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

A8 Chip in iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Capable of Playing 4K Video

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,522
30,802



The dual-core A8 chip powering Apple's iPhone 6 and 6 Plus appears to be capable of handling 4K video playback, despite the fact that the two iPhones have native resolutions of 1334 x 750 and 1920 x 1080 pixels, respectively.

4K video playback on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus was first discovered by the developers behind WALTR, a Mac app that's designed to make it easy to upload and convert any music or video file to an iPad or iPhone for native playback, and reported by TUAW.

The discovery was made by the developers of WALTR, a great Mac app that allows users to quickly upload video files to their iPhone which aren't supported by iTunes, such as FLAC and MKV files. While testing the app developers found it is possible to playback 4K videos on the iPhone 6. Even if Apple hasn't announced it, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are ready to play 4K videos.
Click to expand...
With resolutions of 1334 x 750 and 1920 x 1080, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus won't be able to reproduce the detail in a 3840 x 2160 4K video, but the A8's ability to play 4K content means 4K videos side-loaded onto one of Apple's two devices will still be watchable.

It's highly unlikely many users will load 4K videos on their iPhones due to the massive file size of 4K content and the fact that there's little practical use for it, but it has the potential to be a somewhat useful feature for some users who want to play 4K video recorded on their devices as there are apps available that advertise 4K video recording on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Article Link: A8 Chip in iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Capable of Playing 4K Video
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/11/21/a8-chip-4k-video/
BJMRamage

BJMRamage

macrumors 68030
Oct 2, 2007
2,713
1,233
no idea here...

could you hook it to a 4k TV and watch a Video that way?
in 4k?
 
Tankmaze

Tankmaze

macrumors 68000
Mar 7, 2012
1,707
351
4K video ? wait until apple provide iPhone with 64gb as the entry level.
with 16 gb space, it is pretty much useless.
 
K

Keirasplace

macrumors 601
Aug 6, 2014
4,059
1,278
Montreal
I think that means the A8 will be in the Apple TV very soon... And the apple TV will have a major upgrade, probably a full App store.
 
Traverse

Traverse

macrumors 604
Mar 11, 2013
7,688
4,400
Here
This could be interesting more so for the iPad. Eventually the iPad will get a higher resolution and it's nice to know the A8 and (A8X) is already able to handle assets of much greater size.

----------
ThisIsNotMe said:
Huh? I stream 4K movies via my 4K Sony media streamer all the time.
Click to expand...

Show off. :p
 
C

cdmoore74

macrumors 68020
Jun 24, 2010
2,413
711
With Apple still rocking 16gb phones it would be disastrous to have 4k video enabled.
 
S

sziehr

macrumors 6502a
Jun 11, 2009
744
857
I also saw some where that it can do 24 bit. I am wondering when that gets flipped on
 
C

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,576
1,691
Redondo Beach, California
Is it REALLY playing a 4K video if it is showing it on a 1K screen? I think it is reading a 4K video files, thrashing 3/4 of the data and displaying the remaining 1K video stream.

It is like when you buy a 24MP camera and are all happy that you have this high resolution image. But then you phone has a 2MP screen. What happens to the extra pixels? Well they are down sampled and not displayed.
 
S

Stratus Fear

macrumors 6502a
Jan 21, 2008
688
417
Atlanta, GA
ChrisA said:
Is it REALLY playing a 4K video if it is showing it on a 1K screen? I think it is reading a 4K video files, thrashing 3/4 of the data and displaying the remaining 1K video stream.

It is like when you buy a 24MP camera and are all happy that you have this high resolution image. But then you phone has a 2MP screen. What happens to the extra pixels? Well they are down sampled and not displayed.
Click to expand...

It still has to decode the entire 4k stream. You can't just ignore data. Video decoding doesn't work that way. And even in the case of downsampling, you still need to take the larger resolution media as input, and process that data through resampling filters to a lower resolution, so overall the whole process is even MORE computationally intensive than if you could output the 4k video at a 1:1 pixel ratio on a 4k screen.

As to the article, this should come as no surprise. I wouldn't be surprised if even the A7 is powerful enough for it. The Cortex A8 in the iPhone 3GS was able to decode 1080p video, even though it couldn't display the full resolution of it due to the screen, and that was five generations of hardware ago.
 
B

bushgreen

macrumors newbie
Jan 8, 2005
24
0
Of course it can play back 4k why are they surprised. The iphone 6 can record 4k video so of course it can play 4k.
 
gavroche

gavroche

macrumors 65816
Oct 25, 2007
1,452
1,571
Left Coast
Tankmaze said:
4K video ? wait until apple provide iPhone with 64gb as the entry level.
with 16 gb space, it is pretty much useless.
Click to expand...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that someone looking to use 4k video can swing the extra $100 to bump to 64gb.
 
Last edited:
K

Keirasplace

macrumors 601
Aug 6, 2014
4,059
1,278
Montreal
Stratus Fear said:
It still has to decode the entire 4k stream. You can't just ignore data. Video decoding doesn't work that way. And even in the case of downsampling, you still need to take the larger resolution media as input, and process that data through resampling filters to a lower resolution, so overall the whole process is even MORE computationally intensive than if you could output the 4k video at a 1:1 pixel ratio on a 4k screen.

As to the article, this should come as no surprise. I wouldn't be surprised if even the A7 is powerful enough for it. The Cortex A8 in the iPhone 3GS was able to decode 1080p video, even though it couldn't display the full resolution of it due to the screen, and that was five generations of hardware ago.
Click to expand...

I think they mean it has specialized hardware outside the CPU to do it. There is a lot of DSP hardware on the A8!!
 
garnerx

garnerx

macrumors 6502a
Nov 9, 2012
623
382
MacRumors said:
It's highly unlikely many users will load 4K videos on their iPhones due to the massive file size of 4K content and the fact that there's little practical use for it
Click to expand...

Translated:
Absolutely nobody will load 4K videos on their iPhones, due to the fact that the iPhone is a phone, not a 6ft-wide 4K display. Macrumors apologises for the utter futility of this news story.
 
Swift

Swift

macrumors 68000
Feb 18, 2003
1,828
964
Los Angeles
Makes sense

From the 6+, we know that the chip plays 1080p after tripling the old resolution and then shrinking it to 1080p. To do that, you've got to have much more than the capability for 1080p playback. Ergo, it has 4K, and to be able to play 4K all that would be needed is a chip that could play 5K or so.

And they'd have to build a 4K screen that would have teeny tiny pixels and wouldn't eat an entire battery in 30 minutes.
 
R

RockSpider

macrumors 6502a
Sep 18, 2014
903
396
bushgreen said:
Of course it can play back 4k why are they surprised. The iphone 6 can record 4k video so of course it can play 4k.
Click to expand...
Just because a phone has a good camera doesn't mean it has a good GPU, the two have nothing to do with each other.
 
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