Who cares how good the hardware is when the device is being used as a streaming media player. I don’t think I need an A10X chip to stream Netflix. I’m highly skeptical many people are using TV to play games otherwise Apple would be promoting game play a lot more and probably would even have their own game controller by now.
4K TVs are used primarily for viewing content in 4K, right? So why are there so many different prices for 4K TVs? Different technology. Different capability. Different quality. As for Apple promoting gaming, it's pretty routine for them to have game companies do demos for iOS and ATV. Mario and Sky are two of the most recent "heavy hitter" types of presentations like that, and Apple is definitely paying to have those games be timed exclusives.
I don’t see what capability TV has that other streaming boxes don’t have other than an App Store that Apple rarely every talks about. I dunno maybe you can name all the great apps available on TV that make it worth $100 more.
I don’t disagree that the new Apple TV 4K is “worth it” at $179/199, but I think Apple is missing a big strategic opportunity re: positioning/pricing.
I really wish they’d added a low end box (A9/16GB?) at maybe $69 or $79 and make up any initial loss with iTunes revenue. Just a simple 4K upgrade to the 3rd gen, no aspirations to be anything other than a 4K upgrade (ie no gaming).
I guess maybe they figured they’re too late, with Roku (and Amazon and Google to a lesser extent) already too well established wrt market/mind share, to do what they did with the $329 iPad, the $159 AirPods and even the watch at $249: completely remove all available oxygen, leaving almost no room for competitors on price and subsequently, own the space.
Look what Apple did with iPod and creating a range of products at different price points. Where’s the iPod Shuffle for TV? My guess is Apple knows if they sold something like Chromecast very few would spend $179 for the TV box.
The dismissive nature of the review regarding matching how content was mastered to a correct video output profile is baffling. Apple has obsessed about video and audio quality and such a decision to require manual profile selection is counterintuitive. The TVOS interface goes to great lengths to be family friendly. Having to explain to family members that a certain iTunes title looks bad because they need to go to Settings, Video, (change) is absurd.
ATMOS is competitively offered by ROKU, Vizio natively via the VUDU app, BD players etc... At twice the price, there’s no reason not to offer it.
rogifan_new said: I don’t see what capability TV has that other streaming boxes don’t have other than an App Store that Apple rarely every talks about. I dunno maybe you can name all the great apps available on TV that make it worth $100 more.
Other streaming boxes don't have an A10X and 3GB of RAM. You don't think that makes a difference for streaming capability or quality? For example, does the Fire TV support 4 simultaneous streams within the same screen for the ESPN app? And if it does, would you expect it to work as well? And in terms of the App Store, does something like the Fire TV offer as many choices for apps that support streaming? Fire TV has apps, but obviously not a 1:1 ratio with ATV.
ATMOS is competitively offered by ROKU, Vizio natively via the VUDU app, BD players etc... At twice the price, there’s no reason not to offer it.
How many 4K titles are available right now for digital download with Dolby Atmos? It's pretty limited. I'm sure Apple would rather add that in at a later date when iTunes digital downloads actually include Atmos. Also, you need ceiling mounted speakers or special speakers that direct sound upwards to reflect off the ceiling in order to really benefit from Atmos. How many people have that type of setup? It's an enthusiast format.
So, how does one best dump 4k video from iPhone in h.265 to Apple TV? Stream on Airplay or upload to iCloud and then download to Apple TV, or better, can I upload to Apple TV directly over the network?
My 2015 Samsung TV seems to do a good job of up scaling to 4K. Am I better off using the TV or the Apple TV for the upscaling? How would I set it up? Mark
My 2015 Samsung TV seems to do a good job of up scaling to 4K. Am I better off using the TV or the Apple TV for the upscaling? How would I set it up? Mark
The first device in the stream does the upscaling -- in the normal case, the Apple TV. If the TV is already getting 4K resolution, it won't apply additional upscaling to it.
You could always set the Apple TV resolution to a lower one, say, 1080p, and see how the television does on its own, and compare. Might be subjective.
But, we couldn't generate a H.265 file that would be recognized on the Apple TV. The file will load into iTunes, but Home Sharing just won't pick it up. This same file loaded into VLC plays fine, and isn't transcoded to a lower resolution.
