AppleTv4k FauxHDR?

[PabloSRT8]

Like many of you, I also noticed that turning on or off the HDR option on video section of the atv4k, changes the brightness on your tv.
Not by a little, but by a lot.
I didn't noticed at first because the lights were on, but when the room was dark, it was a different story.
We all experienced the same thing with iTunes AAC... and the many people that, to this day claim there is not difference between AAC and Lossless.
I will say this, aac doesn't sound too bad on cheap headphones (and yes, Beats are "cheap" headphones)
Using Grado Rs1e, or Fostex TH900ii, you will hear a huge difference between aac and regular cds.
I think the same thing is happening with iTunes 4k; because when I use the Atv4k on my very entry level Vizio 4k non hdr, it looks ok.
But when I use the Atv4k on my Samsung 65 8000 better tv (better because when side by side playing SD HD or 4K wins hands down and not only by a little, even the wife noticed it, by a lot) iTunes 4k doesn't look good at all.
So I guess I'm comparing this video signal to an audio signal since is what I know.
You can feed crap music to cheap headphones and they sound ok.
But you can NOT feed crap music to good headphones because they sound like crap, even worst than the cheaper headphones. (By cheaper I don't mean $$, I mean poorly design, cheaply made)

I guess what I'm trying to say is:

Feeding my Vizio with crappy 4k will look ok, But feeding crappy 4k to a tv that demands more will look crappy.

Apples new formats are all about saving space.
HECV and HEIC claim to have the same quality to 4k and jpeg...
But they also said that about aac when they talk on the keynotes...
I love Steve Jobs, but when he said that the Apple Hi Fi Boombox was for audiophiles, I started laughing so hard...
But I understand... they are salesmen that need to make money.

 

[Mabus51]

Yeah the HDR looks awful on the ATV 4K. There is no arguing that. Just turn HDR off and run in either RGB high mode or CyCbCr 4.4.4 and you get better results. Still not perfect... eh just return it.

 

[Christocentric]

I’ve got a question. Why does my 4K tv show the video output of the Apple TV 4K as being 4K no matter if I’m watching something in 4K or 1080p? Anything I watch the TV still says it’s in 4K. I can switch outputs to something else like my original XBox One and it correctly says 1080p. What gives? Is it the upscaling in the TV or something doing this?

 

[PabloSRT8]

I’ve got a question. Why does my 4K tv show the video output of the Apple TV 4K as being 4K no matter if I’m watching something in 4K or 1080p? Anything I watch the TV still says it’s in 4K. I can switch outputs to something else like my original XBox One and it correctly says 1080p. What gives? Is it the upscaling in the TV or something doing this?

Must be the up-scaling.

 

[Packers1958]

I’ve got a question. Why does my 4K tv show the video output of the Apple TV 4K as being 4K no matter if I’m watching something in 4K or 1080p? Anything I watch the TV still says it’s in 4K. I can switch outputs to something else like my original XBox One and it correctly says 1080p. What gives? Is it the upscaling in the TV or something doing this?

It's being upscaled by the ATV if you have the ATV set to 4K. It doesn't really matter. Either your tv does the upscaling or the ATV does it. Same with your XBox. All your tv is showing is what is being fed into your tv. Your tv still upscales your Xbox to 4K. You are not watching 1080p.

 

[perezr10]

.
You can feed crap music to cheap headphones and they sound ok.

That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. Crap music through crap headphones sounds like...crap.

 

[cynics]

That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. Crap music through crap headphones sounds like...crap.

You need to read between the lines.

I think more or less he's saying poor quality audio can sound worse on high end headphones since they can better highlight flaws in the audio quality.
[doublepost=1506772071][/doublepost]

Like many of you, I also noticed that turning on or off the HDR option on video section of the atv4k, changes the brightness on your tv.
Not by a little, but by a lot.
I didn't noticed at first because the lights were on, but when the room was dark, it was a different story.
We all experienced the same thing with iTunes AAC... and the many people that, to this day claim there is not difference between AAC and Lossless.
I will say this, aac doesn't sound too bad on cheap headphones (and yes, Beats are "cheap" headphones)
Using Grado Rs1e, or Fostex TH900ii, you will hear a huge difference between aac and regular cds.
I think the same thing is happening with iTunes 4k; because when I use the Atv4k on my very entry level Vizio 4k non hdr, it looks ok.
But when I use the Atv4k on my Samsung 65 8000 better tv (better because when side by side playing SD HD or 4K wins hands down and not only by a little, even the wife noticed it, by a lot) iTunes 4k doesn't look good at all.
So I guess I'm comparing this video signal to an audio signal since is what I know.
You can feed crap music to cheap headphones and they sound ok.
But you can NOT feed crap music to good headphones because they sound like crap, even worst than the cheaper headphones. (By cheaper I don't mean $$, I mean poorly design, cheaply made)

I guess what I'm trying to say is:

Feeding my Vizio with crappy 4k will look ok, But feeding crappy 4k to a tv that demands more will look crappy.

