4K content on a TV at the size people buy, the distance they place their TV, and with the current low quality of LCD 4K sets, is USELESS.
Yes, we can't upgrade our eyes and putting the sofa 4 feet from the TV is not practical; sad fact I know
4K will take longer to refresh because there is no difference at normal distance between it and 4K; that's a fracking fact.
What you got is a crapload of marketing trying to sell new TV's; because margins are better on 4K TV's than on 1080P ones.
Like everytime, a lot of people swallow the bait, hook, line and sinker.
1080P OTA on a top end 2014 plasma craps over streamed 4K on low refresh 4K LCD, especially in movement; this is the current state of affair.
If you have native 4K content (not compressed to death), on top end 65 inch 4K OLED sets, then yes you can sit at a normal distance, sofa 7 feet away from screen, and see the difference, otherwise its just some marketing spiel to make you spend money. Though, on such a TV your likely to notice a lot more things than just resolutions...
The price for a 65 OLED LG TV is now $5000K. When it gets to aroun $2K, then I'm we're going to see significant quality 4K set enter the market. That should be late 2017. By, the time they reach $1200 (2019), penetration of good quality 4K of sufficient size to exploit the format should be around 15% (2019). In 2019, penetration of 4K in all forms should be around 35-40%.
By that time, Apple would likely be on Apple TV 6, which would have 4K (Apple TV 5 would already support it).
Not to be a dick, but we are talking about streaming devices. So all the snobbery about the quality of streams is irrelevant. Streaming over the internet is ALWAYS going to be lesser quality than a lightly compressed local disk source. Obviously better quality 1080p TVs will display a better picture than cheap 4K units. That's a 'fracking fact' I'll grant you that
Hey, I'm a nerd, you're a nerd. I like to feel superior to the heard with my deep understanding of technical topics like the next guy. I understand the point you are making and I agree with you that higher quality source material is way better than just adding pixels. And (to a lesser degree) agree that a better quality set is important. The reason I don't wholeheartedly buy into the necessity of the high quality set in the context of streaming video services is that the high quality set does its best work when fed the highest bitrate source material. I doubt any streaming service is going to tease out the best performance from a top shelf display.
In the world of streaming services, you get allocated a bitrate for a certain tier of service. Of course, the marketing language isn't communicated via bitrate quantifications. You don't buy 15Mbps Netflix for better quality. You choose either HD or 4K. The 4K stream is higher bitrate. And that additional bitrate is allocated to improving resolution, more sophisticated compression, whatever other technical details that differentiate the high-bitrate from the low.
My point being, all other things equal, the 4K stream is a better quality picture than the 1080p stream. You are getting more Mbps. I feel like I'm repeating myself from prior articles on this topic, because I am. If you are using mass-market streaming services and want better quality you want the 4K stream. And for me, all other things are equal. I have a 4K set. When I watch Netflix streaming there is a dramatic difference on the same set between 1080p and 4K streams.
Addressing your problem with 4K sets in general: Since you aren't sitting in anyone else's living room, you cannot say that the TV they have is not beneficial to them. You point out that given the size of people's current TVs and the quality of people's vision, 4K is useless. Similar arguments were made during the previous transitions from lower to higher res formats. The problem with the conclusion you make is you can not know what size TV is in that person's room, or if the TV will get bigger when replaced with a 4K set. Sure, some parts of this equation are unchangeable, but TVs get bigger every year, and that is the change that will quickly bring the benefit of 4K to many people.
To circle back around to the points you are making, I feel your observations are far more appropriate when applied to Blu-Ray source material and whatever the 4K version of that will be. If we were talking about a stream in the 100's of Mbps I'm totally with you.
The above player is 4K-Ready. You can go even cheaper to get the audio formats and 3D features without the 4K connectivity feature, but that wouldn't make for a good comparison. Of course, the above Blu-Ray player doesn't have the App Store or OS that Apple provides, so it still isn't a completely fair comparison.
Seems odd that you would be pushing a BD player (1080P) with 4K streaming at this time; wouldn't it be prudent to wait for one of a number of Ultra HD BD player with HDR, coming in early 2016, with embedded 4K streaming?
Belies the argument that consumers are looking for the best visual experience, it they are being served low bandwidth 4K streams, which most are seeing today.
Seems odd that you would be pushing a BD player (1080P) with 4K streaming at this time; wouldn't it be prudent to wait for one of a number of Ultra HD BD player with HDR, coming in early 2016, with embedded 4K streaming?
