Disney+ has rolled out a series of updates that bring good news to Apple TV 4K owners who also own a pair of AirPods with support for Spatial Audio, and bad news for those who own an Android or Google TV.
With this week’s update to the Disney+ app, Apple TV 4K owners with the aforementioned AirBuds get Dolby Atmos support for content they’re watching in Spatial Audio mode.
On the other hand, Android and TV owners, including Sony, TCL and Hisense models, plus Nvidia Shield devices, will experience the opposite, as the update appears to have broken Dolby Atmos support for those users.
The updates were reported by FlatpanelsHD, which said the Apple TV 4K upgrade is subtle but will surely be appreciated. Until now, Apple TV 4K owners who were watching Disney+ with their AirPods 3rd Gen, AirPods Pro or AirPods Max ear buds could tune in with Spatial Audio, but only with a regular Dolby 5.1 surround sound mix. Now, they can get Spatial Audio with true Dolby Atmos. In addition, FlatPanelsHD said Disney+ now passes the Dolby Atmos soundtrack to the original HomePods when set as default Apple TV 4K speakers.
FlatPanelsHD said in its report that it has tested the new functionality and confirmed 16-channel output. The result for users is they’ll get far more precise positioning of sounds in the space around them when they’re using the head-tracking Spatial Audio mode, including dedicated height channels.
For those who’ve never tried Spatial Audio on ear buds with Dolby Atmos content, understand that it adds a huge degree of realism to the experience, making it feel as if you’re sat in a full cinema with a multi-speaker set up. You can also ramp up the volume to your heart’s content, so you won’t miss a single beat of what’s said.
Fortunately for Android TV and Google TV users, they have started reporting on Reddit and Twitter that the issues they experienced seem to be resolving themselves. We assume Disney has introduced a server-side fix, which means there’s no need to update the app for the Dolby Atmos functionality to be restored. If you’re still experiencing problems, rest assured that someone is working hard to solve it.