So, the lack of Home Sharing picking up the file isn't a technical limitation of the Apple TV 4K, and appears at this point to be a choice that someone made along the way to actively prevent this kind of thing.
As someone waiting on the iPhone X -- to record 4K home videos of my 4 year old -- does this apply to iPhone or iMovie content as well? In other words, does the "Edit With... iTunes" function work with HEVC content that has captured on an iPhone & imported to Photos on High Sierra?
As far as upscaling goes, the ATV 4K does that automatically, no way to change it, you can manually change to 1080p output if you so choose, of course no HDR that way. Most people are complaining the ATV 4K does not change modes on the fly, but picks the “best” setting for your TV, at 60Hz, then upscales both resultion, and SDR to HDR/DV if your TV is compatible, with results that are mixed, sometimes good sometimes not. People in home theater forums are returning these for this alone, because it requires you to change modes manually depending on what content you’re playing, unlike UHD blu-ray players or other 4K set tops, also giving Apple feedback, which I recommend...they need to get this right, things are not simple with UHD, like it or not, and I do think Apple could give us the option to auto change modes depending on content.
HEVC/H.265 streaming...HEVC/H.265 is new to all apple products, and not yet fully implemented. AirPlay 2 was pulled during the beta process and Apple says its coming in a future OS update. They pulled any info. on it, but, I’m 99% sure AirPlay 2 will handle HEVC/H.265 streaming from iOS devices and High Sierra (and video in iCloud), once implemented. So, it’s not that ATV 4K won’t, but, it will in the (unknown timeframe) future. For now it seems to be working for iTunes and Netflix (with 4K/UHD Premium subscription), VUDU has not yet been updated, Amazon Prime should come with 4K HDR, (sometime between now and dec. 31st). ...iMovie update has already been pushed out with HEVC compatibility the 25th for High Sierra, Photos app in High Sierra also, but, again I think waiting on AirPlay 2 to be implemented for streaming to other Apple devices.
I'm actually pretty extremely disappointed with the new Apple TV. Not having a native picture option is almost a deal breaker for me. I ran the HDMI test so the Apple TV defaults to 4K Dolby Vision for everything on my TV. I went and checked out some older nature documentaries I have on iTunes and they didn't look very good at all. It's not very consumer friendly having to constantly change the resolution settings to the source material. I'm not going to return the Apple TV, but I do plan on sending feedback to Apple. I'm hoping they make changes in a future update by adding a native picture option.
It's an extremely consumer friendly decision to have a default, set resolution. It's not very tweaker-friendly.
Guess which market is bigger.
Yup. And that's why I don't think Apple will change it. It remains to be seen whether they will make switching between them easier than the 10-14 steps it takes now, but even that seems unlikely.
Clearly they realize most people watching TV are like my mother, and prefer not to see letterbox and pillbox bars, and would rather watch a stretched picture, using the soap-opera-effect motion settings to smooth out picture, such that correct upscaling or color gamut don't even matter.
I've got another week to return mine, and right now I'm leaning toward returning it. Maybe I'll get another one when the Amazon App finally comes out, but right now it's more trouble than it's worth for daily use, since I'm still mostly using smart apps on my TV -- which switches between video source format automatically for the best possible picture. Watching a few of my purchased iTunes movies in 4K HDR is great, but not nearly worth the trade off for daily use. At this point I might even wait and see what they come out with next.
Who cares how good the hardware is when the device is being used as a streaming media player. I don’t think I need an A10X chip to stream Netflix. I’m highly skeptical many people are using TV to play games otherwise Apple would be promoting game play a lot more and probably would even have their own game controller by now.
4K TVs are used primarily for viewing content in 4K, right? So why are there so many different prices for 4K TVs? Different technology. Different capability. Different quality. As for Apple promoting gaming, it's pretty routine for them to have game companies do demos for iOS and ATV. Mario and Sky are two of the most recent "heavy hitter" types of presentations like that, and Apple is definitely paying to have those games be timed exclusives.
I don’t see what capability TV has that other streaming boxes don’t have other than an App Store that Apple rarely every talks about. I dunno maybe you can name all the great apps available on TV that make it worth $100 more.
Apple are such dumbasses to create such a powerful streamer. Those guys obviously have no strategy on how to use a A10X in a streamer and it's just a complete waste of time and effort not to mention raising the price for all us loyal Apple users for no good reason.
