What device or TV box do you have?

It depends if the files you have are lossless (Dolby Atmos inside Dolby TrueHD) or lossy (Dolby Atmos inside Dolby Digital Plus).

If you only have files with the former, then the only Android TV device with that support is the Nvidia Shield.

If you only have files with the latter, then nearly every Android TV box or Television with Android 9 and above have support for it.

Apps you can use:

- Kodi

- Plex

- Emby

- VLC

- MX Player

- Nova Video Player

In kodi you have to set settings to expert and enable passthrough and all relevant codecs (trueHD atmos, DTS:HD/MA, DTS:X etc.) in audio settings.

I wish it supported this, I dont care for Atmos, but im told with Atmos you get AC4 audio, which most OTA 4K Broadcasts use. I have a 4K tuner and none of the 4K channels provide audio because none of my media players (MiBoxS, Chromecast w/GTV, nVidia Shield, Raspberry Pi4 w/LibreELEC, Windows10 using HDHR app, etc) support AC4 audio. I'm not about to piss away $400 for a Atmos sound bar.

Thanks everyone for their responses. Here are the results of some files I tested.

My Setup

• Smart TV running Android TV 9 (Sony X9000H, aka X90H / X900H) Specs
• 5.1.2 Surround Speaker Set (LG SN8YG 3.1.2 Soundbar + LG SPK8-S 2.0 rear speaker kit) Specs
• Demo Files from https://thedigitaltheater.com/

Baseline, running Greyhoud off AppleTV+

• Soundbar Displays "Dolby Atmos", I can hear distinct sound out of the rear and up-firing speakers.
• Picture Mode "Dolby Vision Bright" and "Dolby Vision Dark" are available

Kodi

Put Settings to Expert, Settings / System / Audio / Audio Passthrough: enabled Dolby Digital (AC3), DD Plus (E-AC3), DTS, DTS-HD (re u/Chipplie : I had to enable expert settings as u/hboinay point out).

• Dolby AC3 5.1 => ✅
• Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Atmos => ✅, soundbar displays "Dolby Atmos"
• Dolby TrueHD 5.1 / 7.1 / Atmos => ❌, playing stereo sound
• DTS-HD HR 7.1 => ✅
• DTS-HD MA 5.1 => ❌, surround audio, but stutters a lot
• DTS-HD MA 7.1 => ✅
• DTS:X => ❌, stutters a lot too
• DTS 5.1 => ✅

This seems to confirm what u/latinriky78 said, although I don't know why DTS-HA HR and MA 7.1 worked, but MA 5.1 didn't...

Other players

• Nova (re u/venkatx5)
  • Without passthrough: delivers stereo
  • Settings > enable Passthrough: Works where Kodi does, where Kodi delivered stereo or stuttered, Nova doesn't play any sound.
  • => It seems to me Kodi knows when it can pass stuff though (AC3, DD+), and when it has to use a software decoder and only deliver stereo (TrueHD), but fails at times with that prediction (DTS-HD MA, DTX:X)
• Plex / Emby (re u/myworkaccount24 and u/TeutonJon78 ) => Require running a server, I tried Plex, but it keeps my NAS' disks from sleeping
• VLC => Couldn't get it to pass through, despite turning on the setting
• MX Player => Didn't play audio on surround sound files, even though passthrough was enabled

As a conclusion, it seems Kodi does passthrough where it can and decodes itself where the hardware doesn't support it (even though it fails on some formats like that DTS:X sample). Other players seem to have more shortcomings or I missed a configuration option.

Look into EMBY

Kodi can definitely pass through Atmos sound, you just need to enable ‘Audio pass through’ in the settings.

NovaPlayer - The Ultimate player for Android TVs.

I appreciate the time and effort you've put into this. I have the Sony xh900 with the JBL 9.1 (5.1.4) bar. I've been going around in circles trying to find a solution and your thread is closest I've found. I just don't understand how an Atmos demo will play Atmos through the native video player but it can't through Kodi or VLC?

Anyway... I look forward to a future solution.

Edit: I'd forgotten that I already replied to this thread 2 weeks ago 🤷🏻‍♂️😂