I have been considering upgrading my Sonos beam to the generation 2 beam, the biggest difference being it supports Dolby Atmos. But as I search around, I find that there isn’t a whole lot of Content using Dolby Atmos, sure there are some things out there, but I guess somewhere around 15% of content is where it tops out. It is very similar to 4K content, there really isn’t just a lot of it especially when the networks seem to be broadcasting still in 720 P or 1080 P if you are lucky. I am starting to wonder if there will ever be a time when most content will be 4K with Dolby Atmos I think I know the answer and it is no because it’s too expensive. If anyone has opinions on why I am wrong about this. Please let me know. Thanks so much.
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There’s actually a ton. Every new movie I watch has Atmos. With Kodi and a real debrid subscription I’m more often than not watching something with Atmos.
If you are watching network television and watching a show or a live broadcast then Atmos isn’t going to apply in most circumstances. It’s spatial audio and there’s no need. But you can always enhance the sound of live TV if you use an AVR and change your sound processing settings.
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Right now, physical media, (dvds, blu-ray and 4k discs) are the only reliable sources for Dolby Atmos soundtracks if they exist. Most early release dvds don’t even have it as a soundtrack option. The most advanced soundtrack options will primarily be available on newer blu-ray and 4k disks. Most, if not all regular dvds won’t have anything other than basic Dolby or possibly dts sound fields as an option. Since it takes up considerably more bandwidth to stream this, most IPTV streaming services don’t do it except for some of the premium ones.
I was checking kodi ,it would say Dolby Atmos, but then when I would press the audio button for the description it would always say 5.1 am I missing something here or misunderstanding it
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Probably
Great video, wish I had known about this a long time ago. Thank you
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Up and posted in a pinned topic, do a search or look at the pinned topics kodi mega guide.
As mentioned, there is quite a bit of streaming content that is Atmos tracked, particularly with Netflix content.
Netflix is a big supporter of Dolby and as such, much of their content has Atmos and Vision support.
Amazon Prime, HBO max, Apple TV, Disney, all invest in Atmos.
The vast majority of conet that I stream contains an Atmos track and decodes properly on my HT and Atmos speaker setup.
I have a 2019 Nvidia Sheild pro and Kodi . Can I get Atmos with a 1080P resolution tv ?
If you had a Dolby Atmos capable surround sound receiver or TV, and the source file was offered in Dolby Atmos, you can for sure get it. At this point, I believe only the highest end TVs offer digital sounds like this, and in my opinion Atmos and DTS, etc sound way better on actual surround systems. DTS has a “Virtual-X” for soundbars mostly, that essentially tries to make fake surround sound. To summarize, all devices would need to support it or it would default to DD or something like a stereo connection.
Expanding on what was said, you’d would ideally need the correct speaker setup to properly hear the Atmos acoustics properly.
As Atmos is an object based surround format, you’d need several speakers, including height speakers, to get a good effect in a 3d space. DD+ and lower steered the effect sound to individual specific speakers.
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My tv is 1080P with out Atmos but I do have Atmos in my receiver . So that will work ?
The tv would have to have a setting to “passthrough” that digital audio file and let your receiver play it as Atmos.
I have a 1080P Optima projector . What settings in it would a have to set ?
Depending on how you normally interconnect your AV, passthrough may not be necessary.
You can feed your shield to your AVR and output to your projector.
Have you heard samples of an Atmos track vs DD+, DTS or similar? Some users get underwhelming perceptions after they get an Atmos track played. Some feel that there’s no difference than a regular DD track.
Much of how impactful Atmos delivers is really based much on speaker type, number of speakers, placement, and room shape and size. Since Atmos resonates it’s effects in an 3D space (similar to how omnimax audio delivery sounds), it’s really quite a bit of work to get the setup optimized to really hear how cool Atmos sounds.
If you ever used bipolar firing speakers in a 7.1+ setup, it’s similar to how some of that omnidirectional surround effects tried to reproduce. The use of height speakers are significant in Atmos.
Atmos, in a fully mapped setup and with a good Atmos track (Atmos tracks vary in depth of implementation), sounds very immersive.
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Very good points. I was not thinking about the Shield Pro and its involvement in the Atmos process. The older Shields could only Passthrough Atmos, but the new ones natively support it. Found a couple helpful articles:
Do I Need A Dolby Atmos TV To Get Dolby Atmos? (hometheateracademy.com)
How to Set Up Dolby Atmos on NVIDIA Shield for Immersive Audio (androidtvnews.com)
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It’s also worth noting that double checking your interconnect cables are worth validating. Atmos, at minimal, will require a hdmi 1.3 compliant cable. For Arc and eArc setups, you’ll need hdmi 2.0 and 2.1 (respectively) cables (and device ports) for proper bandwidth.
…then when content eventually is able to stream Atmos over Dolby TrueHD, the circus starts all over again. Lol.
I don’t have Arc on my 1080P projector but sending the HDMI to the AVR first then back to my projector may work .
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Could never hurt to give it a whirl. Hopefully, you’ll get results that you’re happy with.
As you mentioned above, it is pretty wild all the requirements that’s needed to run this high end audio. All of the associated devices have to support Atmos or passthrough Atmos, the source and app has to support it, even down to the hdmi cords etc all have to be of high enough quality. And then, as you also mentioned, you better have a darn good, well set up sound system to make all the effort and expenses worth it lol.
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