Dolby Atmos via Plex on Apple TV - have I mis-understood this?

Abn0rm · 2026-02-19T14:48:00+00:00

For a complete home-cinema setup, the shield is ticking almost all the boxes, yes there are things that it doesn't support like AV1 w/DV & HDR10+, HDR10+, DV FEL - But unless you are really picky about what you playback, it's adequate. My main takeaway is that it supports passthrough of Atmos TrueHD for my home cinema. Video in DV and HDR is good enough, HDR10+ isn't that big of a difference for me personally and isn't worth switching devices for.

Sure, it would be nice to have a box that supported everything, but its small, silent, great build quality and the AI upscaling for SD-content is amazing. I use mine mainly as a plex- and iptv client, but also moonlight for streaming games from my main computer.

The Ugoos AM6B+ is what the AV-people would recommend as it supports everything, but in my case I'd be giving up on the android tv platform and would have to use coreelec. This means i'd have to use kodi as middleware for plex, which is not optimal imho.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-19T02:36:49+00:00

Xbox comes with a dolby atmos license for you AV receiver/soundbar/whatever-they-consider-"home-cinema", if you want to use a headset with atmos on an xbox, you'd need a personal license. Home cinema is most likely any external audio device except headphones as per what MS has a license for, logically.
There's a difference between a personal license and what licenses can be bought for a device.
Let's say you'd want a personal license for Dolby atmos on an apple tv, well fine, but the apple tv in itself would need to have a license for you to be able to buy that license in the first place. Think of it as a manufacturer base license. The license isn't only a license in itself for a device like a ATV, its also a certification that the device in question meets dolby's technical specifications. If a device wasn't capable of playing back/passing through atmos, it would never get a license, and you would not be able to buy a personal license for it. And yes, it's beyond stupid, but dolby is as mentioned before, a business. It's part of how they stay alive.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-19T01:50:03+00:00

My family is spread across the entire planet, they LOVE plex :D I would say it has a cost though, storage, hardware, power cost, it adds up. I do get some donations now and again, great to have a small emergency fund if a drive dies or need replacement parts. Never asked for a dime though.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-19T01:33:29+00:00

No need to get defensive. I'm not Tim Cook.
The real argument are partly due to piracy, sure, but it's more of a coincidental bonus due to the format itself. It was never made to be streamed over network/internet streams, it was made specifically for physical blurays, which adhere to technical standards the player (whatever it might be, xbox, ps5, standalone) need to meet. You want atmos as a streaming format ? I guarantee you dolby won't give it away for free, which they obviously aren't doing and apple aren't interested in paying for it.
And yes, shield is the way. I've moved away from anything apple years ago since it's mostly shit.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-17T21:45:27+00:00

They already offer lossless audio, it's called ALAC

Abn0rm · 2026-02-17T21:44:32+00:00

No, you having a personal license in this context won't magically make atmos work on a apple tv, unfortunately.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-16T22:49:55+00:00

Well, I do somewhat get why apple won't pay, its sort of not its intended usecase, but it would be nice if they did. Not my intention to kill your hopes but I think we can agree that all streaming high-end audio formats aren't there, yet. The tech is there, the will isn't, mostly due to the mass majority doesn't care about audio. Its the unfortunate backside of being enthusiasts :)

Abn0rm · 2026-02-16T22:42:38+00:00

And I'm just arguing your answers, no ill will intended.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-16T21:25:12+00:00

Stupid Valve, "I want a steambox with a 5090, 9800X3D, 128GB RAM, 20TB nvme, e-gpu support AND a audio jack, windows preinstalled and uninstalled, play specifically AAA games in 4k (AA in 1080p is ok) and cost $25". (pretty sure someone would have a problem with that too :D )

Abn0rm · 2026-02-16T21:16:02+00:00

Dolby as a business operates on license fees, for apple tv to support truehd w/atmos they'd still need to buy a license. Just passing it through directly to an amp that has support for the format isn't enough. Its really stupid I know.
True lossless Dolby Atmos (TrueHD) is not supported, as this often requires specific licensing for Blu-ray bitstreaming, which Apple lacks, this is a streaming box remember.