Oh wait:
Graphics and Games
New in tvOS 11.0 - SceneKit and SpriteKit focus support.
Use the UIKit focus-related APIs to control animations, play custom sounds, and receive focus update notifications for SceneKit and SpriteKit nodes.
New in tvOS 11.0 - Lightweight render destination.
Added CIRenderDestination, an object for creating renderers that return to the caller after the work has been issued. You can specify all the destination attributes of the renderer for different destinations, including a surface (IOSurface), Core Video pixel buffer (CVPixelBuffer), GL textures, Metal textures, and memory.
Added new Core Image filters CITextImageGenerator, CIColorCurves, CILabDeltaE, CIBokehBlur, CIMinMaxRed, and CIBicubicScaleTransform.
Who cares how good the hardware is when the device is being used as a streaming media player. I don’t think I need an A10X chip to stream Netflix. I’m highly skeptical many people are using TV to play games otherwise Apple would be promoting game play a lot more and probably would even have their own game controller by now.
4K TVs are used primarily for viewing content in 4K, right? So why are there so many different prices for 4K TVs? Different technology. Different capability. Different quality. As for Apple promoting gaming, it's pretty routine for them to have game companies do demos for iOS and ATV. Mario and Sky are two of the most recent "heavy hitter" types of presentations like that, and Apple is definitely paying to have those games be timed exclusives.
I don’t see what capability TV has that other streaming boxes don’t have other than an App Store that Apple rarely every talks about. I dunno maybe you can name all the great apps available on TV that make it worth $100 more.
Apple are such dumbasses to create such a powerful streamer. Those guys obviously have no strategy on how to use a A10X in a streamer and it's just a complete waste of time and effort not to mention raising the price for all us loyal Apple users for no good reason.
Oh wait:
Graphics and Games
New in tvOS 11.0 - SceneKit and SpriteKit focus support.
Use the UIKit focus-related APIs to control animations, play custom sounds, and receive focus update notifications for SceneKit and SpriteKit nodes.
New in tvOS 11.0 - Lightweight render destination.
Added CIRenderDestination, an object for creating renderers that return to the caller after the work has been issued. You can specify all the destination attributes of the renderer for different destinations, including a surface (IOSurface), Core Video pixel buffer (CVPixelBuffer), GL textures, Metal textures, and memory.
Added new Core Image filters CITextImageGenerator, CIColorCurves, CILabDeltaE, CIBokehBlur, CIMinMaxRed, and CIBicubicScaleTransform.
So, how does one best dump 4k video from iPhone in h.265 to Apple TV? Stream on Airplay or upload to iCloud and then download to Apple TV, or better, can I upload to Apple TV directly over the network?
My 2015 Samsung TV seems to do a good job of up scaling to 4K. Am I better off using the TV or the Apple TV for the upscaling? How would I set it up? Mark
My 2015 Samsung TV seems to do a good job of up scaling to 4K. Am I better off using the TV or the Apple TV for the upscaling? How would I set it up? Mark
The first device in the stream does the upscaling -- in the normal case, the Apple TV. If the TV is already getting 4K resolution, it won't apply additional upscaling to it.
You could always set the Apple TV resolution to a lower one, say, 1080p, and see how the television does on its own, and compare. Might be subjective.
But, we couldn't generate a H.265 file that would be recognized on the Apple TV. The file will load into iTunes, but Home Sharing just won't pick it up. This same file loaded into VLC plays fine, and isn't transcoded to a lower resolution.
So, the lack of Home Sharing picking up the file isn't a technical limitation of the Apple TV 4K, and appears at this point to be a choice that someone made along the way to actively prevent this kind of thing.
As someone waiting on the iPhone X -- to record 4K home videos of my 4 year old -- does this apply to iPhone or iMovie content as well? In other words, does the "Edit With... iTunes" function work with HEVC content that has captured on an iPhone & imported to Photos on High Sierra?
As far as upscaling goes, the ATV 4K does that automatically, no way to change it, you can manually change to 1080p output if you so choose, of course no HDR that way. Most people are complaining the ATV 4K does not change modes on the fly, but picks the “best” setting for your TV, at 60Hz, then upscales both resultion, and SDR to HDR/DV if your TV is compatible, with results that are mixed, sometimes good sometimes not. People in home theater forums are returning these for this alone, because it requires you to change modes manually depending on what content you’re playing, unlike UHD blu-ray players or other 4K set tops, also giving Apple feedback, which I recommend...they need to get this right, things are not simple with UHD, like it or not, and I do think Apple could give us the option to auto change modes depending on content.
