Decided to junk Apple TV 4K

[Michelasso]

I too would like to see the Apple TV be the best of the best. However, there has to be some limitations on what this tiny box can. If it was the size of the Mac mini I would surely be on board with full audio/video format support.

Tiny box? Sure. But it has an Apple A10X Fusion, with Geekbench performance (Single/Multi core) around 4000/9500 (measured on iPad Pro 2nd generation). AFAIK it's still the most powerful tiny TV box in the market. The Nvidia Shield TV doesn't even reach half of its performances. Yet, as far as I know, it direct plays most if not all audio formats.

The real reason is that Apple is bound to its boring, limited codecs. mp4 only (God forbids to support the mkv containers!!), and audio up to EAC3 (DD+), no DTS allowed, with its small restricted set of specifications and/or heavy compression (the audio). Once I have opened a bug report because a 4K HDR HEVC test video that plays just fine on my MBP is stuttering on ATV 4K. This has been the answer from the developers:

"It appears that these are hev1 files. We support hev1 within HLS but not for file playback."

So not even the supported formats are fully supported!!! The same, if I understood correctly, is what's happening with Dolby Atmos on EAC3. Apple allows it from VOD services, but not from local media players like Infuse. And let's not start about Apple turning OFF the audio passthrough, which was working just fine, before tvOS 11.3.

Sorry, but performances really have little to do with it.

 

[Mellofello808]

If you want to watch pirated content ATV isn't your best bet. The shield is much better.

That being said I am happy with the Plex app. Works great.

Not really worth stressing out over.

 

[dazz87]

What no support of DTS-HD MA in 2019? Wow
[doublepost=1551257359][/doublepost]

If you want to watch pirated content ATV isn't your best bet. The shield is much better.

That being said I am happy with the Plex app. Works great.

Not really worth stressing out over.

the shield runs on android so you assume all of their owners are watching pirated movies/tv shows? Smh......Its one thing to not have support for Atmos or DTS:X but no DTS-HD really????

I had a western medal player that support HD audio and that came out in 2010........

 

[BODYBUILDERPAUL]

Tiny box? Sure. But it has an Apple A10X Fusion, with Geekbench performance (Single/Multi core) around 4000/9500 (measured on iPad Pro 2nd generation). AFAIK it's still the most powerful tiny TV box in the market. The Nvidia Shield TV doesn't even reach half of its performances. Yet, as far as I know, it direct plays most if not all audio formats.

The real reason is that Apple is bound to its boring, limited codecs. mp4 only (God forbids to support the mkv containers!!), and audio up to EAC3 (DD+), no DTS allowed, with its small restricted set of specifications and/or heavy compression (the audio). Once I have opened a bug report because a 4K HDR HEVC test video that plays just fine on my MBP is stuttering on ATV 4K. This has been the answer from the developers:

"It appears that these are hev1 files. We support hev1 within HLS but not for file playback."

So not even the supported formats are fully supported!!! The same, if I understood correctly, is what's happening with Dolby Atmos on EAC3. Apple allows it from VOD services, but not from local media players like Infuse. And let's not start about Apple turning OFF the audio passthrough, which was working just fine, before tvOS 11.3.

Sorry, but performances really have little to do with it.

I truly agree with you here buddy that size has nothing to do with it. In fact, the size and design is perfect. Maybe even smaller would be super.

In all fairness, it's pretty clear that Apple TV is designed for use with the Apple Ecosystem and by that I mean - buy or rent film / music / TV from iTunes along with apps such as Vimeo etc. Just like an iPhone or iPad - it does that absolutely perfectly as it's all within Apple's strongest standards.

IMO anything else is asking too much from it and is outside of Apple's control. And for me is fair enough. I'm happy and stress free by sticking to the Apple ecosystem. Having used other pieces of software and hardware over the years - Apple's just works. I've been in Bali surfing and working for the last 10 days and took my Macbook with me along with my iPhone X and was sat at Echo Beach Bar editing clients video using FCPX in the February sun - everything works a dream! I've even over the last two years replaced Microsoft Word/Powerpoint with Apple Page/Keynote which just work so much better in every way.

