Apple TV 4K - yes please

[MalooNZ]

Am I the only one hanging out for a 4K capable Apple TV? Why is it taking so long?

And yes that means iTunes HD tv/movies should be available as 4K content - and at the standard HD price.

Really struggle with a cost difference between SD and HD these days.

 

[benjitek]

Apple hasn't announced anything at this time.

 

[Phil in ocala]

Go watch 4K on a samsung tv at best buy....the images are real...this fact will scare parents as crime shows will show the blood and you will think you are a witness to a murder or killing....not for children.

 

[robotica]

Should have released the 4 in 4K to begin with and got a jump on the competition.

 

[Snoopy4]

Am I the only one hanging out for a 4K capable Apple TV? Why is it taking so long?

And yes that means iTunes HD tv/movies should be available as 4K content - and at the standard HD price.

Really struggle with a cost difference between SD and HD really these days.

Went with an XBox One S. iTunes is now for my mobile devices. I now keep duplicate movies in iTunes and UV. I can watch my 4K BDs or stream what I want to stream. Gives me Amazon Prime too. The only downside is there is currently no support for Dolby Atmos. For that I have a separate 4K BD player. I wanted to simplify the vast majority of the viewing.

 

[kevin_tron_taco]

I'm holding out as well. I bought the Apple TV 4 a few months ago but returned it because I couldn't justify having it when I had a Roku 4 with UHD content on VUDU. I'd rather have UHD on iTunes and will jump on a new ATV once they release a 4k version with UHD iTunes content coming out.

 

[vipergts2207]

I'm waiting as well. I was disappointed with Apple not including it on the 4, so I stuck with my 3rd gen. At this point though Apple needs to include not just 4K, but support for HDR10 and/or Dolby Vision. I plan on upgrading from my 8 year old 1080p TV to a 4K HDR TV next year most likely. Not sure why Apple chooses to be behind in this area. Last year most top end streaming devices had 4K while Apple did not. This year many are adding HDR, so if Apple follows their current trend they'll add 4K, but not HDR.

 

[Menel]

Am I the only one hanging out for a 4K capable Apple TV? Why is it taking so long?

And yes that means iTunes HD tv/movies should be available as 4K content - and at the standard HD price.

Really struggle with a cost difference between SD and HD these days.

Apple is not interested in video quality, experiences. They are a baseline, budget consumer electronics company.

You have to look elsewhere.

Roku supports 4K and HDR streaming. mmmmm The Grand Tour coming via Roku/AmazonPrime this month!

My TV is ready. My AppleTV4 is going to be passed on to little sister or back room.

 

[priitv8]

Apple is not interested in video quality, experiences. They are a baseline, budget consumer electronics company.

Well, first and foremost, aTV is a window into iTunes Store. Would be interesting to carve out a window into the room, where there's nothing to see.
I assume, they will update their device once content and infra are ready for that.

 

[cynics]

Apple is not interested in video quality, experiences. They are a baseline, budget consumer electronics company.

You have to look elsewhere.

Roku supports 4K and HDR streaming. mmmmm The Grand Tour coming via Roku/AmazonPrime this month!

My TV is ready. My AppleTV4 is going to be passed on to little sister or back room.

We'll need to wait and see what Apple does. Being first when it comes to video codec tech is rarely a good thing. Look at the first 4k TV that Netflix and Youtube don't support because they can't decode the video stream. More recently many 4k TV's and set top boxes can't decode any streams HDR. Even more recently many 4k TV's and set top boxes can't decode Dolby Vision HDR (licensing fees from Dolby vs HDR10).

4k streaming is currently the wild west which isn't a safe bet for Apple when they have iTunes at stake.

I would like to see a 4k HDR ATV but Apple will drag their feet until standards in codec and HDR are set in stone.

Then on top of that I wouldn't be surprised if they implemented a proprietary codec with 4k iTunes for use with iDevices, ATV, and Macs. Because lets be real....current 4k streaming content looks visually WORSE then 1080p blu ray due to the inherent limitations imposed by current compression and bandwidth.

I have a 65" Samsung KS9000 that I sit 10-12 feet from with Netflix's 4k subscription and I still typically use my ATV to watch Netflix because I prefer the UI.

 

[MalooNZ]

We'll need to wait and see what Apple does. Being first when it comes to video codec tech is rarely a good thing. Look at the first 4k TV that Netflix and Youtube don't support because they can't decode the video stream. More recently many 4k TV's and set top boxes can't decode any streams HDR. Even more recently many 4k TV's and set top boxes can't decode Dolby Vision HDR (licensing fees from Dolby vs HDR10).

4k streaming is currently the wild west which isn't a safe bet for Apple when they have iTunes at stake.

I would like to see a 4k HDR ATV but Apple will drag their feet until standards in codec and HDR are set in stone.