HEVC/H.265 streaming...HEVC/H.265 is new to all apple products, and not yet fully implemented. AirPlay 2 was pulled during the beta process and Apple says its coming in a future OS update. They pulled any info. on it, but, I’m 99% sure AirPlay 2 will handle HEVC/H.265 streaming from iOS devices and High Sierra (and video in iCloud), once implemented. So, it’s not that ATV 4K won’t, but, it will in the (unknown timeframe) future. For now it seems to be working for iTunes and Netflix (with 4K/UHD Premium subscription), VUDU has not yet been updated, Amazon Prime should come with 4K HDR, (sometime between now and dec. 31st). ...iMovie update has already been pushed out with HEVC compatibility the 25th for High Sierra, Photos app in High Sierra also, but, again I think waiting on AirPlay 2 to be implemented for streaming to other Apple devices.
I'm actually pretty extremely disappointed with the new Apple TV. Not having a native picture option is almost a deal breaker for me. I ran the HDMI test so the Apple TV defaults to 4K Dolby Vision for everything on my TV. I went and checked out some older nature documentaries I have on iTunes and they didn't look very good at all. It's not very consumer friendly having to constantly change the resolution settings to the source material. I'm not going to return the Apple TV, but I do plan on sending feedback to Apple. I'm hoping they make changes in a future update by adding a native picture option.
It's an extremely consumer friendly decision to have a default, set resolution. It's not very tweaker-friendly.
Guess which market is bigger.
That is a good point. I know I'm not the average consumer when it comes to A/V products, streaming devices, etc. If I set my issue with the Apple TV not having a native picture option aside, I think everything else is positive with the new Apple TV. Sure I would like Dolby Atmos now, but Apple is adding that in the future so I can't say that's a negative. I wouldn't be able to enjoy Atmos with Dolby Vision right now anyway since us Onkyo users are still waiting for the DV passthrough update for our receivers. That's coming in December according to Onkyo. The main reason I'm not returning the ATV 4K is it would be stupid to pass up having the free 4K upgrade to movies I already own and the ability to buy 4K movies for $20. Apple negotiating that deal with the majority of the studios is definitely a game changer in the industry.
rogifan_new said: I don’t see what capability TV has that other streaming boxes don’t have other than an App Store that Apple rarely every talks about. I dunno maybe you can name all the great apps available on TV that make it worth $100 more.
Other streaming boxes don't have an A10X and 3GB of RAM. You don't think that makes a difference for streaming capability or quality? For example, does the Fire TV support 4 simultaneous streams within the same screen for the ESPN app? And if it does, would you expect it to work as well? And in terms of the App Store, does something like the Fire TV offer as many choices for apps that support streaming? Fire TV has apps, but obviously not a 1:1 ratio with ATV.
I haven’t done a 1:1 comparison but the reviews I’ve read don’t mention Fire TV missing any major streaming apps. In nearly all of Apple’s other product lines they have a range of products at different price points. I think TV would be the perfect product to support the iPod model. There’s a market to go after here, especially if Apple plans on adding more original content to iTunes. TV isn’t the #1 steaming product and I think it’s price related. Add a cheaper chromecast style product for people who don’t need all the power of TV, people who don’t have 4K TVs and won’t be streaming 4K content, people who aren’t interested in games or sosphisticated apps. They just want a cheap(er) way to stream content from their TV.
Who cares how good the hardware is when the device is being used as a streaming media player. I don’t think I need an A10X chip to stream Netflix. I’m highly skeptical many people are using TV to play games otherwise Apple would be promoting game play a lot more and probably would even have their own game controller by now.
4K TVs are used primarily for viewing content in 4K, right? So why are there so many different prices for 4K TVs? Different technology. Different capability. Different quality. As for Apple promoting gaming, it's pretty routine for them to have game companies do demos for iOS and ATV. Mario and Sky are two of the most recent "heavy hitter" types of presentations like that, and Apple is definitely paying to have those games be timed exclusives.
I don’t see what capability TV has that other streaming boxes don’t have other than an App Store that Apple rarely every talks about. I dunno maybe you can name all the great apps available on TV that make it worth $100 more.
