Dolby Atmos not working on iPhones using iOS 15

[ericlifs]

Bug

After we upgraded our iPhone devices to the latest iOS 15, we noticed that the Dolby Atmos feature stopped working. This feature is working perfectly on iPad devices using iOS 15 and even on iPhone devices that are using a previous iOS (14.7 for example).

There are two different possible outcomes audio wise:

• Purely static audio => Non Atmos audio
• Two steps static audio that alternate each 1 second => Atmos audio

The expected behavior is to get the latter on all iPhone devices (that have this feature enabled like iPhone X, 11, 12, 13) regardless of the iOS they are using.

Platform

Which player are you experiencing the problem on:

• iOS 15
• iPhone X and above

Reproducible sample code

const { width } = Dimensions.get('window');

const App = () => {

  return (
    <Video
        style={{ width, height: (width * 9) / 16 }}
        source={{
          uri: 'https://ott.dolby.com/OnDelKits/DDP/Dolby_Digital_Plus_Online_Delivery_Kit_v1.5/Test_Signals/muxed_streams/HLS/Manifest_fMP4/Audio_ID_720p_50fps_h264_special_6ch_640kbps_ddp_joc.m3u8',
        }}
        muted={false}
        paused={false}
        repeat
     />
  )
}

Video sample

You can use the following asset for testing https://ott.dolby.com/OnDelKits/DDP/Dolby_Digital_Plus_Online_Delivery_Kit_v1.5/Test_Signals/muxed_streams/HLS/Manifest_fMP4/Audio_ID_720p_50fps_h264_special_6ch_640kbps_ddp_joc.m3u8

[Fedeorlandau]

I'm able to replicate this. Thank you for raising this bug.

[Fedeorlandau]

We found out that this is an iOS 15 issue not related to react-native-video. People at Apple broke spatial audio even in safari.

We've raised a bug report and sent it their way.

[Fedeorlandau]

PR: valtech-sd#11

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions. If you are having a similar problem, please open a new issue and reference this one instead of commenting on a stale or closed issue.