Questions about DV7 playback support and which hardware player to get

[seventhalien]

Hello, I've been ripping my UHDs, and wondering what are the best recommendations for dealing with DV7 playback? Is it best to convert to profile 8? Have read that some player software now perform such conversions realtime during playback, but I've also come across some scripts on github that will permanently convert the MKV to p8. I'd like to keep the highest/best quality where possible.
Secondly, I've been doing quite a bit of research on what hardware player to get for our media room; I'm visually impaired, so I mainly care about great audio (atmos etc.), while my family cares about great visuals lol. I purchased and tried the AM6B+ with coreElec, as I read it has native DV7 support, but unfortunately CoreElec doesn't have any screen reader support, which I would need. So I'm wondering what you guys are using or would recommend for media players? I do have an Apple TV 4K, but AFAIK there's no atmos support with infuse. I've been considering the NVIDIA Shield Pro, as well as the fireTV Cube third gen (currently on sale for Prime). I know neither of these has true/full Dolby p7 support, hence my question about converting to p8. While the Shield seems to be one of the constant recommendations, I've also read that the fireTV would be the better choice since it has newer hardware and supports newer codecs; so I'd like to get some feedback from those of you who have experience with this and are working with actual rips etc. to see what you'd recommend. TIA

[dcoke22]

I can't answer all of your questions, but regarding Dolby Atmos I can provide some input. As you're probably aware, Atmos is object based sound data that is in addition to traditional multi-channel surround sound. From a practical standpoint, Atmos adds height channels to a more traditional surround sound setup.

Atmos can be delivered into two ways. One way, the way that's common on blu-rays, is via a Dolby TrueHD multichannel audio stream. Dolby TrueHD is a lossless audio format. The other way is via a Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC3) multichannel audio stream. DD+ is a lossy multichannel audio format but is higher fidelity than the regular Dolby Digital multichannel audio found on most regular DVDs. DD+ is fairly common in steaming. It allows for Atmos and high quality audio while being smaller than Dolby TrueHD.

Infuse on the AppleTV 4K can play Atmos when it is contained in a Dolby Digital Plus stream. It can not play Dolby TrueHD streams.

I do not know if is possible or practical to re-encode a Dolby TrueHD with Atmos audio stream into a Dolby Digital Plus with Atmos audio stream.