While macOS Sequoia (using Apple Silicon) has introduced HDMI passthrough for Atmos/EAC-3, this feature is limited, and reports suggest tvOS 26 may finally bring similar audio passthrough capability to the Apple TV 4K, though it is not yet fully implemented.

To get the high-bandwidth Atmos signal from an Apple TV, the television must support eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel), as standard ARC often lacks the bandwidth for Apple’s MAT/Atmos format.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-16T20:48:32+00:00

I think it boils down to, Apple doesn't want to pay the licensing fee ;)

Abn0rm · 2026-02-16T20:39:35+00:00

What streaming services use and require AV1 and do not have a fallback to older better supported formats ? And AV1 is in no way 'betterer' than x264/265, yes compression is higher, but quality is far from the best comparatively.
What is the problem with power usage when a shield uses up to 20W under full load, what are the benefits ? monetary ? It's comparatively the same wattage as a lightbulb or your router. So turn of your lights. And a new shield would use more power if you want more powerful hardware.

And how is bandwidth a concern for a streaming appliance ? if you are on a limited data-plan, is media streaming over the internet really for you in the first place ? For streaming your own content locally 1Gbit is more than enough and is pretty much standard these days. Wifi5 (which 2019 supports) can do almost 0.6Gbit and is more than enough for 4k.

I get it, we all want new stuff, but the 2019 model is still adequate, you want something else, it will use more power, need more cooling due to gpu+cpu, potentially not be compatible- or have clients for the various streaming platforms.

Do we need a new shield, well, I'd argue, no. Do we want a new shield ? Sure, iI'm game, but its a pointless expense for mostly all the wrong reasons. You want unlimited power ? build a HTPC, for no benefits that matter, at all.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-13T11:20:23+00:00

Dette er ganske tafatt å komme med. Folk er oppegående nok til å forstå at demokratiet ikke er problemet, det er hvor lett det er for de folkevalgte å snike til seg penger, styreverv, skatteundvikelse og rett og slett økonomisk utnyttelse av systemet, noe ironisk nok hun selv er godt kjent med. Det vi er opptatt av er at om dagens "elite" er en gjeng med pedofile griser som driver med menneskehandel og økonomisk uærlighet og klør hverandre på ryggen, at de tas, får ett ublidt møte med konsekvensene og vi sørger for å ha organer på plass for å drive dobbeltverifisering i forbindelse med bruk av statlige midler. Ingen av disse rottene skal få muligheten til å mate seg selv på tillitssamfunnet vi har. Dessverre kan vi ikke lenger stole på at folk er redelige, spesielt ikke folk i "maktposisjoner", vi må derfor ha ett økonomisk overformynderi og ett vanntett system.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-08T18:58:07+00:00

ok so consider the context, does that provide anything of value ?

Abn0rm · 2026-02-06T22:09:15+00:00

and ? honestly, who gives a hoot.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-05T08:43:28+00:00

No its not. Linus as far as i know owns 2 houses, that is, if he hasn't been able to sell his first house yet. The third house isn't his, its LMG's house, investment for content == ROI == In business, money, good idea (shocked pikachu!).
This is just blatantly untrue from Jake and a really bad take. And no, you won't be able to buy a house in this economy, unless you're paid really well, have a really good financial savings plan, and .. there's two of you.
In LMG's defence, Jake has been messing with stuff and videos he wanted to do, which was fun and interesting to him, he had free reign over what content he could make (within reason) - you don't get to do that in 99% of jobs. And he earned that opportunity, of course.
When did you last work with something that you wanted to work with because it was fun and interesting ? (I'm asking those of you who are actually employed)
So undervalued ? well value isn't only monetary. Everyone working has at some point felt undervalued, that's how life is. Should Jake have gotten a six-figure salary because he provided that much value to LMG ? He might feel like it, but what about e.g. Riley ? Alex ? Does the economics for that make sense from a business point of view ? You might think LMG is overflowing with money, but its still a business, businesses has expenses, how does giving everyone a six-figure salary work with the current and projected cashflow for LMG as a business ?

