Can someone explain why the iPhone 6s supports 4K video recording, we now have 4K and 5K iMacs yet the ?TV doesn't support 4K (while competitor boxes from the likes of Amazon and Roku do)? That makes no sense to me other than Phil Schiller decided it needed to be held back so Apple had a reason for you to buy a new one in a couple years.
It can support it. The HDMI spec for 1.4 permits up to 4k30p, albeit at 8 bit color. So not only would this work for it iPhone 6s videos, but for a 4K download/streaming service from the ITMS.
I think the other shoe to drop is a 4K service. That's when we see a firmware update to the new Apple TV enabling 4K, along with new codecs, including support for an also-updated IPhone video format.
There much better bang for the buck to announce 4K is available with the Apple TV in conjunction with a movie service than just a fun feature for our dopey 30 second videos.
My guess is the service is not ready yet, or the better time to announce it is after the initial round of strong sales begins to subside...this would then generate renewed interest in the product for a round two,..
Do so few people use optical out that Apple decided to drop it completely from the new Apple TV? My current Apple TV is hooked up to a soundbar that I have via optical.
If I were to get this new Apple TV, I have to look into other sort of hookup options, and I would have to buy some sort of adapter in addition to the Apple TV.
For now, I'm just going to keep using my current Apple TV. Maybe I'll look into this new Apple TV in the future sometime, after I see how gaming is
going to be on it.
I actually went through this thought process a few years ago with my current AppleTV, and, in the end, was able to run AppleTV -> HDMI -> TV -> passthrough optical audio to surround sound.
It works well - my Samsung TV even has the ability to adjust the audio delay +/- a few milli?seconds, though it wasn't necessary.
I would recommend seeing if this is an option for your setup (I've got AppleTV, SageTV & an Xbox all hooked up this way via the TV)
It can support it. The HDMI spec for 1.4 permits up to 4k30p, albeit at 8 bit color. So not only would this work for it iPhone 6s videos, but for a 4K download/streaming service from the ITMS.
I think the other shoe to drop is a 4K service. That's when we see a firmware update to the new Apple TV enabling 4K, along with new codecs, including support for an also-updated IPhone video format.
There much better bang for the buck to announce 4K is available with the Apple TV in conjunction with a movie service than just a fun feature for our dopey 30 second videos.
My guess is the service is not ready yet, or the better time to announce it is after the initial round of strong sales begins to subside...this would then generate renewed interest in the product for a round two,..
My 2 cents...
So that wouldn't require new hardware? Just a software update?
Is 4K widely available on iTunes? No? Then there is your answer. Why would Apple offer a major feature that will only send people to other competitive services? Once they have 4K widely available on iTunes they will add it to AppleTV.
These interviews with Tim Cook are so boring. We all know the questions that will be asked. We pretty much know what his answers are going to be and what questions he won't answer (e.g. questions about an Apple car). So far tonight we got a question on Apple Music, a question on ?Watch, a question on ?TV, a question on iPhone innovation (buying into the stupid meme that "s" cycle phones are just minor improvements), a question on cars, on Apple retail and on privacy. And with the privacy question no one seems to be pushing back on the trade offs. I wish someone would push Cook on that because there definitely are trade offs and if people had the choice I think some would choose a Google Now/Google on Tap experience. They would be willing to make that trade off. But Apple makes that choice for you. And the choice right now is an inferior experience.
The only news made tonight was that ?TV ships next week.
As if Tim Cook has failed as your personal entertainer! Just what is your mission in life? I don't even want to imagine all the bile your 10K+ posts must contain.
Really, it's not that flabbergasting. 4K adoption- either through hardware or content- is not wide enough to warrant making pricing and performance tradeoffs to support it. Why can't you ever be positive or optimistic about anything? The new Apple TV is a massive improvement from its predecessor, in terms of user interface, capabilities, input, remote, and power. Why not take a second to appreciate that, then to focus all your energy on the fact that it doesnt support a TV resolution that barely anyone owns, that barely any content is available in, and that takes a ridiculous amount of bandwidth that very few people have?
Quote:
Originally Posted by irnchriz
4K is a stopgap, they are dumping sets on the market to clear them because 8k sets and content are just round the corner. It's like buying an HD ready 720p set with a component connector when full HD 1080p sets are a few months away.
So on one hand we have people saying 4K is a no-go right now because the hardware, content and bandwidth are not there yet.
Then on the other hand we have people saying 4K is a no-go because it's a stopgap measure and that 8K is right around the corner.