IMO Apple TV is perfect - it's the door and window to iTunes fo your TV and for that, it's excellent. It's an income maker of course for Apple.
I guess if you want to go outside of the ecosystem, go for a dodgy android thing or something else.
[doublepost=1551268072][/doublepost]

What no support of DTS-HD MA in 2019? Wow
[doublepost=1551257359][/doublepost]
the shield runs on android so you assume all of their owners are watching pirated movies/tv shows? Smh......Its one thing to not have support for Atmos or DTS:X but no DTS-HD really????

I had a western medal player that support HD audio and that came out in 2010........

If it's not used for iTunes or for the iPhone video etc why should Apple bother? In reality, Apple TV is designed for the iTunes store along with playing apps and AirPlaying from an iPhone, Mac or iPad or basic Apple HomeSharing.
Anything else goes outside of their ecosystem. Fair enough.

 

[oneMadRssn]

If you want to watch pirated content ATV isn't your best bet. The shield is much better.

I respectfully disagree. There are great tvOS apps that will play nearly all media files from any LAN or cloud source.

 

[Ritsuka]

The real reason is that Apple is bound to its boring, limited codecs. mp4 only (God forbids to support the mkv containers!!), and audio up to EAC3 (DD+), no DTS allowed, with its small restricted set of specifications and/or heavy compression (the audio). Once I have opened a bug report because a 4K HDR HEVC test video that plays just fine on my MBP is stuttering on ATV 4K. This has been the answer from the developers:

"It appears that these are hev1 files. We support hev1 within HLS but not for file playback."

So not even the supported formats are fully supported!!! The same, if I understood correctly, is what's happening with Dolby Atmos on EAC3. Apple allows it from VOD services, but not from local media players like Infuse. And let's not start about Apple turning OFF the audio passthrough, which was working just fine, before tvOS 11.3.

Sorry, but performances really have little to do with it.

There are two ways to store HEVC in mp4. Apple supports only one (like they did with H.264). Apple wants all the extradata to be at the container level.

And nope, you can play EAC3+Atmos with the local player.

 

[priitv8]

There are two ways to store HEVC in mp4. Apple supports only one (like they did with H.264). Apple wants all the extradata to be at the container level.

I do not know the full technical details, but the practical hack was/is trivial - I just used Apple Atom Inspector app and changed the codec name inside atom from hev1 to hvc1. No actual fiddling with stream or metadata. After that your hevc video plays back on all apple devices.
As of today, Subler takes care of this automatically so no manual modding needed at all.

 

[Michelasso]

There are two ways to store HEVC in mp4. Apple supports only one (like they did with H.264). Apple wants all the extradata to be at the container level.

Well, I'd love Apple to support them all (not just the both above).

And nope, you can play EAC3+Atmos with the local player.

About Atmos I admit I don't know much. My AVR is 5.1, no Atmos to test, so I didn't really bother.. Still, do you mean that "Computer" manages to play EAC3+Atmos content, but the 3rd party apps still (?) can't? What would be the Apple trick, then?

 

[Scott Davilla]

Bitstream or bytestream. That's the difference between hvc1 and hev1. With bitstream, the info to define the stream is located in 'extradata', ie one place. With bytestream, it is included with just about every frame packet.

That means, bitstream based files are smaller than bytestream ones. Less bytes to transport is better for streaming media content. And that's why Apple picked it for their native player and video codecs. They stream everything. It's by chance that just changing the atom works with the apple native player.

3rd party players (like MrMC) examine the video stream format, then convert bytestream to bitstream (for Apple platform), bitstream to bytestream for others like Android. In Android, the native player/codec wants bytestream format.

With EAC3/Atmos, the Apple native player can handle it in mp4/mov or HLS format media containers (mpeg transport streams). Those type of media containers are also the ONLY ones that the Apple native player supports. Why ? Because they stream everything

 

[priitv8]

Bitstream or bytestream. That's the difference between hvc1 and hev1. With bitstream, the info to define the stream is located in 'extradata', ie one place. With bytestream, it is included with just about every frame packet.

I think this is also consistent with the MP4 container definition, because it uses the atoms and specifically the "Magic Cookie" of MP4 structure, to define all stream characteristics.

With EAC3/Atmos, the Apple native player can handle it in mp4/mov or HLS format media containers (mpeg transport streams). Those type of media containers are also the ONLY ones that the Apple native player supports. Why ? Because they stream everything

MPEG TS is not useable for the end user, it is only supported in HLS, as far as I can tell.