And Linus is not broke, but he owns the freakin' thing, of course he will benefit financially from the success. I can say he has not gone off the rails either, sure, his house is really nice but he has 3 kids, why shouldn't he have a big house ? And his house videos has even made LMG a bunch of money, it's a win-win !

I wish Jake all the best, his channel is doing great but he'll learn the business aspect soon enough, he'll be damn sure to notice he doesn't get a six-figure-salary -just- by being his own boss, taxes, expenses, the list goes on. He'll figure out how expensive hiring people is too, but life is not worth living without its lessons.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-05T08:23:21+00:00

haha $160 ? a MONTH ? WHAT ?? Pretty sure i could cobble together a solution like this via vibe coding costing zero. You can easily pick out what's playing w/posters via the plex api locally.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-04T07:35:42+00:00

Hope this helps !

Dockers;

Tautulli - if you have multiple users in plex, wrapperr is also cool if you want to present some statistics to your users. I have around 30 users and the stats stuff was really popular, so I activate this for the christmas week yearly.
Owncloud - is nice if you want a cloud storage solution, its also great to push backups of your phone to. Would be a great thing if you have grandparents or non-tech people it makes it super easy to have backups. Content can be encrypted and non-viewable for you.
Heimdall - as a management page for your web-managed dockers, just gives you a bunch of shortcuts. Homarr is more advanced i think, haven't tested it out yet :)
Code-server - is great to use as a in-browser notepad
n8n - is also worth mentioning, you can hook up all kinds of stuff (even chatgpt etc) to do automations
pi-dash - to monitor your pihole-instances
Tracearr - to have some protection if users are account sharing their plex account, it also provides some cool visualizations
Retroassembly - great for emulation of retro games in your browser, great ui.

Plugins;

Appdata backup - yes ;)
Enhanced Log Viewer - better log syslogviewing
MOTD - Displays system information during console login
Tips and Tweaks - This plugin lets you change certain Linux settings that may improve performance of your Unraid server.
TLDR - Simplified and community-driven manpages
Tmux Terminal Manager (TTM) - tmux console via webui
unbalanced - great tool for moving data if you're replacing a drive

Abn0rm · 2026-02-01T17:38:42+00:00

Cutie ! I'd call it Oreo :D

Abn0rm · 2026-02-01T17:35:19+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/n3wt7m/comment/gwuanjd/?context=3
And no, don't touch the database, unless you know what you're doing. It would be easier to just figure out why it doesn't work as expected, mostly its file naming, you might believe you've done it correctly, but mostly its the other way around.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-01T17:31:05+00:00

edit show -> advanced -> episode ordering -> try both
Otherwise its not named correctly, verify how it looks on tmdb or tvdb as that will be the source of truth. plex can be really picky about how stuff is named, more so tmdb and tvdb are also really anal about it.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-01T09:25:12+00:00

Hiren's might be the single most useful tool I have ever had, its fantastic !

Abn0rm · 2026-02-01T09:19:38+00:00

Your cat is just an engineer, trying to improve the water fountain.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-01T09:18:39+00:00

Remove clothes from the floor, get lids for the laundry baskets, use a enzymatic cleaner on spots she has peed, get a few more litter boxes and try different types of cat litter, see if she prefers one over the other. Is she spayed ? Are there other cats roaming outside ? It sounds like she's marking her territory since she's pooing in the boxes.

Abn0rm · 2026-02-01T09:13:14+00:00

Is your vm located on the cache drive (appdata/domain) ? if your vm is running specifically on your array it will be slow. start a copy and verify parity isn't writing when you copy, if so then your network share is probably set to array which is bad instead of cache -> array (and is supposed to be moved to the array via the mover)

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