Then on top of that I wouldn't be surprised if they implemented a proprietary codec with 4k iTunes for use with iDevices, ATV, and Macs. Because lets be real....current 4k streaming content looks visually WORSE then 1080p blu ray due to the inherent limitations imposed by current compression and bandwidth.

I have a 65" Samsung KS9000 that I sit 10-12 feet from with Netflix's 4k subscription and I still typically use my ATV to watch Netflix because I prefer the UI.

I think you're drunk - Netflix 4K footage and youtube 4k content looks great on my 75" Sony 4K HDR tv - no issues with 'decoding" - if this is the Wild West I'll stake my claim - hurry up apple or you will miss out.

Speaking of quality did the 'pimple' on the back of 'Luke Cages' head annoy anyone else?

 

[cynics]

I think you're drunk - Netflix 4K footage and youtube 4k content looks great on my 75" Sony 4K HDR tv - no issues with 'decoding" - if this is the Wild West I'll stake my claim - hurry up apple or you will miss out.

Speaking of quality did the 'pimple' on the back of 'Luke Cages' head annoy anyone else?

Well that's your opinion but let's compare facts.

Do you think Netflix (for example) can somehow magically compress a 4K movie into less than 25mbps without massive losses?

Keeping in mind an actual UHD BD is around 100-128mbps.

Compared to the actual movie it's noticeably worse, and if you can't see that you either don't have a UHD player so you no no better or....you're drunk. Lol

Thats not really what the point of my post was. My point was...well does your 75" Sony TV support HDR10, Dolbly Vision or neither? How much did your potentially now out of date TV cost?

Edited

 

[Vermifuge]

Should have released the 4 in 4K to begin with and got a jump on the competition.

The ATV 4 hardware would have lagged for anything other than just watching 4k video.

The A8 inside the Apple TV likely uses a GX6450 GPU. This is the same pairing found inside of the iPhone 6 series. Performance of the A8 already lags behind on the iPhone 6 Plus rendering 2.7 million pixels to fill its 1080p screen (scaling down to 2 million pixels) To fill the screen of a 4k TV that same GPU would have to push 9 million pixels. Even the user interface (not to mention gaming) would be laggy unless they made tweaks to the GPU. This is possible but unlikely in keeping with the target price point. ATV is a "hobby" after all.

4k Adoption just isn't there yet.

I don't believe Apple has any motivation to support Quad HD/4k until the magic number of 51% of homes with 4k is achieved. And although adoption is higher than ever only 1 in 10 homes (north america) have QHD/4k. We likely won't see 1 in 5 until sometime in 2020. Don't expect a 4k ATV until that time.

Data caps are a real thing for the majority of NA homes and a fact of daily life across Europe.

All you can eat internet is over. With more homes abandoning TV package deals ISPs are making up for the loss by forcing tiered internet service. 1TB of data is enough for most people when it comes to internet usage and video steaming at 1080p. But 4k streams would eat through data caps in a matter of days. Does anyone recall the lawsuits that surfaced over WiFi Assist? An iTunes store that supports 4k (plus the apple TV to consume it) could have unexpected repercussions.

 

[hinesmj]

Go watch 4K on a samsung tv at best buy....the images are real...this fact will scare parents as crime shows will show the blood and you will think you are a witness to a murder or killing....not for children.

What?

 

[Moonjumper]

Perhaps they are waiting for the standards to settle down.

We've already gone from HDMI 2.0 to HDMI 2.0a. Yet to come:

Dynamic metadata for HDR10.
HDMI 2.1 to support dynamic metadata for HDR10.
A new broadcast format.

 

[iDento]

Well that's your opinion but let's compare facts.

Do you think Netflix (for example) can somehow magically compress a 4K movie into less than 25mbps without massive losses?

Keeping in mind an actual UHD BD is around 100-128mbps.

Compared to the actual movie it's noticeably worse, and if you can't see that you either don't have a UHD player so you no no better or....you're drunk. Lol

Thats not really what the point of my post was. My point was...well does your 75" Sony TV support HDR10, Dolbly Vision or neither? How much did your potentially now out of date TV cost?

Edited

Apparently, you've never heard of x.265.

HEVC x.265 encodes that Netflix uses to compress 4K movies gives you the same quality as x.264 (the ones used for 1080p movies) using less than 1/2 the size/stream. It also supports HDR and 10 bit colors.

And you can use that codec with 1080p movies too, they just need more processing power to encode.

 

[cynics]

Apparently, you've never heard of x.265.

HEVC x.265 encodes that Netflix uses to compress 4K movies gives you the same quality as x.264 (the ones used for 1080p movies) using less than 1/2 the size/stream. It also supports HDR and 10 bit colors.

And you can use that codec with 1080p movies too, they just need more processing power to encode.

