4K Screensavers

[ScrumpyDaniel]

Hey guys,

Quick question, Just upgraded from my very old (2005) Samsung HD TV which was running at a max 720p, and all the screensavers downloaded on my Apple TV 4K fine.

Finally upgraded to an LG 4K TV, Apple TV 4K has automatically changed the resolution to 4K but it now only has 1 screensaver. Will the others download over time now their gonna be 4K?

Cheers!

 

[waw74]

there are defiantly SDR and HDR versions of the screensavers. and it seems if it's got the SDR version, it doesn't download the HDR version.

when I'm In HDR mode, I have 1 screen saver. (flying over downtown LA at night)
In SDR I have quite a few (over 10). The one I have in HDR does't show up here.

I have my aTV in 4K SDR mode with range matching on. (also have rate match on)
I only see that one HDR when I've paused a video that's in HDR

You want the range and rate matching options set to ON in your aTV settings.
both of these settings will adjust the appleTV's output to match the specs of the video you are playing.

Without range matching, if you're in HDR mode, and watching SDR videos, the aTV "makes up" the HDR info. Most people complain this has "cartoonish colors, or video that's blown out"
also, if you're in 4k HDR and range matching is off, you will not get DolbyVision, just regular HDR

Without rate matching, the aTV will have to make up frames to compensate when they don't line up. It does this by doubling frames, so the frame displayed will go 1 2 3 4 4 5 6 7 8 8 9, and so on, on shots with long smooth motion (think big panning nature shots) your eye will see the double frame as a bit of a halt in the motion (technical term is judder)

for the default video settings. pick either of the 4k versions.
The aTV will not change resolution automatically, so if you pick 1080, all of the 4k videos will be scaled down to 1080
SDR vs HDR is up to you.
The menus are a bit bright for me in HDR, plus it uses more power, and adds a tiny bit more wear and tear on the display.
You'll see a brief bit of black when you start or end playback, as the aTV and TV get back in sync with the signal change. but should be under a second or 2,

And one thing to keep an eye on till you get everything setup how you like it.
I've got an older LG, and each input has different picture mode settings for each range (SDR, HDR, Dolby) and it remembers which one you were using.

"input 1 - SDR - Sport mode" is a complete different set of settings than "Input 1 - HDR - Sport mode" If you adjust one sport mode, those settings don't carry over to the other versions.
It also rememberers and will change accordingly if you have SDR in sport mode, and HDR in vivid

so you'll want to try out all 3 ranges, and adjust your TV settings while those are playing.

 

[waw74]

You might also want to dig down in the video settings and disable motion smoothing or TruMotion
You'll have to do this per input, per range, per setting.

The way I can see if I've missed this somewhere, When they're showing the interior of a car driving down the road, and you can see out the windows, with the front pillar in the shot (the metal between the glass on the door and the windshield) , the background on one side of that pillar will look really pixilated, since the tv is trying to figure out what's happening in the image as it goes, and that little part changes quite a bit.

 

[ScrumpyDaniel]

Wow. Thanks for the in-depth and articulate reply. Appreciate that a lot. I’ll play about with the settings and see what’s best for me.

I’ve set it to 4K SDR currently, thanks again.

 

[ScrumpyDaniel]

So I changed it back to 720p to check on the screensavers, and they were all there. So now i'm on 4K SDR i'll just wait for those ones to download.

Thanks again!

 

[waw74]

good luck,
I've tried leaving mine in HDR for a few days to get it to download some different ones, it never did.
I'm not sure there's a way to force it to get it to get new ones

it might take a system wipe to get it to do it.
There may be less destructive ways, but that should make it happen.

 

[ScrumpyDaniel]

So far it's downloaded a second screensaver on 4K SDR but that's it. We'll see as time goes on I guess.

Mind you, it only downloaded the fish screensavers in early April after they released in September so ?‍♂️

 

[Edd70]

Something does seem to be up with aerial screensavers. I’ve had my 4th gen ATV for several years and I’ve noticed in the past two weeks the number of screensavers has been cut at least 90%.

There’s no more cityscapes. Ive got a few underwater and a couple of space views. I’ve made no changes in settings and all the same hardware.

 

[Edd70]

This issue seems to have gone away. It took a couple of weeks but the screensavers are back. It’s like nearly everything got wiped and reinstalled.

 

[ScrumpyDaniel]

I've noticed since 13.5 update i've had 2 screensavers download pretty quickly. Previously after I upgraded my TV, even though I had it set to download daily, It would download once every 7-10 days.