This topic

BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

LowestoftBoy — Sat, 13 May 2023 13:31:59 GMT

No Dolby Atmos when watching live football on BT Ultimate via wifi, even though running through an Onkyo Atmos receiver. No atmos either on Netflix app. My old BT 4k box decoded atmos just fine for BT Ultimate and Netflix. My Apple TV 4k decodes BT Ultimate Atmos just fine, but I prefer to use BT Box Pro as the Apple TV picture sometimes has problems on BT Ultimate. All software updated. Is there a known issue and a possible fix?

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

NigelB72 — Sat, 13 May 2023 14:45:40 GMT

It would appear to be either a set-up or settings issue as we have a Pro Box and it puts Atmos through fine. I'm going HDMI to the TV and then HDMI out via eARC to my Soundbar.. TV audio is set to pass through and Pro Box just set to Surround. Pro Box is hardwired to the Smarthub...

All HDMI cables are 2.1

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

LowestoftBoy — Sun, 28 May 2023 17:53:12 GMT

Thanks for the suggestions.

Well, my BT box passes through my receiver, as does my Blu ray and apple tv, both of which my receiver recognises the atmos. I guess the BT box just doesn't play ball with a 2018 Onkyo atmos receiver. Oh well.

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

NigelB72 — Mon, 29 May 2023 06:41:51 GMT

Check the HDMI cablefrom the BT box is 2.1 standard

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

Midnight_Voice — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 14:13:17 GMT

Brain Fart: I think I just posted this in the wrong Community, trying to reply to :-https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/TV/TV-Box-Pro-amp-Dolby-Atmos/m-p/1463729#M5647

But I’ll let it stand, and link across.

@NigelB72

I just put on the Apple TV app on my Box Mini should be same as Box Pro here), went to Slow Horses S4, E6, which is shown as having Dolby Atmos, played it, and my soundbar confirms the Atmos (I press Info, it just scrolls DOLBY ATMOS and goes back to ‘eARC’, so kind of hard to snapshot, but you can see Y ATM going by on the soundbar, at bottom):-

So the Box can do the advertised Dolby Atmos; your question now is why there is no Dolby Atmos where you expect it, maybe because what you are playing doesn’t offer it, or the subscription you have it on doesn’t run to it?

Can you try my above recipe, see what you get? Hopefully, we are all the lucky beneficiaries of a free Apple subscription at the moment.

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

NigelB72 — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 17:11:47 GMT

@Midnight_Voice are you getting UHD HDR on AppleTV via the Pro Box?

There was an issue on Sky Stream where AppleTV was defaulting to Dolby Vision and if it couldn't detect a compatible device, it'd fall back to HD and no Atmos rather than outputting HDR10 with Atmos. It was picked up pretty quickly and a fix was issued which I imagine was an update to the app.

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

Midnight_Voice — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 21:16:28 GMT

@NigelB72

I’ll have a look tomorrow if I get a chance.

For various reasons, the Box Pro is connected to the bedroom LG OLED48C2, which is quite decadent enough without adding a soundbar, and throws the sound round the room remarkably well anyway, so the above Atmos test had to be on the downstairs LG OLED65GX setup.

But I can check both tomorrow for your question about the video.

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

Midnight_Voice — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 15:20:02 GMT

@NigelB72

Box Mini here, but yes, you can see the momentary HDR indicator top right in this screenshot:-

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

NigelB72 — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 15:41:03 GMT

I don't have BT TV anymore as we moved to Sky last year.

Can you receive Atmos through other streaming platforms?

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

Midnight_Voice — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 20:17:17 GMT

@NigelB72

Well, the above Atmos example was from Apple TV on the Box Pro. So it’s a fair bet that Apple TV on the Apple TV+ box will do it, and it will work on many other platforms that have the Apple TV app.

But your question is very wide-ranging. What platforms are you thinking of?

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

LowestoftBoy — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 05:52:23 GMT

Netflix via Apple TV. Dolby Atmos works fine through Onkyo 696.

TNT sports ultimate via Apple TV, where matches are advertised as Dolby Atmos will not decode atmos through that same Onkyo receiver.

A bit annoying.

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

naylor2006 — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 10:11:44 GMT

@LowestoftBoywrote:
No Dolby Atmos when watching live football on BT Ultimate via wifi, even though running through an Onkyo Atmos receiver. No atmos either on Netflix app. My old BT 4k box decoded atmos just fine for BT Ultimate and Netflix. My Apple TV 4k decodes BT Ultimate Atmos just fine, but I prefer to use BT Box Pro as the Apple TV picture sometimes has problems on BT Ultimate. All software updated. Is there a known issue and a possible fix?