I'm familiar with HEVC. Re read my post in relation to UHD BD....or are you implying it's not lossy?

 

[MalooNZ]

Not sure anyone claimed that a 4K streaming service was better than a UHD DB - but Netflix 4K is certainaly better than the standard HD iTunes offers. I'm not going to buy every movie or tv show on disk. hence the subject being in reference to the Apple TV product.

With most new TVs being UHD and having Netflix apps built in plus the new PlayStation and Xbox playing 4K - even my new iPhone shoots 4K. I just think Apple TV needs to catch up.

 

[iSunrise]

...Data caps are a real thing for the majority of NA homes and a fact of daily life across Europe.

All you can eat internet is over. With more homes abandoning TV package deals ISPs are making up for the loss by forcing tiered internet service. 1TB of data is enough for most people when it comes to internet usage and video steaming at 1080p. But 4k streams would eat through data caps in a matter of days. Does anyone recall the lawsuits that surfaced over WiFi Assist? An iTunes store that supports 4k (plus the apple TV to consume it) could have unexpected repercussions.

While I support you with your other arguments, I am not sure what you are speaking of, since we are talking about people that mainly watch from their homes and data caps for homes are mostly wired connections with unlimited data, like it has always been. Also, since you would still have a choice between 720p, 1080p and 4K (2160p), I do not see any repercussions at all.

4K streams are always optional, all other resolutions will still be available anyway. You kinda make it sound like suddenly all content will be 4K, which is just not correct.

Abandoning the idea of 4K just has no arguments other than not willing to do it, since Apple currently does not see the benefit for themselves.

The A8 is more than capable of delivering 1080p, since on the 6 Plus the chip needs to be downclocked (for battery life reasons, which is not the case for the Apple TV) and also has to render at a way higher resolution (2208x1242), which gets downscaled afterwards (which also is not the case for the Apple TV). The only thing it seems to miss is either API support or hardware support for H.265/HEVC (or similiar) and HDMI 2.0/HDCP copy protection and a physical connection for full HDMI support.

My personal opinion is that Apple will certainly introduce 4K when they see their benefit, but before, it probably won't happen, which is a shame since Apple has all the talent, the experience, the ecosystem and availability of new devices every year that could make this great.

But we will have to live with that and search for alternatives (Google Chromecast Ultra, Android TV 4K), even if we don't want to, since Apple seems not to be interested.

 

[Blair Paulsen]

Count me amongst the cohort waiting for UHD/4K capability before buying a new AppleTV device. Even if there isn't much quality UHD/4K content available today (over compression and poor upscales from 1080 being common), I expect better source quality long before I would expect an ATV to fail. Nothing is truly "future proof", but, IMO, the current HD ATV is just too close to obsolescence.

I'm hopeful that we will see a gen 5 ATV during 2017 that leverages two key pieces:
1) as the smart phone market matures and Apple keeps pushing forward with their A series processors, the A10 will have already recouped NRE and can be sourced at a unit cost in line with use in the ATV.
2) Standards for UHD and HDR will get sorted well enough that any further refinements can be accomplished in firmware updates rather than requiring new FPGAs or ASICs.

The other factor that may be impacting Cupertino's plans is their desire to create the program guide/content access portal to rule them all. Rolling that out with a flashy new hardware device at the same time is a marketing plus - and Apple has a history of exploiting such synergies.

 

[Dunk the Lunk]

I'm familiar with HEVC. Re read my post in relation to UHD BD....or are you implying it's not lossy?

Erm, the video image on a UHD bluray will also be lossy. The question is whether that loss is acceptable. For most people it will be. The image quality of a 100mbps UHD bluray will not be 400% better than Netflix UHD just because the Mbps figure is.

The other thing you've got to factor in sound quality-given that a greater proportion of the 100mbps will include a lossless Atmos (or the like) track, but Netflix will only have lossy soundtracks that means the difference in Video quality will be less, but the Sound quality difference will be greater. But how many people actually have amultiple speaker setup, that is compatible with Atmos etc?

The main reason why Apple are holding back is its like the Wild West out there with regards to standards.

 

[Vermifuge]

While I support you with your other arguments, I am not sure what you are speaking of, since we are talking about people that mainly watch from their homes and data caps for homes are mostly wired connections with unlimited data, like it has always been. Also, since you would still have a choice between 720p, 1080p and 4K (2160p), I do not see any repercussions at all.

Actually this is exactly what I'm talking about. As a cord cutter my ISP (AT&T) has saddled me with a data cap of 1 TB . The only way to have unlimited data in my region (California) with AT&T is to subscribe to a TV package (Direct TV/U-Verse) in addition to paying for the mid tier data service. Anything slower than 20 mbps will result in a data cap of 150 GB.

This will become the new norm.