Then on the third hand we have people like @polymnia saying they actually own a 4K television and quite like it.
Well I am gonna agree with the third hand on this. It's hard to enjoy something like a television if I don't own it. And I never owned something like a television by constantly waiting for the new model, content, etc.
Sometimes you just gotta take the plunge and enjoy it. After all, where would the world be if there were no early adopters?
So that wouldn't require new hardware? Just a software update?
If you go by the HDMI bandwidth specs for 1.4, yes.
The only other tricky part is copy protection. The AV industry is going down the path of HDCP 2.2 which ATV does not list as supported. My current understanding is this support requires at the least HDMI 2.0 "lite" hardware, which is essentially the same 10.2 gbps bandwidth for HDMI 1.4 but with some authentication circuitry added. If this is required of streaming/download services, the new ATV is either out of the picture, or Apple does have a way of adding this support. Don't know.
Conversely, there may be alternatives to HDCP 2.2 for streaming/download services that will meet the security needs of the studios and is/can be implemented on the ATV with no hardware changes.
But at least for our iPhone 4K videos, yes, the new ATV could play them if Apple opens that pathway. And I suspect the far more import 4K service would be the tipping point for that support's introduction...
As if Tim Cook has failed as your personal entertainer! Just what is your mission in life? I don't even want to imagine all the bile your 10K+ posts must contain.
What can I say I thought it was boring interview. I mean geez you have the CEO of Apple for an hour. Let's get an interesting conversation going rather than predictable questions that will garner predictable answers. At the September event Tim Cook said the iPad Pro was Apple's vision for the future of computing. How about delving a little deeper into that topic? Yet I don't think iPad was mentioned once last night. Same with ResearchKit. I think that is one of the more profound things Apple has announced recently and not one question on it. Tim Cook doesn't do that many interviews so when you get one with him why not make it worthwhile?
4k isn't mainstream yet. Why is this so hard to understand?
The only way 4k is benefical is if you have a 70+ inch TV. How many people have a TV 70+ inches that have 4k? Probably less than 5% of the population
I was in Best Buy yesterday, and I couldn't believe the change from a year ago. Last year, there was one or two 4K TV's displayed in the high-end "Magnolia" section, and they were about $5,000. Yesterday, all the 1080p TV's were relegated to an off-the-beaten path side aisle, and most of what I saw in the main section was 4K, and they were about $1,000. My point is, these things will be mainstream very, very soon.
Go buy an Android. Its a free country, Apple isn't forcing you to do anything. I'm happy that Apple respects my privacy.
Wait, because I want Apple to kick Google's ass and give iPhone owners less of a reason to use Google's services I should go buy an Android? Huh? I want Proactive to leave Google Now/on Tap in the dust. I'm not sure how Apple does that without collecting more data and getting a lot better at machine learning. Are you suggesting that Apple's iCloud isn't private and secure? Also since Apple's business model is (for the most part) making money off hardware sales why shouldn't I be able to trust Apple with my data? I know they're not in the business of selling it so they would be using it for one reason and one reason only: to provide a better user experience. And they could easily allow you to switch this stuff off in privacy settings if you're uncomfortable giving Apple any of your data.
I keep waiting for Apple to give more specifics as to what the 64GB model will be able to do that the 32GB model won't. There has been lots of speculation about everything from storing more games to DVR functionality to supporting expected streaming TV offerings, but I'd like Apple to give a bit of guidance. And as a TIVO owner/user, I strongly hope that I'll be able to feed the Apple TV's output into my TIVO.
Do so few people use optical out that Apple decided to drop it completely from the new Apple TV? My current Apple TV is hooked up to a soundbar that I have via optical.
If I were to get this new Apple TV, I have to look into other sort of hookup options, and I would have to buy some sort of adapter in addition to the Apple TV.
For now, I'm just going to keep using my current Apple TV. Maybe I'll look into this new Apple TV in the future sometime, after I see how gaming is
going to be on it.
They dropped S/PDIF because it doesn't have any copy protection and they plan to shove Apple Music onto the thing. HDMI has DRM so they don't have to worry about you recording tracks. It's a stupid decision and Apple Music should have been left out, but they have to put it everywhere like Google did with Plus.
Is 4K widely available on iTunes? No? Then there is your answer. Why would Apple offer a major feature that will only send people to other competitive services? Once they have 4K widely available on iTunes they will add it to AppleTV.
Gee, it's a good thing Apple doesn't offer an App Store that allows people to replace all the system apps with third party solutions...
