Hearing sounds I have never heard before

[akash.nu]

So my home theatre system has always been based around my Xbox one. And I run a plex server alongside as well. I always thought being a gaming system the sound output from the Xbox would be superior but I have recently added an Apple Tv 4K with my sound system and guess what, I am hearing sounds I have never heard before. I didn't even know some of the effects there are in some of the movies I have.

Does anyone else have a similar experience? Can someone enlighten me with the technological difference in the sound output in these two systems that may have caused this enhancement of experience? One thing to note, I don't think it is Dolby Atmos because neither the actual movie files nor my sound system supports that.

I gathered around the specs here -

Apple Tv 4K

Video Format -

• H.264/HEVC SDR video up to 2160p, 60 fps, Main/Main 10 profile
• HEVC Dolby Vision (Profile 5)/HDR10 (Main 10 profile) up to 2160p
• H.264 Baseline Profile level 3.0 or lower with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats
• MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640x480 pixels, 30 fps, Simple profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats

Audio Format -

HE-AAC (V1), AAC (up to 320 Kbps), protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (up to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Apple Lossless, FLAC, AIFF and WAV; AC‑3 (Dolby Digital 5.1), E-AC‑3 (Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound) and Dolby Atmos.

Xbox One Original

Video Format -

AVI DivX, DV AVI, AVI uncompressed, AVI Xvid, H.264 AVCHD, M-JPEG, .mkv, .mov, MP3, MPEG-PS, MPEG-2, MPEG-2 HD, MPEG-2 TS, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, MPEG-4 SP, 3GP video, WMV, WMV HD

Audio Format -

Music, Video, and Container Formats: 3GP audio, 3GP2, AAC, ADTS, .asf, WAV, WMA, WMA Lossless, WMA Pro, WMA Voice,

Dolby 7.1 and Dolby Atmos

 

[waw74]

check the "reduce loud sounds" option in appleTV, this will reduce loud sounds (obviously) but since they are reduced, you can turn up the volume, and as a result, you "enhance quiet sounds" somewhat.
you get to the setting by "puling down" the menu from the top when playing video.
Once set, it should stay system wide. although some apps might not respect this, deepening on how they're coded. Plex does work with it.

another option
if you're going into an AV receiver, then there's a good chance each input has different settings.

another option.
In plex, you can see if it's Atmos or not, there should be a tag for both video and audio types, (for TV shows, you have to go to each episode to see this)
also in the same top menu as reduce loud sounds, you can go to "technical details" and see what kind of audio/video is being played, and if your server is having to transcode or not. (not sure where/if this is on Xbox)
you can also see this info on the dashboard on the plex webpage, you might want to compare there when playing on your different devices, it's possible there's a setting in one of your players, that's forcing plex to transcode the audio.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Even though gaming developers put a lot into sound, that's nothing compared to the investment film producers put into sound. Game sound is designed to be heard on headsets and home audio systems, film sound is designed for huge theater systems.

So it's not necessarily going to be a difference in the quality of the electronics in the two devices, or which audio protocols are supported (various surround systems vs plain stereo, for example), but the production quality of the audio.

Further, a game's audio is dynamically produced - background beds that play continuously, sound effects triggered by game action. The mix between music, effects, and any dialog is automated and fairly crude when compared to a film/video where the relationship between sounds is carefully crafted to match/underscore on-screen action that doesn't change from one viewing to the next.

 

[JWort93]

Even though gaming developers put a lot into sound, that's nothing compared to the investment film producers put into sound. Game sound is designed to be heard on headsets and home audio systems, film sound is designed for huge theater systems.

So it's not necessarily going to be a difference in the quality of the electronics in the two devices, or which audio protocols are supported (various surround systems vs plain stereo, for example), but the production quality of the audio.

Further, a game's audio is dynamically produced - background beds that play continuously, sound effects triggered by game action. The mix between music, effects, and any dialog is automated and fairly crude when compared to a film/video where the relationship between sounds is carefully crafted to match/underscore on-screen action that doesn't change from one viewing to the next.

While all true, I don't think that is what OP is talking about. They seem to be comparing the same content, in this case movies, on both, so the production quality of the audio wouldn't be the variable, but rather the audio output of the devices themselves. It's my understanding that both the Xbox One, and the Apple TV 4K, decode audio from streaming services into LPCM before outputting it, so it's very possible that the Apple TV 4K just does a better jobs of this, and is what OP is noticing.