New Apple TV supports 3DTV content, games already in tvOS App Store

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  • Reply 41 of 49
    auxioauxio Posts: 2,717member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by foggyhill View Post

     

    Not only that, even the UI couldn't refresh at a high rate at 4K


     

    That's what I'm talking about.  People have no clue about the difference between viewing 4K video (which can be done by fairly cheap computers nowadays) and actually updating a 4K user interface or video game.  To do the latter smoothly requires a high end (read expensive) GPU and very fast internal components like RAM and storage.  This is why even high end consoles like the Xbox One and the PS4 can't do it yet.  But people won't let reality get in the way of their complaining.

  • Reply 42 of 49
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by foggyhill View Post

     

     

    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.




     Let me paraphrase Mr Foggyhill for you:

     

    "blah blah, My TV is way better than yours, blah, blah, nothing is worth watching unless it's streamed straight from a Blu-Ray or the back of the Red camera it's shot on. Blah, Blah, I'm much smarter and more discerning than you Netflix watching hoi polloi, blah, blah. It probably isn't isn't worth watching if you don't take it as seriously as I do. blah, blah…"

     

    Let me clarify reality in streaming media:

     

    You get a few options, and they aren't really negotiable:


    1. HD - This is the baseline for most streaming services. This is the cheapest option. Sometimes it's 720p, sometimes it's 1080p. There is a max bitrate that will be delivered to you even if the network could sustain a higher bitrate.

    2. 4K - This is the enhanced service that you will likely have to pay extra for. There will be a max bitrate to this service as well, but it is higher than the HD baseline service.

     

    Note that you will not have the option to take your higher bitrate on the 4K service tier and allocate it to a better quality HD stream. At least not on mass-market services like Netflix. Maybe there is some videophile streaming service where you can roll-your-own stream to best suit your desired quality. Imagine what details could be resolved in a 200 Mbps steam of a B&W Hitchcock film?

     

    In iTunes downloads things are a bit better, and I tend to agree more with Foggyhill's point, though I still find his elitist delivery unpleasant. When you download the HD file you get something around 10 GB, which is still well short of the Blu-Ray file size, but quite a bit better than the average HD stream from Netflix, etc. At a medium bitrate like this, I agree the HD iTunes downloaded file beats out the streamed-straight-off-the-internet 4k stream in most cases.

     

    My point is this: When you are streaming, you get what you pay for. In this universe HD is the low end and 4K is the high end. No amount of high end screens, receivers and perfectly designed viewing rooms will recover non-existent data from a low end stream. Garbage in, garbage out.

     

    And we are talking about a streaming device, IIRC.

  • Reply 43 of 49
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by auxio View Post

     

     

    That's what I'm talking about.  People have no clue about the difference between viewing 4K video (which can be done by fairly cheap computers nowadays) and actually updating a 4K user interface or video game.  To do the latter smoothly requires a high end (read expensive) GPU and very fast internal components like RAM and storage.  This is why even high end consoles like the Xbox One and the PS4 can't do it yet.  But people won't let reality get in the way of their complaining.


     

    I guess my question becomes this:

     

    Why can't video be displayed in 4K mode and force other rendered-on-demand content/app/games to be limited to 1080p?

     

    EDIT: To address the flicker issue - Why not just use off-the-shelf up-scaling rather than actually change the video mode. This is a DSP-process which I assume could be applied to the bitters upon exiting from the 'video card' but before the steam hit the point in the process where the signal is chopped up into a specific format for transfer to the display. Much like modern Blu-Ray players have built in upscaling. They never have to leave 1080p mode when playing back a DVD if you turn it on. Of course this is a compromise. 4k all the time would be a better solution. And it does seem that the Apple way is to wait until the whole widget it ready for 4k, rather than enable it arbitrarily for certain functions.

     

    The distinction you make seems entirely valid, though it seems to be a distinction that could be addressed in software and app store curation.