Apple are such dumbasses to create such a powerful streamer. Those guys obviously have no strategy on how to use a A10X in a streamer and it's just a complete waste of time and effort not to mention raising the price for all us loyal Apple users for no good reason.
Oh wait:
Graphics and Games
New in tvOS 11.0 - SceneKit and SpriteKit focus support.
Use the UIKit focus-related APIs to control animations, play custom sounds, and receive focus update notifications for SceneKit and SpriteKit nodes.
New in tvOS 11.0 - Lightweight render destination.
Added CIRenderDestination, an object for creating renderers that return to the caller after the work has been issued. You can specify all the destination attributes of the renderer for different destinations, including a surface (IOSurface), Core Video pixel buffer (CVPixelBuffer), GL textures, Metal textures, and memory.
Added new Core Image filters CITextImageGenerator, CIColorCurves, CILabDeltaE, CIBokehBlur, CIMinMaxRed, and CIBicubicScaleTransform.
Updated RPScreenRecorder for screen capture and back camera support.
Gee, I wonder if Apple has a f-ing plan after all?
A10X is overkill as a streamer, but yeah, seems its going to be doing much more than that pretty soon.
Apple keeps things pretty close to the vest and likely has some announcement planned in the future when all things are lined up.
If Apple has some big thing lined up for TV they sure are taking forever to get it to market. When the new TV was launched in 2014 Tim Cook said the future of TV was apps. The Watch presentation also focused on apps because that’s what Apple knows (see wwdc tagline: ‘center of the app universe’). But I think Apple execs are finding out with the Watch and TV that the future isn’t apps per se. With the Watch Apple seems totally focused on fitness and intelligent notifications. Apps are rarely discussed (unless they’re fitness focused). And with the TV the App Store is rarely mentioned; all you get is a developer on stage showing off some lame game that nobody is going to play. All the focus is on the TV ‘app’ which if done right is what tvOS should be.
I'm with Gruber here, it's nice, but is it enough to justify 170 vs just 70 for a streamer like the Fire TV with 4K/HDR.
What would make it worth it for me is if they started funding games, maybe even making them internally, that took advantage of its actively cooled A10X, rather than the usual low graphics iOS games making it over to the ATV. Then, another 100 bucks over the Fire TV for a nifty microconsole might be worth it.
I also think lack of mode switching and trying to stretch colour spaces is a mistake, as per Nilays review.
Why does one Blu-Ray player cost $70 and the other $170? Why does one set of headphones cost $70 and the other costs $170? People are making a big deal about a pricing issue that is seen ALL THE TIME in the electronics market. Fire TV does not actually provide hardware that is as good or software access that is as good. The functionality is not even close to being as varied as the ATV. Charging a premium for that is not unique to Apple specifically or electronics in general.
Who cares how good the hardware is when the device is being used as a streaming media player. I don’t think I need an A10X chip to stream Netflix. I’m highly skeptical many people are using TV to play games otherwise Apple would be promoting game play a lot more and probably would even have their own game controller by now.
You care if u want 4K. If apple didn’t need the faster processor to do 4K, then they would have just done 4K on the previous gen Apple TV.
I'm with Gruber here, it's nice, but is it enough to justify 170 vs just 70 for a streamer like the Fire TV with 4K/HDR.
What would make it worth it for me is if they started funding games, maybe even making them internally, that took advantage of its actively cooled A10X, rather than the usual low graphics iOS games making it over to the ATV. Then, another 100 bucks over the Fire TV for a nifty microconsole might be worth it.
I also think lack of mode switching and trying to stretch colour spaces is a mistake, as per Nilays review.
Why does one Blu-Ray player cost $70 and the other $170? Why does one set of headphones cost $70 and the other costs $170? People are making a big deal about a pricing issue that is seen ALL THE TIME in the electronics market. Fire TV does not actually provide hardware that is as good or software access that is as good. The functionality is not even close to being as varied as the ATV. Charging a premium for that is not unique to Apple specifically or electronics in general.
Who cares how good the hardware is when the device is being used as a streaming media player. I don’t think I need an A10X chip to stream Netflix. I’m highly skeptical many people are using TV to play games otherwise Apple would be promoting game play a lot more and probably would even have their own game controller by now.
