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AirPlay does not do 4K. AirPlay is locked to 1080P.

The only way 4K is played via AirPlay is merely by signaling the device to access the internet and grab the stream itself.

Example: You AirPlay a 4K movie from your iPhone streaming app to your Apple TV 4K > the iPhone streams nothing to your Apple TV 4K, it merely tells the Apple TV to stream that from the internet directly from that app’s servers.

Example 2: You stream a 4K video you took on your iPhone via the photos app > it merely tells the Apple TV to stream it via iCloud. Nothing is streamed from your iPhone to the Apple TV.

AirPlay is limited to 1080p for any and all streams that are direct from the iPhone to another device. Period.

AirPlay is a dated and worthless standard and I’m embarrassed Apple is bad enough not to have a functioning, high bandwidth WiFi-direct solution. The same is true for Chromecast etc., though.

My guess is that cellular providers convinced these companies to limit these features so that customers would be forced into not streaming higher bandwidth via unlimited cellular plans. After all, there is nearly no reason to have WiFi if you have a good cellular connection at home and you can stream everything flawlessly in full-quality, full-bandwidth over your cellular connection. This doesn’t require Hotspot which are all very much capped to 30-50GB. The only reason to have WiFi at that point is strictly for video games due to game downloads and updates.

I think you're confusing the streaming and mirroring issues.

Screen Mirroring is 1080p only.
Streaming can do 4K, if the planets align. Must be h.264, for example.

I don't even have a 4K TV but the easy way to test your theory would be to look at stats on your router, or if you don't have access to those you could just start the stream and unplug the Internet connection. Architecturally it would be absurd to say "Don't stream it from this local device, stream it from the Internet instead", and I haven't seen any mention of that.

 
I still think there is a demand for the Apple TV box because it has by far the fastest processor for decoding streaming video. This is why I think the new Apple TV box will use the "full" A18 SoC as the iPhone 16/16 Plus, so it's fast enough to even be a decent game console. In fact, expect Apple to offer an Ultra version with 256 GB internal plus Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 storage expansion specifically as a a gaming console.
 
I still think there is a demand for the Apple TV box because it has by far the fastest processor for decoding streaming video. This is why I think the new Apple TV box will use the "full" A18 SoC as the iPhone 16/16 Plus, so it's fast enough to even be a decent game console. In fact, expect Apple to offer an Ultra version with 256 GB internal plus Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 storage expansion specifically as a a gaming console.

only m series chips with the most gpu cores come even close to having the gpu power to be a gaming console

I doubt anyone is going to buy a $2000-$3000 apple tv
 
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I think you're confusing the streaming and mirroring issues.

Screen Mirroring is 1080p only.
Streaming can do 4K, if the planets align. Must be h.264, for example.

I don't even have a 4K TV but the easy way to test your theory would be to look at stats on your router, or if you don't have access to those you could just start the stream and unplug the Internet connection. Architecturally it would be absurd to say "Don't stream it from this local device, stream it from the Internet instead", and I haven't seen any mention of that.

No the way AirPlay works is that it will not stream 4K from your device directly to the other AirPlay-capable device. It is limited to 1080p HDR. The device merely signals it to stream it over the internet directly from the servers. Same thing for photos. They have to be in iCloud to get 4K.
 
I'm in the market to replace one of my ATV's which is a few models behind, but still working fine - a little sluggish at times though. But if WiFi 7 is all a new ATV will get then it's meh to me. I use Ethernet for my connectivity.

I'd like to see something more substantial in addition to WiFi 7, but I don't know what that would be!
 
No the way AirPlay works is that it will not stream 4K from your device directly to the other AirPlay-capable device. It is limited to 1080p HDR. The device merely signals it to stream it over the internet directly from the servers. Same thing for photos. They have to be in iCloud to get 4K.

You are just straight up wrong
 
Putting a 2-channel-only output on the Apple TV, to support a very old standard (one they used to support but dropped a long time ago) doesn't seem like a thing Apple is going to do.

