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Another..."should I buy ATV 4K now" ..... thread... sry....

2

2010mini

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jun 19, 2013
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After years of not paying too much attention to 4K TVs and thus passing on replacing my ATV 4 with a 4K model. I finally bought one..... we the price was too good to ignore ($500+ for a 65in poor man’s OLEDish TV? hell yes!)

So now I am thinking of how to fully enjoy the tv as I use my Apple TV for live OTA broadcasts as well as streaming.
I have been reading that an a12x ATV is on the way??? What features could this have over the existing models besides a faster processor?
I don't see apple supporting a wide range of codecs so....what other advantages could it have?

So should I wait or just buy now? I currently have 2 TVs/ATVs in use (3 if you count the one I just replaced)
Will I be "blown away" with the picture from a 4k ATV vs regular 4? Also do I also need to upgrade my receiver (currently 12 years old) to a 4k receiver?

TIA
 
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I moved into a new house last month....I bought a new 4K tv for the first time (not OLED :( ) I also jumped and bought the 4k ATV.

I have enjoyed it all even though a new TV (2020 models) and a possible new AppleTV are coming.kinda bummed but I am enjoying it now. and the picture quality (when it works) is great. I have all new certified monoprice cables and still get flickering with any setting I am using on the AppleTV. Ieven tried HDR all the time with NO SDR/HDR auto adjustments thinking if I force it full all the time I am fine.

The image is vastly superior at that screen size than just a 1080 ATV.


BTW, what 65 OLED did you find near $500 ? I thought I got a decent deal on a 65 4K....


PS...worst case you buy now...and then sell and buy a newer AppleTV
 
You should at least wait until the end of June. Rumor is a new one might be out any day now. I don't know what benefit it will offer but unless you plan to buy the current model on sale, you can have the newest model for very likely the same price and better longevity.
 
Monday is WWDC, if a new one is imminent, it will likely be mentioned in the keynote. Rumors are improved gaming capabilities, so unless you are planning to use it for gaming, buy anytime.

Two things happen when a new model arrives. The old model tends to get a price drop, and recent buyers return for the new model so the refurbished store gets well stocked. A Refurb 4k will be even lower priced than the new, lower priced 4k by 10-20%.
 
Made a mistake on panel type (updates my first post. LOL)

LG nano panel..... poor man’s OLED. The store did have a 75in OLED for $900 though.....Too big for me.
 
With my TV4K I found the best settings are, as per people that have bench tested this thing to death finding how it operates and what looks and works great on my TV (Samsung SUHD QLED):
4K SDR
HDMI Output: YCbCr
Chroma: 4:2:0 (had 4:4:4, but the PQ wasn't right)
Match Content: Range & Frame Rate

With that my TV automatically turns HDR and whatnot on and off as needed. And everything looks great. Also having the 2 Point and 10 Point White Balance setup doesn't hurt. Although, I find myself turning HDR and the like off a lot. Sometimes it really blow out the picture or blacks get really crushed. And the supplimental controls on my TV that go with the HDR still work with it off and I fine tune to my hearts delight. When the broadcast end has their "stuff" in order, the TV4K is in order and my TV is in order, which the only big deal is the broadcaster, even HD programming is phenomenal much less 4K being a magical experience.
 
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I say wait until after WWDC. Mainly so you can save money or get more out of it.

Obviously the main perks are 4K, HDR, and Dolby Atmos for content that supports it.

Different services have different levels of of 4K support and at various price points. For example, the low tier of Netflix doesn’t give you 4K, you have to pay more to Netflix for that. But a lot of the movies you buy on iTunes do support 4K.

Most network television channels are still on 720p and 1080p, so streaming those to a 4K box doesn’t net you any gain.

The value you get out of 4K is the sum of the content available to you and that’s how you can base your decision. The ATV 4K isn’t much better than the ATV HD if the content you view doesn’t use the 4K features. It’s never bad to buy what you want whenever you want it. I just think you’ll future proof yourself if you buy the next-gen ATV, especially if it launches this year.
 
marty1980 said:
I say wait until after WWDC. Mainly so you can save money or get more out of it.

Obviously the main perks are 4K, HDR, and Dolby Atmos for content that supports it.

Different services have different levels of of 4K support and at various price points. For example, the low tier of Netflix doesn’t give you 4K, you have to pay more to Netflix for that. But a lot of the movies you buy on iTunes do support 4K.

