Apple TV sound skips after playing Dolby Atmos

I suspect that Apple's habit of decoding Dolby Atmos and sending the uncompressed multichannel audio out HDMI is choking the LG's ability to forward all that datastream to the Sonos via eARC (or recover normal operations having done so).

Sonos SHOULD have included atleast 1 HDMI OUT so that your ATV4K plugs directly into the soundbar (and you only need 1 cable running into the TV).

Apple SHOULD include a digital audio passthrough option as a workaround for this too common AV-systems-choking-on-Atmos problem.

If it were me, I would return the Sonos and buy a set of the new HomePods. That would cost less and sound fine. This reviewer prefers the HomePods with atmos over the Arc (maybe even with the expensive sub). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDFA27-AzjA.

do you have this just with Netflix or with other apps? I realize netflix has the most dolby atmos content compared to Amazon Prime and HBO. I am experiencing this as well since the 16.3.1/16.3.2 TVOS update. No issues with my 2021 Apple TV running on 16.3.

I don't think it is Sonos related. I have a Sony HT-A9 and a Samsung Q990B and have this issue with both.

No problem. No upgrades or changes to my set-up since I got the 2022 Apple TV 4K. The reason I have my 4K Apple TVs (including the 2021 version) set to 1080p SDR is because I have the Apple TV and other devices going through a high-end Lumagen video processor which then passes video to my TV and audio to my soundbar. I prefer this processor do the upscale from 1080p to 4K (I watch very little native 4K content). The processor is amazing! The Processor has two HDMI outputs - one goes to my TV and carries both audio and video. The other carries audio to my LG Q990B soundbar. I have the TV speakers audio turned off.

With the 2021 Apple TV 4K, I am able to watch Dolby Atmos content with the video output set to 1080p SDR with no skipping. But with the 2022 Apple TV 4K, it looks like I have to set to 4K SDR (or HDR) to avoid dolby atmos skipping. Very weird. I don't know if the Dolby Atmos content where skipping is occurring is 4K video content.

I always have content/frame matching ON on these Apple TVs.

Cool. I do like to play around with that kind of stuff...

I've assumed, without much confidence, that the ATV4K usually does as good or better in video upsampling than most 4K TVs do on their own (with respect to high-end TV manufacturers). I've experimented with my setup and noticed little difference quality-wise, but I would like to see how a state-of-the-art video processor looks.

I've opted for Apple's default approach as it seems to offer the most consistent performance: set the ATV4K's output to the best resolution and color characteristics of the TV with match content OFF. I find this usually looks as good if not better than the TV's native rendering, while letting the ATV do its thing. Most important, it prevents the distracting mode-switching delays on the part of the TV for changing frame rates, etc).

I assume your video processor deals with format changes seamlessly?

I have a similar issue with my Apple TV 4K (1st gen) and my Onkyo receiver but it only on the Apply TV app. I had to the my ATM to downgrade the audio to be able to listen to the film I rented

I updated to TVOS 16.4 today. Has NOT fixed the issue with Dolby Atmos audio constantly skipping! The wait continues. Surprisingly, the 2021 Apple TV 4K doesn’t have this problem.

When I changed the video to 4k on my Apple TV 4K 2022 (from 1080p), the skipping in dolby Atmos content went away!

Thanks for sharing. Did you upgrade your TV or were you selecting 1080p for your 4K TV for some reason?