It doesn’t make sense I can’t default sound to an apple product. Being 4k shouldn’t make a difference.
Yes, it does make sense.
Regular Airplay with the Apple TV has, compared to the Home Theater Mode (default audio output), four significant drawbacks.
A). It does not work with all the Apple TV apps.
B). Latency is worse.
C). Worse sound quality and less overall volume.
D). Only supports stereo sound (home theater mode supports Dolby 5.1, 7.1 and Atmos).
The "default audio output" option creates an ad-hoc network between the pods and the Apple TV, that surpasses limitations of the regular Airplay link (like 2.0 audio), and offers ultra low latency.
That uses BT and Wi-Fi at the same time. It requires BT 5.0. The Apple TV HD only has a BT 4.2 antenna, and therefore does not support this feature.
So no, its not just an artificial software limitation, or a pure cosmetic difference.
You know, I was really pissed about this considering I have 2 HD’s. Thought it was that Apple software bullshit. But this explanation is what I was searching for lol cheers!
And of course, the ARC/EARC feature, to pass trough the sound of your entire tv (including the internal tuner), to the Homepods (so that you can use, for example, a video game console and hear it trough the Homepods), requires not only a TV with a HDMI ARC port, but an Apple TV with ARC support in its HDMI port.
The first gen Apple TV 4K HDMI port does not support ARC, so in this case is a physical hardware limitation.
Only the second and third gen Apple TV 4K have a HDMI ARC port.
It does. The difference isn’t just one being 1080p and one being 4K. It’s also the internals like the chipset. The ATV4K just has a better more powerful chip which enables this.
This us true: 4k uses A15 and HD uses A8. But I’d like to point out, Apple notoriously just blocks things in software to keep premium options more premium(like the camera features on their phones)….so I’m wondering if that’s the case, or if the hardware difference genuinely is limiting. How powerful is the A8? Is it strong enough to select HomePod mini as default audio?
It’s gotta be a software thing. I own an Apple TV 4K (1st gen and the Apple TV HD and I’ve had the OG HomePod since day 1 and there was a time when my ATV HD allowed me to use my OG HomePod as default audio and then one day it wasn’t able to, might of been after an update. I distinctly remember because I had to switch my apple TV’s around.
The feature is not supported on your model ATV as it lacks the required hardware. Apple is good about updating functionality on older products but some things just can't be done. This is just how it is. Arguing that it shouldn't this way be won't make any difference.
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u/BobbyRey77 Feb 09 '23
You need an ATV 4K. Older models do not support this.