I wonder if you need the ultra high speed cables or the most recent version of the Apple TV 4K to get Dolby Atmos? Also, check your audio settings on your Apple TV?
Home Theater is so complicated compared to HiFi. 
It will depend on how you have it configured as you can’t still get the older format from DD+. If your using ARC on an older TV /av amp or sound bar combo it may not support DD+ via ARC which is common on older kit they managed to add it to later models. I had this and have had to use a device to extract an ARC stream from my TV and put it in a regular input that supports DD+. If your using optical then you can’t get DD+ at all as it doesn’t have the bandwidth.
Both your TV and soundbar need to support eArc to get Dolby Atmos. You may also find that eArc has to be enabled on the TV as well as potentially other settings depending on brand. Furthermore, you may also require a new HDMI cable due to the increased bandwidth required by eArc.
1 Like
Hi, On Amazon Prime Video i can watch films with Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks and I am able to listen to Dolby Digital 5.1 via digital optical cable from my 2015 Samsung 4K TV to my non-HDMI pre DD+ AV Amp it all sounds pretty good for the 5.1 set up I have in my family lounge room (not allowed to install more speakers for 7.1 or Atmos).
eARC not needed for DD+ Atmos only the full uncompressed streams used on Blu-ray needs eARC as ARC doesn’t have the bandwidth for it. My Sonos Arc works fine with DD+ Atmos via ARC.
That’s odd that Netflix would do that. For 3rd party content they tend to lower the standards as a lot of movies are 2.0 not even 5.1 but I am surprised about their own content.
I stand (or sit, rather) corrected, I had conflated lossless audio (which as you point requires eArc) with Dolby Atmos. My bad.
1 Like
I have found lesser bandwidth cables unreliable between certain devices, with interoperability issues, such as unreliable resolution changes, screen blanking, digital artefacts etc etc. I always now use 48 Gbps hdmi cables unless it is low sample word size content such as limited to 8 bit colours and high colour space compression and have no issues at all. With UHD, 4:4:4 colour sub sampling (and even the lesser 4:2:2) with 10 bit colours I use 48 Gbps cables for reliable connectivity.
Though it is noting I understand the effective industry standard for consumer film colour space compression is 4:2:0 currently, but if you are using the connection to handle other visual information or imaging or UHD computer games then the lesser colour space is noticeable. Subjectively, 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 is quite noticeable, the jump from 4:2:2 to 4:4:4 less so.
1 Like
What playback device delivers 4:4:4 UHD? I’m curious if there’s anything better to stream movies than my Apple TV 4K? It’s the Naim Forum and the source first doctrine applies. 
1 Like
Any pc can normally but your TV also needs to support it as an input. I used to when I used Kodi for my own stuff. My Nvidia Shield can at certain frame rates and resolutions as it’s got a superb GPU . But it’s not going to give you a true 4:4:4 image for video content as absolutely none are encoded using it they are all 4:2:0. As I explained earlier The TV will take any input it’s given and scale it to 4:4:4 before doing a YUV to RGB conversion as the last stage before it’s displayed.
On AppleTV I believe some imaging software like Adobe will take advantage… for movies though no, although I am sure I appreciate a subtle improvement… perhaps the AppleTV upsampling algorithm?. My images certainly look good on the full 444 setting… whether that is native or some other effect is happening… I couldn’t assure you.
Technically less chroma compression is all about a larger actual gamut, vs impression of gamut (colour depth vs luminance). Is more relevant (in my opinion) if you disable any dynamic picture processing on your TV, and ideally have the TV panel calibrated.
1 Like
I’m using the Apple TV 4K. I’m fairly certain that at some point over the last year or two, that the sound quality picked up quite a bit on the streaming services - I use Netflix mostly. Though a 4K Blu-ray certainly lifts the bar again, particularly on audio.
Hi Mike_S I agree, it is my experience too that 4K Bluray disc playback has better video than streaming 4K and certainly for my system using a 1999 Denon AV Amp which is pre-HDMI and pre-DD+ using the 5.1 analogue out from my Panasonic 4K bluray player to AV Amp I get far better audio as you get the full lossless audio and sometimes hi-res soundtracks off the discs, especially music video and concert discs and obviously the hi-res pure audio bluray discs and on movies you get dts-HD Master Audio, Dolby Atmos etc.
1 Like
Hi Mike_S Im curious with your Netfilx in NZ do you get Dolby Digital Plus and/or Dolby Atmos on your programming because Im in Perth, Australia and can only get 5.1 which is Dolby Digital. Ive watched and checked all sorts of films, series, docos etc and its all only 5.1.
1 Like
I’m not sure actually, as I’m using either a Nova or the NDX2 to play through stereo set-ups, and a sub on the NDX2.
I just checked and my Apple TV is set to 4:2:0 and when I try to set it to 4:2:2 it checks my cable and says it’s not good enough. Is it worth updating my HDMI cable so I can go to 4:2:2?
Hi Mike_S Thanks for your reply. If you look at the Netflix information page when you are selecting your film, doco or series etc to watch it will show you if the sound is 5.1, Dolby Digital Plus or Atmos its an icon ususlly next to the icon that tells you the video quality e.g 4K HDR, 4K, HD etc. All programming advises what the video and audio quality are and easy to see on the information page.
Only you can make that decision. It will certainly improve how the ATV Ui looks or you play games on it as it makes most difference to how the graphics are drawn and 4:2:0 you really loose a lot. All video content is only 4:2:0 and is considered to be almost visually lossless so it’s why it was adopted for all video/film content as the bandwidth for 4:2:2 is so much higher and would not be kind to the mediums used for transport. So whether it makes a difference or not here is down likely to the TV used with it and how it scales 4:2:0. Any TV will be scaling any input to 4:4:4 internally and will be doing the same if you send it upsampled already from the ATV to 4:2:2, with the latter you adding two layers of upsampling and image filtering in my game adding more filtering is not considered optimum. I don’t have an ATV but have used many video devices and not noticed any gain other than UI rendered better for using either 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 that itself can be worth the investment.
These days I just the inbuilt apps in my TVs so this all done behind the scenes and no need to worry about it. I stopped using and buying disc based stuff years ago and ripped all I had.
It’s bound to on disc as it’s got higher bitrates, and lossless audio if your kit supports it. But their days are numbered, encoding tech will move on and we will get the same level of quality from lesser bandwidths as we already have from the move from h264/mpeg2 to h265/HEVC.
1 Like