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Production of Faster Apple TV 5 Rumored to Begin in Early 2016
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Typing is required for searching as Siri only supports Netflix and iTunes. Searching in YouTube is terrifically entertaining, letter by letter. Great bit of design.
Crazy, it would be madness. I just got one as a gift.... I knew I should have given a Roku! Better price too!
From what distance do you view your 40" 4K Samsung TV?
Adoption Of 4K Streaming Will Be Stalled By Bandwidth, Not Hardware & Devices http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2015/01/4k-streaming-bandwidth-problem.html
"With all the talk of 4K that took place at CES, some within the industry are making statements and assumptions about 4K streaming bitrates that simply aren’t accurate. Many are under the impression that 4K streaming will soon be delivered at around 10-12Mbps using HEVC and are also quoting data from Akamai incorrectly. If you look at the HEVC testing that guys like Jan Ozer and Alex Zambelli have done, and look at the data Netflix has presented around their 4K encoding (Netflix’s current bitrate for 4K is 15.6Mbps), the bitrates won’t get down to 10-12Mbps anytime soon.
The reality is that true 4K streaming can’t take place at even 12-15Mbps unless there is a 40% efficiency in encoding going from H.264 to HEVC and the content is 24/30 fps, not 60 fps. Netflix has stated they expect HEVC to provide a 20-30% encoding efficiency vs H.264, within two years. That’s a long way away from the 40% required to get bitrates down to 12-15Mbps. While 4K can in theory be compressed at 10-12Mbps, this is typically achieved by reducing the frame rate or sacrificing quality. As Encoding.com points out, to date, “most of the HEVC we’ve seen in the market is heavily noise-reduced with high frequency details blurred out to fake the 40% efficiency”. The optimal bandwidth for high quality 4K is higher than 20Mbps.
With Netflix already encoding 4K content at 15.6Mbps today, and with the expertise they have in encoding and the money they spend on bandwidth, they will get the bitrate lower over time. Some observers think it might go down to 10-12Mbps, but that would only be possible down the road and at 24/30 fps, not 60 fps. If you want 60 fps, it’s going to be even higher. But even if we use the 10-12Mbps number, no ISP can sustain it, at scale. So while everyone wants to talk about compression rates, and bitrates, no one is talking about what the last mile can support or how content owners are going to pay to deliver all the additional bits. The bottom line is that for the next few years at least, 4K streaming will be near impossible to deliver at scale, even at 10-12Mbps, via the cloud with guaranteed QoS."
I'd also add that 4k resolution isn't the killer application here; HDR and high-framerate are earth-shattering advances in the quality of the image. I would much rather have an HDR 1080p image running at 60fps with less compression artifacting than a SDR 4k image running at 24fps with more compression artifacting. Doubling framerate only modestly increases bitrate, but quadrupling the resolution (1080p/2k -> 2160p/4k) almost quadruples required bitrate (not as much on flat nondescript areas but those take very little of the bitrate budget anyway). HDR adds about 50% (goes from 8bits to 10-14 bits; 12 bits wide seems to be standard, which is exactly 50% more than SDR). So instead of doing 4x, we do (1.5x1.5 == 2.25x) which allows us to greatly increase the quality settings to decrease compression artifacts, improve key framing, etc.
The problem is that it seems like HDR and 4k are inextricably linked in the eyes of the studios. While HDMI 1.4 will support low HDR (10 bits) no one seems to be offering that.
All of which is to say that come Dec 2016, the "4k" sets might look a lot nicer than the "1080p" sets do, not because of the headline feature, but because of the other features that are coming along behind it and assuming 4k in their implementations. A smart streaming device box would allow the user to toggle between 1080p+HDR+HFR and 4k at any given compression setting so they can get the "good stuff" from their bandwidth. But, I'm not sure Apple will allow that (they didn't give any configurability going between 720p and 1080p for instance). In any case, in that holiday season if Apple doesn't have a box out claiming to support the visibly-better-quality monitors out there it will be in for a world of hurt. So, I suspect that Apple will be coming out with a 4k-supporting Apple TV next Fall if not earlier.
For myself: I am not going to be buying a new TV set any time soon, so the current AppleTV 4 is on my gotta-get Christmas list (if no one loves me enough to get me one, I'll be getting one for myself in early January!)
Serious question: if you buy something today, and a new version comes out tomorrow, how were you "screwed over"?
Most products get replaced with newer models, and for electronics a year replacement cycle is actually pretty generous.
Or is a large amount of the value of a thing, for you, in being able to say "this is the newest X"? That seems pretty petty and narcissistic, but I suppose if that is what gets you going in the morning then Apple (and every other product company) is constantly looking for ways to screw you over.
Personally, I buy a product not based on how long I think it will be the "newest" but rather based on how well it fits my needs. If my needs aren't immediate then I, knowing technology tends to advance in a yearly cycle, will weigh the benefit of having the current product for a year over waiting a year to get the next-version product, which is all but guaranteed to be better or less expensive or both. Yeah, if I'm assuming a yearly update and a newer version comes out in six months my calculations weren't as accurate as they could be, but if I made that calculation then it was that having the older version for a year then buying some update makes sense; being able to buy the update six months early is a bonus option, but generally not one I'll take.
