Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

4K Apple TV unable to play 4K YouTube?

N

nol2001

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 15, 2013
176
290
UK
Will we have the problem that YouTube videos on 4K Apple TV will NOT be 4K or HDR?

This being due to these YouTube videos being VP9 codec only and the 4K Apple TV not supporting the VP9 codec.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AppleMooseMan
nol2001 said:
We do know Apple has never supported VP9 before.
Click to expand...

Apple not supporting it and us not being able to have it are different things.

Point in case would be Safari on MacOS. Since it doesn't support VP9 you can't play newer 4k Youtube videos in it that are encoded with VP9 only. HOWEVER switch to Chrome on the same Mac and you can get your 4k Youtube content in VP9.

Youtube on the AppleTV is a 3rd party app.

The obvious problems are processing power (will there be enough without native VP9 decoder?). And whether tvOS would allow Google to leverage the CPU for software decoding in the first place even if it were possible.

Honestly, judging by the current state of the YouTube app on tvOS I doubt Google would have implemented 4k anyway even if Apple baked in a VP9 decoder into the CPU. That app leaves A LOT to be desired. No way to refresh it from within the app, not easy to subscribe to channels, not easy to up or down vote a video and no way to comment. They just pushed out a mediocre app and have barely been maintaining it. The thought of them jumping up to update it for a 4k AppleTV is a dream, a stupid dream at that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nol2001 and Closingracer
Idc really. I don't watch YouTube on my TV much and if I do my Samsung 49MU7000 has a YouTube app
 
nol2001 said:
Will we have the problem that YouTube videos on 4K Apple TV will NOT be 4K or HDR?

This being due to these YouTube videos being VP9 codec only and the 4K Apple TV not supporting the VP9 codec.
Click to expand...

I'm very interested in this as it will be a major factor for me. I plan on connecting a 4K ATV to a not-yet-purchased LG OLED TV I plan to buy during Black Friday sales.

The major viewing purpose is youtube 4K - specifically the SV Delos sailing channel. Plus some others.
I currently watch it on my iPad while I'm in the kitchen (stay at home Dad here) where I'm cooking or baking alot.

So hopefully it all works out or I'll find another 4K box to make it work. The other purpose is to view my photos at a higher resolution. Funny how we probably take more photos than ever, but rarely print and I don't know about anyone else, but I certainly don't view them as much. They're mostly organized however. :)

Cheers,
Brian
 
  • Like
Reactions: nol2001
Apple will never officially support VP9, and why should they? It's rather stupid that Google uses it instead of H265/HEVC to begin with. But shouldn't Google be able to do a software implementation of VP9 decoder in their own YouTube-app for the Apple TV? There was no need with the previous Apple TV as it doesn't support 4K/HDR playback to begin with. But with the Apple TV 4K it becomes relevant and it's in Google/YouTube's best interest for their services to look at it's best.

Plex, Infuse and various other applications on the Apple TV are fully capable of doing local playback of files/formats and codecs that are not natively supported by the Apple TV. So there is obviously possible to do something in software to achieve support for codecs that are not directly supported by Apple?
 
  • Like
Reactions: glhaynes
RamGuy said:
Apple will never officially support VP9, and why should they? It's rather stupid that Google uses it instead of H265/HEVC to begin with. But shouldn't Google be able to do a software implementation of VP9 decoder in their own YouTube-app for the Apple TV? There was no need with the previous Apple TV as it doesn't support 4K/HDR playback to begin with. But with the Apple TV 4K it becomes relevant and it's in Google/YouTube's best interest for their services to look at it's best.

Plex, Infuse and various other applications on the Apple TV are fully capable of doing local playback of files/formats and codecs that are not natively supported by the Apple TV. So there is obviously possible to do something in software to achieve support for codecs that are not directly supported by Apple?
Click to expand...

And as surmised ... it doesn’t support YouTube in 4K.
 
RamGuy said:
Apple will never officially support VP9, and why should they? It's rather stupid that Google uses it instead of H265/HEVC to begin with. But shouldn't Google be able to do a software implementation of VP9 decoder in their own YouTube-app for the Apple TV? There was no need with the previous Apple TV as it doesn't support 4K/HDR playback to begin with. But with the Apple TV 4K it becomes relevant and it's in Google/YouTube's best interest for their services to look at it's best.

Plex, Infuse and various other applications on the Apple TV are fully capable of doing local playback of files/formats and codecs that are not natively supported by the Apple TV. So there is obviously possible to do something in software to achieve support for codecs that are not directly supported by Apple?
Click to expand...

I agree that Google should be able to do a software implementation of the VP9 decoder within their own app on ATV4K. That would be an easy solution and provide consumers the best possible content they could receive and overall user experience. Like many format wars that happen from time to time this HEVC (H.265) vs. VP9 will only serve to harm the consumer. I can't say what made Apple choose HEVC over VP9 other than the latter represents a creation by Google, a company competing with Apple on a number of technology fronts. However, I can say it's a bit odd to me that Apple has produced ATV4K with limited access to the largest 4K repository on the planet, being YouTube. I'm probably one of the more extreme use cases in that I have transitioned most of my televisions over to 4K. My goal was to get away from the Smart TV interfaces to access apps like YouTube, Amazon, and Netflix for 4K content. They are often buggy and slow. As it stands right now I'm a bit disappointed that I will still have to use the Smart TV features to access YouTube 4K videos which surprisingly represents much of my 4K viewing, followed by Netflix, and then my Oppo UDP-203 for physical 4K media. These are definitely first-world problems, but this is a technology forum so I had to vent a bit.
 
Hi All,

I am sure many of you are dissapointed by Apple TV 4K not supporting YouTube 4K.

If you have a minute please file a feedback via https://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html, I have created a template to save you some time:

Title: Apple TV 4K - missing support for YouTube 4K

---------------

Hi,

I have purchased and received Apple TV 4K. While I am enjoying the device, I am deeply and truly disappointed that it doesn’t support the open-source VP9 video format which YouTube delivers 4K video. I was not expecting that device purchased in 2017 (especially from forward thinking company such as Apple) does not support YouTube 4K.

Please fix it otherwise as much as I like Apple products, I will look elsewhere for my TV streaming device!

Best regards,
name

---------------
 
Well I doubt Apple cares much about YouTube and vice versa. The ATV YouTube app has not been updated in forever and sucks big time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back