Is the AppleTV 4K worth it still?

TALON1973 · 29 Dec 2019 at 23:36

MOOGLEYS said:
Mine has the option to set it to 4K HDR @ 50Hz ? You sure it’s not your tv rather than the Apple TV 4K.....

You've mis-read.... I'm talking about 50 FPS.... NOT hz. That's the difference. And aptv can't do it.

Feek · 30 Dec 2019 at 00:55

TALON1973 said:
I'm talking about 50 FPS.... NOT hz

Frames per second and hertz (Hz) are the same thing.

To clarify, one hertz is one cycle per second.

So fifty hertz is fifty cycles per second, the same as fifty frames per second.

Robert · 30 Dec 2019 at 09:11

TALON1973 said:
You need to look up what it CAN'T do... 4k hdr in 50 FPS is a no no. Its hardware locked to 4k 30fps.

To get hdr you have to drop to 1080p. You can get 4k standard def tho

This is incorrect -

TALON1973 said:
You've mis-read.... I'm talking about 50 FPS.... NOT hz. That's the difference. And aptv can't do it.

I think and I’m happy to be corrected - you are confusing the fact that BT don’t offer 4K 50fps on the atv with the fact that the ATV can do it.

MOOGLEYS · 30 Dec 2019 at 09:40

TALON1973 said:
People are focusing on films.... Apple 4k TV box doesn't support bt sport at 4k hdr. As it CAN'T do it.

It can do it just the BT Sport App does not support it. That’s not really a fault of the ATV 4K hardware unless I’m missing something. Is it the HLG codec or something ?

TALON1973 · 30 Dec 2019 at 18:12

Taken from btsports forum.....

“On ATV4K, if you hardset the resolution to 1080 and have match content for dynamic range and frame rate enabled, then when you click the 'tile' to access the BT Sport Ultimate stream you will get 1080 50 FPS HDR10.

If you hardset the resolution to 4K, then when click the Ultimate stream 'tile' you will get 4K 50 FPS SDR.

The ATV4K CANNOT do 4K HDR/DV at greater than 30 FPS.

The ATV4K can do 4K HDR/DV at 24/25/30 FPS.

If match frame rate is enabled then when the ATV4K is doing 4K HDR 25 FPS, then refresh rate of the device is 50hz and each frame is shown twice. Similarly when it's doing 4K HDR 30 FPS then the refresh rate is 60hz with each frame being shown twice.

Hopefully this clears everything up. “

b0rn2sk8 · 30 Dec 2019 at 19:12

Don’t you need HDMI 2.1 to do 4k60HDR? It’s basically a brand new standard.

2.0 (a) added 4k60 (b) added HDR but to do both you need 2.1.

ATV is HDMI 2.0 as are most TVs unless you bought a high end set this year.

Robert · 31 Dec 2019 at 10:45

Interesting. How do you access the “ultimate” tile? Is it available on devices?

Chris1712 · 6 Jan 2020 at 15:06

b0rn2sk8 said:
Don’t you need HDMI 2.1 to do 4k60HDR? It’s basically a brand new standard.

2.0 (a) added 4k60 (b) added HDR but to do both you need 2.1.

ATV is HDMI 2.0 as are most TVs unless you bought a high end set this year.

HDMI 2.0 is fine for 4k60, as indeed consoles pump it out no problem. 4k60 HDR BT Sport works great on my Xbox One X.

What time of year did the ATV come out? I still kind of fancy one, but hope that a new revision is due with proper bitstream audio support?

Junglist · 6 Jan 2020 at 15:16

I think that they come out around September. But I'm not sure

Captain · 6 Jan 2020 at 18:58

Chris1712 said:
HDMI 2.0 is fine for 4k60, as indeed consoles pump it out no problem. 4k60 HDR BT Sport works great on my Xbox One X.

What time of year did the ATV come out? I still kind of fancy one, but hope that a new revision is due with proper bitstream audio support?