Belies the argument that consumers are looking for the best visual experience, it they are being served low bandwidth 4K streams, which most are seeing today.
I'm not pushing that player. The commenter I was responding to said I was a nut for hoping apple supports 3D, 7.1, Atmos, etc in the Apple TV for $150. I'm just pointing out that Blu Ray players already offer these features for around the same price, maybe even cheaper.
I would be most pleased if you are right about this.
Apple.com states that the Apple TV has a HDMI 1.4 connection. This is great news because HDMI 1.4 supports 4K and 3D, so it may very well be that it is just a software issue and can be enabled at a later date.
Oh come on, Apple would never offer support for 'irrelevant' features with 'insignificant' shares of the market.
Didn't we go over this at great length last week?
One of the early iPhones had all the necessary gear inside for bluetooth but no option to use it in the software. Mainly because there was no reason to have it. When the time was right, the software was updated and Bluetooth worked.
I suspect it'll be the same with 4K. At the moment, there's little reason to have it, but in time I bet it'll appear.
I am pretty sure they will release support for 4k relatively soon as new iPhone 6s users need to have the ability to display newly created 4k footage
I say it will be less than 30 days. Apple be like "oh sh1t, our new phones shoot 4k...so we just went from virtually no 4k content to millions of 4k content...turn the switch"...
Be nice if you could purchase 3D titles on iTunes to watch on the new Apple TV. I'm probably in the minirity, but I enjoy 3D TV at home. Just watched Age of Ultib with my kids on my new 65 inch 4K 3D Sony and it was better than the 3D in the theaters.
I love using 3D tv at home. It's a much better and more immersive experience than traditional tv, regardless of what the critics have to say.
Just want to reiterate to the 4K mantra zombies that no gaming console does games at 4K yet. AppleTV is more than just video.
Now, whether they could do switching between 1080p (for interactive content) and 4K (for video content) in a seamless way is up for debate. Most consoles will give you a lovely flicker/video distortion effect when switching modes.
Oh come on, Apple would never offer support for 'irrelevant' features with 'insignificant' shares of the market.
Didn't we go over this at great length last week?
Dear Mr. Cook,
Please add 4K to the ATV as fast as human possibly. There are many who are extremely stressed that this feature is missing. They cannot accept it's absence and are unable to move forward. Every article or mention of the new ATV gets their hopes up, to again be dashed.
Please add 4K to the ATV as fast as human possibly. There are many who are extremely stressed that this feature is missing. They cannot accept it's absence and are unable to move forward. Every article or mention of the new ATV gets their hopes up, to again be dashed.
Thank you for your consideration
I'm sure some segment considers it "future-proofing". Some of those folks even intend to buy nearly every new Apple model as it comes out anyway so it shouldn't matter to them. But it does.
Are you serious? Are you seriously comparing the cost associated with supporting a dumb box like a Bluray player to a mini-supercomputer like the AppleTV? Do you know how much R&D it took for Apple to develop the A8 chip? Does that Bluray player have 32GB or RAM? Does that bluray player have an awesome OS and ecosystem that takes BILLIONS of dollars to maintain? Hell no.
A better comparison is what Amazon Fire TV sells for. Does that have 7.1 and Atmos? And remember Amazon is LOSING money on every single device they sell. You really expect Apple to sell AppleTV at a loss?
The fact is only 1% of the buyers would even want 4k/7.1/Atmos (I'm one of them). But to expect the other 99% to pay for those features they don't need is silly.
You forgot to shoehorn apple should go private into that post.
Are you serious? Are you seriously comparing the cost associated with supporting a dumb box like a Bluray player to a mini-supercomputer like the AppleTV? Do you know how much R&D it took for Apple to develop the A8 chip? Does that Bluray player have 32GB or RAM? Does that bluray player have an awesome OS and ecosystem that takes BILLIONS of dollars to maintain? Hell no.
A better comparison is what Amazon Fire TV sells for. Does that have 7.1 and Atmos? And remember Amazon is LOSING money on every single device they sell. You really expect Apple to sell AppleTV at a loss?
The fact is only 1% of the buyers would even want 4k/7.1/Atmos (I'm one of them). But to expect the other 99% to pay for those features they don't need is silly.
Okay, decider of box intelligence
But how smart is a box designed to play media with an App Store that presumably will allow for lots of non-Apple-provided media to be played if it lacks support for several common media formats? Granted, there was probably no revolutionary design concept introduced in the blu-Ray player I linked to. Which was kind of the point. 99% are paying for these features in pedestrian Blu-Ray players now. Is that silly too?
