4K Video Shot On iPhone X - AirPlay To 4K TV On ATV4 (Not 4K) Sure As Heck Looks Like 4K

[boltjames]

So I have an Apple TV 4, not the 4K model.

And I just got an iPhone X.

And I have a new Sony 4K TV.

So I took some test video on my iPhone X in 4K and then used AirPlay to send it to my new Sony 4K TV. Realizing that my ATV4 is not 4K compatible, I was expecting a mediocre picture.

Wow was I wrong. It's the clearest, sharpest iPhone video I've ever shot, took it in a grocery store, hundreds of products, hundreds of packages, the typography is clear as crystal, it's definitely looks like a 4K video being pushed to my 4K TV.

But is that possible? Does the non-4K ATV4 allow pass-thru 4K via AirPlay? Or are my eyes deceiving me and what I'm really seeing is 1080p. But why then does it look so good?

 

[matrix07]

Correct me if I'm wrong. Your 4K test video would be in iCloud Photo Library, right? And your TV is 4K.
As I understand it, everything involved iCloud AirPlay will be played directly by the end device itself. Apple TV 4 *could* be able to decode 4K content through software so the problem in all of these will be.. how the hell your Apple TV 4 which supposed to connect to your TV through the old standard HDMI cable will be able to deliver 4K? That doesn't make any sense.

 

[boltjames]

Correct me if I'm wrong. Your 4K test video would be in iCloud Photo Library, right? And your TV is 4K.
As I understand it, everything involved iCloud AirPlay will be played directly by the end device itself. Apple TV 4 *could* be able to decode 4K content through software so the problem in all of these will be.. how the hell your Apple TV 4 which supposed to connect to your TV through the old standard HDMI cable will be able to deliver 4K? That doesn't make any sense.

Airplay from my iPhone X. No iCloud involvement.

 

[BODYBUILDERPAUL]

Airplay from my iPhone X. No iCloud involvement.

Hi Bolt!
No it's 1080p for sure but a fantastic quality and as SONY have incredible upscales, your SONY TV is taking a polished product and putting icing on it Airplay doesn't carry 4K from the iPhone X even to my ATV 4K - it's uncompressed and there's no way that it would play nice without stuttering and freezing. Looks incredible though doesn't it! Gotta say, the camera in the X & 8 range are incredible this year. Apple have really outdone themselves

 

[matrix07]

Airplay from my iPhone X. No iCloud involvement.

No, what I mean is from iOS 7 there is a feature called AirPlay from iCloud that let you stream what’s already in iCloud. This is what Apple wrote:
“Today’s update also brought AirPlay From iCloud, which lets guests stream their purchased music, photos, and videos stored in iCloud to another person’s Apple TV.”

Notice the “photos” part.

(Apple just use other’s Apple TV to make an example but it should work on your own too. It works on mine.)

 

[boltjames]

Hi Bolt!
No it's 1080p for sure but a fantastic quality and as SONY have incredible upscales, your SONY TV is taking a polished product and putting icing on it Airplay doesn't carry 4K from the iPhone X even to my ATV 4K - it's uncompressed and there's no way that it would play nice without stuttering and freezing. Looks incredible though doesn't it! Gotta say, the camera in the X & 8 range are incredible this year. Apple have really outdone themselves

Wow. Really? It looks 4K.

So besides our awesome Sony TV's doing a great job of upscaling.....is it correct to say that if I shoot in 4K for playback in 1080p it will look better than if I shot in 1080p for playback in 1080p?

In other words, is the sensor capturing 4x more pixels and therefore is providing greater home video quality on a 1080p panel than shooting natively in 1080p would be?

 

[BODYBUILDERPAUL]

Wow. Really? It looks 4K.

So besides our awesome Sony TV's doing a great job of upscaling.....is it correct to say that if I shoot in 4K for playback in 1080p it will look better than if I shot in 1080p for playback in 1080p?

In other words, is the sensor capturing 4x more pixels and therefore is providing greater home video quality on a 1080p panel than shooting natively in 1080p would be?

Most definitely - always start off with the highest quality. It'll future proof it. Plus you can keep the 4K version in your Photos app on your MacBook.
Out of interest though, since the camera is so good on the X why don't you try on a sunny day and indeed indoors try filming in 60fps in both 1080p and 4k.
Then see if you can see any difference on your TV.

 

[boltjames]

Out of interest though, since the camera is so good on the X why don't you try on a sunny day and indeed indoors try filming in 60fps in both 1080p and 4k.
Then see if you can see any difference on your TV.

Thanks for the feedback BBP, I'm going to go back to that grocery store where I shot the brilliant 4K footage and shoot it again in 1080p, see if there is a quality difference.

Either way, the camera on the iPhone X is amazing, at least compared to what I'm used to on the 6.

 

[priitv8]

But why then does it look so good?

Must be because iPhone X downscaler and the Sony upscaler are so good. I do not believe aTV 4 can in any way pass through stream from AirPlay. It even has no 4K-capable HDMI hardware on board.
iPhone may also apply some image processing along the way.

 

[BODYBUILDERPAUL]

Thanks for the feedback BBP, I'm going to go back to that grocery store where I shot the brilliant 4K footage and shoot it again in 1080p, see if there is a quality difference.

Either way, the camera on the iPhone X is amazing, at least compared to what I'm used to on the 6.

Totally agree, the camera is FANTASTIC on the X. Years ago, I used a Nikon DSLR which produced great photos but gosh was it hue, too huge to carry around the city which truly defeated the object. PLUS the camcorder on the X is outstanding. The X really is a winner. I watched on film it, played my music and read some surfing PDFs which i'd drag and dropped in to my MacBook iBooks app and it was a beautiful experience. The film watching on the X really made a horrible, long journey home pass by quickly.
A true pleasure.