Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. I just got a 40" 4K Samsung and the picture quality blows our former 1080p screen out of the water. 4K video looks amazing, and you really only need 25mbps to stream it.

Apple is behind the curve, and we won't be buying a new Apple TV until it has 4K.

If it's released in 2016, I doubt the next Apple TV will support 4K.
All the factors working against wider 4K adoption today will remain in place in 2016...
  • 4K resolution requires very large (80"+) screen (or very close viewing distance) to be appreciated
  • Most people don't own or have the space for an 80"+ TV
  • Mot people don't want to view a 60" TV from 5 feet away
  • Most Americans don't have sufficient bandwidth to stream 4K video at good bitrates
  • Very little content is currently available in 4K
 
Well they need to fix the software first. Big issue is the skipping, pausing and stalling of many/most of my home share movies. I do not want to run the movies via itunes and my internet service all the time that is not the solution. It is not all on the cloud and internet, I have a large old Mac Pro serving my videos and having them stored locally. I am sure this is premature but tvOS needs major overall. Many are reporting this issue see the forum on apple TV and look for buffering issues.

Hmmm. I'm not seeing it at all. I use Plex to run my local videos on the ATV4 and they have all run perfectly so far. I am running mine off of an early 2009 Mac Mini that I upgraded with 8GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.
 
I don't understand this 4k obession. I mean, sure if you are running very large screen there's some benefit to it, but how many really do it?

On a 40-65" screen, it's not enough of an improvement. Heck, I'm running a movie filter on my 1080p movies in my 55" TV to add grain since it looks "too good" otherwise.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rdlink
So the 4 was probably just to bide time until they could launch the one they really wanted to launch with the streaming service

Bide time? The "3" came out in 2012. It seems like there was plenty of time to get it right already.

Nevertheless, I'm very enthusiastic about any new progress on :apple:TV. As I've posted more than a few times, I expect the "5" to roll out with new iPads next fall (when they inherit the iPhone 6s 4K cameras) or within a few months thereafter- just like the "3" rolled out after both iPhone and iPad cameras were capable of shooting 1080p.
 
If it's released in 2016, I doubt the next Apple TV will support 4K.
All the factors working against wider 4K adoption today will remain in place in 2016...
  • 4K resolution requires a very large (80"+) screen or very close viewing distance to be appreciated
  • Most people don't own or have the space for an 80"+ TV
  • Mot people don't want to view a 60" TV from 5 feet away
  • Most Americans don't have sufficient bandwidth to stream 4K video at good bitrates w/o terrible compression
  • Major ISPs in the US are imposing data caps that would make streaming 4K video prohibitively expensive for most
  • Very little content is currently available in 4K

I'm 100% positive that the next Apple Tv will support 4k. Factors be damned.
 
Wrong, wrong, wrong. I just got a 40" 4K Samsung and the picture quality blows our former 1080p screen out of the water. 4K video looks amazing, and you really only need 25mbps to stream it.

Apple is behind the curve, and we won't be buying a new Apple TV until it has 4K.

From what distance do you view your 40" 4K Samsung TV?

QIZw2Gy.png





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."
 
Last edited:
Wrong, wrong, wrong. I just got a 40" 4K Samsung and the picture quality blows our former 1080p screen out of the water. 4K video looks amazing, and you really only need 25mbps to stream it.

Apple is behind the curve, and we won't be buying a new Apple TV until it has 4K.

Actually the OP is much closer to right than you are. Physics are not your friend in this argument. The human eye cannot see the difference between 4K and 1080P on a 40 inch screen unless you're about 3 feet away.

And the large percentage of people don't have 25Mbps.

Not saying you shouldn't buy a 4K TV if you're in the market for a new TV. But a lot of people have bought 1080P in the last few years, and a bunch of them are smart enough to know that there is no benefit for them to replace their currently working TV for a 4K.
 
If it's released in 2016, I doubt the next Apple TV will support 4K.
All the factors working against wider 4K adoption today will remain in place in 2016...
  • 4K resolution requires a very large (80"+) screen or very close viewing distance to be appreciated
  • Most people don't own or have the space for an 80"+ TV
  • Mot people don't want to view a 60" TV from 5 feet away
  • Most Americans don't have sufficient bandwidth to stream 4K video at good bitrates w/o terrible compression
  • Major ISPs in the US are imposing data caps that would make streaming 4K video prohibitively expensive for most
  • Very little content is currently available in 4K

...Yet people want it on the Apple TV because it exists and because the Apple TV doesn't have it.
 
Many don't have 4k tv's but that's all they sell now it seems. It's just a matter of time. Streaming 4k is a different story. I don't see most being able to do it and too many data caps.
The only thing I don't like about apple tv 4 are all the bugs. When I start something, it takes a few seconds for the audio to kick in. Netflix crashes. Taking up half the screen to display a splash screen for a selection is retarded.
 
I personally don't mind if they update to the 5th gen tomorrow. The 4th gen is running great, and I have two other TV's that are running 2nd gen that need to be replaced! I am not sure what they could add that would make me want to upgrade a 4th gen. Even if I had 4k TV's, my viewing distances and TV sizes (max at 55") don't make 4k worth the bother.

I would love for them to do a different remote though... this thing kinda really sucks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nrose101
News just in. Apple starts development and testing of iPhone 7, Apple TV 5, iPad Pro 2 and all other product lines before launching existing products to market. All of these devices are claimed to be more powerful and have features not found in released hardware. Said a reliable source who's managed to hear of the existence of Apple sometime in the past several years.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jettredmont
I personally don't mind if they update to the 5th gen tomorrow. The 4th gen is running great, and I have two other TV's that are running 2nd gen that need to be replaced! I am not sure what they could add that would make me want to upgrade a 4th gen. Even if I had 4k TV's, my viewing distances and TV sizes (max at 55") don't make 4k worth the bother.

I would love for them to do a different remote though... this thing kinda really sucks.

The remote isn't perfect but I love it. Clean, simple, and elegant. I hate typical mutifunction remotes with 100 buttons.
 
Not going 4k until 2017 at the earliest (pointless at the moment IMO), but thanks for all the suckers - sorry - early adopters for dropping the price down for us sensible ones.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jettredmont
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.