Using Apple TV HD with 4K TV

[Sami13496]

What happens if I connect Apple TV HD to 4K TV? Will it look terrible? How does it work?

I’m planning to upgrade my HD TV to 4K TV. So should I also buy Apple TV 4K. That’s what I’m thinking.

I’m mostly watching Youtube and Disney+.

 

[diamond.g]

What happens if I connect Apple TV HD to 4K TV? Will it look terrible? How does it work?

I’m planning to upgrade my HD TV to 4K TV. So should I also buy Apple TV 4K. That’s what I’m thinking.

I’m mostly watching Youtube and Disney+.

It will just play content at a max resolution of 1080p. Your TV will upscale. As long as the TV upscaler is fine it shouldn't look horrible.

 

[Sami13496]

It will just play content at a max resolution of 1080p. Your TV will upscale. As long as the TV upscaler is fine it shouldn't look horrible.

Thanks. Would it look noticeably better with Apple TV 4K?

 

[Casey Royals]

It will look good with HD, and it will be better in 4K, and you won’t be able to watch any 4K videos without one. Your TV will likely have the 4K You Tube and Disney+ apps pre-installed so have a look at them and decide if you need the 4K Apple TV.

 

[HDFan]

After getting a 4K TV the most noticeable thing I found was HDR when available, then the extra resolution. If you are spending all that money on a TV then worth it to maximize it with a 4K Apple TV. There are lots of posts discussing using TV vs Apple TV apps. The latter is generally better, particularly over longer periods of time.

 

[Boyd01]

My 10+ year old 46 inch Sony Bravia TV died last month, got a good deal on an open box Samsung 58 inch 4k TV to replace it. Was concerned that my Apple TV HD would look terrible on the big 4k screen but was quite surprised when I hooked it up. Everthing looks noticeably better. I think the upscaling algorithms on current 4k TV's are really quite good and since the screens are also better (brighter, better contrast, blacker blacks) it makes quite a difference.

I don't have any 4k content, don't watch sports and am just not very interested in 4k programming. Had been planning to upgrade to a new 4k Apple TV but decided not to. Eventually I will, but mainly for the faster processor and gigabit ethernet. For now, I just don't want to spend the money however.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Much like with buying Silicon Macs, a new TV purchase cannot be solely concerned with only how we feel right now. Our lack of interest in anything 4K right now may evolve in the coming years, The TV may last 10+ years. So, much like the "is 8GB and 256GB enough in 6-9 years" decision, will we still feel the same about video resolution quality upwards of 10+ years from now? Anyone buying a new TV now should think about the future much like they should when buying a new Mac right now.

Already:

• free over the air channels across the country are using some bandwidth and new compression that gives them the potential to broadcast in 4K (none are yet, but it's already there that they can). If we come to learn the "big 5" are broadcasting lots of stuff in 4K and we opted for a 1080p screen, will we be completely happy with the downscaling? Or are we wanting to replace a perfectly good television with another because we purchased for 2023 instead of 2027?
• certain apps on AppleTV offer 4K content to watch, including premium live sports (NFL, MLB, etc) in the Fox Sports app (not a huge amount of content now but that likely grows in time).
• iDevices can shoot 4K (for several years now) and for memory captures like "home movies" there is no coming back 20 years from now to re-shoot because we wish we had originally captured it at 4K. In 20 years, we might have 16K recording in iWhatevers and 16K TVs. 1080p scaled may look like SD scaled on today's TV: inferior. So shoot at the best resolution one can. If you do shoot it at the best resolution you can, edit it at that resolution and then render it at that resolution. That will look as good as it can on a 4K TV, tomorrow's 8K and the 16K sets that will inevitably follow. I wish I could step back in time a few decades and re-shoot many home movies in 4K or better now. Instead, they will never look as good as the resolution in which they were shot. That last phrase will apply 20 years from now too.

To OPs question: modern TVs will upscale anything you throw at them. Hook up a VCR or an ancient camcorder with less than SD resolution and it will scale up. Hook up an Atari 2600 with about 320x200 resolution and it will scale. The TV will make any source scale up to 4K by "inventing" pixels via best guess of what would have been there algorithms. It's never as good as throwing native quality (stuff shot in 4K) at a 4K screen... just like scaling up a tiny image to a bigger size will not look as sharp & clear as scaling down a bigger image or already having an image at the target size. When you ask tech to invent pixels, you will get quality stray... but any source resolution will work and will fill the screen (vertically).

I suggest replacing the AppleTV HD with the latest AppleTV 4K. It's such a cheaply-priced device and it will bring Apple's best (for now) to pair with that new TV. Move the old HD (and perhaps the TV it is replacing) to another room so you or your fam can enjoy one in the other room too. Or sell both to recoup some of the cost.