Dolby Atmos audio drop out

[M3rk]

@Dac20vt , 

yeah, its weird , even my daughters TV suffers when I did a bit of home testing through her Apple TV.

Quick google search on Dolby Atmos dropouts shows sky aren’t the only ones, my only point was to manage people’s expectations, thinking it’s just Sky, move somewhere else / buy a different bit of kit and it still happen.

[Dac20vt]

I understand why you'd raise them but all that's going to do is give Sky an excuse to shrug their shoulders when there is clearly an issue with their hardware 

[Ellie_TV]

Good quality, shielded cabling and an interference-free network are important for passing high-bandwidth audio streams without issue. 

I have used a Sky Stream puck, an Apple TV 4K (gen3) box and a Homatics Android TV box regularly over the past few years and have only had perhaps one or two Atmos drop-outs in that time. Both came from the Stream puck and were likely caused by small speed fluctuations in my home broadband network or a server-side issue at Sky's end. 

The Atmos decoding device is also a critical part of the chain. Be it a soundbar, a TV, or an AV receiver, they can all suffer from random electrical interference or processing slow-downs which can cause drop-outs.

A cheap soundbar may have Dolby Atmos decoding capability but there's no guarantee it can decode a Dolby Atmos stream effectively at the speed necessary to keep it in sync with the picture. Most need to regularly flush their cache in order to keep up with the incoming audio stream, decode it and output it to the speakers. If they don't have sufficient processing power to maintain such a process then occasional drop-outs can occur. In such a case, it is not the source device which is at fault, it is the soundbar. 

I'm not saying Sky aren't at fault here, they clearly have acknowledged issues with Dolby Atmos, but for an effective Dolby Atmos presentation in your own home you need to look at every component you use in your A/V setup.  

[Castiel109]

I have £20k worth of home theatre equipment , it still gets drop outs with Sky stream. 

[Dazzasky]

Still getting the drop outs so still not fixed in the  latest update. 

[papagray1706]

i am having the same problem suddenly the puck stops broadcasting sound its connected to my phillips tv directly with 2.1 cable and you tube is freezing i have cleared the history and memory still freezing only started this last week before no problems  but the sound stopping for no reason is very frustrating using hi-speen fibre to the unit  from fritz box (no problems elsewhere all workin fine and fast) connections are okay its this stupid box not enough tech done on it they should look at the nvidia boxes they cracked these problem 5 years ago

[Bright6]

I think at this point it's pretty safe to say this problem will not get fixed. Sadly I'll be cancelling my sub and sending the box back.

[Nigelb1972]

Leicester Vs Man City on 903, 3 drops in the first 8 minutes 🙄. 

PS5 watching a UHD Blu-ray which is pushing a lot more data through, zero drops during a 2 and half hour film...

Oops correction, 4 drops in 14 minutes 

[gpb156]

Interestingly just got through Carry-On on Netflix with Dolby Atmos, 2 hour movie and no drop outs. Not sure if that's a good sign or not?

[Nigelb1972]

@gpb156 Netflix run a lot higher compression than Sky and most other streaming platforms which leads me to believe that this is an issue at Sky's end rather than a hardware issue. 

[PEJasp]

It's a sky puck issue, either the hardware isn't good enough or the software isn't good enough, but it's been going on for ages(years) now. 

They either don't know, don't care or are not competent enough to fix it.

[Nigelb1972]

@PEJasp the hardware is used worldwide by other companies in the Comcast Group and the front end is practically the same apart from the Sky branding on the UI and there are no issues being reported elsewhere which would mean there is a potential issue elsewhere in IT side of things.

After my initial 3 or 4 drops yesterday during the football, it was rock solid for the rest of the game.

[PEJasp]

Somehow these units don't work, I've given up Apple TV and nowtv is my future 

[Nigelb1972]

Errrrmmm lads... After getting severely peed off earlier with audio drops on iPlayer via the puck, I went on the internet aaaaaaand I've found that Dolby Digital Plus as the Audio output in the Stream settings might be the correct one rather than Pass Through..  

After watching Great British Menu with out issue, I hit play on Rings of Power on Prime in UHD, and not a single drop out in 2 hours.

The only difference is my Soundbar is displaying Auto Audio rather Atmos but from the clarity and wide sound scape, I'd say it's definitely kicking out Atmos. 

I also went wading through the Dolby Audio page and they're even saying that Dolby Digital Plus is the one as it contains codecs for all their audio systems in one. So if you're amp/soundbar supports Dolby Digital Plus, can we give it a go and see how it goes because it's possible that we had been given some duff settings advice previously...

[Scrumpet]

Hello. Posting here in April 2025.

I have an LG G4 tied to an LG G1 Soundbar. This issue is driving me up the wall. I've tried new cables, multiple modes (Dolby digital, digital plus, pass through) and all manner of different on TV settings. Nothing stops the issue. Sound and TV perfect through TV apps. Have 150mbps internet too. Just not having it.

Desperatley want a solution for this. Really ruining the viewing experience.