Apples new formats are all about saving space.
HECV and HEIC claim to have the same quality to 4k and jpeg...
But they also said that about aac when they talk on the keynotes...
I love Steve Jobs, but when he said that the Apple Hi Fi Boombox was for audiophiles, I started laughing so hard...
But I understand... they are salesmen that need to make money.

HEVC is just the type of encoding a lot of 4k content uses. It doesn't inherently effect the quality. Since its better at compressing the video than the previously used codec (h264) you can get better quality without sacrificing much bandwidth.

As far as the TV's go make sure they are both set to the same settings in the ATV (HDR off). And make sure the TV settings are similar, for the samsung "Movie" mode is calibrated "ok'ish".

If all your previous comparisons were done with 1080p the samsung may have been doing a better job upscaling than the Vizio. Feeding them 4k may have put them on more even footing.
[doublepost=1506772867][/doublepost]

I’ve got a question. Why does my 4K tv show the video output of the Apple TV 4K as being 4K no matter if I’m watching something in 4K or 1080p? Anything I watch the TV still says it’s in 4K. I can switch outputs to something else like my original XBox One and it correctly says 1080p. What gives? Is it the upscaling in the TV or something doing this?

The TV is receiving a 4K signal because the ATV is outputting a 4K signal. It will pass the data for 4K content and upscale everything else. Regardless the TV is always receiving a 4K resolution signal which is why its always displaying that.

Like mentioned, this is always happening even with your Xbox One. However the difference is the Xbox is sending a 1080p signal and the TV is upscaling it to 4k.

This is the fundamental problem with the AppleTV 4k. Not all upscaling is equal. While the fundamentals are similar the post processing can vary quite a bit. The issue is modern TV's are exceedingly good at upscaling, they need to be because TV manufacturers know the majority of your content wont be in 4K. However not all modern TV's are good at further processing 4K. So if you take a poorly upscaled/processed 1080P to 4K video and send it to a TV that can't processes 4K as well you could end up with a worse image than you had before.....

Whew...that was overly wordy and didn't say too much....lol

 

[perezr10]

You need to read between the lines.

I think more or less he's saying poor quality audio can sound worse on high end headphones since they can better highlight flaws in the audio quality.
[doublepost=1506772071][/doublepost]

I understood full well what you both mean. But I’ve always rejected that as faulty logic. Poor audio or video for that matter is never “better” by poor equipment. Good quality material is worse.

People who want to sound like they know what they are talking about should stop using that as an example.

 

[PabloSRT8]

That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. Crap music through crap headphones sounds like...crap.

I guess you are just guessing what you are saying and never tried it right?
If I play my iPhone with regular headphones it sounds the way you spect it to sound.
If I play with my th900mk2 which is able to “listen” a whole spectrum, that same music sounds terrible.
You can hear all the crackles and compression.
What kind of research have YOU done to back your theory that what I’m saying is wrong?

 

[perezr10]

I guess you are just guessing what you are saying and never tried it right?
If I play my iPhone with regular headphones it sounds the way you spect it to sound.
If I play with my th900mk2 which is able to “listen” a whole spectrum, that same music sounds terrible.
You can hear all the crackles and compression.
What kind of research have YOU done to back your theory that what I’m saying is wrong?

It’s the faulty logic you use. You use “expect it to sound” as an acceptable stand-in for good music. That’s false. What you mean to say is that you expect it to sound like crap, and it does. It meets your low expectations. Stupid argument.

 

[Christocentric]

You need to read between the lines.

I think more or less he's saying poor quality audio can sound worse on high end headphones since they can better highlight flaws in the audio quality.
[doublepost=1506772071][/doublepost]

HEVC is just the type of encoding a lot of 4k content uses. It doesn't inherently effect the quality. Since its better at compressing the video than the previously used codec (h264) you can get better quality without sacrificing much bandwidth.

As far as the TV's go make sure they are both set to the same settings in the ATV (HDR off). And make sure the TV settings are similar, for the samsung "Movie" mode is calibrated "ok'ish".

If all your previous comparisons were done with 1080p the samsung may have been doing a better job upscaling than the Vizio. Feeding them 4k may have put them on more even footing.
[doublepost=1506772867][/doublepost]

The TV is receiving a 4K signal because the ATV is outputting a 4K signal. It will pass the data for 4K content and upscale everything else. Regardless the TV is always receiving a 4K resolution signal which is why its always displaying that.

Like mentioned, this is always happening even with your Xbox One. However the difference is the Xbox is sending a 1080p signal and the TV is upscaling it to 4k.

