New Apple TV Obsolete - No 4K

[crashoverride77]

USB3C is so far away from being a mainstream standard. Lightning is so far from being a standard. Thunderbolt was so far from being a standard. Apple Pay. Touch ID. Etc. What got them going. Apple adopting them made them a standard (well, we're still waiting on mainstream USB3C).

4K is a standard because Apple adopted it in iPhone. What they chose there will dominate in terms of 4K standards. Had they implemented 4K in this one remaining Apple product that doesn't have it, they would have established it as a standard too. Studios would have targeted Apple's choice of a 4K standard. Games that could play at 4K would target Apple's 4K standard. And so on.

But let's go your way and let lots of competition establish a 4K standard and sell lots of 4K products including to us Apple people looking for an easy way to push the 4K we shoot on our new phones to our new TV at 4K native. Then Apple can come in late and play catch up. That's the way to do it. That's what we want for Apple. Why don't we feel the same about next year A10 chip? Or new hardware in Macs? Or about just any hardware advancements in all other Apple products? You don's seem much call for clinging to the status quo in anything else that Apple makes. Instead we whine when they roll out new Macs without the latest & greatest chipsets or graphics, etc.

Of course we don't put them down for embracing their 4K standard in just about everything else they sell. It's just stupid and non-standard in discussions about this ONE Apple product. Why? Because Apple didn't build this ONE thing with 4K (yet).

A lot of fluff in that post. We are talking about 4K TVs lol.
5k is standard now too because of the retina iMac?
4K television is nowhere near being standard, not even close. Especially when talking about 4K and streaming over the internet.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

A lot of fluff in that post. We are talking about 4K TVs lol.
5k is standard now too because of the retina iMac?
4K television is nowhere near being standard, not even close. Especially when talking about 4K and streaming over the internet.

A 4KTV would not have forced anyone who feels as you do to make any change to their TV, video type they download, nor internet bandwidth expansions, and so on. Those happy with the status quo could keep enjoying the status quo. Better hardware can easily play lessor software. But it doesn't work the other way. Brand new iPhones can work on 2G networks or play SD videos. 5K iMacs can run MAME games targeting resolutions well below SD. Better hardware has no trouble playing lessor software. Nobody in the anti-4K camp would have been affected by a 4K TV at all.

Personally, I believe 4K hardware is much more mainstream than USB3C right now. But Apple adopted that anyway. I can buy lots of 4K technology from lots of manufactures at the local Best Buy. It's hard to find much of anything that has adopted USB3C yet.

 

[crashoverride77]

A 4KTV would not have forced anyone who feels as you do to make any change to their TV, video type they download, nor internet bandwidth expansions, and so on. Those happy with the status quo could keep enjoying the status quo. Better hardware can easily play lessor software. But it doesn't work the other way. Brand new iPhones can work on 2G networks or play SD videos. 5K iMacs can run MAME games targeted resolutions well below SD. Better hardware has no trouble playing lessor software. Nobody in the anti-4K camp would have been affected by a 4K TV at all.

Personally, I believe 4K hardware is much more mainstream than USB3C right now. But Apple adopted that anyway. I can buy lots of 4K technology from lots of manufactures at the local Best Buy. It's hard to find much of anything that has adopted USB3C yet.

Not 4K television tho.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Not 4K television tho.

Don't need one. A 4K TV would serve up 1080p or 720p to the television you already have. Nobody have with a current HDTV would have been forced to dump it for a new TV. They could have stuck with a 1080p or 720p HDTV until it died. The 1080p TV3 did not refuse to work with 720p HDTVs when it rolled out.

Or maybe you mean no 4K tv shows. Yes there are some. And there would be more if there was a mainstream box in people's home capable of playing 4K. All Studios need to see is a way to profit well from 4K content. Right now, they seem to be dabbling in it while awaiting another round of Blu Ray discs and players. I wish Apple had beat the disc solution to market. I'd much rather buy Apple than Apple competitors.

