Developer brings Dolby TrueHD Atmos to Apple TV 4K via custom build

Reddit user Agathorpt devised a way to play lossless Dolby TrueHD with Atmos on the third-gen Apple TV 4K by decoding the audio, rendering object metadata to a 9.1.6 layout and re-encoding it into Apple's APAC codec for native tvOS 26 playback. The method requires a Mac, Xcode and a developer account, and has been proposed as an extension to the Nuvio media player.

• Apple TV 4K officially supports only Dolby Digital Plus, not TrueHD
• Pipeline: TrueHD Atmos → decode + metadata → 9.1.6 render → APAC → tvOS
• Building it requires a Mac, Xcode, a developer account and tvOS 26+
• Proposed as an open-source alternative to the closed Native Player app