tvOS 15.x that I care about. It would be nice to get rid of the update notifications, though. I have watched the entire 1st season of The Witcher without issue with my replacement ATV4k, where I was having multiple Atmos dropouts per episode with my original unit.

I believe there was a hardware issue in the initial batch of 2nd gen ATV4k units, because I had no Atmos issues with my 1st gen ATV4k, and because the Atmos problem occurred across multiple apps and tvOS versions. I believe the tvOS15.x issue is a new software issue, since reports suggest it to be Netflix only and tvOS 15.x only. My guess is that both issues affect Atmos because Atmos may be more sensitive to timing errors or software glitches.

I also wouldn't rule out that this latest issue is on Netflix's end, since there seems to be reports of audio issues on other platforms. I expect a lot more people are streaming over the holidays, so perhaps some isolated issues are due to higher than normal network congestion.

Well, I'm still using the pre 15 OS and had the audio drop out watching Netflix two nights ago. So it's not the newest OS, 15 because I've had it now.

To top it off, last night I heard the familiar clicking noise while watching For All Mankind on Apple TV +. The audio didn't do the full drop out, just the static clicking sound I've heard in the past. I also heard a 1 second interval of that watching Netflix 2 days ago before the audio cut out. I figured the audio would cut out last night on Apple tv+ but it did not.

So I thought for sure 100% this was a hardware issue possibly with early units, but now I know I was wrong. My replacement box was flawless but not any longer. I'm at a complete loss now. None of it makes sense. Just going to have to live with this as it is, shut off the Atmos, or throw the thing in the trash. I don't think they will fix this, really. I spent thousands installing nice ML speakers in the ceiling for Atmos, so I'm not turning it off.

Is it possible that the fault lies with the streaming service itself? Has anyone tried streaming the same show on a different device in Atmos right after the Apple had an incident? Has anyone been able to duplicate the sound issue on a different device? If that happens, then we know it might lie in the streaming service itself. I have not been able to duplicate this in any other device. My Amazon doesn't have this problem. I'm starting to feel like a fool for even sticking with the Apple tv when I have the Amazon that works fine. Anyone know if Amazon added Atmos for Netflix?

 

[Robert D]

Suppose I could try swapping out yet another new box. My 1 year warranty lasts till March. Has anyone swapped out 2x?

 

[user 49813]

Well, I'm still using the pre 15 OS and had the audio drop out watching Netflix two nights ago. So it's not the newest OS, 15 because I've had it now.

To top it off, last night I heard the familiar clicking noise while watching For All Mankind on Apple TV +. The audio didn't do the full drop out, just the static clicking sound I've heard in the past. I also heard a 1 second interval of that watching Netflix 2 days ago before the audio cut out. I figured the audio would cut out last night on Apple tv+ but it did not.

So I thought for sure 100% this was a hardware issue possibly with early units, but now I know I was wrong. My replacement box was flawless but not any longer. I'm at a complete loss now. None of it makes sense. Just going to have to live with this as it is, shut off the Atmos, or throw the thing in the trash. I don't think they will fix this, really. I spent thousands installing nice ML speakers in the ceiling for Atmos, so I'm not turning it off.

Is it possible that the fault lies with the streaming service itself? Has anyone tried streaming the same show on a different device in Atmos right after the Apple had an incident? Has anyone been able to duplicate the sound issue on a different device? If that happens, then we know it might lie in the streaming service itself. I have not been able to duplicate this in any other device. My Amazon doesn't have this problem. I'm starting to feel like a fool for even sticking with the Apple tv when I have the Amazon that works fine. Anyone know if Amazon added Atmos for Netflix?

So, I did read about people using an Xbox as a source while using Netflix reporting this similar issue (no ATV at all). Could be completely unrelated, or maybe the Xbox and ATV share some component at fault? I believe others have reported the issue with other services such as HBOMax, and as you mentioned, AppleTV+ service.

Possibly unrelated, but I just read someone post about tvOS 15.3 beta fixing a volume issue on their device. I'm hoping this is related to the volume issue I experience with the delay and then the occasional 3-3.5dB jump per button press, instead of the 0.5dB increment as expected. This issue is loosely correlated to the popping/muting for me, as when I had the new 14.7 device, it didn't exhibit either of these problems, but post 15 update, they both presented.

Also, odd and likely unrelated (but mentioning anyway), is that my lip sync issues returned on the gen 2 ATV when I re-enabled 'match content' and 'match framerate'. I had set the video mode to 4k/60/SDR, and then let it autodetect content (DV, HDR, etc), but when doing this, I get the ~211ms lip sync delay. Switching the video back to 4k/60/DV resolves the issue. Again, could be entirely unrelated, but as we talk about timing and sync issues with things like MAT 2.0, etc., it feels like a relevant point to mention.

 

[JLasher22443]

Watched two Atmos movies yesterday on HBOMax and no issues. Did try to pause for a few minutes and recreate the issue I had with The Matrix but nothing. So I am back to the only time I have heard the major issues is within the Netflix App. Robert I binged the entire series For All Mankind just over the last two months; both seasons and never had an issue in that series. I've never experienced the volume issue either. My issues are what you hear in the videos I posted earlier. The last one in the movie The Matrix in HBOMax might have been a fluke or me losing it. LOL But I'll keep my ears open if something new pops up.