All you can eat internet is over. With more homes abandoning TV package deals ISPs are making up for the loss by forcing tiered internet service. 1TB of data is enough for most people when it comes to internet usage and video steaming at 1080p. But 4k streams would eat through data caps in a matter of days. Does anyone recall the lawsuits that surfaced over WiFi Assist? An iTunes store that supports 4k (plus the apple TV to consume it) could have unexpected repercussions.

Chances are if you get data only through one of the large providers like Comcast or AT&T you will get a data cap. The comcast customers in my region have ALL received data caps even those who still subscribe to a TV package. As more People drop Traditional TV packages ISPs will need to find new ways to make money. Enhanced data packages are the obvious first choice

4K streams are always optional, all other resolutions will still be available anyway. You kinda make it sound like suddenly all content will be 4K, which is just not correct.

Abandoning the idea of 4K just has no arguments other than not willing to do it, since Apple currently does not see the benefit for themselves.

I never said abandon the idea. My point is It's currently not a focus of Apple because of the reasons I listed. Apple no longer courts the pro users and instead develops products that appeal to the lowest common denominator. Optional or not. Adding 4k to people who probably don't know they have data caps (as you just illustrated you were ignorant to this possibility) could saddle them with unwanted overages. Even on terrestrial based home service.

If your saying apple Use the same configuration to Deliver 4k steams but throttle back the UI and Gaming experience to 1080p... well it's just unlike Apple to create a half realized user experience like that.

The A8 is more than capable of delivering 1080p, since on the 6 Plus the chip needs to be downclocked (for battery life reasons, which is not the case for the Apple TV) and also has to render at a way higher resolution (2208x1242), which gets downscaled afterwards (which also is not the case for the Apple TV). The only thing it seems to miss is either API support or hardware support for H.265/HEVC (or similiar) and HDMI 2.0/HDCP copy protection and a physical connection for full HDMI support.

Re-clocking the A8 SoC is not a replacement for pixel fill rates. AGAIN the A8 certainly does render at (2208x1242) or 2,742,366 (2.7 million) pixels but 4k renders at (4096 x 2160) or 8,847,360 (8.8 Million pixels.) even the QHD 3840x2160 (8.3 million pixels) is still about 3 times as may pixels as the 6 Plus currently renders. This would make UI and gaming unacceptably slow.

Again... "it's just unlike Apple to create a half realized user experience like that."

My personal opinion is that Apple will certainly introduce 4K when they see their benefit, but before, it probably won't happen, which is a shame since Apple has all the talent, the experience, the ecosystem and availability of new devices every year that could make this great.

But we will have to live with that and search for alternatives (Google Chromecast Ultra, Android TV 4K), even if we don't want to, since Apple seems not to be interested.

I think we are are in agreement here I'm sure apple WILL make this a priority once 4k (or Quad HD) TV adoption has passed that magical 50% mark. But that won't be for a few more years. Apple was perfectly happy waiting several years before releasing the current Apple TV 4 replacement after the Apple TV 3... the year 2020 isn't some arbitrary number. it's the projection of the year 51% of NA homes will have 4k/QHD.

 

[oneMadRssn]

Apple was perfectly happy waiting several years before releasing the current Apple TV 4 replacement after the Apple TV 3... the year 2020 isn't some arbitrary number. it's the projection of the year 51% of NA homes will have 4k/QHD.

I think what we have here is a chicken or the egg issue. Do people buy a 4k TV and use a 1080p set top box on it? Or, do people buy a 4k set top box and use it with a 1080p TV? (Obviously some minority can upgrade both at the same time.)

I fall into the latter category. I would not buy a 4k TV until I have a solid 4k-capable set top box.

 

[Vermifuge]

I think what we have here is a chicken or the egg issue. Do people buy a 4k TV and use a 1080p set top box on it? Or, do people buy a 4k set top box and use it with a 1080p TV? (Obviously some minority can upgrade both at the same time.)

I fall into the latter category. I would not buy a 4k TV until I have a solid 4k-capable set top box.

That being said you DO have other choices. Roku, Chrome, etc. You just don't have an option for Apple.

 

[oneMadRssn]

That being said you DO have other choices. Roku, Chrome, etc. You just don't have an option for Apple.

True. To me, each of those has a draw-back which, in my opinion, is greater than lack of 4k.

Specifically I despise the Roku UI and remote. To me, it is the worst designed user experience since MSN WebTV. ChromeCast is pretty nice, but I don't want to rely on a smartphone to control things, rather I want it to be a standalone thing that will work all on its own. I don't subscribe to Amazon Prime, so most of the FireTV features are useless to me.

Buying a TV with a built-in ecosystem, like Samsung's Tizen-based SmartHub and LG's WebOS 3.0, is a decent solution too, with obvious downsides.

Apple's solution just seems like the best mix of UI, simplicity, and apps.