They continued offering optical drives on Macs long after they stopped selling Apple software on disc. I mean, if that was the concern, why open up the AppleTV at all? Just continue putting content only they want on there and keep telling those they don't like to get lost!
The A8 has h265 support but no iTunes content for it; it's used for FaceTime and only between other A8 devices. Why add support for something hardly used? Could it be...future proofing?
Gee, it's a good thing Apple doesn't offer an App Store that allows people to replace all the system apps with third party solutions...
They continued offering optical drives on Macs long after they stopped selling Apple software on disc. I mean, if that was the concern, why open up the AppleTV at all? Just continue putting content only they want on there and keep telling those they don't like to get lost!
The A8 has h265 support but no iTunes content for it; it's used for FaceTime and only between other A8 devices. Why add support for something hardly used? Could it be...future proofing?
Everyone tried to push 3D a few years ago. It never went mainstream. Why are you so confident 4k will go mainstream?
The benefits of 4k are minimal except if you have a TV larger than 70 inches are you sit extremely close to your TV. It will take at least 3 years before 4k becomes mainstream.
And 4k streams are not real 4k. In fact most 4k streams are lower quality than standard bluray discs.
3-D never took off because you have to wear glasses of some sort and it just wasn't that compelling.
In my opinion the 4K sets I have seen simply look better at any distance, regardless of the content being displayed.
Looking forward to the Apple TV. I understand some people will fall into the temptation of making 4k a big deal here. As said before it there is so little content right now and as a % not very many devices that can display this. I have 4k TV's so yes I want it as well but don't really blame Apple. They are being up front on their intentions.
Also understand that Apple's user base for this type of service trumps most of the other services so I suspect that they will need time to carefully think what specifications they will adopt and also make sure the infrastructure is built out properly so they provide the right experience without impacting the existing services they provide.
For now it is a on issue IMO.
They will update it to allow this for playback of iPhone 6s 4k video for sure. I assume anyway.
So it seems. It gets mildly tiring of being told you're a troll/horrible person/Apple hater/should go somewhere else. I mean, asking Apple to be better should be considered a good thing.
Apple keeps talking about being the best, then continues to sell crap like a three year old MacBook Pro for an exorbitant price that struggles to run OS X because the underlying code is so outdated. Then they sell iMacs for more than a thousand dollars and also shove old disks that give similarly poor performance because Apple's way of disguising OS X's problems has been to throw more and more hardware at it, just like Android, so when you don't have an ultra fast SSD it feels like you're back on a low end G4 with a gig of RAM trying to run Leopard. El Cap is a start; OS X needs entire structural sections ripped out and replaced if Apple's serious about it. Then they sell A5 devices for a year past their expiration date, meaning those folks either get cutoff really early, or the entire ecosystem continues to be held back to reach the lowest common denominator.
And then Phil talks about how 16GB is fine on iOS devices but evidently it's not fine on the AppleTV or iPad Pro?
Don't bother. 4K is far from being mainstream at the moment and will take a couple of years at least from being close to that. Anyone who's cheerleading 4K (I suspect mainly because of the lack of 4K in new ATV) right now are just spec-whore. To properly appreciate 4K contents in a normal living room size you need the screen bigger than 70". How many home will adopt that?
And streaming 4K? You got the resolution but lacks of bit-rate. Is that what you call quality? I'll watch a good-authored Blu-Ray disc over that any day.
If someone are really videophile they ain't talking about Netflix or YouTube, period.
I don't care about 4K seems less quintessential these days than 1080p seemed back in the day when it was added. My point was that sometimes ? will add things that owners didn't expect to their products and unlock them at a later time and date is all like my example I put in my post. I'm thrilled about the new ? tv and I don't think something as silly as 4K + or - would change my opinion on that.
Comments
I assume that I'll be able to just walk into a store and buy one next week?
It can support it. The HDMI spec for 1.4 permits up to 4k30p, albeit at 8 bit color. So not only would this work for it iPhone 6s videos, but for a 4K download/streaming service from the ITMS.
I think the other shoe to drop is a 4K service. That's when we see a firmware update to the new Apple TV enabling 4K, along with new codecs, including support for an also-updated IPhone video format.
There much better bang for the buck to announce 4K is available with the Apple TV in conjunction with a movie service than just a fun feature for our dopey 30 second videos.
My guess is the service is not ready yet, or the better time to announce it is after the initial round of strong sales begins to subside...this would then generate renewed interest in the product for a round two,..
My 2 cents...
Do so few people use optical out that Apple decided to drop it completely from the new Apple TV? My current Apple TV is hooked up to a soundbar that I have via optical.