I feel comparing appleTV to any other streamer shows Apple staking claim to the high end. And as a high end product, I'm hopeful that support for rather unrevolutionary media formats is included sooner rather than later.
Please add 4K to the ATV as fast as human possibly. There are many who are extremely stressed that this feature is missing. They cannot accept it's absence and are unable to move forward. Every article or mention of the new ATV gets their hopes up, to again be dashed.
Dear 4K people in this thread (sorry kent909, I missed the sarcasm in your post the first time around),
Please try to build yourself a gaming PC which can run games smoothly at 4K and report back the cost of the graphics card. Then let us know if you'd be willing to pay that much for a TV box.
Thanks for taking more than half a second to consider this issue.
Please add 4K to the ATV as fast as human possibly. There are many who are extremely stressed that this feature is missing. They cannot accept it's absence and are unable to move forward. Every article or mention of the new ATV gets their hopes up, to again be dashed.
Thank you for your consideration
The problem with 4K on the Apple TV (besides the fact 4K on the current crop of small cheap turd 4K LCD TVs is uselss) is that's not just used for viewing media. While viewing media would be problematic enough, actually having a nice smooth interface and games at 4K would be catastrophic.
I think that's the main reason Apple didn't include 4K, they couldn't garantee a good refresh rate, smooth experience in this box.
Next year, or in 2 years, they'll put a A9X or A10 in there and you'll get 4K not only for watching movies, but for playing games.
Wow that's pretty cool since I have a 3D TV. I know 3D really hasn't caught on over the years but I'm excited to see game content using it. Something like The Room 3?
Just want to reiterate to the 4K mantra zombies that no gaming console does games at 4K yet. AppleTV is more than just video.
Now, whether they could do switching between 1080p (for interactive content) and 4K (for video content) in a seamless way is up for debate. Most consoles will give you a lovely flicker/video distortion effect when switching modes.
Not only that, even the UI couldn't refresh at a high rate at 4K, so the box would be spending most of it's time at 4K with a solid experience and then switch to a real crappy, low refresh rate experience for the 4K.
Motion resolution on LCD's is TERRIBLE (That's why I love my plasma!).
That's why all that mention of 4K makes me laugh. Do a good job at 1080P and then we came move up...
4K is basically a marketing push from the TV makers to pad their margins.
Margins are so low on TV's that anything to pad them is a boon for them.
People that rave about 4K usually come from owning abysmal TV's watching cable, watching a 4K stream on a bad 4K is better than watching any compressed to death cable; but, that isn't saying much.
They should watch OTA or native 1080P content on the best 1080P OLEDS or Plasma around and then tell us again why those low rent 4K shoudl matter at a normal viewing distance when I can get something better at 1080p.
Comments
4K content on a TV at the size people buy, the distance they place their TV, and with the current low quality of LCD 4K sets, is USELESS.
Yes, we can't upgrade our eyes and putting the sofa 4 feet from the TV is not practical; sad fact I know
4K will take longer to refresh because there is no difference at normal distance between it and 4K; that's a fracking fact.
What you got is a crapload of marketing trying to sell new TV's; because margins are better on 4K TV's than on 1080P ones.
Like everytime, a lot of people swallow the bait, hook, line and sinker.
1080P OTA on a top end 2014 plasma craps over streamed 4K on low refresh 4K LCD, especially in movement; this is the current state of affair.
If you have native 4K content (not compressed to death), on top end 65 inch 4K OLED sets, then yes you can sit at a normal distance, sofa 7 feet away from screen, and see the difference, otherwise its just some marketing spiel to make you spend money. Though, on such a TV your likely to notice a lot more things than just resolutions...
The price for a 65 OLED LG TV is now $5000K. When it gets to aroun $2K, then I'm we're going to see significant quality 4K set enter the market. That should be late 2017. By, the time they reach $1200 (2019), penetration of good quality 4K of sufficient size to exploit the format should be around 15% (2019). In 2019, penetration of 4K in all forms should be around 35-40%.
By that time, Apple would likely be on Apple TV 6, which would have 4K (Apple TV 5 would already support it).
