A developer has built a workaround that lets the third-generation Apple TV 4K play movie soundtracks made with Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Atmos. The device officially supports Dolby Digital Plus, a more compressed format commonly used by streaming services. Dolby TrueHD is used on Blu-rays and is lossless.
The process does not send TrueHD directly to the Apple TV. It decodes the audio and Atmos positioning data separately, renders them for a fixed 9.1.6-channel speaker setup, then converts the result to Apple’s Positional Audio Codec (APAC) for playback through tvOS. APAC is not lossless, so the output is not identical to the source format. The developer, Reddit user Agathorpt, and other users have described the results as impressive.
Agathorpt said the project aims to offer an open-source alternative to the closed-source Native Player app, so others can inspect and improve the implementation. The developer credited existing projects, particularly Superuser404notfound’s work on the AetherEngine media engine and LibTrueHD object audio decoder, and said they did not write those projects.
Reproducing the setup requires a Mac, Apple’s Xcode development software, an Apple developer account, movie files with 48kHz TrueHD Atmos audio, and an Apple TV 4K running tvOS 26 or later. The approach has been proposed for addition to the Nuvio player, but users currently have to build it themselves. The source says it is assumed to work with the newly announced Apple TV 4K (2026), but does not confirm compatibility.
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