 

[eoblaed]

How do you reconcile USB3C, Thunderbolt, Lightning, 5K iMac screens, etc. Was there much USB3C out there when they sprung that one on us? Is there much Thunderbolt quite a long time since they sprung that one on us? Lightning waited a good while for third party adoption. I believe Apple does embrace new tech when it serves Apple's interests.

(emphasis mine)

Of course it does, as any good company would.

USB-C/Thunderbolt/Lightning are all interfaces, the majority of of which were introduced in order to facilitate faster/more inclusive transfers. If you buy into the Apple ecosystem, all/most of the products will end up having those interfaces and it's usually a win.

5k iMac screens are not analogous to 4k media content. I have a 5k iMac. I don't need 5k media content (or even 4k) to reap its benefits. This screen is ridiculous. The monstrous resolution allows me to have so much text on the screen, at a much smaller resolution than normal, and still have it be laser sharp ... I get immediate and constant benefit out of it, all day long, as would anyone else that had one.

I don't have a 4k television set yet. I will, once there's any kind of real 4k content to play on it, and I am looking forward to that time Today, however, it provides me no real benefit.

Again, they did put 4K recording in new iPhones. They added 4K editing in iMovie. 4K is supported in Quicktime. It's natively editable on new 4K and 5K iMacs. iTunes will store those 4K files just fine. The new iPad Pro apparently can edit three 4K streams at the same time. That looks like "embracing" to me. It's only not embraced in this ONE product from Apple.

All the 4k stuff you've just mentioned is for creating and editing 4k media. This is stuff Apple needs to do to say competitive, and I'm glad my devices have it. However, this is not the same thing as having 4k movies and tv shows to watch on my television.

Yeah, if my AppleTV 4's (I have two) supported 4k, and if I had a 4k television, I'd play some of the 4k video stuff I've recored on my phone just for the novelty of it, but I'm better of now just playing it on my 5k iMac. I use my AppleTV for watching movies, tv shows, playing music, and sometimes youtube videos and movie trailers. Since there is almost none of that stuff yet available, the inclusion of 4k capability in the AppleTV, today, would be largely superfluous.

Would anyone complain if 4k was part of AppleTV 4's functionality? Of course not. It would be neat. Would any of us really benefit day to day from it? Very few, I imagine. Not for a year or so.

 

[crashoverride77]

Don't need one. A 4K TV would serve up 1080p or 720p to the television you already have. Nobody have with a current HDTV would have been forced to dump it for a new TV. They could have stuck with a 1080p or 720p HDTV until it died. The 1080p TV3 did not refuse to work with 720p HDTVs when it rolled out.

Or maybe you mean no 4K tv shows. Yes there are some. And there would be more if there was a mainstream box in people's home capable of playing 4K. All Studios need to see is a way to profit well from 4K content. Right now, they seem to be dabbling in it while awaiting another round of Blu Ray discs and players. I wish Apple had beat the disc solution to market. I'd much rather buy Apple than Apple competitors.

What's the point tho ?
In theory they could already included 6k or 8k because that's happening too. For now there is simply no need for 4K Apple TV.
First because it's not mainstream at all (TV) and second because internet speeds in most places are nowhere near good enough.
By the time 4K is standard and Internet speeds are up than you want a new Apple TV anyway. Also by that time you will probably complain because it's not supporting the successor to 4K.

 

[PsykX]

I completely get the frustration behind paying thousands for a 4K TV and not being able to use it at its full capacity on this new so-called "revolutionary" device from Apple.

Although I don't understand this decision from Apple, I wouldn't say it's a D.O.A. product because the vast majority of people still have 1080p TVs like me, and the 4K content is not there yet. Some people are even still wondering if 4K is necessary. I bought my 1080p TV 8 years ago, saying to myself "nothing better is ever going to exist", and I have been proven wrong with the apparition of 4K. But 1080p content is still rare on TV after 10 years of existence. 4K adoption will be even slower because it's not a need.

The AppleTV, in its current form, still has a lot more potential than any other TV device in this world. Like Steve Jobs once said in an AllThingsDigital interview, "the apps will come, it's just a matter of waiting at this point".