Most network television channels are still on 720p and 1080p, so streaming those to a 4K box doesn’t net you any gain.

The value you get out of 4K is the sum of the content available to you and that’s how you can base your decision. The ATV 4K isn’t much better than the ATV HD if the content you view doesn’t use the 4K features. It’s never bad to buy what you want whenever you want it. I just think you’ll future proof yourself if you buy the next-gen ATV, especially if it launches this year.
Click to expand...

99% of the movies I own are iTunes. And I know most of them are upgraded to 4K when available. I have the highest level Netflix as well (did it because too many family members using it.)
I also subscribe to
Apple TV+
Disney+
Prime
Hulu
And have access to most of the premium channels apps (dunno if they support 4K)

so aside from the 1080i live tv broadcast, I do have use for upgraded Apple TV.
 
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I will start by saying that no one on the forum knows if/when Apple will release an updated ATV. We only speculate and make education guesses based off of history, rumors, and gut feelings.

As you can see on this thread and a bunch of others that many people thought that Apple would make an announcement of a new ATV at this year's WWDC, and that didn't happen.

2010mini said:
I have been reading that an a12x ATV is on the way??? What features could this have over the existing models besides a faster processor?
Click to expand...

The Apple TV rumors have been pretty inconsistent, which usually means that there will probably not be a new ATV any time soon, but of course, doesn't guarantee it.

Most of the recent rumors said that Apple was going to put an A12 chip, not the A12X, in the new ATV.

If this is true, then performance wise, the current ATV4K with the A10X would be similar to the new ATV. According to the benchmarks, the A12 is just a tiny bit faster than the A10X, and there are some developers that say that in real world performance, the A10X is actually better than the A12 when related to the GPU cores.

There could be other things on a new A12 ATV that would be an improvement, like the newest HDMI standard, more RAM, or larger storage, but nothing game changing, and nothing that cannot be done with the A10X.

So, one might ask why Apple would replace the A10X with an A12, and I speculate it has to due to cutting costs. The ATV4K is currently the only Apple device that is selling new with an A10X, but there are lots of devices with the A12. Apple could potentially reduce costs due to economies of scale if they dropped the A10X for the A12.

What that means for us consumers? Basically, there will not be much of a performance difference, but maybe the price could be lower, unless Apple wants to increase their margins even more and keep any benefit of cheaper production costs. (I bet the latter)


But, there are also a few rumors of a new Apple TV with the A12X, which is a significant performance increase over the A10X. This would truly be a good update to the current ATV4K.


Although, all of this begs the question, does the ATV need an update?

Very few apps take advantage of the A10X, if any. The most popular apps, such as streaming apps, don't really need the performance of the A10X. Gaming is the only area that could really benefit from having the power of the A10X and the more power of the A12X, but with the exception of the Apple Arcade, Apple has a history of not being very supportive to developers to bring serious gaming to the ATV.

As it is right now, The Apple TV 4K is just a really expensive, overpowered streaming box, so, does it really need to be updated?
 
Apple TV 4K is already overpowered for streaming anyway. More storage would be useful, but I doubt Apple would do that as they want you to stream not play downloaded content.

I only see an upgrade making sense in one of two circumstances (only one of which would actually impact consumers):

1. Apple makes a big push for gaming on the Apple TV, making it part game console part streaming box (unlikely in my mind)

2. Apple's supply chain has a surplus of a specific processor they want to get rid of so they slap it in an upgraded Apple TV box (more likely in my mind)
 
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Well I just purchased a refurbished model. If a newer model comes out later, I will move this one to the bedroom tv.
 
Apple TV won’t be a game device other than the kind of offerings it has now. Mobile gaming ports. I’m in the gaming industry and have wrote several threads on it. apple already has the fastest streaming box for average consumers with their 4K option. Apple‘s move in allowing their content now to be played on other major platforms shows they are more interested in delivering content than hardware.

with that said the 4K model will be fine for years to come. Any updated model now would be incremental and not dramatically change the experience of 90% of Apple TV purchasers.
 
I'm buying a new Sony TV and I was wondering if I should update my 2015 Apple TV. I am thinking about it, but I get this feeling that the Android TV apps will more than suffice. I think the only reason I might have to update my Apple TV is to get a free year of Apple TV+
 
sjsharksfan12 said:
I'm buying a new Sony TV and I was wondering if I should update my 2015 Apple TV. I am thinking about it, but I get this feeling that the Android TV apps will more than suffice. I think the only reason I might have to update my Apple TV is to get a free year of Apple TV+
Click to expand...

