My does my Apple TV make TV/ Movies Look Worse?

[groove-agent]

Hi all,

We bought a Sony 65" OLED TV (XR65A80J) and I bought a 4K ATV for control and AirPlay. We used it for a while, but wondered why my father-in-laws sub-$1000 looked better. One day I was messing around and decided to stream natively from the apps on the TV and noticed a huge difference. The motion is much more smooth, and the colour is more vivid and has better contrast. I understand the contrast since the 4K ATV we have isn't HDR, but why does the movement look so much more fluid?

Now I want to re-watch all my TV series because it looks so much better.

 

[itsboi]

Motion smoothing is an ick. The soap opera effect may appeal to some people, but goes against what cinematographers intended. People tend to use the standard settings out of the box with no calibration, and it's usually as how you described. I also find the TV's standard settings to be more vivid, unnatural, sometimes cooler tone because people tend to like things pop sort of like Samsung's default settings for all of their displays. ATV tends to be more natural and color accurate, which may look dull to people.

 

[satcomer]

I'm not sure if pertains to your situation so try these simple steps because certain TV manufactures seem to put in Windows stay connected for gaming in TV settings:

!. Go into TV settings and look for True Tone or setting along that line to turn it off!
2. Back out settings tom see if looks better!

 

[MacManiac76]

If your AppleTV doesn’t have HDR/Dolby Vision then it is not a 4K version. Your OLED TV should support support both. If you don’t get either of these then you probably have a 4th gen AppleTV HD version which only supports up to 1080p resolution and only SDR which would explain why your apps on the TV itself look better.

 

[Casey Royals]

I have always use the apps on the Apple TV to watch TV, movies etc and only occasionally use Airplay to stream short videos from my phone or iPad …

 

[groove-agent]

If your AppleTV doesn’t have HDR/Dolby Vision then it is not a 4K version. Your OLED TV should support support both. If you don’t get either of these then you probably have a 4th gen AppleTV HD version which only supports up to 1080p resolution and only SDR which would explain why your apps on the TV itself look better.

It's a 1st generation AppleTV 4K. You're right, it does have HDR10.

 

[venom600]

I have that exact TV and a 2021 Apple TV 4k. Part of the issue you’re seeing is that Sony does special processing of the apps that run on the Google TV OS on the TV. If you take the time to calibrate your TV on the Apple TV input it can look just as good. Use this video as a guide:

 

[Madmic23]

That TV already has AirPlay built in, and I'm pretty sure it's compatible with HomeKit as well, so you really don't need the Apple TV unless you prefer the interface and remote (which I do!)

On your Apple TV, make sure it is set to output Dolby Vision, or better yet, Match Frame Rate and Content. That will make it automatically switch the output for the content that is playing.