  • Reply 44 of 49
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by polymnia View Post

     



     Let me paraphrase Mr Foggyhill for you:

     

    "blah blah, My TV is way better than yours, blah, blah, nothing is worth watching unless it's streamed straight from a Blu-Ray or the back of the Red camera it's shot on. Blah, Blah, I'm much smarter and more discerning than you Netflix watching hoi polloi, blah, blah. It probably isn't isn't worth watching if you don't take it as seriously as I do. blah, blah…"

     

    Let me clarify reality in streaming media:

     

    You get a few options, and they aren't really negotiable:


    1. HD - This is the baseline for most streaming services. This is the cheapest option. Sometimes it's 720p, sometimes it's 1080p. There is a max bitrate that will be delivered to you even if the network could sustain a higher bitrate.

    2. 4K - This is the enhanced service that you will likely have to pay extra for. There will be a max bitrate to this service as well, but it is higher than the HD baseline service.

     

    Note that you will not have the option to take your higher bitrate on the 4K service tier and allocate it to a better quality HD stream. At least not on mass-market services like Netflix. Maybe there is some videophile streaming service where you can roll-your-own stream to best suit your desired quality. Imagine what details could be resolved in a 200 Mbps steam of a B&W Hitchcock film?

     

    In iTunes downloads things are a bit better, and I tend to agree more with Foggyhill's point, though I still find his elitist delivery unpleasant. When you download the HD file you get something around 10 GB, which is still well short of the Blu-Ray file size, but quite a bit better than the average HD stream from Netflix, etc. At a medium bitrate like this, I agree the HD iTunes downloaded file beats out the streamed-straight-off-the-internet 4k stream in most cases.

     

    My point is this: When you are streaming, you get what you pay for. In this universe HD is the low end and 4K is the high end. No amount of high end screens, receivers and perfectly designed viewing rooms will recover non-existent data from a low end stream. Garbage in, garbage out.

     

    And we are talking about a streaming device, IIRC.


     

    Well, your point has nothing to do with 4K, but more to do with dumbass content providers not providing proper 1080P streams....

     

    Yet, on MacRumor you got people saying all day long that 4K beats 1080P at distances were they shouldn't even be seeing the pixels.

    So, that just means the 1080P they're comparing it too is very far from 1080P. As I stated before, motion resolution in LCD's is so bad, that the mere fact you'd be able to see the difference between those stream so called 1080P (which are garbage) and a supposed 4K stream (just less garbage like) just shows how terrible they both are!

     

    I'll reiterate, if someone really want to know if what they're getting from the net is actually decent, try seeing the same thing on OTA and Native. The difference is stark and for most people that actually care about those things : surprising.

     

    But, people watch really bad so called 1080P videos on youtube all the time; so I'm doubting they actually care a bit about quality.

     

    I wouldn't mind people watching those crap streams and even liking them if they wouldn't use these things as arguments for buying a 4K TV. In Theory, even watching those 4K streams on a top notch 1080P would be better than the 1080P streams (if they have less compresion artefacts). It's even probable those 4K streams would look better on the good 1080P than the cheap 4K set.

     

    So, this doesn't even argue for Apple TV being 4K, merely being able to play the 4K on a 1080P TV would be enough (which I expect you can do through DLNA clients on the Apple TV).

     

    Also,

    One thing not addressed that is the crux of this.

    The Apple TV is not just a streaming device.

    so the whole argument about having 4K then becmes non-sequitur,

    and people that keep whining about it, and there are hundreds, especially on MR,

    well they can go buy a time machine and go to the future and get this $150 4K computer/high end game console they want so much.

  • Reply 45 of 49

    Interesting. I love watching movies on my passive 3DTV. The more content the better!

  • Reply 46 of 49
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SupaDav03 View Post



    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.

     

    Agreed! I watched Age of Ultron on 3DGO on my 3DTV last week and enjoyed it much more than when I saw it in the theater. I'll be watching Jurassic World this weekend!

