No 4K Video Streaming Support for Upcoming Apple TV Set-Top Box

[Keirasplace]

You're a liar. Which obviously discredits everything you have said. Damn, this arguing thing is easy! But thank's for telling me that I can't see a difference, even though I can.

Hey, buddy, what you say is IMPOSSIBLE. You previous post wasn't an argument, it was a brain dump of anecdotes.
http://www.rtings.com/info/television-size-to-distance-relationship
There other industry sources that all say the same thing. Google them.

So, unless you something than other than ridiculous anecdote that basically says everyone has eye eagles (remember, any distance, any size set you everyone sees the difference...) (sic), I'll continue calling it like it is.

 

[Anim]

Not sure this has been posted here yet.

V-Nova streaming tech produces 4K compression 'worth watching'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32140732

 

[dumastudetto]

Nobody needs 4k so this is a good decision by Apple. Maybe in future a newer Apple TV will include support for this, but Apple is right to focus on content and experience over supporting technologies 99% of all consumers don't have in their home.

 

[Wahlstrm]

Since all 4K TV´s are smart TV´s you really don´t need the TV if you have one. Why stream 1080p from the TV when you have built in 4K Netflix in your TV?

 

[wizard]

Bandwidth is a huge problem!

Bandwidth is why I don't see a quick death of DVDs, BlueRay (almost dead now) or downloads to local disk. Streaming in many ways is just plain stupid, effectively tying up far to much bandwidth for movies that often can be played over other channels. Honestly if everybody tried to stream HD content tomorrow the net would come to a screeching halt.

 

[Lancer]

I can buy a 55" Sony 4K 3D TV today for around $1,400. Nearly did it this morning, actually.

Saw one in an Aldi today (not Sony) fro $799AUD still 55" and a 4k screen.

That aside some of up are stuck on way lower speeds, we get just 8Mbit here and I have a 500Gig cap before I'm back to the 90s with not much better than dial up speeds.

 

[Anim]

Since all 4K TV´s are smart TV´s you really don´t need the TV if you have one. Why stream 1080p from the TV when you have built in 4K Netflix in your TV?

Aye, Don't forget it is twice as expensive for the 4K Netflix subscription compared to the standard one.

Apple will really need to focus on features outside the smart-tv set for it to compete. I mostly use the XBox One for Plex and Netflix now. I also have social services, all my games, Internet browser and various apps so the AppleTV is now at my partners place. The only slight thing I miss is AirPlay from the rare occasions I had something on an iPad.

4K Streaming sounds great, it is an upgrade after all but with hardly any available shows (Netflix = Breaking Bad and House of cards?) Its just not worth the investment for myself. I would need a new amp, new 4K projector, new 4K TV and more expensive subscriptions to content providers so thats thousands of pounds.

Anim

 

[Essaux]

Really? This can only be done by Apple.

Introduce a new iteration of a product, but still keep it an old product compared to the competition.

Scandalous really that Apple does this. 4K is a must, especially from "advanced" high tech companies like Apple.

 

[mgmacius]

I personally still use dvd - I see no point to pay more for the slight improvement of HD. It is not that bad content gets better by upscaling the quality, and the other way around is also true - great movie will still be great, no matter what format is used. And yes, I like watching HD, but unless price is on par with dvd's, I will not switch. And you know what? Still more movies are sold on dvd.
4k is mostly useless - on a cinema screen that is say 30 m wide it's easy to see all the imperfections, and so it's best to use highest possible quality. But at home? With screens like 40-60", and you sitting few metres away, there is no real difference. Unless you just want to j*** off, cause you spent loads of money on both equipment and the films. But that is another topic...

 

[Baumi]

I'm disappointed in Apple, they used to be forerunners....

While Apple sometimes likes to lead (e.g. in ditching legacy ports and floppy drives), they have just as often waited before entering a market. Back in the 1990s, they were the last major computer manufacturer to offer internal CD writers. (Even to the point that Steve Jobs himself admitted they had almost missed the boat on that one.) The original iPod was so late to the party that many people initially dismissed it as yet another MP3 player on an already overcrowded market, especially since it had less space than some competitors and did not sport an expansion slot.

Since the market for set-top boxes seems to be quite price conscious at this time, and there aren't that many 4K TVs out in the wild yet, it might make sense to first go for a lower price point/higher margins and only include HD support. Once the 4K devices reach critical mass, Apple can always offer an upgraded device.

 

[Lancer]

Not sure this has been posted here yet.