If I were to get this new Apple TV, I have to look into other sort of hookup options, and I would have to buy some sort of adapter in addition to the Apple TV.
For now, I'm just going to keep using my current Apple TV. Maybe I'll look into this new Apple TV in the future sometime, after I see how gaming is
going to be on it.
I actually went through this thought process a few years ago with my current AppleTV, and, in the end, was able to run AppleTV -> HDMI -> TV -> passthrough optical audio to surround sound.
It works well - my Samsung TV even has the ability to adjust the audio delay +/- a few milli?seconds, though it wasn't necessary.
I would recommend seeing if this is an option for your setup (I've got AppleTV, SageTV & an Xbox all hooked up this way via the TV)
So that wouldn't require new hardware? Just a software update?
These interviews with Tim Cook are so boring. We all know the questions that will be asked. We pretty much know what his answers are going to be and what questions he won't answer (e.g. questions about an Apple car). So far tonight we got a question on Apple Music, a question on ?Watch, a question on ?TV, a question on iPhone innovation (buying into the stupid meme that "s" cycle phones are just minor improvements), a question on cars, on Apple retail and on privacy. And with the privacy question no one seems to be pushing back on the trade offs. I wish someone would push Cook on that because there definitely are trade offs and if people had the choice I think some would choose a Google Now/Google on Tap experience. They would be willing to make that trade off. But Apple makes that choice for you. And the choice right now is an inferior experience.
The only news made tonight was that ?TV ships next week.
As if Tim Cook has failed as your personal entertainer! Just what is your mission in life? I don't even want to imagine all the bile your 10K+ posts must contain.
Really, it's not that flabbergasting. 4K adoption- either through hardware or content- is not wide enough to warrant making pricing and performance tradeoffs to support it. Why can't you ever be positive or optimistic about anything? The new Apple TV is a massive improvement from its predecessor, in terms of user interface, capabilities, input, remote, and power. Why not take a second to appreciate that, then to focus all your energy on the fact that it doesnt support a TV resolution that barely anyone owns, that barely any content is available in, and that takes a ridiculous amount of bandwidth that very few people have?
4K is a stopgap, they are dumping sets on the market to clear them because 8k sets and content are just round the corner. It's like buying an HD ready 720p set with a component connector when full HD 1080p sets are a few months away.
So on one hand we have people saying 4K is a no-go right now because the hardware, content and bandwidth are not there yet.
Then on the other hand we have people saying 4K is a no-go because it's a stopgap measure and that 8K is right around the corner.
Then on the third hand we have people like @polymnia saying they actually own a 4K television and quite like it.
Well I am gonna agree with the third hand on this. It's hard to enjoy something like a television if I don't own it. And I never owned something like a television by constantly waiting for the new model, content, etc.
Sometimes you just gotta take the plunge and enjoy it. After all, where would the world be if there were no early adopters?
If you go by the HDMI bandwidth specs for 1.4, yes.
The only other tricky part is copy protection. The AV industry is going down the path of HDCP 2.2 which ATV does not list as supported. My current understanding is this support requires at the least HDMI 2.0 "lite" hardware, which is essentially the same 10.2 gbps bandwidth for HDMI 1.4 but with some authentication circuitry added. If this is required of streaming/download services, the new ATV is either out of the picture, or Apple does have a way of adding this support. Don't know.
Conversely, there may be alternatives to HDCP 2.2 for streaming/download services that will meet the security needs of the studios and is/can be implemented on the ATV with no hardware changes.
But at least for our iPhone 4K videos, yes, the new ATV could play them if Apple opens that pathway. And I suspect the far more import 4K service would be the tipping point for that support's introduction...
Oh ffs! Are we back to that fucking 4K issue, seriously? How many times do we have to revisit this same fucking discussion about 4-fucking-K?
On a happy note, I'm so excited to get this new ATV...
...
...Fun, fun, can't wait!!
How many times you ask? I am thinking right around infinity+1.
Another answer is the same number of times the discussion about taking Apple private, and how that should happen is revisited.
Also I am going to have to make the trip to the Apple store to at least play around with the new ATV. Can't wait either.
What can I say I thought it was boring interview. I mean geez you have the CEO of Apple for an hour. Let's get an interesting conversation going rather than predictable questions that will garner predictable answers. At the September event Tim Cook said the iPad Pro was Apple's vision for the future of computing. How about delving a little deeper into that topic? Yet I don't think iPad was mentioned once last night. Same with ResearchKit. I think that is one of the more profound things Apple has announced recently and not one question on it. Tim Cook doesn't do that many interviews so when you get one with him why not make it worthwhile?