You care if u want 4K. If apple didn’t need the faster processor to do 4K, then they would have just done 4K on the previous gen Apple TV.
The A8 can do 4K. There's more than enough processing power.
I'm with Gruber here, it's nice, but is it enough to justify 170 vs just 70 for a streamer like the Fire TV with 4K/HDR.
What would make it worth it for me is if they started funding games, maybe even making them internally, that took advantage of its actively cooled A10X, rather than the usual low graphics iOS games making it over to the ATV. Then, another 100 bucks over the Fire TV for a nifty microconsole might be worth it.
I also think lack of mode switching and trying to stretch colour spaces is a mistake, as per Nilays review.
Why does one Blu-Ray player cost $70 and the other $170? Why does one set of headphones cost $70 and the other costs $170? People are making a big deal about a pricing issue that is seen ALL THE TIME in the electronics market. Fire TV does not actually provide hardware that is as good or software access that is as good. The functionality is not even close to being as varied as the ATV. Charging a premium for that is not unique to Apple specifically or electronics in general.
It wasn't a complaint about the price, so much as a desire to back that up by taking full advantage of the A10X. That would be consistent with what you said, yes?
I'm with Gruber here, it's nice, but is it enough to justify 170 vs just 70 for a streamer like the Fire TV with 4K/HDR.
What would make it worth it for me is if they started funding games, maybe even making them internally, that took advantage of its actively cooled A10X, rather than the usual low graphics iOS games making it over to the ATV. Then, another 100 bucks over the Fire TV for a nifty microconsole might be worth it.
I also think lack of mode switching and trying to stretch colour spaces is a mistake, as per Nilays review.
3. Way faster CPU. A10X is at least 90% faster than the CPU in the FireTV. May not seem like much but the faster chip allows for a super smooth experience instead of lag and stuttering on the Fire.
4. Way faster GPU. The FireTV actual has a worse GPU than last years Fire TV. Pathetic. Games isn't huge on AppleTV but its still MUCH better than on Fire TV.
Same to you, my response is, well, exactly. I want them to use these things to their advantage by funding games that take advantage of the A10X, that would really be a unique point among streamers (besides the Shield).
In fact, controling their silicon to the level they do, if they made their own software titles they'd have a fuller stack of control than even console makers.
It wasn't a complaint about the price, so much as a desire to back that up by taking full advantage of the A10X. That would be consistent with what you said, yes?
I'm not really sure what you mean by "full advantage" since the approach of increasing graphic polish/effects for games that are running on higher-end SoCs already exists within the iOS gaming market. There's no reason to believe that won't translate to the ATV 4K with the A10X. You also have to remember that Apple rolls out new and more powerful SoCs every year, so that target for "full advantage" is always changing...which is more similar to the PC gaming market than the console gaming market. That's probably one of the reasons that Apple isn't in a hurry to try and produce 1st party games: that's more of a console dynamic than a personal computer dynamic. Do HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Acer spend much time focusing on bankrolling 1st party games?
There's an error in a statement in your video. H265 4K movies can and are picked up by the Apple TV 4K from your home library, provided they are encoded using the hcv1 H265 codec, not the hev1 codec.
Rearrange your living room, bro'! It will only look weird to guests till they watch a little 4K. We have an earlier version of the same Vizio. The 4K upscaling is sharp enough that we rearranged LR furniture so viewers are 8 feet away. Just invite fewer people over! :-]
And, yes, watching proper football from the UK on a Saturday or Sunday morning, I've been known to bring in a dining room chair and watch from 5 feet away.
Mike, not sure if you are still following this post but if you are I was wondering if you have come across this before? I use a pair of HomePods as the main audio output for my 4K TV. They work great for everything except Netflix. Only Netflix suffers from a dramatically reduced volume, so much so we have to switch to alternative output (the previously used surround sound system).
I have everything up to date, I have tried various audio options on the 4KTV and reset the HomePods and the Apple TV to no avail.
I wondered if we were to pay for Netflix's upgraded 4K service it might cure this? I have still not bought a 4K TV hence I haven't changed the subscription model with Netflix. I am left thinking maybe the 4K TV is expecting a source from Netflix it isn't getting and this is somehow the culprit.