Not to be a dick, but we are talking about streaming devices. So all the snobbery about the quality of streams is irrelevant. Streaming over the internet is ALWAYS going to be lesser quality than a lightly compressed local disk source. Obviously better quality 1080p TVs will display a better picture than cheap 4K units. That's a 'fracking fact' I'll grant you that
Hey, I'm a nerd, you're a nerd. I like to feel superior to the heard with my deep understanding of technical topics like the next guy. I understand the point you are making and I agree with you that higher quality source material is way better than just adding pixels. And (to a lesser degree) agree that a better quality set is important. The reason I don't wholeheartedly buy into the necessity of the high quality set in the context of streaming video services is that the high quality set does its best work when fed the highest bitrate source material. I doubt any streaming service is going to tease out the best performance from a top shelf display.
In the world of streaming services, you get allocated a bitrate for a certain tier of service. Of course, the marketing language isn't communicated via bitrate quantifications. You don't buy 15Mbps Netflix for better quality. You choose either HD or 4K. The 4K stream is higher bitrate. And that additional bitrate is allocated to improving resolution, more sophisticated compression, whatever other technical details that differentiate the high-bitrate from the low.
My point being, all other things equal, the 4K stream is a better quality picture than the 1080p stream. You are getting more Mbps. I feel like I'm repeating myself from prior articles on this topic, because I am. If you are using mass-market streaming services and want better quality you want the 4K stream. And for me, all other things are equal. I have a 4K set. When I watch Netflix streaming there is a dramatic difference on the same set between 1080p and 4K streams.
Addressing your problem with 4K sets in general: Since you aren't sitting in anyone else's living room, you cannot say that the TV they have is not beneficial to them. You point out that given the size of people's current TVs and the quality of people's vision, 4K is useless. Similar arguments were made during the previous transitions from lower to higher res formats. The problem with the conclusion you make is you can not know what size TV is in that person's room, or if the TV will get bigger when replaced with a 4K set. Sure, some parts of this equation are unchangeable, but TVs get bigger every year, and that is the change that will quickly bring the benefit of 4K to many people.
To circle back around to the points you are making, I feel your observations are far more appropriate when applied to Blu-Ray source material and whatever the 4K version of that will be. If we were talking about a stream in the 100's of Mbps I'm totally with you.
Am I?
Blu-Ray players support all of the above.
Here is one for $129 at Best Buy.
The above player is 4K-Ready. You can go even cheaper to get the audio formats and 3D features without the 4K connectivity feature, but that wouldn't make for a good comparison. Of course, the above Blu-Ray player doesn't have the App Store or OS that Apple provides, so it still isn't a completely fair comparison.
Seems odd that you would be pushing a BD player (1080P) with 4K streaming at this time; wouldn't it be prudent to wait for one of a number of Ultra HD BD player with HDR, coming in early 2016, with embedded 4K streaming?
Belies the argument that consumers are looking for the best visual experience, it they are being served low bandwidth 4K streams, which most are seeing today.
I'm not pushing that player. The commenter I was responding to said I was a nut for hoping apple supports 3D, 7.1, Atmos, etc in the Apple TV for $150. I'm just pointing out that Blu Ray players already offer these features for around the same price, maybe even cheaper.
I would be most pleased if you are right about this.
Apple.com states that the Apple TV has a HDMI 1.4 connection. This is great news because HDMI 1.4 supports 4K and 3D, so it may very well be that it is just a software issue and can be enabled at a later date.
Oh come on, Apple would never offer support for 'irrelevant' features with 'insignificant' shares of the market.
Didn't we go over this at great length last week?
One of the early iPhones had all the necessary gear inside for bluetooth but no option to use it in the software. Mainly because there was no reason to have it. When the time was right, the software was updated and Bluetooth worked.
I suspect it'll be the same with 4K. At the moment, there's little reason to have it, but in time I bet it'll appear.
I say it will be less than 30 days. Apple be like "oh sh1t, our new phones shoot 4k...so we just went from virtually no 4k content to millions of 4k content...turn the switch"...
Try PaperFlight for the new Apple TV, it's a great game!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIgdOq-GZmk
This is a nice surprise. I'll probably have to pick up another one for the Panny 65VT60 in the media room.
Be nice if you could purchase 3D titles on iTunes to watch on the new Apple TV. I'm probably in the minirity, but I enjoy 3D TV at home. Just watched Age of Ultib with my kids on my new 65 inch 4K 3D Sony and it was better than the 3D in the theaters.
I love using 3D tv at home. It's a much better and more immersive experience than traditional tv, regardless of what the critics have to say.
Just want to reiterate to the 4K mantra zombies that no gaming console does games at 4K yet. AppleTV is more than just video.