V-Nova streaming tech produces 4K compression 'worth watching'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32140732

Sounds good for my connection speed, unless someone else is using the bandwidth.

 

[MH01]

Thing is, is that Apple can't compel people to buy 4K TVs, and upgrade their Internet for reliable 4K streaming.

The removal of a CD drive, floppy drive, Flash support on iOS, on the other hand... they can.

So no. It's not odd.

It's supporting 4K for those that have a 4K TV and adequate internet. I have a setup box that supports 4k, I'm not compelled to upgrade my TV.

The other point was that apple pushes things like mini display port, thunderbolt, USB-C which forces the user to jump on the newest tech that is not widely supported and costs more. So they do compel the user when there is hardware to be sold.

 

[camsoft]

I own a 4k tv and an OLED 1080p set. The OLED blows the 4k set out of the water. Companies need to be focusing on OLED, not LCD 4k. Hell 95% of the current 4k sets lack standards that 4k blu ray supports (10 bit color, rec. 2020, HDR, etc).

OLED is the future today, and it has nothing to do with a new codec or resolution. Apple is smart to wait. Not to mention streaming 4k offers no benefit over 1080p. They are making a streaming device not a physical media device. Most people do not even have enough bandwidth to stream 4k. Also the fact net nutrality will lead to bandwidth caps being implemented. Stream a few 4k movies and bam that 300gb cap is throttled.

What has that got to do with anything, Apple does not need to do anything for you to watch content with an OLED set. Also what about OLED 4K!?

 

[MH01]

While Apple sometimes likes to lead (e.g. in ditching legacy ports and floppy drives), they have just as often waited before entering a market. Back in the 1990s, they were the last major computer manufacturer to offer internal CD writers. (Even to the point that Steve Jobs himself admitted they had almost missed the boat on that one.) The original iPod was so late to the party that many people initially dismissed it as yet another MP3 player on an already overcrowded market, especially since it had less space than some competitors and did not sport an expansion slot.

Since the market for set-top boxes seems to be quite price conscious at this time, and there aren't that many 4K TVs out in the wild yet, it might make sense to first go for a lower price point/higher margins and only include HD support. Once the 4K devices reach critical mass, Apple can always offer an upgraded device.

Interesting point you raise apple is the past, though it was a different company in the 1990s, and had to be very careful in making decisions . Recent Apple, is happy to jump on new standards, mini DP , TB, USB-C, which can also be frustrating for its users.

I know people are saying 4K support might come later, though knowing the upgrade cycles of the appleTV, geez I would take it now even if it's not mainstream, say like TB

 

[camsoft]

So i hate to break the bad news but 4k would be silly not cause the content or the tvs it is silly cause who has that kinda bandwidth and who has that kinda cap. I am in an aera where 250 gigs is the data cap that is one or two good evenings of breaking bad from netflix before it is gone. This also go to there whole idea of lets offer IP tv through this box love the idea but comcast is just going to strangle it with data caps to every house so the point is ........

This is a product that is perfect and doomed before it ever ships thanks to comcast's ilk they don't need to get on this box cause they just prevent you for using it with there data policy

You might be in an area with data caps but I have 150Mbit Fiber to my house with no caps and I've watched loads of 4K Netflix content and have had no issues at all.

You can build products for the past you have to build things for the future, no point constantly looking backwards.

----------

Only if you prefer resolution to actual image quality; many of the current low priced 4K sets have terrible quality. That's coming from someone buys high end sets. Contrast, angles, color accuracy, motion resolution, etc. All not so good.

Also, unless your 4K stream is a mp5 compressed with a high bitrate your not getting even close to top notch quality from the net. That's a fact.

HD streams are still not on par with blue-ray quality wise and people want to stream even more compressed data! What's the point of 4K if all your getting is a good view of compression artifacts.

This is an interesting link about the business of streaming content. Delivering content at 4K must also be worthwhile to the content producer.

http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014...ntent-owners-cant-afford-bandwidth-costs.html

As for the next big thing, call me when unlimited very high speed Internet doesn't get to 90 bucks or more so I can stream things at 20MBS and not bust my quota, or choke my pipe. I'm not even talking about latency here, if you want 20MBS to not stall, you need a much higher average throughput than this or service garantees. You think Cable providers will give this for free (that's not part of net neutrality, they can charge extra for this).

There's a place for 4K for those that:
- Can buy decent quality panel
- Buy medium they can play locally
- Subscribe to premium subscription service that will deliver the 20MBS stream needed for decent (not excellent 4K)
- Has the high speed unlimited Internet on the user side to receive it.

