Apple to Debut Apple TV With 4K HDR Support at September Event

[JamesPDX]

Mostly No, because what we tend to gain in resolution we lose in compression. A 4K UltraBlueRay, sure, a 4K PS4 Pro/Xbox One X mostly you see much better backgrounds but foregrounds start looking chunky like they were a previous non-HD generation. 2D games, photos and artwork look fantastic however, even without HDR.

To get a really usable 4K experience from streaming, everyone needs to have at least 100Mbit fiber, and until that happens, most 4K screens will be sold as a half-step upgrade towards 8K UHD while compression catches up. Like a 4K experience from conventional cable is impossible because many cable systems still broadcast MPEG-2 (h262) streams to be backwards compatible with old hardware they won't upgrade. Likewise ATSC, we were in such a hurry to sell off the TV spectrum to mobile networks, that 4K, let alone 8K will never be available to more than a few cities (ATSC 3.0 only started this year at 4K and there is no broadcasting content in the US, only Korea) and those capable of receiving it will get a highly compressed signal that only makes it "better than 1080i", but little else.

Hence the future is streaming apps and "channels", we're still being shorted by geofencing however of streams and that will have to end if content providers want piracy to drasticly be cut. Current piracy boxes based on Android (typically nVidia Shield since they're more powerful) are 95% SD content, and the rare HD and 4K content often takes as long to discover as it does to watch, so legit streaming services (eg netflix) still have an upper hand, but the compression of legit services is often worse than Blueray, so until that changes, the appeal of streaming 4K content will be rather low.

^^^THIS^^^

And still, streaming will probably never be as HQ as playing content from a file. Amazon Prime video is a great example of overly-compressed-but-still-jerky streaming. The HD downloads from Apple? Mostly gorgeous even at 2K.

In a year or two it'll be 8K, then 12K, then 16K content. The selling will never stop. I'd rather see the focus (ha!) turned onto nationwide internet and power infrastructure.

 

[AppleScruff1]

Don't plan on upgrading my 1080 P TV until 4K TVs significantly drop in price, so this has no interest for me

But you had enough interest to post that you had no interest.

 

[groovetech]

Couldn't care less. 4k is dead to me as long as ISP's have data caps.
At 12' .. which is what my living room distance to the tv is. I wouldn't be able to tell anyways. Just tossing that bandwidth out the window.

They'll most likely be using H.265 (a more advanced compression format) which will keep the files sizes essentially the same and won't affect your data usage, but that codec is far more intensive to encode and decode. Hence the need for faster processors in the new aTVs, and I suspect the main reason why Apple waited this long. As usual, Apple has waiting for the technology to mature enough to be able to provide a decent consumer experience and they ignored all the whiners until the technology became practical for a mass market without bringing our internet infrastructure to it's knees.

 

[Cyranis]

They'll most likely be using H.265 (a more advanced compression format) which will keep the files sizes essentially the same and won't affect your data usage, but that codec is far more intensive to encode and decode. Hence the need for faster processors in the new aTVs, and I suspect the main reason why Apple waited this long. As usual, Apple has waiting for the technology to mature enough to be able to provide a decent consumer experience and they ignored all the whiners until the technology became practical for a mass market without bringing our internet infrastructure to it's knees.

11.25gb/hour is what Netflix is using for 4k video right now. Until isp's stop with the cap nonsense, it's not workable for the average consumer.

 

[cerote]

WOW our ATV uses 50-70GB a month at the most. How much TV do you watch???????????

The most according to the report is the apples itunes address. So guessing it's the iTunes movies and shows we always streaming more than any other app on it.

 

[9594864]

I'm not going to lie, I've never watched anything in 4K. I don't own a blueray player and don't subscribe to cable TV.

My Sony is about 4 years old but not a 4K just 1080p, is 4K that much better?

I mainly just stream YouTube or watch my iTunes content.

I personally watched the 4K and 1080P blu ray disk of multiple movies, including Deadpool, Oblivion, and Star Trek (2009). By watched, I mean we switched back and forth, and I can tell you unequivocally, the difference is extremely minute. It's hardly noticeable, but colors did seem ever so slightly better. That is from blu rays so they are the uncompressed maximum quality you can get.