I don't know. Seems like some perverse and counter-productive psychology is at play here. A rational person would try to reason their way out of it rather than fume over how some company is "screwing them over" by releasing new products that they can buy or not buy at their leisure.
The article is from May of this year. What revolutions have taken place in the last seven months to negate the numerous, well-documented arguments in that article, not the least of which are citations from Sony and THX confirming the viewing distances and TV sizes necessary to appreciate different resolutions?
Instead of that brilliant three word rebuttal, perhaps you can cite what exactly about that article is inaccurate, and what sources you have to back up your position that are more credible than those in the article.
You are right. We are neglecting to take into account the massive evolutionary leaps our eyes' ability to resolve details have undergone in the past decade.
Excellent point.
/s
That's a potential argument for choosing a 4K TV, but it doesn't change the reasons why it makes no sense for Apple to support 4K on the Apple TV at this time.
Seriously? You think that dumb gimmick of a device singlehandedly justifies cramming a 4K screen on a 5" phone? How often do you use that. I've never even seen anyone using one in the real world.
Plex is Home Sharing on steroids, but it will NOT work with any DRM'd content, from Apple or anyone else. All DRM'd content is heavily crippled to only play on specific software and devices and those restrictions are virtually impossible to crack.
Money spent on DRM'd content is wasted, in my opinion.
Come on...4K?
I got a few channels HD today from my tv supplier, less than 5...sort of.
So whats the point of an 4K ATV when I don't really have HD?
I can hardly imagine apple going so soon for 4K on ATV.
(English aint my native but at least I try.)
I got a few channels HD today from my tv supplier, less than 5...sort of.
So whats the point of an 4K ATV when I don't really have HD?
I can hardly imagine apple going so soon for 4K on ATV.
(English aint my native but at least I try.)
Per the guys that own the HDMI specs, HDMI 1.4a can do 4k video at up to 30fps. It can also do 10-bt HDR. 4k support was widely advertised when HDMI 1.4 came out.
You need HDMI 2 for 4k at 60-120fps, and for 12-14-bit HDR.
That said, studio-produced 4k video tends to be protected by HDCP 2.2, which does require HDMI 2.0 (although having HDMI 2.0 doesn't guarantee HDCP 2.2 support). The same is not true for iPhone-produced 4k video, though.
Because it's a waste of time, money, and energy.
If Apple released a 4K-capable Apple TV, today it would increase the cost of the product both for Apple and for customers without providing any tangible benefit. Apple would then be expected to offer 4K content, which they can't, because there's very little of that content available, most people don't have the bandwidth to stream it, and most content producers and networks can't afford to produce it or to pay for the necessary bandwidth costs on their end.
That is an argument (maybe) for purchasing a 4K tv. It is not an argument for Apple to provide 4K on their current Apple TV.
For the hundredth time, that's different. The normal viewing distance for an iMac is around two feet, so 5k resolution IS appreciable. Additionally, an iMac is not primarily a media consumption device. That resolution is primarily of benefit for graphics and video editing - especially the later since it allows you to view two 1080p windows side by side at full resolution.
The real question is isn't this the exact same thing that was said when HD first came out when we just had SD. "HD will never be a hit because HD TV's are to expensive, ISP don't have enough band which to support them, there is no HD content available for them, blah, blah, blah" Well now everyone has HD TV's and there is HD content available everywhere. I don't even know anyone that has a SD TV anymore. Now the same thing is being said about 4K. 4K will be to HD to what HD was to SD. 4K will be everywhere in the short future. My ISP now offers 120mbsp with a 800GB monthly limit and for a few bucks more you can upgrade to unlimited. I have a 55 inch 4K TV and I sit about 12 to 15 feet away from it and if I put it next to my 55 inch 1080p HD TV my 4K blows it away. Anyone that can't see the difference needs to get their eyes checked. Like I said 4K is the future and you heard it here first.
Apple doesn't expect most people to display their iPhone 4k videos in 4k. The resolution is there because it allows you to crop to 4x during editing while retaining at least 1080 resolution. Most people will reduce the size of the final video to 1080p or smaller.
Awesome, just bought two 64gb's to "future proof" us. At least I only paid full retail for 1 of them (without tax).
NOPE. Apple rarely if ever introduces new technology. They PERFECT existing technologies and make them relevant and useful for the masses.
Examples: Apple was not the first to create a digital music player, a smartphone, a tablet computing device, or a smart watch. And yet they took the world by storm with the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.
Hate to say it but as far as your existing media library goes, you're screwed. Same applies if you have a music library comprised of DRM'd tracks and albums. Never pay for DRM'd content, unless you're just renting it, as in the Apple Music service.
That's a great rebuttal against an argument that has been made by no one at all. No one is arguing that 4K will never make sense or be popular. The argument is that it makes little sense for the Apple TV right now.