For everyone else, its useless marketing drivel for the next few years.

I have Fibre to my house capped out at 159Mbit which I can constantly benchmark without data caps. I only pay £40pm for my Broadband, Cable TV and Telephone including line-rental. I watch 4K content on Netflix and Amazon Instant and have no had a single buffer or loss of quality. 4K streaming content on my "Cheap 4K" TV looks considerably better than HD content. Yes it might not be the best 4K picture but it's better than HD.

 

[poppy10]

The hardware is 4k capable, there's no reason why apple can't enable it in a future OS update if it catches on

 

[vladi]

Nobody needs 4K just like nobody needs Retina displays but you still get one when you buy MBP. And 4K makes a lot more sense than tiny high resolution displays.

Its so obvious that they are prolonging the 4K feature for either Apple TV or something else. Well that's Apple, it took them 4 years after competition to introduce proper HD displays on their laptops (and even then it was optional) so that crap there is no enough 4K content is jus ... crap.

 

[Menneisyys2]

Guess I will need to continue streaming 4K content from Amazon and Netflix. I am kind of disappointed as I thought Apple was a technology company.

not any more. More of a fashion company.

 

[2010mini]

People... geeze.

How many people said cell phones were stupid and were a waste when they first came out? Now darn near everyone has a cell phone. If the first people who got one took the advice of the nay sayers, we wouldn't have cell phones.

Same with HD TVs. When they came out, same BS argument was made. Why? There is no HD content out there. People who buy one are stupid. It's pointless. You can't see a difference anyway unless you get a 40+ inch. By the time content comes out you will need a new TV anyway. Yet people bought them, and now we have HD content. All of our over the air channels are in HD, I stream everything in HD, I watch Blu-Ray in HD. If no one bought the early TVs, then we would have none of this.

Content providers aren't going to spend money on something no one has. You have to start somewhere, right? People buy 4K TV because hey, shiny. Content providers say "Hey, people are buying this, maybe we should start producing, but start small and ramp up as needed". If no one bought a 4K TV, then no one would even bother with content at all. It takes time to ramp up, just like HD TV did. Just like color when color TVs came out.

Also, screw this absurd mentality that some have shown here. "I can't have this, so no one should have this." Good god, the world doesn't revolve around your tastes. What a waste to have heart surgeons, I don't need a new heart. Right?

As for the person who said that net neutrality will bring data caps, ugh. Take your tin foil hat off and quit feeding on the bull that your ISP fed you. Are you freaking serious?!?! Two things:

1. We've had data caps for YEARS. Comcast even advertises it as a freaking feature, like we should be happy to have this. Numerous other ISPs have data caps as well. Damn liberal agendas, robbing poor near monopolistic companies of money, forcing them to implement data caps or they will starve... oh, wait, you mean they've been already doing that while making billions in profits? Oh my.

2. This is a United States thing, not a world thing. Last I checked, the United States isn't the only country in the world, nor the only country that Apple operates in. Even if we end up with 1 GB data caps and 56K internet speeds, it doesn't mean the rest of the world will. Again, just because you can't doesn't mean others shouldn't.

For the people saying you can't see the difference anyway, either YOU can't or you haven't actually bothered. 4K YouTube looks better on my 4K monitor than on my 1200p monitor. I sold TVs a year ago - there is a clear difference between 720p and 1080p, regardless of distance. There is a very clear difference in DVD and Blu-Ray, regardless of distance. Regardless of TV size. We would play the same movie, on the same model TV, side by side on the display - one was DVD the other was Blu-Ray. There was a very real difference. My couch sits roughly 12' from my TV, and there is a huge difference between the 720p TV that sat on my wall and the 1080p that sits there now.

Not true when it came to the HD TV. The FCC forced the networks to upgrade to HD with a hard cutoff date. This meant EVERYONE had to switch to a different TV. It also made HD TVs the standard.

The 4K TV is not being forced by the gov't, but by TV manufacturers. Studios have no mandate to upgrade their equipment to transmit 4K content as far as I know.

 

[Menneisyys2]

Nobody needs 4k so this is a good decision by Apple. Maybe in future a newer Apple TV will include support for this, but Apple is right to focus on content and experience over supporting technologies 99% of all consumers don't have in their home.

and you got your figures from?

 

[s2mikey]

Really? This can only be done by Apple.

Introduce a new iteration of a product, but still keep it an old product compared to the competition.