Now, whether they could do switching between 1080p (for interactive content) and 4K (for video content) in a seamless way is up for debate. Most consoles will give you a lovely flicker/video distortion effect when switching modes.
Maybe 4K is supported silently as well?
Maybe 4K is supported silently as well?
Oh come on, Apple would never offer support for 'irrelevant' features with 'insignificant' shares of the market.
Didn't we go over this at great length last week?
Dear Mr. Cook,
Please add 4K to the ATV as fast as human possibly. There are many who are extremely stressed that this feature is missing. They cannot accept it's absence and are unable to move forward. Every article or mention of the new ATV gets their hopes up, to again be dashed.
Thank you for your consideration
Are you serious? Are you seriously comparing the cost associated with supporting a dumb box like a Bluray player to a mini-supercomputer like the AppleTV? Do you know how much R&D it took for Apple to develop the A8 chip? Does that Bluray player have 32GB or RAM? Does that bluray player have an awesome OS and ecosystem that takes BILLIONS of dollars to maintain? Hell no.
A better comparison is what Amazon Fire TV sells for. Does that have 7.1 and Atmos? And remember Amazon is LOSING money on every single device they sell. You really expect Apple to sell AppleTV at a loss?
The fact is only 1% of the buyers would even want 4k/7.1/Atmos (I'm one of them). But to expect the other 99% to pay for those features they don't need is silly.
You forgot to shoehorn apple should go private into that post.
Okay, decider of box intelligence
But how smart is a box designed to play media with an App Store that presumably will allow for lots of non-Apple-provided media to be played if it lacks support for several common media formats? Granted, there was probably no revolutionary design concept introduced in the blu-Ray player I linked to. Which was kind of the point. 99% are paying for these features in pedestrian Blu-Ray players now. Is that silly too?
I feel comparing appleTV to any other streamer shows Apple staking claim to the high end. And as a high end product, I'm hopeful that support for rather unrevolutionary media formats is included sooner rather than later.
Dear Mr. Cook,
Please add 4K to the ATV as fast as human possibly. There are many who are extremely stressed that this feature is missing. They cannot accept it's absence and are unable to move forward. Every article or mention of the new ATV gets their hopes up, to again be dashed.
Dear 4K people in this thread (sorry kent909, I missed the sarcasm in your post the first time around),
Please try to build yourself a gaming PC which can run games smoothly at 4K and report back the cost of the graphics card. Then let us know if you'd be willing to pay that much for a TV box.
Thanks for taking more than half a second to consider this issue.
Dear Mr. Cook,
Please add 4K to the ATV as fast as human possibly. There are many who are extremely stressed that this feature is missing. They cannot accept it's absence and are unable to move forward. Every article or mention of the new ATV gets their hopes up, to again be dashed.
Thank you for your consideration
The problem with 4K on the Apple TV (besides the fact 4K on the current crop of small cheap turd 4K LCD TVs is uselss) is that's not just used for viewing media. While viewing media would be problematic enough, actually having a nice smooth interface and games at 4K would be catastrophic.
I think that's the main reason Apple didn't include 4K, they couldn't garantee a good refresh rate, smooth experience in this box.
Next year, or in 2 years, they'll put a A9X or A10 in there and you'll get 4K not only for watching movies, but for playing games.
Just want to reiterate to the 4K mantra zombies that no gaming console does games at 4K yet. AppleTV is more than just video.
Now, whether they could do switching between 1080p (for interactive content) and 4K (for video content) in a seamless way is up for debate. Most consoles will give you a lovely flicker/video distortion effect when switching modes.
Not only that, even the UI couldn't refresh at a high rate at 4K, so the box would be spending most of it's time at 4K with a solid experience and then switch to a real crappy, low refresh rate experience for the 4K.
Motion resolution on LCD's is TERRIBLE (That's why I love my plasma!).
That's why all that mention of 4K makes me laugh. Do a good job at 1080P and then we came move up...
4K is basically a marketing push from the TV makers to pad their margins.
Margins are so low on TV's that anything to pad them is a boon for them.
People that rave about 4K usually come from owning abysmal TV's watching cable, watching a 4K stream on a bad 4K is better than watching any compressed to death cable; but, that isn't saying much.
They should watch OTA or native 1080P content on the best 1080P OLEDS or Plasma around and then tell us again why those low rent 4K shoudl matter at a normal viewing distance when I can get something better at 1080p.