The Apple TV 4K came out September 2017 so it’ll be 3 years old this September coming.

Good chance it’ll get a refresh then.

jpaul · 6 Jan 2020 at 21:56

the apple support page implies it will do 4k@60 HDR10, which would put the limitation on the BT app, not the hardware;

equally, the feature list for upcoming device doesn't mention omitted 4k60 hdr10 support https://www.macworld.co.uk/news/apple/new-apple-tv-3663891/

glenimp617 · 13 Jan 2020 at 07:53

I bought an Apple TV over the weekend mainly for the homekit hub feature, can't say I'm overly impressed to be honest.

The remote is pretty awful, it's not as fast and fluid as I'd hoped. Launching apps doesn't seem any quicker than my 2017 Samsung TV.

My main issue with it, is that last night whilst watching the morning show it must have stopped and buffered five times. I also seemed to have a crash where trying to go back to the home menu would just show in a grey screen. Had to pull the power cable about the back in the end. Then it seemed to want to stick on 1080p, took me ages before I could select the 4k, but after doing that, going back to the home menu seemed to show a black screen for 10 seconds.

Not sure it was worth the £179 I paid!

Regarding 4k HDR at 60hz. The ATV can do it. There's a thread on AVS forums which shows it working.

Captain · 13 Jan 2020 at 12:13

My Apple TV 4K has been set to 4K HDR 60Hz since the day I got it.

beachBOYken · 13 Jan 2020 at 17:17

Clov!s said:
My Apple TV 4K has been set to 4K HDR 60Hz since the day I got it.

I have mine set to 4K SDR 50Hz, thats what was recommended on another forum, think that's only for the menus anyway, I have the match frame/content enabled as well.

Broken Hope · 13 Jan 2020 at 20:50

Clov!s said:
My Apple TV 4K has been set to 4K HDR 60Hz since the day I got it.

Yeah as stated you really should set the default to SDR and have match dynamic range and match frame rate enabled otherwise you're viewing SDR content in HDR which is wrong.

Captain · 13 Jan 2020 at 21:23

Broken Hope said:
Yeah as stated you really should set the default to SDR and have match dynamic range and match frame rate enabled otherwise you're viewing SDR content in HDR which is wrong.

I only watched HDR content anyway.

glenimp617 · 14 Jan 2020 at 10:30

Broken Hope said:
Yeah as stated you really should set the default to SDR and have match dynamic range and match frame rate enabled otherwise you're viewing SDR content in HDR which is wrong.

When having it set to this, is it normal when viewing say BBC iplayer that the ATV goes blank for a few seconds, then the same when returning back to the menu?

beachBOYken · 14 Jan 2020 at 10:57

TheOracle said:
When having it set to this, is it normal when viewing say BBC iplayer that the ATV goes blank for a few seconds, then the same when returning back to the menu?

Yes thats normal, I watch Netflix and when I watch stuff and then back out of a TV show/movie the screen will go blank for a second or so, I presume thats where It's just matching the current content displayed with that setting set.

Broken Hope · 14 Jan 2020 at 13:23

TheOracle said:
When having it set to this, is it normal when viewing say BBC iplayer that the ATV goes blank for a few seconds, then the same when returning back to the menu?

iPlayer stuff will be 50Hz so if your display setting is 60Hz it will switch which blanks the display, same for 24Hz content

HDMI 2.1 has a new feature called Quick Media Switching which should prevent this when we have HDMI 2.1 devices.

https://www.hdmi.org/spec21Sub/QuickMediaSwitching

glenimp617 · 14 Jan 2020 at 13:31

Broken Hope said:
iPlayer stuff will be 50Hz so if your display setting is 60Hz it will switch which blanks the display, same for 24Hz content

HDMI 2.1 has a new feature called Quick Media Switching which should prevent this when we have HDMI 2.1 devices.

https://www.hdmi.org/spec21Sub/QuickMediaSwitching

I'll need to check, but I'm pretty sure it's set at 4k SDR 50Hz