 

[Norbs12]

Much harder (on chips) to dynamically capture 4K and render it into a file on the fly than to play it back. They have the chips.


As to judder in games pushing the limits of the chips, gamemakers could target 1080p or 720p and those with 4K TVs would simply upscale them with the TV's upscaler tech... just like 4K TVs upscale 1080p of 720p movies. Sure upscaling is not the same as native but that wouldn't have to be an obstacle for bringing great games to the new TV. Next year or so, when Apple rolls out the "5" ("now with 4K"), many of this years app's and games targeting 1080p or 720p won't be "upgraded" for 4K. They'll just play exactly as they do now at 1080p or 720p or whatever target the game coders selected... and anyone's 4K TV will simply upscale them... just like it will do with movies or TV shows encoded for 1080p or 720p or even SD.



I agree. TV is a FANTASTIC product. I've owned multiple versions of every one of them. I think they are one of Apple's very best products, overlooked somewhat even by Apple themselves. I look forward to owning this one too. The lack of this one feature doesn't make it a terrible product. The extra consumer want from some of us was just that it also came with this feature too. That it lacks it is just a consumer annoyance of those that care... like when Apple phones lacked bigger screens or NFC or when TV still clung to 720p when some of us longed for 1080p 4+ years ago... all of which was also throughly bashed as "stupid", "no one needs" and so on UNTIL Apple adopted them.

Apple is having supply constraints on the latest A9 that does 4k recording, they had to go to two different suppliers just to cover iPhone 6S.

If you're apple tv did 4k video playback but games were only at 1080P you'd still be here protesting. There is no problem, I usually just don't buy what doesn't suite me and move on. Believe me there were plenty times that I've been itching to upgrade but the current gen offering was not worth it.

 

[Mac... nificent]

First because it's not mainstream at all (TV) and second because internet speeds in most places are nowhere near good enough.

This ^

Netflix doesn't expect 4K to go mainstream for another 5 years.

 

[Michael CM1]

This must be the ultimate in first world problems. I know zero people who own a 4K TV. Sure, they look nice and are coming down in price. But there's still almost no content for them and if you're talking about running it over the Internet, you're going to quickly bring on data caps everywhere.

 

[iAK]

With my sitting distance, personally, a 4k isn't worth the upgrade since I already have a decent 1080 60" unless I go with a 70-80" screen even if that happens this year I'd wait for a 4k aTV rather than dropping any cash on another Roku device.

You probably have never viewed proper uncompressed 4K content or you would not be saying this. I have and it's a world of difference.

 

[aduteau]

You probably have never viewed proper uncompressed 4K content or you would not be saying this. I have and it's a world of difference.

4K TVs are everywhere on display in stores ... but the problem is the lack of content to play on TV's ...
Yes Netflix has a couple of TV shows and movies that are 4K ... but the physical medium is not embracing 4K yet and because of that .. the vast majority of consumers just dont care to spend and upgrade their already giant TV that they bought a couple a year ago.

Before 50 inch TV was a thing, it used to be easy to replace a TV set and justify buying a bigger one ... you just took the smaller one from the living room and put it in a bed room or somewhere else. These days justifying buying a bigger 60-70 inch TV with a bit better Image Quality is just not enough to convince the average consumer who is probably satisfied with their already big TV.

And on top of that .. lets not forget the pain of when DVD's came out and people had made themselves a big movie library buying tons of DVD's .... and then came Blu-Ray down the road just a couple of years after DVD ... and people had to buy AGAIN the same movies to get the latest quality... that left a bitter taste in the mouth of people who had to spend again ... I honestly think that people have not forgotten this upgrade .. and that they are NOT looking to spend again for a third time.

Also history shows us that when HDTVs came out they where marketing the hell out of 720p players and TV .... until 1080p came out and became the golden standard ... Will history repeat again ??? Will 4K be the old 720p and 8K be the old 1080p ??? Don't forget 8K TV's ARE coming, is this why the physical medium is not embracing 4K yet to avoid 2 upgrade cycle ? I think they actually love people that buy into 4K TV's that probably will be worthless for the High Quality of 8K coming ... 4K in LOTS of years will probably be used for TV networks who took forever to upgrade at 720p, the cost to upgrade the infrastructure is just to big.

