It is only for streaming supposedly. Not for sale. But oddly I did have a release the other day that said only purchase on iTunes, not available on streaming, but then listed Spatial Audio, Dolby Atmos, on the audio traits!
Apple Music and TIDAL also provide Atmos. You can have a surround speaker setup in your home and it’ll be customized to your specific setup.
They are! Receivers (which are expensive, mind you) use the positional data included in the stream to adapt the audio to your home setup (or your earbuds/headphones, as it were, using binaural audio). Thus, it is actually a different recording, just like regular surround vs. stereo. [EDIT: your receiver must support streaming from the internet, from your service of choice.]
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I’m confused too. Ignore the sales page, get a copy of a file and feed it to a tool that can tell you what the file holds. It looks like we are using old language on a new file standard, but if it is read different on different hardware then that is relevant.
If it is an Apple only gimmick only available on Apple hardware on a stream, it needs annotating somewhere but I suddenly care a lot less.
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I tried to play it on my Apple TV and it produced silence. Literal silence. Not stereo version.
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Was it stereo silence? Or surround silence?
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…not that I’d know, but you can get rips of TIDAL Atmos files if you look hard enough. Hypothetically.
There’s also test Atmos video files. [EDIT: Ah, yes, here: https://thedigitaltheater.com/dolby-trailers/]
Spek and VLC also report the audio stream as E-AC-3, IIRC. That’s Atmos.
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Probably an invalid output. Perhaps it was expecting you to connect speakers directly to your Apple TV; or to your receiver, itself connected to your TV via HDMI-ARC, or optical cable.
Either way, of course Atmos doesn’t work on your TV speakers. It’s not like it can magically make the sound come from around you in a stereo setup. I’m guessing it won’t even try.
My point was that it needs the hardware to play anything. Note: this wasn’t a recording on a release, it was the actual preview for those who already had the proper equipment. So, the releases must have these separate files on them, but just hidden from those that don’t have the equipment hooked up. So, yeah, we are saying the same thing, really. Just pointing out that it’s not likely the same exact file, but maybe the releases have hidden files.
I realise there will be Atmos files out there. Not worrying about that. It is more about what you actually get from Apple if you pay for this stuff.
Problem is I am a bit lost from the conversation if I can’t put it onto my own equipment and play it offline in my bunker. Files are easier to define if you can look inside the digital container. But if you are listening to the stream on full Atmos kit with 16 speakers attached and it makes use of the positional audio, then that is different to getting a simple stereo feed. You are buying something different and should be noted.
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And I don’t understand why they won’t let you BUY the tracks, only stream them. I guess trying to cut down on pirates, etc.
Control of audio market, renting music, blah blah… but that is a different thread 
Picks up a vinyl record from 50 years ago knowing it is still the same as when it was purchased…
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I’m guessing because of licensing. In other words, Dolby probably wants a cut every single time a recording is played. Just like the very useless vaporware MQA. (The difference being that Atmos actually provides audio data. MQA makes it up on the spot.)
Vinyl degrades over time. But you knew that.
My digital library is still growing and it’s almost all lossless. The only limit is my DAC and speakers. (And dynamic range. Which is usually trash in digital mainstream music and it’s all due to deliberate mixing and mastering decisions. You can rip vinyls though, which solves both problems.)
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Yeah, it wears out, but I know that what I hear is the same and no one has removed a track or remixed it. Like you I convert to my own FLAC copy so it has been kept exactly the same for my ears. When the world ends, I can still be playing it in my bunker in the desert.
I would just get a little nervous when renting music from someone like Apple knowing that they do change systems and abandon the past. See Google Play Music.
I always find it funny that when Amazon started doing Kindle books they were giving out 1984 for free. Then suddenly one day they withdrew it from the library (copyright issues). And overnight everyone lost the book from their Kindles…
And to stay on topic - it seems to me that “Digital Media” doesn’t really cover music you can’t really own if all you can do is stream it. It needs a slightly different category.
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Do we really want separate releases for Dolby Atmos capable releases. I’m talking mainly about Apple Music releases that have a switch to go back & forth from stereo to Dolby Atmos. Tidal has this also. But it’s the same release, just has a toggle in the settings. Technically I suppose it is playing different recordings but couldn’t this information be added to the existing release somehow instead of creating a whole new release. Examples:
I know this is the same thing asked before, but I don’t think a clear decision was ever really decided. There doesn’t appear to be anyway to see the information about the “Dolby Atmos” or “spatial audio” traits other than they exist. The Apple Music pages all just show only the stereo versions with their ISRCs. Or maybe a way to link the 2? or have it set up similar to SACD?
Is there a way around it without some work to support multi-track releases? Atmos is - as I understand - up to 128 channels, so it’s a different recording like a 5.1 mix.
It is a different mix, as I’ve seen articles talking about the mixers creating a different mix, so it’s not wrong to create new recordings. But it’s the same release. We don’t create new releases for SACD subchannels, so this is basically like that.
Dolby Atmos recordings typically have a different mixing engineer than the stereo recording. Of course it has to be a separate release then.
SACD has some (admittedly ugly) support for identifying the different layers in the same release though. To have both the Atmos and Stereo recordings linked, you’d either need two media or a doubled-tracklist.
Going off the SACD, we could add “Digital Media (Atmos)” as a type I guess, but I think the ideal would be a way to have a tracklist linked to multiple sets of recordings. The latest Yes album has a Blu-ray with stereo, surround, atmos and intrumental mixes, and it would be a more accurate representation of how it works than the current 36-track spam…
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Why? They are the same release. They aren’t different. They have the same barcode. Same Apple Music URL. You are only assuming they have different mixing engineers. I’ve seen zero evidence of this. Most of the articles I’ve seen on this state that the mixing engineer for the stereo version is the same engineer for the Dolby Atmos mix. It’s just software decoding for the most part. But I’m not asking about different recordings. I’m asking about releases. SACD 5.1 subchannels, might have recordings by different mixers than the stereo versions on the same release. We don’t create a new release for that subchannel. So, if you want to add a second medium showing the Dolby Atmos mixes, ok, but I don’t think it should be a whole new release. There is no way to know the information on these Dolby Atmos mixes. All info on these releases pertains to the main stereo mixes on them, so we don’t even really know who the mixers are on the Dolby mixes. Most likely the same.