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Apple 4k gen 2 Youtube

Y

ysvsr1

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 23, 2013
92
22
Hi, plnning to upgrade my apple tv 4k first gen to second gen. Its been 4 years since I started using first gen 4k. So far I am not tempted to upgrade because I don’t see any important feature missing in my box. I don’t play games.

I do have YouTube premium. can the new box play HDR properly with surround sound? I am trying to find an excuse to buy it when they are on sale. :)

one more thing, I use harmony elite so new remote is not an exciting feature to me.

any other android devide like shield pro plays YouTube with HDR and surround sound? Thanks in advance for your comments.
 
ysvsr1 said:
I don’t see any important feature missing in my box. I don’t play games.
Click to expand...
The A10X in the ATV4K1 actually has better raw GPU performance for games than the A12 in the ATV4K2. Also, the new Siri Remote that comes with the ATV4K2 is not compatible with a lot of tvOS games. You need a first gen Siri Remote or controller to play them.

I know you don't play games on your ATV, but I thought it was important to clear that up in case for others that view the thread.


ysvsr1 said:
can the new box play HDR properly with surround sound?
Click to expand...
I don't think so. I don't have the ATV4K2 yet, but I recall people complaining about the limitations with the YT app on tvOS. I could be wrong, but I think this is an issue with the YT app itself, and not the ATV HW, meaning the app could get updated to support content HDR and FR matching.

Also, I think that the ATVs can get HDR YouTube content, but you have the manually switch HDR on in the settings. I never did it, so I can't remember how to do it, but I remember reading about how to get it to work. Maybe someone else can fill you in if you are interested.
 
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ysvsr1 said:
can the new box play HDR properly with surround sound?
Click to expand...
HDR is not supported, as YT player on aTV plays back the standard AVC/HEVC video streams, but Google uses for HDR their own VP9.2 video encoding. And that is not supported on tvOS platform, would need local transcoding.

Surround has quietly and inconsistently appeared. I just do not have any solid method how to identify that a clip has surround audio.

 
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-Gonzo- said:
Nope and nope, is it capable? Yes
Will Google implement it? 🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️
Click to expand...
It does play HDR videos properly but it does not do content range switching so you would have to be in HDR mode for it to play videos in HDR. Its crazy they haven't fixed this after more than a year.
 
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Check the stats for nerds in the YT app - only if it shows that it is decoding VP9.2 video, can it be a HDR stream. If it is VP9.0 or H.264/AVC then it must be SDR.
 
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priitv8 said:
Check the stats for nerds in the YT app - only if it shows that it is decoding VP9.2 video, can it be a HDR stream. If it is VP9.0 or H.264/AVC then it must be SDR.
Click to expand...
Youtube on Apple TV plays HDR videos using BT.2020 just fine. You just have to force your Apple TV to HDR first because it doesn't switch.
 
ysvsr1 said:
I use harmony elite so new remote is not an exciting feature to me.
Click to expand...

For my simplest setup I only use my Harmony to turn on/off the systems. Apple remote takes a bit of a learning curve, but is much more convenient if you are constantly using the remote to pause, save YouTube videos to playlists, etc. Did turn off the scrolling touchpad though.
 
the Youtube app on ATV4K can play HDR and SDR content just fine. It's like what other's have said too. The app doesn't match content, so you'll have to go into settings every single time to enable or disable HDR. Which is super annoying. As all the other apps support content matching, it's up to you if you're ok with forcing everything into HDR on the YouTube app, or having it all in SDR and only getting HDR content on all the other apps. It's just Google not implementing it properly. And they have been made aware way too many times. It's just that they don't want to build it properly. It does work properly on iOS, so no idea why it won't work on tvOS.
 
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bozzykid said:
Youtube on Apple TV plays HDR videos using BT.2020 just fine. You just have to force your Apple TV to HDR first because it doesn't switch.
Click to expand...

Ramonsterrr1981 said:
the Youtube app on ATV4K can play HDR and SDR content just fine. It's like what other's have said too. The app doesn't match content, so you'll have to go into settings every single time to enable or disable HDR.
Click to expand...
So I reckon, my problem must be that I have the aTV 4K 1st gen, not the 2021 model?
I do not get VP9.2 BT.2020 playback from the YT app in any of the suggested ways:
Screen Shot 2022-06-18 at 14.51.35.png
 
bozzykid said:
It does play HDR videos properly but it does not do content range switching so you would have to be in HDR mode for it to play videos in HDR. Its crazy they haven't fixed this after more than a year.
Click to expand...
I guess we have different definitions of what working properly means.
Yes it can output content in HDR but to me at least if you’re having to use a workaround to get HDR playback and also at the correct frame rate then that’s not really working properly in mind.
But yeah I do agree that it’s crazy this issue hasn’t been addressed.
Google are rubbish with how they treat their apps though, my 2020 Panasonic OLED does YouTube HDR and the 5.1 surround fine on on all the Demo Demo videos but annoyingly won’t allow movies to play any higher than 720p.
At least with the ATVHD & ATV4K they allow 1080p.
 
