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tvOS 14 Not Supporting 4K YouTube Videos Yet

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One of the tvOS 14 features that's meant to be included in the update is support for 4K videos for the first time, but as many MacRumors readers have noticed, 4K video content is not available after updating to the tvOS 14 update released earlier this week.

youtubeatvno4k.jpg

Selecting a 4K video on a 4K Apple TV upgraded to tvOS 14 limits the video playback to 1080p, which is the same playback quality that was available before.

Apple's Apple TV 4K website continues to say that 4K support for YouTube videos is a feature that's supposed to be included in tvOS 14, but it is missing in the release version of the software.

youtubefeatureapplesite.jpg

It's not clear what's going on, but there have been many upset Apple TV owners complaining on Twitter. Some users have said that 4K playback was working as expected with YouTube during some of the betas, but functionality was erratic, so perhaps there are bugs that need to be worked out.

It may be that YouTube needs to push an app update for the feature to work, and YouTube's Twitter support team seems confused. Just yesterday, a TeamYouTube account said that 4K resolution YouTube can't be delivered to the Apple TV 4K because it does not support VP9, so it seems YouTube's own staff is confused by the feature.



Update: YouTube deleted the original tweet from its support staff, and has clarified that Apple TV 4K will support 4K playback "soon."



Article Link: tvOS 14 Not Supporting 4K YouTube Videos Yet
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/18/tvos-14-not-supporting-4k-youtube-videos-yet/
Last edited:
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In all fairness the TeamYouTube Twitter account is run by either bots or morons. Many large content creators have reached out to them for help for various things and it’s always a pain to get a resolution. Folks at the company can’t even call each other, it’s all done via email. Rules are applied unevenly, different reasons are given depending on which bot/person is running the account. 😂 Wouldn’t surprise me if it is something that YouTube needs to enable on their end.
 
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This is a mess. Apple and Google have been having this spat for YEARS now. I wish they'd work together on this. I get that they're competitors, but it's kind of like politics; most people aren't going to switch sides, we all love our devices and want to keep them so it's best to just work with each other for the common good.
 
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I suspect that its the App version, not sure if or when a new version of the YouTube app has been updated for the Apple TV, but if I had to guess, its been a while.. Apple and Google just need to get on the same page just once for 5 minutes to get this fixed..
 
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I'm going to theorize that they won't be able to get this to work.

It's enabled on iPhone XS or newer AKA A12 or newer - they didn't enable it on iPhone X which has an A11, I don't think they will be able to get it to work with the A10X in the Apple TV. It's effectively software decoding VP9, and I don't think the CPU/GPU can keep up with every video.

I'll be happy when I'm proven wrong.
 
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ersan191 said:
I'm going to call it that they won't be able to get this to work.

It's enabled on iPhone XS or newer AKA A12 or newer - they didn't enable it on iPhone X which has an A11, I don't think they will be able to get it to work with the A10X in the Apple TV. It's effectively software decoding VP9, and I don't think the CPU/GPU can keep up.
Click to expand...
I don't think VP9 is that processor intensive if the Apple TV can do H265 videos and HDR.
 
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ouimetnick said:
In all fairness the TeamYouTube Twitter account is run by either bots or morons. Many large content creators have reached out to them for help for various things and it’s always a pain to get a resolution. Folks at the company can’t even call each other, it’s all done via email. Rules are applied unevenly, different reasons are given depending on which bot/person is running the account. 😂 Wouldn’t surprise me if it is something that YouTube needs to enable on their end.
Click to expand...

^^^on a completely different topic - you can interact with Amazon bot and get things done - you can cancel/request refunds, rescheduled delivery - pretty neat - up front it tells its an automated but they made it work
 
Apple TV 4K model (5th generation) does not support VP9 at this time.
Click to expand...

I don't think Apple will ever support the VP9 codec, so this seems unlikely to change.

fokmik said:
But how can you do PiP with tvOS 14?
i cannot find a way not with netflix, hbo or youtube
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure this requires the app to use the native video player in tvOS and Plex (definitely) uses their own video player now, and I suspect Netflix, HBO, and Youtube have their own as well to support their own custom features.
 
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