Apple Music still supports stereo sound

My Apple TV is set to output only stereo sound as it feeds a two channel amp with two speakers

The vast majority of available recorded music in existence was recorded, mixed and mastered to played in stereo
 
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No the way AirPlay works is that it will not stream 4K from your device directly to the other AirPlay-capable device. It is limited to 1080p HDR. The device merely signals it to stream it over the internet directly from the servers. Same thing for photos. They have to be in iCloud to get 4K.


So you're suggesting that someone has Wifi 6 at home, and their 1Mb/s Internet connection is down, it would be impossible for them to do Airplay at 4K, but if their 1Mb/s Internet connection comes up, they could then do the Airplay at 4K?

Or you're saying that it's simply impossible to do Airplay at 4K without a high speed Internet connection of 25Mb/s to 50Mb/s?

I'm not sure how you're making sense of this, because I'm not.
 
You're right - thanks for the correction. I live mostly in the Dolby Atmos world these days and did not realize Apple's downgrade to AirPlay.
Yeah, it is unfortunate. There is always hoping that AirPlay 3 will be both reliable and lossless. However, that would also mean buying new wireless devices in the signal chain. :confused:
 
So you're suggesting that someone has Wifi 6 at home, and their 1Mb/s Internet connection is down, it would be impossible for them to do Airplay at 4K, but if their 1Mb/s Internet connection comes up, they could then do the Airplay at 4K?

Or you're saying that it's simply impossible to do Airplay at 4K without a high speed Internet connection of 25Mb/s to 50Mb/s?

I'm not sure how you're making sense of this, because I'm not.
AirPlay protocol does not stream 4K from device to device. It only streams 4K by telling the other device to stream it from the internet directly from servers.
 
Sorry buddy. I am very much correct

Take a 4k video on your phone

Send it to your 4k Apple TV via airplay to your 4k Apple TV

The video will be 4k, and certainly won’t be streaming “from the internet directly from servers”
 
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AirPlay protocol does not stream 4K from device to device. It only streams 4K by telling the other device to stream it from the internet directly from servers.

Do you have 4K content and a 4K TV? You're telling me that you can stream 4K content with your Internet connection active but if your Internet connection goes down your 4K content cannot stream from your local device to your local AppleTV? You've actually tested this? Because it seems that not even Apple are aware of this "feature".
 
Take a 4k video on your phone

Send it to your 4k Apple TV via airplay to your 4k Apple TV

The video will be 4k, and certainly won’t be streaming “from the internet directly from servers”
No, it will not. First it uploads to iCloud after you take it on your iPhone. Then, the Apple TV pulls it from iCloud when you trigger the airplay.

Enjoy
 
Do you have 4K content and a 4K TV? You're telling me that you can stream 4K content with your Internet connection active but if your Internet connection goes down your 4K content cannot stream from your local device to your local AppleTV? You've actually tested this? Because it seems that not even Apple are aware of this "feature".
AirPlay is capped at 1080p.

In order to ‘AirPlay’ 4K the device has to fetch the stream itself from the internet directly. You CANNOT locally stream 4K via AirPlay.

It is one of the PRIMARY REASONS AIRPLAY IS EMBARRASSING GARBAGE.

Imagine the year 2025 and Apple doesn’t utilize WiFi direct to achieve actually useful airplay that ‘just works’.

It’s Apple though, it will never happen. However, the same is true of chromecast still too I believe.
 
AirPlay is capped at 1080p.

In order to ‘AirPlay’ 4K the device has to fetch the stream itself from the internet directly. You CANNOT locally stream 4K via AirPlay.

It is one of the PRIMARY REASONS AIRPLAY IS EMBARRASSING GARBAGE.

Imagine the year 2025 and Apple doesn’t utilize WiFi direct to achieve actually useful airplay that ‘just works’.

It’s Apple though, it will never happen. However, the same is true of chromecast still too I believe.

So you haven't tried it like I said?
 
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No, it will not. First it uploads to iCloud after you take it on your iPhone. Then, the Apple TV pulls it from iCloud when you trigger the airplay.

Enjoy

no it does not

I don't use iCloud for photos

try it for yourself
 
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