# Can the Bolt Output Dolby Vision & Dolby Atmos?



## zubinh (Jun 7, 2004)

Not sure if this has been answered already but before I plunk down some serious coin on an OLED TV and a Bolt, I'd just like to make sure that the Vudu app on the Bolt will output Dolby Vision and Atmos. Can anyone confirm?

Thanks!!


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## lujan (May 24, 2010)

Good question but I doubt that the answer is going to be "Yes"...


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

zubinh said:


> Not sure if this has been answered already but before I plunk down some serious coin on an OLED TV and a Bolt, I'd just like to make sure that the Vudu app on the Bolt will output Dolby Vision and Atmos. Can anyone confirm?
> 
> Thanks!!


The Vudu app on the Bolt does not even stream content in 4K. Like the majority of 4K devices with Vudu.

As far as Atmos, since it uses DD+ on Vudu for Atmos Content, and the Bolt can bitstream DD+, I would think Atmos will work. But since you can't stream the 4K content from Vudu yet on the Bolt. And only the 4K Vudu content has Atmos. There is no way to test it.


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## zubinh (Jun 7, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> The Vudu app on the Bolt does not even stream content in 4K. Like the majority of 4K devices with Vudu.
> 
> As far as Atmos, since it uses DD+ on Vudu for Atmos Content, and the Bolt can bitstream DD+, I would think Atmos will work. But since you can't stream the 4K content from Vudu yet on the Bolt. And only the 4K Vudu content has Atmos. There is no way to test it.


Thanks Aaron. I know the Roku 4 can do 4K and thought the Bolt would defintely do so. Tivo markets the Bolt as a 4k Unified Entertainment System and a major app like Vudu is not supported. Ridiculous. Any ETA for 4k Vudu?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

zubinh said:


> Thanks Aaron. I know the Roku 4 can do 4K and thought the Bolt would defintely do so. Tivo markets the Bolt as a 4k Unified Entertainment System and a major app like Vudu is not supported. Ridiculous. Any ETA for 4k Vudu?


No idea. Supposedly Roku had exclusivity to the Vudu4K content since early this year. And I know recently a TV manufacturer got access to 4K content on Vudu. So hopefully it starts showing up on other devices soon.


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## lujan (May 24, 2010)

aaronwt said:


> The Vudu app on the Bolt does not even stream content in 4K. Like the majority of 4K devices with Vudu.
> 
> As far as Atmos, since it uses DD+ on Vudu for Atmos Content, and the Bolt can bitstream DD+, I would think Atmos will work. But since you can't stream the 4K content from Vudu yet on the Bolt. And only the 4K Vudu content has Atmos. There is no way to test it.


You can actually test it using the Dolby Atmos examples which are HDX and not UHD. I'll would test it myself but I'm already at the 8 device limit so haven't activated Vudu on the Bolt.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> No idea. Supposedly Roku had exclusivity to the Vudu4K content since early this year.


4K VUDU launched with (presumably) timed exclusivity for Roku 4 and Vizio televisions (I have it on my 2014 Vizio P602ui-B3)

I had 4K VUDU on Bolt a few months back (I think) and posted about it here; it turned out to be a mistake and they disabled it. The UI had at least one visible bug--the rent/purchase overlayed dialog had a translucent background, making it slightly difficult to read (EDIT: I notice that bug is now in the current app's UI). There was also no UHD collection, as there in the app on this TV.



lujan said:


> You can actually test it using the Dolby Atmos examples which are HDX and not UHD.


Untrue--you only get Atmos with UHD. I tested the 2-minute sample of a few titles which have Atmos in UHD on TiVo (_Batman v Superman_, _Man of Steel_ and _Edge of Tomorrow_) and there's no mention of Atmos in the UIs of TiVo Bolt or Roku 3. If you look at "More Info" for the titles on UHD capable devices it shows that the SD, HD and HDX options have DD+ and the UHD option has Atmos; there's no choice of audio format when you play them. I don't know why, since there's Atmos on the 1080p BDs for those films.


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## lujan (May 24, 2010)

mikeyts said:


> ...
> 
> Untrue--you only get Atmos with UHD. I tested the 2-minute sample of a few titles which have Atmos in UHD on TiVo (_Batman v Superman_, _Man of Steel_ and _Edge of Tomorrow_) and there's no mention of Atmos in the UIs of TiVo Bolt or Roku 3. If you look at "More Info" for the titles on UHD capable devices it shows that the SD, HD and HDX options have DD+ and the UHD option has Atmos; there's no choice of audio format when you play them. I don't know why, since there's Atmos on the 1080p BDs for those films.


No, it is true that you can test Atmos as I've been using these Atmos examples for more than a year which was before Vudu even had UHD movies available. Here is the Vudu link? Of course it will only work if you have an Atmos capable AVR.

http://www.vudu.com/movies/#!content/638505/The-Dolby-Atmos-Experience


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

mikeyts said:


> 4K VUDU launched with (presumably) timed exclusivity for Roku 4 and Vizio televisions (I have it on my 2014 Vizio P602ui-B3)
> 
> I had 4K VUDU on Bolt a few months back (I think) and posted about it here; it turned out to be a mistake and they disabled it. The UI had at least one visible bug--the rent/purchase overlayed dialog had a translucent background, making it slightly difficult to read (EDIT: I notice that bug is now in the current app's UI). There was also no UHD collection, as there in the app on this TV.
> 
> Untrue--you only get Atmos with UHD. I tested the 2-minute sample of a few titles which have Atmos in UHD on TiVo (_Batman v Superman_, _Man of Steel_ and _Edge of Tomorrow_) and there's no mention of Atmos in the UIs of TiVo Bolt or Roku 3. If you look at "More Info" for the titles on UHD capable devices it shows that the SD, HD and HDX options have DD+ and the UHD option has Atmos; there's no choice of audio format when you play them. I don't know why, since there's Atmos on the 1080p BDs for those films.


