Mac with T2 Security Chip required to play 4K Netflix streams in macOS Big Sur

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  • Reply 21 of 28
    Gabygaby Posts: 194member
    I think it’s likely to do with some of the encoding/decoding capabilities that are built into the T2 chip. I haven’t looked at how Netflix formats it’s 4K or HDR streams but that would be my guess. It may be that the power usage and or thermals are too greatly impacted without the T2 on macOS. 
    edited October 2020
    watto_cobra
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  • Reply 22 of 28
    dewmedewme Posts: 6,098member
    As long as Apple TV still works with 4k content, I'm a happy camper.

    Truth be told, the quality of the content is far more important to me than the quality of the picture. Some of the original content I've been watching over the past several months on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV+ is really good. I'm not saying it's all awesome, it isn't, but these upstarts, if you can still call them that, seem to be putting a lot more imaginative and original thought into what they produce compared to what the traditional outlets having been spewing out for decades. A good story that tickles the grey matter works just as well for me on 1080p as well as it does in 4k. Once I'm in the zone, I don't even notice the difference, even when I move between devices with different screen resolutions when working my way through a series. No complaints.
    GG1muthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra
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  • Reply 23 of 28
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,179member
    viclauyyc said:
    Stupid things like this is the reason why dumb people make fun of Mac and iOS. 
    Nonsense.  This is a non-issue (Imho).  Streaming 4K video is silly on smaller computer displays.  If one really wants to see the advantages, watch it on a big-screen TV.  

    I couldn't care less what the apple-haters and trolls think.  The world revolves around them, probably due to their mommies constantly bring their meals to their basement bedrooms.
    watto_cobra
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  • Reply 24 of 28
    jdb8167jdb8167 Posts: 627member
    I would reckon it has something to do with DRM if it involves the T2 chip. Worst chip, ever.
    I wish Apple would get rid of it.  
    You are in luck. Apple is going to get rid of the T2 chip when they switch to Apple Silicon. You might still be unhappy though since all of the T2 functionality will reside inside the ASi SoC anyway.
    fastasleepwatto_cobra
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  • Reply 25 of 28
    jdb8167 said:
    I would reckon it has something to do with DRM if it involves the T2 chip. Worst chip, ever.
    I wish Apple would get rid of it.  
    You are in luck. Apple is going to get rid of the T2 chip when they switch to Apple Silicon. You might still be unhappy though since all of the T2 functionality will reside inside the ASi SoC anyway.
    The issue I have with it is how far it goes for security. From some of my friends that work at an Apple Store, they had to use another Mac that had Configurator 2 program on it to be able to reinstall the OS on some demo machines because after manually wiping it, it would error out when trying to re-install the OS. 
    Plus, it makes booting off of other devices almost impossible because of its security. So you’ll need another Mac to reinstall the OS of your Mac if the T2 chip acts up.  😵🔫
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  • Reply 26 of 28
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,487member
    jdb8167 said:
    I would reckon it has something to do with DRM if it involves the T2 chip. Worst chip, ever.
    I wish Apple would get rid of it.  
    You are in luck. Apple is going to get rid of the T2 chip when they switch to Apple Silicon. You might still be unhappy though since all of the T2 functionality will reside inside the ASi SoC anyway.
    The issue I have with it is how far it goes for security. From some of my friends that work at an Apple Store, they had to use another Mac that had Configurator 2 program on it to be able to reinstall the OS on some demo machines because after manually wiping it, it would error out when trying to re-install the OS. 
    Plus, it makes booting off of other devices almost impossible because of its security. So you’ll need another Mac to reinstall the OS of your Mac if the T2 chip acts up.  😵🔫
    Those are settings that are easily changed in the Startup Security Utility. 
    watto_cobra
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  • Reply 27 of 28
    sflocal said:
    viclauyyc said:
    Stupid things like this is the reason why dumb people make fun of Mac and iOS. 
    Nonsense.  This is a non-issue (Imho).  Streaming 4K video is silly on smaller computer displays.  If one really wants to see the advantages, watch it on a big-screen TV.  

    I couldn't care less what the apple-haters and trolls think.  The world revolves around them, probably due to their mommies constantly bring their meals to their basement bedrooms.
    You know you can hook a Mac up to a big screen right?  Laptop or otherwise...
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  • Reply 28 of 28
    My 2007 iMac could readily play multiple HD streams at a time, even did it with 4k streams (though I couldn’t display that resolution, but that’s actually more intensive) and it just required a lot of CPU % to do it.  This was testing in Yosemite with 4k videos via Google, streaming over WiFi.  I’d need to verify if NetFlix is using the same codec, since newer ones are more CPU-intensive if done on a main CPU compared to using ASIC hardware to accelerate it.

    But what others have mentioned regarding DRM has about a 99% chance of being the real reason for this: the Mac platform is way too open to hackers running code they control on the machine, where an iDevice is locked down enough you hardly have anything resembling a jailbreak anymore.  Another part of my understanding in this regard is I do developer support for a certain “tiny” software company (by name) where I support Media SDK developers as one of my main specialties.  There are very specialized requirements for operating systems to be blessed with being able to playback DRM titles, all the way down into kernel space.
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