Scandalous really that Apple does this. 4K is a must, especially from "advanced" high tech companies like Apple.

Why is 4K a "must"? Because the TV industry has run out of ways to make money so they shove this 4K thing onto people? Sure, it looks marginally better from 5 feet away running the mfger provided content feed that's cherry picked for video quality. But, sit back at a normal viewing distance and guess what? Sorry, physics wins and people can't tell the difference. Those are the facts. I'm sure the 4K defenders will drum up some arguments as to why it's "better". We've heard the same BS from the sales guys at our local TV shops too. Save it. And, going from a good 1080 source to 4K is NOT even close to the same type of upgrade as going from DVD to blu Ray which Some people have used as an analogy. Nope, not the same thing at all. WAY more of an upgrade from DVD to blu Ray. Just like going from standard def to High def is a huge jump that people really can appreciate. 1080p to 4K at normal viewing distances? Trivial at BEST.

Let's not forget too that LCD TV technology is terrible and they still suffer from backlighting problems, uniformity issues, edge light bleed, poor black levels, and dodgy motion handling. So, cramming more pixels into a compromised display technology does NOT make it better. OLED and some other types of TV tech are promising hit are a ways off yet from being mainstream and affordable.

A quality 1080p plasma still destroys almost every 4K LCD out there when it comes to important picture quality characteristics. Period. I cringe when I see hapless couples wheeling out these overpriced, gimmicky 4K TV sets to their SUV at Best Buy. They just got played....badly.

Good for Apple!

 

[Mildredop]

There is no reason to have 4K support on the current generation Apple TV as most content is not yet available in 4K. By the time mainstream 4K content becomes available, Apple will be prepared.

This contradicts a lot of what I hear about Apple. In the MacBook forums, people are prattling on about how it's good that Apple are adopting USB-C early, even before any cables or peripherals are available.

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Forget 4K for 4K TVs, 4K would look better on a 1080p set just because of the chroma resolution upgrade.

Mega-lolz

 

[toke lahti]

Why is 4K a "must"? Because the TV industry has run out of ways to make money so they shove this 4K thing onto people? Sure, it looks marginally better from 5 feet away running the mfger provided content feed that's cherry picked for video quality. But, sit back at a normal viewing distance and guess what? Sorry, physics wins and people can't tell the difference. Those are the facts. I'm sure the 4K defenders will drum up some arguments as to why it's "better". We've heard the same BS from the sales guys at our local TV shops too. Save it. And, going from a good 1080 source to 4K is NOT even close to the same type of upgrade as going from DVD to blu Ray which Some people have used as an analogy. Nope, not the same thing at all. WAY more of an upgrade from DVD to blu Ray. Just like going from standard def to High def is a huge jump that people really can appreciate. 1080p to 4K at normal viewing distances? Trivial at BEST.

You do know that 4k blu-ray will make 4k mainstream next xmas? And if new tv is crippled, buyers still might have to buy it in 2018, considering how often Apple upgrades it. Most users won't buy every model, so next tv will be at halfway of it's lifespan within users in 2021...

How much average tv watcher needs 4k is a different story. It's just easy to sell like 20Mpx camera. I know I want 4k-5k displays, because finally displays are as good for content watching than content making and other computer usage.

 

[s2mikey]

You do know that 4k blu-ray will make 4k mainstream next xmas? And if new tv is crippled, buyers still might have to buy it in 2018, considering how often Apple upgrades it. Most users won't buy every model, so next tv will be at halfway of it's lifespan within users in 2021...

No, this isn't a fact at all. You really think that the masses are going to rebuy their entire library of perfectly great 1080 blu Rays in the 4K version? No freegin way. Sure, a few hobbyists or whatever will buy some but 4K blu Ray will be as much of a niche as 3D was.

Many movie buffs like myself that own over 200 blu Rays won't even consider rebuying the films again. That's because as me and much of the industry has found: from regular viewing distances, 4K is barely discernible from a good 1080p feed. And, as its also known, many of these 4K LCDs are lousy TVs that can't get basic image quality correct. Poor blacks, bad viewing angles, etc, etc.

No way the public is going to rebuy their entire video catalog AGAIN. NO way!

 

[0x100]

There is no reason to have 4K support on the current generation Apple TV as most content is not yet available in 4K. By the time mainstream 4K content becomes available, Apple will be prepared.

There is no reason to have USB-C as the only port or use it at all on the new macbook as most peripherals are not yet available in USB-C.

By the time USB-C peripherals become mainstream, Apple will be prepared…