  • Reply 47 of 49
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    foggyhill wrote: »
    Well, your point has nothing to do with 4K, but more to do with dumbass content providers not providing proper 1080P streams....

    Yet, on MacRumor you got people saying all day long that 4K beats 1080P at distances were they shouldn't even be seeing the pixels.
    So, that just means the 1080P they're comparing it too is very far from 1080P. As I stated before, motion resolution in LCD's is so bad, that the mere fact you'd be able to see the difference between those stream so called 1080P (which are garbage) and a supposed 4K stream (just less garbage like) just shows how terrible they both are!

    I'll reiterate, if someone really want to know if what they're getting from the net is actually decent, try seeing the same thing on OTA and Native. The difference is stark and for most people that actually care about those things : surprising.

    But, people watch really bad so called 1080P videos on youtube all the time; so I'm doubting they actually care a bit about quality.

    I wouldn't mind people watching those crap streams and even liking them if they wouldn't use these things as arguments for buying a 4K TV. In Theory, even watching those 4K streams on a top notch 1080P would be better than the 1080P streams (if they have less compresion artefacts). It's even probable those 4K streams would look better on the good 1080P than the cheap 4K set.

    So, this doesn't even argue for Apple TV being 4K, merely being able to play the 4K on a 1080P TV would be enough (which I expect you can do through DLNA clients on the Apple TV).

    Also,
    One thing not addressed that is the crux of this.
    The Apple TV is not just a streaming device.
    so the whole argument about having 4K then becmes non-sequitur,
    and people that keep whining about it, and there are hundreds, especially on MR,
    well they can go buy a time machine and go to the future and get this $150 4K computer/high end game console they want so much.

    Totally understandable that you are a bit shell shocked by commenters elsewhere on the Internet. I try tune out the dummies.

    i know it really bugs you that people have to buy a 4K TV to access better quality streams. That doesn't necessarily make them dummies, though. I agree that it would be better if the 1080p streams could be made better quality for people who buy the upgraded streaming service (I hope Netflix is reading this). Still, with things the way they are, if someone wants the best quality stream available, they need to buy a 4K TV. It's a perfectly rational decision to make. Especially since low-to-medium end 4K isn't that expensive an upgrade anymore. Even more so because, as you've pointed out at great length, even the best streams cannot match the detail of the Blu-Ray or OTA, therefore a high-end set would be rather overkill.

    I totally understand your POV. If if watching OTA or a Blu-Ray source is your jam, a high end 1080p set is the ideal solution. In fact, for your preferred sources there is NO 4K content distribution in place right now. You'd literally be wasting your money to buy a 4K TV right now, high end or otherwise.

    I find myself watching about 80% streaming and 20% Blu-Ray. This prompted me to get the 4K set I did.

    On the flip side, the big TV in my living room is still a 1080p set, since that is where I watch Blu-Rays and is connected to the kick-ass audio system.
  • Reply 48 of 49

    4K itself is not a panacea - most people cannot tell the difference between native 4K and unconverted 1080P.  

     

    HDR is the game changer - HDR10 combined with 4K requires output devices to have HDMI2.0a capability and i don't believe the Apple HW in the new ATV supports it (waiting for Ars I guess).

     

    Even from 2K viewing distances properly implemented HDR Grading at the source 4K master makes all of the difference in the world (even at lower bitrates).

     

    Currently only one service has 4K UHD with HDR content and that is MGO - utilizing the Vidity download/playback option in the Samsung TV.  Those files are 40-50Mpbs Avg/80-100 Mbps Peak and are not streaming compatible.

     

    Netflix streams 4K that looks great at 16Mbps.  Vudu is launching Warner 4K content with 12 bit Dolby Vision via the Roku but that doesn't yet output the HDR (needs FW update) and it is 11Mpbs HEVC.

     

    Properly implemented HDR and 4K are what will drive the next Gen displays.  It will be even better once full Rec2020 color space is implemented in displays ~2018.

     

    James

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