This is the fundamental problem with the AppleTV 4k. Not all upscaling is equal. While the fundamentals are similar the post processing can vary quite a bit. The issue is modern TV's are exceedingly good at upscaling, they need to be because TV manufacturers know the majority of your content wont be in 4K. However not all modern TV's are good at further processing 4K. So if you take a poorly upscaled/processed 1080P to 4K video and send it to a TV that can't processes 4K as well you could end up with a worse image than you had before.....

Whew...that was overly wordy and didn't say too much....lol

Thank you! I will say the picture quality is awesome.

 

[PabloSRT8]

It’s the faulty logic you use. You use “expect it to sound” as an acceptable stand-in for good music. That’s false. What you mean to say is that you expect it to sound like crap, and it does. It meets your low expectations. Stupid argument.

I guess i didn’t explain my self correctly and I understand what you mean.
I don’t how to explain, but it seems to me that better headphones are able to deliver or “read?” More sound that less expensive headphones can.
Let’s say the good headphones are able to resolve 20hz very well and less expensive headphones can only resolve up to 40hz.
Now let’s say that iTunes sounds ok all the way down to 40hz and really bad at 20hz.
With the less expensive headphones you would not noticed the terrible 20hz because they can on deliver 40hz.
Since the better headphones can deliver 20hz really good, now you’d be able to hear how bad 20hz sounds on that same iTunes track.
I’m just trying to say that better headphones are able to resolve more sound and less expensive one, and when you send a crappy signal is more apparent.
I would have to show you, can’t explain, but I did tried many many times.

 

[err404]

The AppleTV does not do faux HDR, rather it is relying on our TVs HDR mode to be a superset of the SDR range with more head room at the top an bottom brightness. They do this so the TV never needs to switch modes after changing to the AppleTV input. FYI the AppleTV uses an internal upscaler to send all content as 4K to the TV. Some folks prefer their TV to do the upscaling.
Now here is the issue: Most current TVs are not able to display HDR at the full range, so they compress the HDR range to fit within what the panel can display. To make matters worse, these same TVs when in SDR mode, stretch the brightness range to better fill out the panels ability.
As a result and SDR range video sent as is to a TV in HDR mode will have its brightness range compressed into a smaller range. This makes the resulting image more dull and dim than is expected.
FYI. I am not making excuses for Apple or blaming TV manufacturers, rather I am just explained what is happening.

 

[Poontaco]

The AppleTV does not do faux HDR, rather it is relying on our TVs HDR mode to be a superset of the SDR range with more head room at the top an bottom brightness. They do this so the TV never needs to switch modes after changing to the AppleTV input. FYI the AppleTV uses an internal upscaler to send all content as 4K to the TV. Some folks prefer their TV to do the upscaling.
Now here is the issue: Most current TVs are not able to display HDR at the full range, so they compress the HDR range to fit within what the panel can display. To make matters worse, these same TVs when in SDR mode, stretch the brightness range to better fill out the panels ability.
As a result and SDR range video sent as is to a TV in HDR mode will have its brightness range compressed into a smaller range. This makes the resulting image more dull and dim than is expected.
FYI. I am not making excuses for Apple or blaming TV manufacturers, rather I am just explained what is happening.

Great explanation! This should be stickied somewhere.
[doublepost=1506965586][/doublepost]

I guess i didn’t explain my self correctly and I understand what you mean.
I don’t how to explain, but it seems to me that better headphones are able to deliver or “read?” More sound that less expensive headphones can.
Let’s say the good headphones are able to resolve 20hz very well and less expensive headphones can only resolve up to 40hz.
Now let’s say that iTunes sounds ok all the way down to 40hz and really bad at 20hz.
With the less expensive headphones you would not noticed the terrible 20hz because they can on deliver 40hz.
Since the better headphones can deliver 20hz really good, now you’d be able to hear how bad 20hz sounds on that same iTunes track.
I’m just trying to say that better headphones are able to resolve more sound and less expensive one, and when you send a crappy signal is more apparent.
I would have to show you, can’t explain, but I did tried many many times.

I understand what you are saying, and I agree.
Good quality speakers show the flaws in recordings, much in the same way your house looks dirtier with the lights on.
[doublepost=1506965783][/doublepost]

I understood full well what you both mean. But I’ve always rejected that as faulty logic. Poor audio or video for that matter is never “better” by poor equipment. Good quality material is worse.

People who want to sound like they know what they are talking about should stop using that as an example.

I agree with this too.
While good equipment can make poor audio/video more apparent, the opposite is not true.

 

[Agent2015]

Bottom line not all TVs are created equal. Devices like the new ATV 4K will hopefully get TV manufactures off their respective bums and start innovating once again. In my case I am very happy with the results I am getting with the new ATV 4K. Absolutely stunning video!