On today's episode of You Asked how can you find out if you're getting 4K or HDR on your TV why is
Dolby Atmos music so hard to get are there any decent universal remotes anymore all of that
and more coming right up welcome back everyone I'm Caleb Denison and this is You Asked the show where
I answer questions that you asked in hopes that I can help you and others who have similar Tech
question questions if you've got a question for me please send it to youasked@digitaltrends.com
and let's see if your question gets picked to be answered on the show and let me just emphasize
real quick here that your question has its best shot of getting answered if you send it to that
us asked email because my email and DMS are absolutely overwhelmed and it's hard to filter
through those increasingly I'm just relying on that email box to find questions to answer I love
talking with you all on social media when I can but when it comes to this show when it's time to
sit down and find the questions I'm going straight to that inbox so please use it tell a friend in
need and guys thanks for sending the questions I wish I could answer all of them but we can
only fit so many in a show speaking of I'm wasting valuable time so let's get to it we'll start with
one that came in from John Angstrom who John is this your second time getting a question answered
that's like VIP status my dude anyway John writes just got a Sony X90L and was wondering how to get
the TV to show me the resolution and the format of the input signal HDMI or streaming app is there a
button on the remote that will show me that info or possibly somewhere in the menu I haven't found
it yet but it seems like it has to be there somewhere John you would think that button or
menu item exists because those kinds of buttons and info screens used to be fairly common but to
the best of my knowledge it does not anymore at least not on Sony TVs and honestly anecdotally
I feel like most TV manufacturers have stopped making that kind of information available or if
they do it's buried deep in a menu somewhere as with all things tech though there are sometimes
hacks we can use to figure it out or at least give ourselves some assurances that we're getting the
signal that we want one of them involves having an AV receiver that can read the eded that's short
for extended display identification data and would provide you that info or you could spend
thousands on a device like the ones merido makes for video professionals I'm assuming you're not
interested in any of that so for the format SDR, HDR, HDR10, Dolby Vision, HLG all that stuff the best
way to find out what you're getting is to click this wrench icon on your Sony remote then click
picture and sound scroll down to picture and click that and then look in the upper right if it's HDR
it'll say HDR if it's SDR it will say nothing as for resolution I don't have anything there
for you I mean if you're on YouTube you can check the resolution and even force it to the one that
you want by clicking up then going over to the settings cog icon and selecting the resolution
and then there's also the stats for nerd section which you can access if you scroll down a bit
further this will tell you the resolution as well as the codec in use the color space Etc
sometimes apps will give you some control over the default video resolution you get for instance
you can sign into your Netflix account on their website click account then click on your profile
icon then scroll down to playback settings and choose high as opposed to Auto or some of the
others and this makes it such that you may get some buffering at first but Netflix will play at
the highest available quality not a great idea for those of you out there with bandwidth caps
by the way often 1080p HDR can be IND discernible from 4K HDR when all their factors are equal but
I digress each streaming service is going to be different but this reminds me of something that
I really like about LG's TVs they have a Graphic that pops up when you start watching content that
tells you quite clearly what the format is even if it doesn't tell you what the resolution is anyway
I hope that is of some help and I've reached out to Sony to find out if they'll share any secret
tips on how to access this info on their modern TVs I haven't found it yet I'll pin a comment
down below if I do get anything on that Richie writes I recently bought an encho AVR and some
new ceiling speakers and I thought I could be up and running with Dolby atos music but it was not
that easy I thought because my receiver had title built in it would work easy but no I have a Roku
Ultra with the title app and it won't work long story short I had to buy an Apple TV in order to
get Dolby Atmos music to work why is it so hard to get Dolby Atmos music to work especially since
Dolby Atmos support seems to be everywhere I feel like with phone casting and AirPlay it should be
easy what's the deal with Atmos music being so hard to listen to to Richie what can I say but
I know right it's kind of ridiculous Apple Tidal and Amazon music unlimited all offer Atmos music
as a feature you would think that any device with apps for those Services would offer the full Suite
of features but they don't I mean not even close I can understand if say the title app in an AV
receiver is just not powerful enough to be coded to coordinate with tidle in a way that authorizes
and receives the atos music encoded string okay but when you're talking about Roku and Google
tv/ Android TV platforms where the devices that run those platforms are super powerful I think
it should be a no-brainer I think the reason why say the title app on Roku doesn't work for Atmos
music is probably a little different for why the title app on an Amazon Fire TV Cube might not work
I can also see Amazon keeping its best features for its own Hardware but at the end of the day as
consumers we don't really care about that right guys this is just one more reason that I keep
recommending the Apple TV box it is consistently the one device and platform where the most amount
of stuff just works it requires the least amount of workarounds it's just the safest bet and I
think all that counts for a lot in the Consumer Electronics market look if you can get Atmos
music over Wi-Fi using the Sonos app controlling a Sonos Atmos sound system but you can't get the
same sort of experience using say a Samsung Atmos Soundbar with a Samsung TV without also jumping
through a bunch of Hoops well then I understand why folks might pay more for Sonos I think people
are willing to pay a premium for fewer Hoops fewer questions and fewer frustrations anyway I'm sorry
getting Dolby Atmos music is hard and I think it's dumb especially when Dolby Atmos for movies and
TV is at least relatively speaking so incredibly easy now now I mean it's stupid and I hate it too