The apps that come on the Sony will be fine. I have a Roku TV and rarely leave it for the Apple device. The 12 month sub for TV+ is cool, and what little content they have is quality, but I find myself checking in every 2 weeks. Do you plan to buy a iPad, Mac or Phone soon? It comes with that deal too..

Personally I wouldn’t upgrade and just use the apps on the Sony and the current ATV you have for any sort of airplay, etc. If you play games, maybe.. But honestly my daughter has the 4th gen ATV and I have the 4K, the difference in arcade games is barely noticeable. And again, my personal use case is I rarely game on the ATV.

Then there’s the rumor for months that a new ATV is looming on the horizon.. So even more reason to skip this gen.
 
Bustermd said:
Apple TV 4K is already overpowered for streaming anyway. More storage would be useful, but I doubt Apple would do that as they want you to stream not play downloaded content.

I only see an upgrade making sense in one of two circumstances (only one of which would actually impact consumers):

1. Apple makes a big push for gaming on the Apple TV, making it part game console part streaming box (unlikely in my mind)

2. Apple's supply chain has a surplus of a specific processor they want to get rid of so they slap it in an upgraded Apple TV box (more likely in my mind)
Click to expand...

The A12-powered Mac mini dev kit kind of changes my perspective for the ATV.

The ATV 4K currently uses an A10X. Pretty powerful, but probably not quite there for macOS.

A new ATV with an A12 variant or newer could be powerful enough to run the macOS Big Sur or a variation of tvOS that adds the parts needed to take advantage of things like gaming. Imagine the ATV becoming a Mac mini like device but made with TV as the focus.

Apple opened up the possibilities by moving everything to their in-house SoCs.
 
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Tzuten said:
The apps that come on the Sony will be fine. I have a Roku TV and rarely leave it for the Apple device. The 12 month sub for TV+ is cool, and what little content they have is quality, but I find myself checking in every 2 weeks. Do you plan to buy a iPad, Mac or Phone soon? It comes with that deal too..

Personally I wouldn’t upgrade and just use the apps on the Sony and the current ATV you have for any sort of airplay, etc. If you play games, maybe.. But honestly my daughter has the 4th gen ATV and I have the 4K, the difference in arcade games is barely noticeable. And again, my personal use case is I rarely game on the ATV.

Then there’s the rumor for months that a new ATV is looming on the horizon.. So even more reason to skip this gen.
Click to expand...

I have the Iphone XR and I just brought a non-Mac lap top. I also have a pretty old Ipad but it still works. That's why I was thinking about the Apple TV, especially since I am getting a new big 4K tv next week.
 
2010mini said:
Made a mistake on panel type (updates my first post. LOL)

LG nano panel..... poor man’s OLED. The store did have a 75in OLED for $900 though.....Too big for me.
Click to expand...
There is no such thing as a $900 75 inch OLED tv. You are confusing LCD with OLED. 2 significantly different types of tv's. You have an LCD tv. 77 inch OLED tvs are still more than $4000.
 
sjsharksfan12 said:
I have the Iphone XR and I just brought a non-Mac lap top. I also have a pretty old Ipad but it still works. That's why I was thinking about the Apple TV, especially since I am getting a new big 4K tv next week.
Click to expand...

I guess it comes down to what will a new Apple TV bring that you can’t get from Sony’s apps ? Other than the year of Apple TV+ which IMO may not be worth it. The Sony smart tv apps will no doubt be in 4K. And if it’s android based will have whatever the Apple TV has and more.

I know some folks are not fans of certain interfaces and I can understand that angle.

Try out what the Sony TV can deliver for a week and then make your choice would be my recommendation.
 
Packers1958 said:
There is no such thing as a $900 75 inch OLED tv. You are confusing LCD with OLED. 2 significantly different types of tv's. You have an LCD tv. 77 inch OLED tvs are still more than $4000.
Click to expand...

no. They actually had a $900 OLED. Floor model they were trying to get rid of due to covid-19 lost business.
 
2010mini said:
could’ve sworn LG makes one.... maybe I’m 2inches off.

Wasn’t paying too much attention aa the models weren’t in boxes as they were floor models.
Click to expand...
Perhaps you mistook a 75 inch QLED for OLED. Samsung loves to play games like that so people mistake the Q for an O. QLED is nothing more than an LCD that uses quantum dots.
 
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