Now, the caveat is that 4K video is significantly better when you're talking about streaming movies or TV shows. The reason is (I believe), that when you are streaming, unlike watching the uncompressed blu rays, you are getting a greatly compressed stream. What happens is the 1080p streams are always far below 1080p, and the 4K streams are always far below 4K, but the thing is, when you stream the 4K version, you are getting well over 1080p, and therefore it looks significantly better because it is actually noticeable.

 

[JamesPDX]

Perhaps in 50 years, we'll have 10Gb Ethernet (proven RJ45 or SFP) to every home in the lower 48.

 

[killr_b]

For all of you "twice the resolution" people: digital displays are bitmapped and resolution is literally measured in pixels.

It's 4x the resolution.

Other devices may capture or store or work in ways that can define resolution differently, but not an LCD display. A display is measured in pixels for resolution. For example, sub-pixel rendering doesn't increase the resolution on an LCD, it just appears to have a greater resolution.

 

[9594864]

"The new 4K HDR Apple TV - perfect for AirPlaying 4K 60fps video from your iPhone Edition camera!"

Please let this be a line they use at the keynote!

I don't know if it will be capable of that. It would need serious power to be able to play that back.

 

[cerote]

well you cant blame Apple for that now can you? not everybody is living in ISP hell like you are, and why should the rest of us, who Can and do have uncapped data, suffer because some people are stuck with companies like comcast?

I don't think people are complaining about getting 4K device. It's more of expression of being bummed isp has datacaps now we can use 4K streaming more.

I live in a large market and isp choices suck. Comcast pretty much is only option that has high speeds with unlimited data(for extra fee).

 

[rusky_au]

They really need add a feature that allows for pre-downloading of an iTunes move/tv show to watch later. So many poor bandwidth ISPs in Australia that watching even normal HD streaming almost never works properly... and Netflix needs to add the download feature into their Apple TV app also!

 

[9594864]

They'll most likely be using H.265 (a more advanced compression format) which will keep the files sizes essentially the same and won't affect your data usage, but that codec is far more intensive to encode and decode. Hence the need for faster processors in the new aTVs, and I suspect the main reason why Apple waited this long. As usual, Apple has waiting for the technology to mature enough to be able to provide a decent consumer experience and they ignored all the whiners until the technology became practical for a mass market without bringing our internet infrastructure to it's knees.

Great thinking. This is likely why they waited, as well as 4K TVs and content being still very limited in 2015 when it released.

 

[dancefreak]

Here is the link. Looks like they don't make it anymore

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TWFHU7U/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

I thought HDR was only available via firmware upgrade on the 2015 Samsung JS models and not the lower tier JU models as the hardware wasn't capable.

 

[Agustin Cauchy]

While they're at it, can they update the ethernet to gigabit ethernet? Why it's only 10/100 in 2017 is an absolute joke. Even MacBooks from 2006 had 10/100/1000 Ethernet. I know many people don't have gigabit connections, but quite a few have fast connections that we would like to be able to use to stream HD content quickly.

 

[redscull]

Hope it has a new remote!

Seriously, that remote is the worst. I had to stick a sticker on the non-touch side just so I could tell how to hold it.

 

[dtich]

I guess I need to buy 4k HDR TV before I get too excited about this. Does 4k HDR even make a big difference compared to 1080p?

does anyone know if apple's forthcoming tv will support dolby vision HDR? or is it only hdr10?

 

[mixel]

Apple need to drop the “all games have to work with a controller that is not at all suited to most games” requirement if they haven’t already and either promote current 3rd party controllers or (preferably) release an official Apple one.

I really don’t understand why Apple seem so against this.. the FireTV took a good stab at it - it’s easy to tell which games require what type of controller..

Related: The AppleTV will soon have a Minecraft version with cross-play between Windows10, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Android and iOS.. A very good time to push controller support and sell a ton of them to families who wouldn’t want to buy a more expensive console.

