That didn't last long. Rivulet was the Apple TV player half of r/appletv spent last weekend talking about, mostly because it claimed Dolby Vision FEL and Atmos heights from lossless tracks. The changelog for build 122 now says both are gone, and the developer's reason is licensing uncertainty. Profile 7 files now play as Profile 8.1 on a Dolby Vision TV, and TrueHD and DTS-HD come out as lossless 7.1 with no height channels. Plozz pulled the same features in its latest release too.
For anyone who installed it just for FEL, that is basically back to where every other tvOS player already was. Profile 7 to 8.1 conversion throws away the enhancement layer, which is the whole point of FEL in the first place, and 7.1 PCM is fine but it is not Atmos. You keep the base layer and the lossless bed, you lose the bit that made the app different.
The licensing angle is the part I would not wave away. Two independent developers removing the same two features in the same week does not look like coincidence, it looks like someone got a letter or got advice. Dolby has always been protective of how Vision and Atmos get decoded, and an App Store app shipping a homebrew FEL path was always going to draw attention.
If FEL matters to you, the answer is still the same as it was a year ago: a dedicated player box or a disc spinner. Apple TV is a great front end, but Apple's own player layer decides what you get, and third-party apps are only as brave as their legal advice. The report that Infuse is looking into it is interesting, but I would wait for an actual build before celebrating.
For anyone who installed it just for FEL, that is basically back to where every other tvOS player already was. Profile 7 to 8.1 conversion throws away the enhancement layer, which is the whole point of FEL in the first place, and 7.1 PCM is fine but it is not Atmos. You keep the base layer and the lossless bed, you lose the bit that made the app different.
The licensing angle is the part I would not wave away. Two independent developers removing the same two features in the same week does not look like coincidence, it looks like someone got a letter or got advice. Dolby has always been protective of how Vision and Atmos get decoded, and an App Store app shipping a homebrew FEL path was always going to draw attention.
If FEL matters to you, the answer is still the same as it was a year ago: a dedicated player box or a disc spinner. Apple TV is a great front end, but Apple's own player layer decides what you get, and third-party apps are only as brave as their legal advice. The report that Infuse is looking into it is interesting, but I would wait for an actual build before celebrating.
