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We're hearing multiple reports worldwide from subscribers to Apple TV+, Apple's video streaming service, about the loss of support for watching shows in Dolby Vision HDR on Apple TV 4K set-top boxes connected to compatible 4K TVs.

apple-tv-plus-series-banner.jpg

Over the past two weeks, more and more users have taken to the MacRumors forums, Twitter, Reddit and Apple's discussion pages to highlight the problem, which appears to be affecting not only new show episodes as they're made available, but existing episodes hosted on the service that previously worked in Dolby Vision HDR.

For example, early episodes of "See," "The Morning Show" and "For All Mankind" are no longer being streamed in dynamic Dolby Vision HDR, but revert back to static HDR in HDR10 format on TVs that officially support Dolby Vision. The same goes for brand new episodes of these shows that were released today, despite the fact that they still carry the Dolby Vision HDR support label on the summary screens.

Compared to static HDR10 which works uniformly across content, Dolby Vision HDR use dynamic image metadata that enables Dolby Vision-capable TVs to adapt the extended color gamut and increased contrast range of HDR on a scene-by-scene and even frame-by-frame basis. Losing the DV HDR support can result in scenes that look too dark, appear like a negative image, or have an odd tint to them.

@UHD4k I don't know if it's just me but today on my Apple TV 4K when I watch an Apple TV+ show (See and Morning show) it's in HDR instead of Dolby vision. Used to work fine.Weird.— Djems (@Djems94) December 6, 2019

Some users have suggested that the affected episodes may still be encoded in Dolby Vision and it's actually a bug in Apple TV's Match Dynamic Range feature that's preventing the set-top box from outputting the source content correctly. However, it seems more likely that Apple has removed support from the source content while it resolves a problem streaming shows in Dolby Vision.

It's worth noting that the problem doesn't currently seem to affect all shows on Apple TV+ for at least some users. There are scattered reports that "The Elephant Mother" documentary and Apple's "Dickinson" show still appear to be streaming in full Dolby Vision HDR, as do some kids shows like "Snoopy in Space."

We've contacted Apple for comment on the issue and will update this article if we learn anything more.

Article Link: Apple TV+ Content No Longer Playing in Dolby Vision HDR for Apple TV 4K Owners
 
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I noticed that it was missing from my Sony A1E OLED tv but its gone in for repair (not related) so not been able to check since.
 
Mother was trying to watch ATV+ content on ATV3 and it kept dropping out the entire day and even subtitles going out of sync. Needless to say it wasn't a great introduction to the service. She clearly wants Netflix back.
 
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it seems more likely that Apple has removed support from the source content while it resolves a problem streaming shows in Dolby Vision
Seems to be still Dolby Vision HDR for me, at least for See and For All the Mankind 🤔
Your experience alone suggests that the MR “more likely” scenario isn’t true, unless said support and said problem are location-specific.
 
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Most shows lost HDR completely on Roku. Dickinson still shows HDR fine.

2019 = the year nothing works right for Apple.
 
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Last I checked the service is still Apple. The app on Roku is still Apple. If Macrumors wants to believe that Apple TV+ only works on an Apple TV box, then they need better reporting.
But you mentioned roku. I thought you meant the whole roku box not the Apple TV + app ;)
 
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Same here but more and more I’m also unable to play other apps streaming services due to not being HDCP (or similar) compliant. Compliance returns after restarting.....

Getting so fed up of all these bugs with Apple lately.
Apple never used to have so many bugs, updates and errors all over the place. I remember when it just all worked. Not so glitchy all the damned time. Getting very bored of it now.
 
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But you mentioned roku. I thought you meant the whole roku box not the Apple TV + app ;)

Ah gotcha. Yeah the Roku box is fine. Even the Apple TV app is fine still on the Roku. A show like Dickinson, which was released all at once still plays in HDR on Roku.

Clearly it's a service issue with Apple, however they are sending/encoding these shows.

The timeline, at least on Roku went like this:

Original episodes 1-3 streamed fine in HDR.
Somewhere around episode 4 or 5 of shows, new episodes no longer were activating HDR, but the original episodes were still showing HDR.
Sometime afterwards, HDR was removed on all episodes of most shows.

MacRumors should do a little more research to realize that people on devices that don't support HDR, have been downgraded to SDR. There are reports on reddit for people with Rokus, LG TVs, Samsung etc no longer getting HDR at all.
 
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This week in Spain we spend 1 day or so without spanish (spain) probably because some problems/changes in the service and it was solved.

This will also be resolved soon.
 
Is this issue exclusive to the 4k box or is it anything that supports Dolby Vision?
 
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