From the Roku 4, the Vudu UHD titles with Atmos will show up as 7.1 DD+ in my non Atmos system. And the bitrate is much higher than the 5.1 DD+ tracks with the HDX stream.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

lujan said:


> No, it is true that you can test Atmos as I've been using these Atmos examples for more than a year which was before Vudu even had UHD movies available. Here is the Vudu link? Of course it will only work if you have an Atmos capable AVR.
> 
> http://www.vudu.com/movies/#!content/638505/The-Dolby-Atmos-Experience


I'm sorry--I didn't read your text very thoroughly. What I see on TiVo Bolt (and Roku 3) for that collection of shorts is DD+ 7.1, like aaronwt sees on Roku 4. I have an Atmos capable AVR.


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## lujan (May 24, 2010)

mikeyts said:


> I'm sorry--I didn't read your text very thoroughly. What I see on TiVo Bolt (and Roku 3) for that collection of shorts is DD+ 7.1, like aaronwt sees on Roku 4. I have an Atmos capable AVR.


The last time I tested it on the Roku 3, it produced Atmos sound and the Roku 3 is not UHD capable. I haven't tested it on the Roku 3 for several months. I just tested it on the Bolt with an Onkyo Atmos receiver and it only produced 5.1 DD so apparently Atmos does not work with the Bolt.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

lujan said:


> The last time I tested it on the Roku 3, it produced Atmos sound and the Roku 3 is not UHD capable. I haven't tested it on the Roku 3 for several months. I just tested it on the Bolt with an Onkyo Atmos receiver and it only produced 5.1 DD so apparently Atmos does not work with the Bolt.


I just purchased those Atmos test titles for zero dollars. They are all showing up as 7.1 DD+(384kbps at 48khz) from my Bolt in my setup.

EDIT: The Unfold title audio is showing up as 576kbps. Which is the audio bitrate I see from the 7.1 UHD titles I checked out on the ROku 4.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

The Nvidia Shield TV (the leading Android TV box) just got Vudu with support for 4K (but not HDR) video and Dolby Atmos audio pass-through in that app.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> I just purchased those Atmos test titles for zero dollars. They are all showing up as 7.1 DD+(384kbps at 48khz) from my Bolt in my setup.
> 
> EDIT: The Unfold title audio is showing up as 576kbps. Which is the audio bitrate I see from the 7.1 UHD titles I checked out on the ROku 4.


How do you see the audio bit rate? Your AVR tells you?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

mikeyts said:


> How do you see the audio bit rate? Your AVR tells you?


Yes. My Sony speaker bar shows the audio bitrate.


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## zubinh (Jun 7, 2004)

I think the logical route to take is to keep my Roamio and use the streaming services available from the OLED. Wont have to change inputs. The built in LG apps should be Dolby Vision compatible. For Atmos sound, I could either use the TV's Optical Output or use the Audio Return Channel feature. Will this Work???


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

No, it won't work. By spec, all that can be sent over S/PDIF (your TV's optical out) is basic DD, basic DTS and 2 channel LPCM; ARC has the same limitations. If it's like my TV, the VUDU app will output basic DD 5.1 from the television. I'm not sure whether it gets Atmos and converts it or VUDU sends basic DD to the television though its info overlay says that it's outputting Atmos.


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## zubinh (Jun 7, 2004)

mikeyts said:


> No, it won't work. By spec, all that can be sent over S/PDIF (your TV's optical out) is basic DD, basic DTS and 2 channel LPCM; ARC has the same limitations. If it's like my TV, the VUDU app will output basic DD 5.1 from the television. I'm not sure whether it gets Atmos and converts it or VUDU sends basic DD to the television though its info overlay says that it's outputting Atmos.


Damn. That blows.


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## tneison (Jul 15, 2012)

I can confirm that via the VUDO app I also played the Atmos demo samples and my AVR recognize the Atmos format fine.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

tneison said:


> I can confirm that via the VUDO app I also played the Atmos demo samples and my AVR recognize the Atmos format fine.


That's interesting. The VUDU app on Bolt doesn't even say that the clips have Atmos sound for me; it says that I'll get AVR Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 and that's what I get. I don't have height speakers connected to my Onkyo TX-NR646, but I've set the speaker configuration to 5.1.2.

Strangely today they don't show up as having Atmos sound in my television's VUDU app, which they did yesterday.


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## Chris Blount (Nov 1, 2003)

This was one of the first things I checked when I got my Bolt last week. The Atmos demos in the Vudu app work fine through my Pioneer Atmos enabled DVR.


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## zubinh (Jun 7, 2004)

Chris Blount said:


> This was one of the first things I checked when I got my Bolt last week. The Atmos demos in the Vudu app work fine through my Pioneer Atmos enabled DVR.


Thanks for confirming. So the only thing Bolt is lacking is the 4K. Why is Vudu limiting 4k to Vizio TVs and the Roku 4?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

zubinh said:


> Thanks for confirming. So the only thing Bolt is lacking is the 4K. Why is Vudu limiting 4k to Vizio TVs and the Roku 4?


Most likely because they paid for an exclusivity window.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

zubinh said:


> Thanks for confirming. So the only thing Bolt is lacking is the 4K. Why is Vudu limiting 4k to Vizio TVs and the Roku 4?


It might also be lacking HDR, supposedly a much bigger deal, PQ-wise, than 4K resolution.


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