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-Gonzo- said:
I guess we have different definitions of what working properly means.
Click to expand...
By default Apple TV defaults to HDR always on. I'm guessing the majority of users never change that option. So for them, HDR works properly on Youtube. Of course then, SDR looks terrible.
 
-Gonzo- said:
I guess we have different definitions of what working properly means.
Yes it can output content in HDR but to me at least if you’re having to use a workaround to get HDR playback and also at the correct frame rate then that’s not really working properly in mind.
But yeah I do agree that it’s crazy this issue hasn’t been addressed.
Google are rubbish with how they treat their apps though, my 2020 Panasonic OLED does YouTube HDR and the 5.1 surround fine on on all the Demo Demo videos but annoyingly won’t allow movies to play any higher than 720p.
At least with the ATVHD & ATV4K they allow 1080p.
Click to expand...

Youtube can't check the box to label their media for 'content matching' because they are using their own player with an unsupported codec at a bit depth Apple literally says "will not work".

So they are well outside of Apples documented guidelines. They are using an unsupported codec in a way that Apple says "HDR will not work". Not only are they doing it, but they are doing it at 60fps. Even at 4k SDR the YouTube app is using A LOT of CPU power, nearly twice as much as Netflix playing 4k HDR10 on the AppleTV 4k gen 1 but its getting it done...impressive honestly. So I'm sure with vp9 4k HDR they are flying really close to the sun.

This is a problem for Apple because because they have developer guidelines so OS updates don't break apps. Since YouTube is so popular they will likely need to work around it or risk breaking it and getting a million tickets from angry customers how an Apple update broke their AppleTV.
 
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cynics said:
Youtube can't check the box to label their media for 'content matching' because they are using their own player with an unsupported codec at a bit depth Apple literally says "will not work".

So they are well outside of Apples documented guidelines. They are using an unsupported codec in a way that Apple says "HDR will not work". Not only are they doing it, but they are doing it at 60fps. Even at 4k SDR the YouTube app is using A LOT of CPU power, nearly twice as much as Netflix playing 4k HDR10 on the AppleTV 4k gen 1 but its getting it done...impressive honestly. So I'm sure with vp9 4k HDR they are flying really close to the sun.

This is a problem for Apple because because they have developer guidelines so OS updates don't break apps. Since YouTube is so popular they will likely need to work around it or risk breaking it and getting a million tickets from angry customers how an Apple update broke their AppleTV.
Click to expand...
Their previous iteration of the app prior to Feb 2018 used to support frame rate matching though.
It was rather disappointing when that was dropped.
 
Really the only thing keeping this from being the perfect streaming box for me is the matching of frame and auto SDR/HDR in YouTube and YouTube TV.
 
Although not related to the previous question, wondering if anyone has experienced strange behavior recently with the videos that are appearing in the “Recommended“ section of the Apple TV 4K YouTube app? In the past, it always showed things that were clearly based on things I’d watched, but as of a week or so ago, it now appears to show a bunch of random things that have nothing to do with my viewing history. A lot of them are movies, with a “Free” designation. I see the same thing on all of three of my ATV 4K (2021) units.

When looking at YouTube on my iPad, through the YouTube app, the home screen behaves normally, as the ATV app USED to behave.

Anyone else experiencing this?
 
Ramonsterrr1981 said:
YouTube now finally supports content and frame rate matching, so it should display everything perfectly now!
Click to expand...
Confirmed - on a 2021 4k box, HDR mode is toggled on my 2020 LG OLED in the same way as the built-in LG App. However, like the LG App, there is no support for Dolby Vision - videos tagged with Dolby Vision just switch the system into HDR10 mode which I think is a limitation of YouTube itself.
 
kiranmk2 said:
Confirmed - on a 2021 4k box, HDR mode is toggled on my 2020 LG OLED in the same way as the built-in LG App. However, like the LG App, there is no support for Dolby Vision - videos tagged with Dolby Vision just switch the system into HDR10 mode which I think is a limitation of YouTube itself.
Click to expand...
I don’t believe YouTube uses Dolby Vision full stop.
 
Anyone got a new problem in YouTube of a blank screen for a few seconds when transitioning from ads to content and back? Almost like the framerate is changing and the Apple TV is switching frame rate (why not QMS Apple!?)
 
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kiranmk2 said:
Anyone got a new problem in YouTube of a blank screen for a few seconds when transitioning from ads to content and back? Almost like the framerate is changing and the Apple TV is switching frame rate (why not QMS Apple!?)
Click to expand...
The updated app supports framerate switching so what you are seeing is normal if you are going to use framerate switching on the Apple TV.
 
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