 

[JamesPDX]

You know what needs to be ironed out before we get all excited about 4k and 8k? Color Space and contrast. Those ragged gradients I often see in skies or even credit/brand images in the openings of feature films. One of the points of master file compression for distribution of H264, H265, whatever, is that the masterfile is dithered (think of it like a 32-channel studio session getting mixed down to stereo.) to a standard SMPTE sRGB perceptual color gamut so that it will look correct on any off-the-shelf TV or monitor with default settings. It's "generic" but it's just dandy and is supposed to "remap" the "impossible" colors so that gradients are smooth, not ragged. Even on the cheapest HDTV, gradients and noise that do not exist on the original master should not be visible on the distributed product. Putting it another way, Lightroom 4.4 does a spectacular job of dithering 16-bit RAW image files to JPEG. I know that this is not the realm of the Apple TV box, but something needs to be done if these new technologies are going to be pushed with such force.

 

[dannyyankou]

I think I’m fine with the 4th gen for now. Don’t even have a 4K tv yet, I’ll wait on that until the prices of OLED displays go down.

 

[JamesPDX]

I personally watched the 4K and 1080P blu ray disk of multiple movies, including Deadpool, Oblivion, and Star Trek (2009). By watched, I mean we switched back and forth, and I can tell you unequivocally, the difference is extremely minute. It's hardly noticeable, but colors did seem ever so slightly better. That is from blu rays so they are the uncompressed maximum quality you can get.

Now, the caveat is that 4K video is significantly better when you're talking about streaming movies or TV shows. The reason is (I believe), that when you are streaming, unlike watching the uncompressed blu rays, you are getting a greatly compressed stream. What happens is the 1080p streams are always far below 1080p, and the 4K streams are always far below 4K, but the thing is, when you stream the 4K version, you are getting well over 1080p, and therefore it looks significantly better because it is actually noticeable.

I doubt that any streaming service is going to look better than that of a well-matched Blu-Ray and HDTV. I'd be surprised if the stream-providers are not recompressing content. Amazon Prime streaming most often has a visible grid (like faded graph paper) that is most visible when you're close to the screen. So, if I want reduced judder and reduced frame-skipping, I just download whatever I want to see. My internet speed is fine.

 

[gaximus]

Stop calling it an Apple TV. It's an Apple TV box.

An Apple TV is what it should be. With a flat thin screen as wide as a pencil.

I think it's more along the lines of it being a provider of TV, like DirectTV

 

[JamesPDX]

Holy jeez... Why does it all have to be so complicated Lol. Sometimes I hate the tech industry. So many inconsistencies and deception. I mean, that can be said for a lot of industries but still.

I hate how this knowledge is so hard to get ahold of.

https://www.smpte.org/digital-library

 

[ActionableMango]

4k itself is a number that only refers to the number of vertical lines in the image. There are twice as many lines in a 4k image as there are in a 1080p image.

The definition of a display resolution is the number of pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. You're throwing out one of the dimensions. Throwing out one dimension to come up with "1080P" or "4K" is okay for marketing terms, but once you start doing things like math (doubling or quadrupling), you need to take both dimensions into account.

Let's say the standard TV display was 1000x500 pixels and it was called "1K". By your definition of resolution doubling, 2000x1 pixels would be "2K" and hence double the resolution. "1K" is correct and "2K" is correct, but nobody in their right mind would call that second screen double the resolution. What happens to the horizontal lines cannot be ignored.

If that's too silly of an example, here is a real life example:

No reasonable person would consider these to be the exact same resolution just because they are both 1440p.

 

[jeremiah256]

Really? Is it HDR? How do you like it? I was looking at Sony one 55 inch for 1 grand

Not who you asked, but I just bought a 2016 model, 55" Sony 4K HDR for $650. And it was only that expensive because I neglected to buy it during the Amazon sale a month earlier for $500.

It's great, but as reference, I upgraded from a 2008, 42" Sony HD (where I paid twice as much).

 

[bopajuice]

Personally, I can't see any *noticeable* difference between an upscaled DVD and a BR, so 4K (for me) is more a marketing gimmick than a content quality improvement. The only reason I've bought BR titles is for the dramatically better sound. Streaming a movie, in HD quality, doesn't even provide DVD-quality sound, IMO. In short: none of these "improvements" mean a nit to me, so I'll happily keep my money in the bank, thank you.

Have you actually watched a decent quality 4k TV with 4k content? Not upscaled, but actual 4K content? The picture is phenomenal. I mean night and day difference. I think you would be able to tell the difference.