 

[2010mini]

Don't need one. A 4K TV would serve up 1080p or 720p to the television you already have. Nobody have with a current HDTV would have been forced to dump it for a new TV. They could have stuck with a 1080p or 720p HDTV until it died. The 1080p TV3 did not refuse to work with 720p HDTVs when it rolled out.

Or maybe you mean no 4K tv shows. Yes there are some. And there would be more if there was a mainstream box in people's home capable of playing 4K. All Studios need to see is a way to profit well from 4K content. Right now, they seem to be dabbling in it while awaiting another round of Blu Ray discs and players. I wish Apple had beat the disc solution to market. I'd much rather buy Apple than Apple competitors.

Studios make their most money from OTA and Pay TV broadcasts. There is currently no plans by the FCC as to when 4K broadcasts will start. There are no commitments from networks and affiliates as to when they will upgrade their equipment for broadcasting 4K. No commitments from ISPs to upgrade their equipment to support 4K streaming.

You seem to believe "if you build it, they will come" if networks, studios and pay tv providers were just waiting on hardware to start offering 4K content, it would be here already. 4K TVs are all over the place but the content is still sparse.

IMHO 4K will really ignite when professional sports like the NFL makes a commitment to broadcast all games in 4K. That will drive traffic to whatever network their games will be shown on. And also drive tv sales especially around the playoffs and Super Bowl.

Right now with 4K, you are paying a premium to upscale 1080p..... Not worth it.

 

[RhythmAndBlues]

Right now with 4K, you are paying a premium to upscale 1080p..... Not worth it.

And by "a premium" you mean "through the ass to the point of there being skid-marks on your credit card"...

... like so many new technologies, 4K is the solution to a problem that doesn't exist yet. Not enough people care. It was the same with 1080p, and it will all happen again when 4K is long-since dead and gone. Expecting the present to be the future can only lead to great disappointment - don't put yourselves through it.

 

[shk718]

How many of you, who are complaining, have actually seen what the Apple TV looks like on a 4k set? I have the LG65EF9500, a 4K OLED TV, and I can say that the ATV4 looks AMAZING on it. Between ATV4's 1080P 60fps and the TV's up-scaling, it looks 4k to me - I watched a bit of the last season of House of Cards using the sets internal Netflix app, in 4K, and I couldn't tell the difference. I also question how much 4K content is actually getting to the TV in full 4K. I bet most is being down rezed. The other thing i question is how may people will like the look of 4K TV shows. At 60fps they look real - not the dreamy 24fps of a movie. I don't know what a movie streamed in 4K at 24fps looks like.

 

[RhythmAndBlues]

Between ATV4's 1080P 60fps and the TV's up-scaling, it looks 4k to me - I watched a bit of the last season of House of Cards using the sets internal Netflix app, in 4K, and I couldn't tell the difference.

I don't mean to be rude at all, but isn't that rather worrying? You've spent a Hell of a lot of money on that TV, and if you can't tell the difference between 'actual' and 'fake' 4K, was it worth it to you...?


EDIT: I should add - lest I give the impression that I'm some sort of AV genius - that my experience with 4K goes no further than seeing TV sets that I can't afford when I walk into Costco. And while I can certainly appreciate the difference between 1080p and 4K, I don't think it's the 'night and day' contrast that I witnessed when I first saw 1080p. I know that it wouldn't be worth it, to me.

 

[shk718]

I don't mean to be rude at all, but isn't that rather worrying? You've spent a Hell of a lot of money on that TV, and if you can't tell the difference between 'actual' and 'fake' 4K, was it worth it to you...?

Not rude at all. I'm extremely happy with my purchase. The picture is noticeably improved when compared to the LCD 1080P set I had before. I think this is more of a statement of the lack of value of 4K when sitting 10 feet away and the power of up scaling.