Mike, not sure if you are still following this post but if you are I was wondering if you have come across this before? I use a pair of HomePods as the main audio output for my 4K TV. They work great for everything except Netflix. Only Netflix suffers from a dramatically reduced volume, so much so we have to switch to alternative output (the previously used surround sound system).
I have everything up to date, I have tried various audio options on the 4KTV and reset the HomePods and the Apple TV to no avail.
I wondered if we were to pay for Netflix's upgraded 4K service it might cure this? I have still not bought a 4K TV hence I haven't changed the subscription model with Netflix. I am left thinking maybe the 4K TV is expecting a source from Netflix it isn't getting and this is somehow the culprit.
I follow them all
I've found the HomePod to be pretty quiet for the home theater with not quite enough bass response, so I've got mine through a receiver. Max and Vadim have used the HomePods more with the ATV and Netflix, so I'll ask them.
Comments
ATMOS is competitively offered by ROKU, Vizio natively via the VUDU app, BD players etc... At twice the price, there’s no reason not to offer it.
How many 4K titles are available right now for digital download with Dolby Atmos? It's pretty limited. I'm sure Apple would rather add that in at a later date when iTunes digital downloads actually include Atmos. Also, you need ceiling mounted speakers or special speakers that direct sound upwards to reflect off the ceiling in order to really benefit from Atmos. How many people have that type of setup? It's an enthusiast format.
Clearly they realize most people watching TV are like my mother, and prefer not to see letterbox and pillbox bars, and would rather watch a stretched picture, using the soap-opera-effect motion settings to smooth out picture, such that correct upscaling or color gamut don't even matter.
I've got another week to return mine, and right now I'm leaning toward returning it. Maybe I'll get another one when the Amazon App finally comes out, but right now it's more trouble than it's worth for daily use, since I'm still mostly using smart apps on my TV -- which switches between video source format automatically for the best possible picture. Watching a few of my purchased iTunes movies in 4K HDR is great, but not nearly worth the trade off for daily use. At this point I might even wait and see what they come out with next.
Oh wait:
Graphics and Games
New in tvOS 11.0 - SceneKit and SpriteKit focus support.
Use the UIKit focus-related APIs to control animations, play custom sounds, and receive focus update notifications for SceneKit and SpriteKit nodes.
Added
SCNNode.focusBehaviorandSKNode.focusBehaviorto enable focus for node.New in tvOS 11.0 - High performance image analysis.
Added the Vision framework for detecting faces, bar codes, text, image horizon, and rectangular regions.
Provided support for integrating the Vision framework with Core ML to run custom models on images.
Added object-tracking in video.
Added support for image registration.
New in tvOS 11.0 - Ability to write custom image blending kernels for Core Image.
Added
CIBlendKernel, a special type ofCIColorKernelto blend two images (supported byCIRenderDestinationandCIImageAccumulator).Added
init(functionName:fromMetalLibraryData:)toCIKernelfor writing kernels using Metal to benefit from the improved language features and the reduced compile time.New in tvOS 11.0 - Lightweight render destination.
Added
CIRenderDestination, an object for creating renderers that return to the caller after the work has been issued. You can specify all the destination attributes of the renderer for different destinations, including a surface (IOSurface), Core Video pixel buffer (CVPixelBuffer), GL textures, Metal textures, and memory.Added new Core Image filters
CITextImageGenerator,CIColorCurves,CILabDeltaE,CIBokehBlur,CIMinMaxRed, andCIBicubicScaleTransform.Extended the ReplayKit framework.
RPScreenRecorderfor screen capture and back camera support.Gee, I wonder if Apple has a f-ing plan after all?
It wasn't a complaint about the price, so much as a desire to back that up by taking full advantage of the A10X. That would be consistent with what you said, yes?
Same to you, my response is, well, exactly. I want them to use these things to their advantage by funding games that take advantage of the A10X, that would really be a unique point among streamers (besides the Shield).
In fact, controling their silicon to the level they do, if they made their own software titles they'd have a fuller stack of control than even console makers.
I have everything up to date, I have tried various audio options on the 4KTV and reset the HomePods and the Apple TV to no avail.
I wondered if we were to pay for Netflix's upgraded 4K service it might cure this? I have still not bought a 4K TV hence I haven't changed the subscription model with Netflix. I am left thinking maybe the 4K TV is expecting a source from Netflix it isn't getting and this is somehow the culprit.