New ATV PIP Audio Issue

So I have the new ATV4K paired with a stereo pair of HomePods and when I’m in Channels and activate the auto PIP, the audio either goes into a “tunnel” kind of sound or disappears entirely. It did not do this on Android TV. I’m wondering if there’s a setting somewhere I’m missing?

Turn on Settings > Playback > Advanced > Audio Decoder: Experimental

yes get the same, emailed support on the 10th May about this (and many many other bugs), no one could be bothered to reply to me.
Will try the experimental decoder.

Note this mostly happens when backing out to the TVOS menu by pressing home several times.

Unfortunately, most bugs in the PIP experience are out of our control. Hopefully Apple releases a more flexible PIP API at WWDC this year to make this easier for custom video player apps.

One thing you can try is to set Surround Sound: Off in Channels app. The issue with the HomePod stereo pair appears to be related to sending multi-channel audio while in PIP mode. We have an open ticket with Apple about this and their response so far has been that it is not possible to achieve what we want with currently available public APIs in tvOS.

I do have Experimental Audio turned on and Surround Sound: Off... but now the PIP just goes silent when I jump to the guide. I have tvOS 14.6 installed on the ATV4K and HomePods. Hopefully, Apple does indeed fix things in the API... right now it makes the PIP feature useless for the most part. I've also run into the PIP freezing while trying to navigate other parts of the app or if I choose a new channel from the guide. It's like the app doesn't know what to do. On Android TV, that same action would work (even if the PIP implementation is less elegant). Thank you!

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