As far as I know the EETV Box Pro always outputs in DD+ when in surround mode, so regardless of whether the source is stereo, multichannel, atmos or whatever, your AVR will say DD+, thats what my Denon AVFORGOTMODELNUMBER says. However if I use my Apple TV Box then yes I can see Atmos pop up on my Receiver.

So indeed, whenever I watched TNT Sports Ultimate channel my AV just shows DD+. If you bring up the AVR OSD you can usually check what channels are actually active. For example on the Denon app if all channels are active:

If they are not all active just stereo (FRFL) will be in green but the sound mode will still say DD+. I have deduced from this that even if TNT Sports Ultimate via the EPG is presented in Atmos, my AV will still show DD+, like it does for any channel.

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

Midnight_Voice — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 18:50:17 GMT

@naylor2006

How do you explain my posting 23-10-2024 15h13 higher up in this thread, then?

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

naylor2006 — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 21:59:10 GMT

It’s actually really hard to explain mate and it’s mostly down to poor implementation of the audio on the EETV Box Pro where it doesn’t actually pass through the source audio and packages everything up in DD+, so your AVR wont switch to Stereo when watching BBCOne (which is definitely not DD+) and won’t switch to Multi Channel when watching Sky Sports (Which is not DD+), at the same time an AVR won’t then pickup when the Atmos is there on top of multi channel. ATMOS when delivered via the DD+ is lossy, when delivered with TrueHD it’s lossless, the latter seems to be picked up without fail on AVR’s.

Lets get this out the way….yes it’s possible, here’s me watching a recording of City vs Sparta Prague:

It’s problematic more for AVR’s, as far as I remember you use eARC assuming the TV passes audio through to the sound bar. Probably works better that way with EETV.

The OP might be able to use ATMOS on his AVR if he manually changes the audio mode when he knows ATMOS is there, it’s possible for me. But it’s largely pointless if you don’t have the relevant atmos speakers so might as well just stick with the DD+ for all channels which offers the best audio sync.

On my other devices where I’m using Lossless TrueHD it seems to switch to Atmos fine recognising it, or on devices that just play the source audio and not uniformly package it in one codec, probably a compatibility thing, but the OP may have some joy if when watching Atmos content on the box he cycles through the audio modes and manually locates Atmos. Problem is most of us just want the audio device to just switch automatically to the relevant mode but the EETV makes this problematic given the way it by default delivers audio when in surround mode….via DD+ even if only two channels are present. It should just deliver stereo PCM or something and then Dolby Digital when the source is such not confusing your AVR. But using DD+ is I’m sure an easy way to deliver all audio in one format, simplifies delivery but complicates things at our end.

This is just my take from my experience trying to explain it.

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

Midnight_Voice — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 08:07:03 GMT

@naylor2006

So what you are saying is your poncy amp spurns lossy Atmos over DD+ and only gets out of bed for TrueHD Atmos, while my simple soundbar doesn’t know any better and latches on to any flicker of Atmos? 😛

I am told, by the way, that Atmos isn’t all about height, but about pinpointing sounds left and right, front and rear, in a rather superior way to panpotting.

So while height is a nice addition, even those without upward firing speakers can benefit from Atmos; and to a lesser extent still, even those without rears.

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

LowestoftBoy — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 09:33:01 GMT

Yes, I have the atmos speakers.

Focal Sib Evo. Very happy with it.

Went with the Onkyo 68 tx-nr 696 over a soundbar so as to put my cd, phono, spotify etc through it. It is great for music with just the left, right and sub.

Thanks for all the well informed replies, folks

Re: BT Box Pro Dolby Atmos issue

naylor2006 — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 10:38:37 GMT

Thanks for that retort, you’ve already made my weekend 😂

Yes the soundbar wins in this ease of use scenario, you win Mr Vocal.

You are kinda right yeah, but it’s more that the EETV box isn’t providing a definitive change between audio sources. If it when it went from DD+ to TrueHD with Atmos it would change. For example Dolby Atmos on Apple TV Plus on an Apple TV is still lossy but there are relevant and definitive changes between audio sources when moving between apps.

The AVR is being too clever or too dumb, but definitely poncy 😂

There are some other notes on this as well with regards to DD+ Plus Surround settings (I meant to write + and Plus) but it’s a nuanced AVR thing and the vast majority of folks get on perfectly fine with ARC and probably not using an AVR with the EETV Pro so I’ll save it for another day. But that setting allows for the auto changing but has other annoying compromises on audio that isn’t Atmos 😕

Its a mess and sometimes with AVR’s you have to find the best most consistent setting you can just leave alone.