Okay thanks for the answer both of you. Really is a shame, since many people are using Spatial Audio on TvOS.
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One of my friends is experiencing exactly the same.
Is there a workaround? I donāt have an Apple TV 4K myself.
None whatsoever. Nor have we had any indication that the issue is even acknowledged.
Your friendās only options at the current time areā¦
- Stop using HomePods for audio output.
- Install Infuse with has a far better playback engine than Plex on both tvOS and iOS. It can connect to Plex.
Theyāre also working on (in beta) a better way to connect to the Plex database.
The downsides of Infuse are itās not as pretty as the Plex UI.
It costsā¦ roughly Ā£/$/ā¬1 a month if your friend wanted to try it. (Ā£10 a year)
The positives. It has none of the playback issues that the native Plex client has, including using HomePods/AirPods.
Support is actually present every day and they fix issues pretty quickly.
UPDATE. It seems like the various issues on Apple devices are finally getting some attention.
Where do you see the issues are being addressed?
Take a look in this thread
The Plex employee if you search his post history is recently getting involved In a lot of Apple related threads.
So āAddressedā may be too early to say.
But at least someone is noticing now.
He confirmed in another thread heās aware of the lack of Spatial Surround.
I asked this in the fireside chat happening right now. Should be interesting. Plex Fireside in the Forums - #37 by chrisallen
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@Xhaka and @SUPERBIF I myself am looking into these issues, as I want to see them resolved as much as you do. I will say I appreciate the helpfulness of folk so far as am actively working on these issues and will be sure to keep you updated!
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This is great to see. I find myself switching to a different dvr only to find myself back in the Plex ecosystem a few days later (thanks Docker!). Infuse is an option, but to be honest, the few days where spatial support was available, it made my days!
Since itās a switch, any way that it can be an option that can be turned on in the TestFlight version? Iām willing to help whichever way I can.
Are you referring to having a toggle in the iOS app? If you mean the tvOS app, there is already a āaudio engineā setting in the app.
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May I ask as itās related to Spatial Audio.
I think I saw a comment in the Fireside thread regarding the native upcoming Profile 8 DV support where I think you (or another member of Plex staff) suggested they would probably be treated in the same way as Profile 5 and would use the Old video player?
So would using the old video player mean they would also have to use the old audio player (so therefore no spatial audio)?
I have never been sure if the new audio engine is reliant on the new video engine.
Hope that makes senseā¦Itās been a long day 
Are you referring to having a toggle in the iOS app? If you mean the tvOS app, there is already a āaudio engineā setting in the app.
I believe there was previously a toggle in the iOS beta (back in version 8.21(6217) that got disabled on the Plex side when it was reported that media with a TrueHD audio track selected would not play (playback would just freeze or crash the app).
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Yes! Iām sorry for not being clear.
There was indeed.
The new audio engine was pulled straight away in iOS. I wasnāt aware of the the exact reason stated. But think it originally was also somehow linked to Spatial Audio being broken and causing some issues.
I know for a fact that we were told l that in tvOS the new audio player would remain because āpeople only use AirPods with mobile devicesā
That was bizarre in itself.
I did some searching and looks like your right that we disabled it for iOS as that was were AirPods get more use.
I could ask what it would take to add a preference to enable it in iOS, but I suspect folk wound run into similar issues that tvOS users are seeing with it enabled.
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To be honest I was all for having it disabled in tvOS at the time because itās causing the stutter issues, the issue with HomePods audio drops and more. Multi-Channel spatial audio working would be great, but from my point of view far less of an important issue for now.
That was obviously all before you became so active in trying to solve all the issues.
I would have been curious especially, to try AirPlay from my iOS or iPad to my HomePods to see if the audio dropouts were still there. (Not a scenario I ever use really, but more out of curiosity)
@chrisallen Thanks for looking at this topic, since itās been going on for a long time.
I only use Spatial Audio on TVOS and only bought the Airpods Max because I was going to use it with Apple TV. Itās the only Apple appliances I have, normally I use Android, but because of Spatial Audio and smaller kids, that seemed to be an ideal option.
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Meanwhile while we wonder if we ever get Multi-Channel spatial audio in Plex, Infuse have just tagged Atmos spatial audio as āresearchingā
In Infuse speak that means theyāre actively looking at whatās possible to implement with Atmos and AirPods.
Came across this discussion while searching for lack of Plexās Mutichannel support for iOS. Being a rookie in this whole discussion, can somebody summarize to me why this feature was disabled ?
Also, why following the following guide enables Multichannel for iOS on Old Video Player ?:
So youāre saying at one point in the past you actually had multi channel spatial on iOS in Plex?
I only really use spatial audio with my Apple TV and have never seen multi channel spatial audio with Plex.
EDIT.
Actually never mind. I think itās all come back to me now.
If I recall there was some issue with the new audio player being mass reported. Iām pretty sure it was specifically regarding spatial audio. Thatās why they disabled the new audio engine on iOS.
They left it enabled on tvOS because (and Iām pretty much paraphrasing here as I canāt be bothered looking for the direct quote from one of the top brass) nobody really uses spatial audio on a tv based device.
Laughable if it wasnāt so pathetic. This was all several months ago.
Unrelated to the topic but related to the fact that barely anyone at Plex even owns an Apple device is AirPlay.
On Apple TV nobody but nobody can use HomePods with the (still enabled) new audio engine without audio cutting out after a minute or two. It was admitted then that nobody at Plex even owns HomePods.
We had a few noises a month or so ago about Plex commitment to ironing out all the issues on Apple devices and now itās back to the usual radio silence it seems. Which means for now itās back to Infuse for me.
As a further side note while on Apple TV and iOS Plex canāt do spatial multi channel audio and what should be spatial stereo is just stereo, Infuse are actively working on support for spatial Atmos. (Iām assuming here it will just be for EAC3 Atmos (JOC) and not True-HD Atmos but Iāll take it.)
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@chrisallen: Any news on your findings?
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