 

[jrcsh6]

4k is not even close to standard. But my question is more along the lines of why not? What cost would it add to ATV$? I'm guessing very little and it would look great! Maybe even an up converter on board! I just tend to think these "boxes could have been ticked off" on a spec sheet and made some happy people for not much cost to Apple.

 

[shk718]

4k is not even close to standard. But my question is more along the lines of why not? What cost would it add to ATV$? I'm guessing very little and it would look great! Maybe even an up converter on board! I just tend to think these "boxes could have been ticked off" on a spec sheet and made some happy people for not much cost to Apple.

If the standard isn't yet set, then what do they do about hardware acceleration? what if they put a chip in that doesn't work next year? I'm not saying that's the reason - but ....

Back when the iphone first came out many were up in arms because it didn't support 3g. We found out later that the 3g chips, at the time, weren't ready for prime time and caused battery drain. When they didn't include flash many called them stupid, turns out that was the correct decision. I could go on and on but, my point is, Apple doesn't arbitrarily make decisions, they tend to have very good reasons for those decisions. The ATv4 does 1080p at 60fps with 7.1 surround sound buttery smooth. I'm happy.

 

[taedouni]

I'm surprised that Apple didn't put an A9X chip in it, 4K support, 3GB of RAM and sold it for $300/350. I'm sure people would've still purchased it. Hell, I probably would have still purchased it.

 

[Cory Bauer]

4K or even 5k on a desktop computer display is great and makes good sense. 4K in the living room however is a total sham and a joke.

It's all about screen size ratio to seating distance. Most people are already sitting too far from their televisions to even appreciate 1080p resolution; the proper viewing distance for a 50" 1080p panel is about 7ft for a person with 20/20 vision. To see the added resolution of 4k? You'd have to sit within 4.8 feet from your 50" 4k display.

Unless you're sitting within 8ft of a 75" screen or larger, people cannot see 4k. Period. Every test confirms this. It's just math and limitations of the human eye.

http://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/size-to-distance-relationship

And that's not even factoring in the high compression and low bitrates that accompany any streamed, piped or beamed video content.

 

[shk718]

Quoting Engadget's review of the Roku 4: "4K files are really big! I noticed slightly better video quality on a few 4K monitors, but to be honest, you won't really see the benefits of 4K unless you have a very large TV, and/or sit way too close."

They also indicated that it takes longer to start watching a video and that fast forwarding/ re-winding also takes longer to do.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/11/03/roku-4-review/

 

[Mikael S]

Perhaps the reason for not releasing a 4k variant right now is that Apple is still lacking a lot of 4k content on iTunes? If ATV4 was 4k compliant now, many people would likely be upset because of lacking content, which would create an even bigger problem for Apple, don't you think?

Also - isn't the device in principle good for 4k@30p as it is? Could be just a firmware update to enable it as content is made available?

Regardless, I just bought one and will pick it up on Friday as it arrives. I have a 65inch 4k TV and cannot say I can tell any difference to full HD anyway.

 

[Mac... nificent]

A 4KTV would not have forced anyone who feels as you do to make any change to their TV, video type they download, nor internet bandwidth expansions, and so on.

It would however have increased the cost of the product, all for a feature that only around 1% would use. Perhaps a better solution would have been to add that feature to the 64GB version, so that at least those that want 4K have a choice.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Why would it have increased the cost of the product? Competitor products with 4K playback capabilities cost a LOT LESS THAN the TV4 with 1080p. That's another one of those implied negatives to adoption that isn't actually backed up by any reasonable facts- just speculation that sounds good when one wants to argue against progressing.

Building next years A10 for iPhones means phones will cost more. So maybe Apple should just freeze iPhones at the "status quo".

Building faster or more capable chips into Macs means Macs will cost more. So maybe Apple should just freeze Macs "as is".

We don't argue against progressing all of the other stuff that Apple makes- just this one thing... until Apple goes there and then THEY won't be stupid when they do (or charging more).