Chad asks what are the pros and cons to using an Apple Vision Pro as a home movie theater instead
of buying a large project Dolby Surround Sound Etc is it possible that this is the home theater
of the future can this approach be cheaper and better quality than what the traditional home
movie theater offers so Chad I'm glad you asked because I'm going to do a whole video about this
for everyone who doesn't tune into this particular show I've been thinking about it for a while and
I have a lot to say about it but here's the short version I think the Apple Vision Pro will provide
amazing picture quality I mean if the pixel density is right we're talking about close
range video where no light intensity is lost over long distances perfectly controlled ambient light
levels in other words total darkness The Vision Pro could offer the ultimate HDR video experience
and through noise cancelling computational audio enabled Apple airpods Pro or airpods Max we
already know we can get an incredible Dolby atos uh and spatial audio experience the quality will
probably be outstanding here's the thing though this is the one thing that will prevent the Apple
Vision Pro from ever meaningfully compete with a home entertainment space that little Apple
Vision Pro home theater it's a theater for one you're all by yourself now there's nothing wrong
with enjoying content on your own in fact it sounds awesome in some instances but just like
watching a big sporting event with friends or in a crowd is often more exciting and to some
of us more meaningful than watching alone so too is watching movies and TV there's something
awesome about experiencing a movie together with friends or family speaking personally some of my
favorite life memories come from those shared experiences Apple Vision Pro will never be able
to fully replace those shared experiences sure maybe you can look to your left and right and
see avatars or even real life representations of your friends or family family maybe you'll even
be able to hear them if Apple integrates voice audio among participants I'm betting they'll
do exactly that but that kind of experience will never be the same or as meaningful as observing
the same space together so a supplement to a conventional home entertainment rig for sure
a replacement though no shot Ben writes are there any universal remotes you recommend to control all
the devices in a setup such as an AVR TV Blu-ray player Apple TV I seem to recall them being fairly
popular a couple of years ago even being capable of controlling Smart TVs and smart devices like
the Apple TV 4K in your opinion is there any good way to get around this rigoll of juggling
three different remotes just to watch one show or is that a lost battle so guys let's all just
take a moment of silence to mourn the passing of logitech's Harmony remotes may they rest in
peace cool that awkward enough I think so yeah so Ben I am not aware of any decent universal remotes
although I did see a new one somewhere that looked like it came from a startup actually uh let's look
into that real quick so yeah I think this is it it's a Kickstarter project which I mean I'm not
endorsing this not until I look deeper into it but it's by Martin borac and he calls it the yo or the
yayo maybe we work on that name anyway nobody has swooped in to fill the void that Logitech left
yes there are some killer remotes available for Integrated Systems like those made by control 4
Savant and Crestron Etc but consumer level remotes like the Harmony brand no longer exist at least as
far as I'm aware I mean wire cutters top pick is the sofa baton and that's number one out of two
remotes on the list guys which I think tells us plenty so why did Logitech get out of universal
remotes I'm going to ask them Logitech actually has headquarter orders across the river from
me uh for their uee division but I suspect it's because sales declined as HDMI CC implementation
even though it is buggy and problematic allows us to control multiple devices with one remote like I
can control a TV Blu-ray player Apple TV and even some PS5 features with one remote just through
HDMI CC which I think pushed universal remotes to the margins once again us enthusiasts find the big
box Consumer Electronic space a very lonely place indeed which if I had to guess is why Martin Borac
is doing his thing by the way Martin please shoot me an email I'm about to blow your Kickstarter
page up also shout out to Garrett Erant who also emailed about remotes specifically looking at the
yo and the sofa baton I see you Garrett in Germany Hae Martinez Gomez writes I went to a store and
the guy at the store told me that the LG C3 has Dolby Atmos built-in speakers and when I heard it
it didn't sound precisely as Dolby Atmos I just want to know if they're telling me the truth or
if there's any TV with Dolby Atmos built-in speakers because I also had the opportunity
to try the A8L and the acoustic surface audio was amazing but I think that isn't Dolby Atmos either
okay for those of you who have heard me say this many many times already I apologize but hi mate
here's the deal Dolby has decided to license the Dolby Atmos name to technologies that in my
opinion do not really deliver what I think most folks familiar with Dolby Atmos are expecting I
love Dolby I love the people there I love Dolby Atmos I love Dolby Atmos music I have some really
awesome things to say about Dolby Flex connect in a video that's coming out this week much love to
Dolby goes out from Caleb Denison here but and I understand this may be a smart business decision
but I hate hate the most diabolical haters this side of the Mississippi hate that Dolby Atmos as
a technology and brand has been so watered down to the point that a TV with some tiny dinky speakers
that don't really deliver anything remotely close to highquality sound is getting the Dolby Atmos
badge I mean call it Dolby audio Dolby is still a flex in the audio world you can convey This TV
has better than average sound quality by saying it has do Doby onboard sound you don't have to
use Dolby Atmos for that but yeah if it were up to me and Dolby is probably just fine with
it not being up to me I would not slap the Dolby Atmos badge on any TV outside of just advertising
the fact that it supports Dolby Atmos saying the speakers built into any TV deliver a meaningful
Dolby Atmos experience is I think disingenuous and weakens the brand and with that soapbox
moment we have reached the conclusion to another episode of you asked thanks so much for watching
everyone I love your questions keep them coming drop me a comment down below would you I'll see
you there slap this video with a like subscribe and share if you want to see more I'll see you
on the next one and until then here are two other videos I think you might like any TV with Dolby
at most built-in speakers because wow I tried to hold that back but I could not anyway where was I