Full disclosure, I'm totally new to surround sound and Atmos, I do this professionally in stereo... I've downloaded the Dolby software and render thing, got everything working in ProTools and have been messing around on headphones having some fun in Atmos and just learning. My biggest hurdle in all of this is trying to figure out how to send an Atmos mix to a client to check on headphones.

It seems like a huge issue, even if you give them an mp4 out of the renderer they still need something like the Apple earbuds with the decoder built in. So, why can't I just play the Atmos file back on the renderer and then record my headphone feed in stereo and send that to a client? Shouldn't that solve all my problems, and they can listen on any headphones without anything special to get an idea of translation on Apple Music or something?

Am I missing something? This seems like a super simply solution. Going even further, what's to stop me from just uploading that dolby render anywhere, even on a YouTube video (where Atmos isn't supported)? This just seems way too easy...

The Dolby Renderer allows you to export a binaural re-render as a wav file of the headphone mix you likely have been momnitoring. Check that out in the manual. You can then send that version to clients if you prefer. I usually use the title with "HEADPHONES-ONLY_songtitle_etc.wav." This doesn't guarantee they won't play it in a car. but that info share is up to you :-D

That MP4 will play on almost any device and adapt to the available speakers. You can put it on an exFAT USB thumb drive and use an Xbox or Blu-Ray player to play it on home theater system, it will play on any computer or phone, and if you play it in the iOS Files app, it will playback as Spatial Audio. If you or your clients have access to the Dolby Reference Player, you can play the MP4 in full Atmos on a computer. And yes, years ago I would export the binaural render as a WAV and distribute that, but it's not as flexible as MP4,

Thanks for the feedback. I forgot I posted in here, I should have waited a little longer as I figured this out eventually. I’m realizing that Atmos is kind of the Wild West right now, there’s some really big gaps in information out there right now for basic stuff. Then there’s 2 hour videos of some big hitters giving some really good philosophy about mixing philosophy and tips, go figure !

Looks like a strait bounce of the binaural render is the way to go, but again… I didn’t see any info about that option online, I just found it by accident in the Dolby Suite.