4k isn't mainstream yet. Why is this so hard to understand?
The only way 4k is benefical is if you have a 70+ inch TV. How many people have a TV 70+ inches that have 4k? Probably less than 5% of the population
I was in Best Buy yesterday, and I couldn't believe the change from a year ago. Last year, there was one or two 4K TV's displayed in the high-end "Magnolia" section, and they were about $5,000. Yesterday, all the 1080p TV's were relegated to an off-the-beaten path side aisle, and most of what I saw in the main section was 4K, and they were about $1,000. My point is, these things will be mainstream very, very soon.
Wait, because I want Apple to kick Google's ass and give iPhone owners less of a reason to use Google's services I should go buy an Android? Huh? I want Proactive to leave Google Now/on Tap in the dust. I'm not sure how Apple does that without collecting more data and getting a lot better at machine learning. Are you suggesting that Apple's iCloud isn't private and secure? Also since Apple's business model is (for the most part) making money off hardware sales why shouldn't I be able to trust Apple with my data? I know they're not in the business of selling it so they would be using it for one reason and one reason only: to provide a better user experience. And they could easily allow you to switch this stuff off in privacy settings if you're uncomfortable giving Apple any of your data.
I keep waiting for Apple to give more specifics as to what the 64GB model will be able to do that the 32GB model won't. There has been lots of speculation about everything from storing more games to DVR functionality to supporting expected streaming TV offerings, but I'd like Apple to give a bit of guidance. And as a TIVO owner/user, I strongly hope that I'll be able to feed the Apple TV's output into my TIVO.
They dropped S/PDIF because it doesn't have any copy protection and they plan to shove Apple Music onto the thing. HDMI has DRM so they don't have to worry about you recording tracks. It's a stupid decision and Apple Music should have been left out, but they have to put it everywhere like Google did with Plus.
Gee, it's a good thing Apple doesn't offer an App Store that allows people to replace all the system apps with third party solutions...
They continued offering optical drives on Macs long after they stopped selling Apple software on disc. I mean, if that was the concern, why open up the AppleTV at all? Just continue putting content only they want on there and keep telling those they don't like to get lost!
The A8 has h265 support but no iTunes content for it; it's used for FaceTime and only between other A8 devices. Why add support for something hardly used? Could it be...future proofing?
Get lost or go Android I guess...
Everyone tried to push 3D a few years ago. It never went mainstream. Why are you so confident 4k will go mainstream?
The benefits of 4k are minimal except if you have a TV larger than 70 inches are you sit extremely close to your TV. It will take at least 3 years before 4k becomes mainstream.
And 4k streams are not real 4k. In fact most 4k streams are lower quality than standard bluray discs.
3-D never took off because you have to wear glasses of some sort and it just wasn't that compelling.
In my opinion the 4K sets I have seen simply look better at any distance, regardless of the content being displayed.
Also understand that Apple's user base for this type of service trumps most of the other services so I suspect that they will need time to carefully think what specifications they will adopt and also make sure the infrastructure is built out properly so they provide the right experience without impacting the existing services they provide.
For now it is a on issue IMO.
They will update it to allow this for playback of iPhone 6s 4k video for sure. I assume anyway.
So it seems. It gets mildly tiring of being told you're a troll/horrible person/Apple hater/should go somewhere else. I mean, asking Apple to be better should be considered a good thing.
Apple keeps talking about being the best, then continues to sell crap like a three year old MacBook Pro for an exorbitant price that struggles to run OS X because the underlying code is so outdated. Then they sell iMacs for more than a thousand dollars and also shove old disks that give similarly poor performance because Apple's way of disguising OS X's problems has been to throw more and more hardware at it, just like Android, so when you don't have an ultra fast SSD it feels like you're back on a low end G4 with a gig of RAM trying to run Leopard. El Cap is a start; OS X needs entire structural sections ripped out and replaced if Apple's serious about it. Then they sell A5 devices for a year past their expiration date, meaning those folks either get cutoff really early, or the entire ecosystem continues to be held back to reach the lowest common denominator.
And then Phil talks about how 16GB is fine on iOS devices but evidently it's not fine on the AppleTV or iPad Pro?
I don't care about 4K seems less quintessential these days than 1080p seemed back in the day when it was added. My point was that sometimes ? will add things that owners didn't expect to their products and unlock them at a later time and date is all like my example I put in my post. I'm thrilled about the new ? tv and I don't think something as silly as 4K + or - would change my opinion on that.