Dolby Atmos Pass Through

[geonickw5]

I have a KD75XG8505. I have a sound bar that produces Dolby atmos sound but when I plug my Apple 4k into the inputs on the tv, it does not produce D.A. sound. All the cables are correct and the soundbar is connected by arc. Any ideas would be gratefully received. Many thanks 

[royabrown2 · Accepted solution]

@geonickw5 

You need eARC to pass [edit as per Kuschelmonster: lossless] Atmos back from a TV to a soundbar, and this is still a new standard that few if any TVs operate to.

[edit as per Kuschelmonster: Indeed, some older TVs can’t even do lossy, and even for those that can, setting up seems like it can be problematic]

Can you plug the Apple 4K into the soundbar (you don’t say which one it is, so I can’t check what inputs it has), and enjoy the Atmos sound, while passing the picture up the HDMI cable to the TV? Which will hopefully have HDCP 2.2 or better, to support 4K and HDR.

I had the same problem with my Panny UHD Player - worse actually, as the soundbar wasn’t HDCP2.2 compliant - but this has a separate audio output, so I could put the picture directly into the TV, and the audio into the soundbar.

The Apple 4K has only one output, I see, but you should be fine with that.

[Kuschelmonschter]

ARC is still fine with lossy DD+ based Atmos from streaming services, see here.

[royabrown2]

Hi @Kuschelmonschter 

I see you asserting it, and referencing specs that say there is enough bandwidth for a lossy version; but then any bandwidth is enough for a sufficiently lossy version of anything, I suppose. And the thread is full of people who can’t get even a lossy version to work. And you don’t seem to have convinced @rooobb (not that that makes you necessarily wrong, of course).

But I wonder if @geonickw5, the OP, would be happy with lossy Atmos, even assuming he can persuade his TV to output it, when he can have lossless if he makes the simple switch I suggest?

However, I have altered my posting above to allow for the theoretical possibility of what you say.

[geonickw5]

Many thanks for your reply. I have got my Apple 4K connected to a Samsung sound bar and yes it is producing Atmos sound. Only thing is that I don’t get Dolby vision on my tv. But I am slowly sorting it out. I am just surprised there is no direct pass through for both. Many thanks for the advice, much appreciated.

[royabrown2]

Standards are still evolving (translation: getting even the latest kit to interact optimally is a crapshoot).

What’s the model of your Samsung soundbar? Knowing that, I can poke about in the manual.

But in general, you can’t do better for the sound than having the Apple 4K plugged directly into the soundbar. (You might do about as well in the future with an Atmos-capable TV with eARC, but not this year, and possibly never, with your current TV).

So now you need to sort the video, if it’s sortable. Again you can’t do better than having the video go up a high speed HDMI cable from the HDMI Out of the soundbar to the ARC-capable HDMI In on the TV.

But you can perhaps profitably have a play with the HDMI Out options on the soundbar, and the HDMI In Settings on the TV, to ensure you are passing the very best video the two devices can mutually handle, over the cable.

e.g. I can up the HDMI In on my Samsung TV  to 10-bit or 12-bit, if I am using a source that can provide it, and I can see from the status display whether the TV is getting HDR, wide colour gamut, and so on.

My Panny UHD player has a handy display that more or less says “Here is what I’d like to send, and here is what your PoS TV is crippling me down to”, and the trick is to try and resolve the discrepancies. Be nice if your Samsung soundbar had something similar....

[Am11official]

So in essence i also can’t get Atmos on my nanocell sm8200 ? Because I tried connecting it through the arc hdmi port 1 on the tv and from the other arc of the soundbar along with my playstation 4, it says Dolby digital and not Atmos, which in theory I can never achieve higher than digital because of the limitation of my tv right ? 

[royabrown2]

@Am11official 

This area of the forum for Sony Android devices, so your LG is a little outside the bounds.

Though you don’t say who made your soundbar; maybe that is a Sony? And the PS4 is Sony, certainly.

I don’t understand how your system is wired, nor where your Atmos is coming from; the PS4?

I’m informed, as above, that it is possible for lossy Atmos to be passed over ARC; but as to how to arrange that for a device plugged into an LG TV, you will need to ask on an LG forum.

But the PS4, if plugged into the TV, needs certainly to be plugged into the best non-ARC HDMI port on the TV, and the ARC port reserved for the cable that connects the TV to the soundbar.

If the soundbar (make? model?) has HDMI inputs, you may do better to plug the PS4 into that, let it sort out Atmos directly with the Atmos support on the soundbar.

As to ARC, it may be a limitation of the LG TV that it only has ARC; or maybe it has eARC? You would have to ask that, again, on an LG forum.

But even if it does, maybe the soundbar doesn’t have eARC? We don’t know, as we don’t know what it is.

You need to gather, and provide, further information as above before anyone can tell you where the limiting factors, if any, really are.

[Am11official]

My soundbar is a Sony ht-g700 3.1 ch with Dolby Atmos and of course as u mentioned I’ve got a playstation 4 pro alongside a lg nanocell tv sm8200 2019 model, I’ve heard in forums that only recent through a update they have received Dolby Atmos Earc ? So I am not sure whether LG will provide it for my nanocell line, what I do know for a fact is at the back of my tv I have one port that says arc, and there’s a label for disclaimer about these tv being tested in laboratories and it mentioned Dolby audio, Dolby vision and Dolby Atmos so I am not certain to if I can gain Atmos with this product. I know for certain that genuinely without the speaker itself it plays DTS x sound but of course not Dolby sound, so I thought I’d get a Dolby Atmos soundbar since my tv has arc but I think earc needs to come from an update ? At the moment LG is all over the place when it comes to its communications about its software specifications when it comes to certain tv models because I am not sure what I gain or don’t gain in this latest firmware update since the big talk is on c9 b9 etc gettin earc Over the update. 

[royabrown2]

@Am11official 

I still don’t know where you are expecting your Atmos to come from.

If from the PS4, then as far as I know, this is limited to playing BluRays with Atmos soundtracks, and Atmos in games isn’t supported. Unless this has changed recently.

It is in any case a no-brainer that you should at least try the PS4 connected to the soundbar, rather than the TV, and keep it there unless there are real snags with that.

If you are expecting Atmos from the TV, or from something plugged into the TV, then at best it will be cut-down compressed Atmos unless and until the TV gets eARC.