Any mody finding ATMOS doesn't seem to work on Sky Sports UHD and TNT Sports Ultimate when using Stream?
Seems on on Main 360 but just doesn't kick in on Stream - yet ATMOS does work on the apps I'd expect to hear it on (eg: Disney+)
Yes - Dolby sound hasn't worked properly in the three years since launch on any linear channel [or catch up]. No Atmos as you say on the UHD sports channels, like everywhere else the Dolby sound is in a 5.1 wrapper, whether it should be Atmos, 5.1 or stereo. They have removed Dolby sound from ITV channels and BBC News, so those channels are in PCM stereo only, I guess on the basis they broadcast nothing in 5.1. Elsewhere stereo is broadcast 5.1 with 3.1 channels of silence, preventing an amplifier using Dolby Surround or similar.
I assume that somewhere in the Virgin Stream broadcast chain the ability to act on the Dolby metadata is lost.
It is something that worked fine on the V6 years ago, so quite a regression on Virgin Stream boxes.
No comment from VM about this?
Not that I've seen, albeit it was first discussed here over two years ago. I've no idea how to raise this with someone who understands the issue - please do if you can!
You can't subscribe to the Sky Cinema and Sky Entertainment UHD service either, which I can guess [but it is just a non educated guess] is because they think that movie viewers are more likely to worry about the sound than sports viewers, but they will charge you the same £7 [list price] per month for just sports UHD which gets you both on the V6 and 360 boxes.
Sky UHD: Sky Cinema and Sky Entertainment UHD requires a V6 or Virgin TV 360 box and a 4K compatible TV/device with HDCP 2.2. Up to 4x the clarity of standard HD content: based on comparison of HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) versus UHD (3840 x 2160 pixels). £7 a month to add UHD, this will provide the available UHD content in the chosen bundle or entertainment pack (Eg, if you have Sky sports and select UHD for £7 you will receive Sky sports in UHD, if you have Sky Sports and Cinema and choose UHD for £7 you will receive Sky Sports and Cinema in UHD). Prices may increase at any time during the contract.
We've had reports over the past couple of years or more of Dolby Atmos working for broadcast but not for streaming. Let's see if we can understand what's happening.
VM's central headend receives the land feeds from Sky Sports, TNT Sports, etc, with the Dolby Atmos data delivered using the Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) codec, specifically using a feature called Joint Object Coding (JOC). There are two distinct headend processes:
I think it's most likely that Stream box is failing to correctly reconstruct the full DD+ JOC signal for passthrough. Note the difference with apps like Netflix and Disney+ when the Stream box has no need to do de-encapsulation and just passes through DD+ JOC bitstream.
