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What Mac media player app for lossy streaming Atmos - decode and play?

S

serr

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 8, 2010
257
29
Is there a media player app recommendation that decodes and plays the lossy Atmos encoded streamed audio?
I currently use the Dolby reference player app for lossless Atmos encoded audio from bluray and downloads.

Let me be very clear about this part:
I am not interested in hardware decoding for Atmos! I am aware that this is intended to be restricted like this for lossless Atmos to force decoding hardware AV receiver sales. I finagled the actual reference player from the mouth of the beast for that. I intend to never purchase hardware to get access hidden software.

But lossy streaming Atmos!
What media player will decode it?
Or am I supposed to point it to the Dolby reference player? It looks to be file based... So how would one pipe a stream to it?
Or is there something easier recommended?

If unlocking any controls requires a subscription, can someone spell that out specifically?

Again, I'm NOT going to be doing pass through to a hardware device with the Atmos decoders hidden inside. I need a streaming friendly media player app that can decode a 7.1.4 Atmos encoded stream into 12 channel output. (And the lesser channel formats appropriately.)
I DO know about leaving the audio output device of choice with no output channel format selected (in Audio MIDI Setup) to 'trick' MacOS into not muting the Atmos height channels when using standard media players other than DRP.

Anything that works in any version of MacOS High Sierra through Sonoma is welcome!
(I generally flip between High Sierra and Monterey but I can run any of them.)

Thanks!
 
T'hain Esh Kelch said:
Infuse might possibly be able to do it. Atmos support requires a subscription as far as I can see.
Click to expand...
Thanks! I see claims it maxes out at 7.1 (max 8 channels). I also see discussion on pass-through to decode with an Apple TV and none on software decoding. But I'll try it and report back anyway.

It does occur to me that there may literally be no media player available. Dolby going hard pushing hardware decoding and all. How hard is it to make an incoming audio stream appear like a .mlp file and pipe it to the Dolby reference player?
 
The Infuse developers are very forthcoming and active on their forums, so you can quickly talk to them using their support pages, and see if your requirements would be something they would add.
Or perhaps @firecore could answer themselves here.
 
I think what you're asking for is 12 channels of PCM audio, is that right?

Currently, the Apple TV maxes out at 8ch (7.1) for PCM audio. Using Atmos allows you to get 7.1 + Atmos channels, but that is different than 12 discrete PCM channels.

Theoretically this may be possible using a Mac, but this isn't supported in Infuse at this time. It also raises the question of what audio devices will support 12 channels of PCM audio (not tagged as Atmos). I wasn't able to find a clear answer on this, but I did find some discussion on the topic.
 
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