Apple TV Audio

[Ben Herbert]

Hi all, I'm new to Jellyfin after years of being with Plex but have completely lost faith in them after them not fixing the playback issues on the ATV so thought I would give Jellyfin a try!

The first issue I'm trying to fix is that I don't get any sound when playing either TrueHD 7.1 or DTS MA 5.1, but these play fine through Plex, is there a setting a need to adjust for them to play?

[jimmyjammy]

Are you using Swiftfin as the client on the ATV ? It's a great player but, I believe, it still has issues with some sound formats. You might want to use "Infuse 7" as your client on the ATV. It will handle both TrueHD 7.1 & DTS MA 5.1 as well as "Direct-Play" pretty much any video format.
Cheers ! 

[Ben Herbert]

Are you using Swiftfin as the client on the ATV ? It's a great player but, I believe, it still has issues with some sound formats. You might want to use "Infuse 7" as your client on the ATV. It will handle both TrueHD 7.1 & DTS MA 5.1 as well as "Direct-Play" pretty much any video format.
Cheers ! 

I am using Swiftfin. I downloaded Infuse too which is working well but I preferred the interface on Jellyfin, looks like I'll have to stick with Plex and just use Infuse for playing media. How is it Infuse can do it no problem but both Plex and Swimfin have problems playing media on Apple TV?!

[jimmyjammy]

I hear what you're saying - I like Swiftfin's interface too. It is actively developed so will improve with time. Apple TV, I believe, is notoriously hard to work on because of it's lack of support for many video/audio codecs among other things. Plex has moved towards being more of a commercial streaming service & away from being a private media hub. It does not support direct playback for many codecs like TrueHD & DTS & requires your machine to transcode for playback on their "client" apps. Most machines are just not powerful enough to successfully transcode/transmit some files smoothly. You'll likely have problems with HDR & HEVC content as well. Infuse (Firecore) has been around for years & originally, supplied the only way to install Plex (I have a Lifetime mebership) on an Apple TV. They developed software called ATV flash that would jailbreak your ATV & allow you to install Plex (before it was available on the App store). Plex, Emby & now Jellyfin are media servers that require a host machine to be running the server software & client apps to handle playback on various devices (ATV, iPhone,Android etc.) Firecore (Infuse) took a different approach & developed a stand-alone native player that does not require a media server to be running. They concentrate on keeping that player compatible with all the various codecs available (requires a lot of work). It is actively developed & updates occur regularly. The combination of Jellyfin (Server) & Infuse 7 has provided me with the best playback experience on the Apple TV that I've ever had. Everything (except for the odd .avi or .mpg file) seems to "Direct play". Plex does have some advantages but they do not make up for consistent playback problems. Really, after a long day, I just want to relax & watch something without any problems. I love Jellyfin's interface & prefer it too but if you tinker around with Infuse's settings there are a lot of options, that are not apparent at first, to customize it's interface. At $12/year, it's very reasonable - I pay more than that to Apple just to keep my photos in iCloud - these are the only 2 subscriptions I bother with. Anyways, I hope this clarifies some things.
Cheers ! jj.