mbenz1962

I have been dealing with this issue since Monday.  I swapped in the new AppleTV 4K on my LG OLED for the previous gen on Friday, but I didn't notice the issue right away because I only watched AppleTV+, iTunes purchased content and Disney+ until Monday.  Monday evening I went to watch the last episode of "Jupiter's Legacy" on Netflix and one screen had some pretty obscure dialog.  I went to turn on the subtitles via the pull down menu so that I could play with the new "circular scrubbing" by rewinding and I saw that there was just an HD badge in the info pane instead of the Dolby Vision badge I was expecting.

Since then I have played with all of the settings on the AppleTV to get this "fixed" but with no positive results.  I finally started testing a theory that the AppleTV is actually playing the 4K stream, just the badge isn't right because the stream still looked good to me and because the TV flashes up either the Dolby Vision or HDR label when the stream starts from Netflix or Prime even though the info pulldown only shows HD and no mention of HDR or DV.  Because the AppleTV upscales to 4K, my TV always reports 4K even if it is a title that is only available in 1080p.  So I switched the max resolution on the AppleTV to 1080p and when I did that the TV of course only reports 1080p, but the Netfilx app shows only an HD badge on the title page of a 4K title. When I switch the max resolution back to 4K the 4K label (or the Dolby Vision label) returns on the title page.  In both cases the info pull down in the player only displays the HD badge even though the played stream looks much better with the max resolution set to 4K. This of course could be because the AppleTV is no longer upscaling, so I tried to think of some other test.

Then I had the idea of playing "The Expanse" and checking the TV info, because it is oddly enough filmed with HDR not Dolby Vision.  The TV will report the HDR profile for HDR, HDR10, and HDR10+ content. The TV reports that, even though the pull down info in the Prime app only displays HD, the stream is playing HDR with the bt.2020 profile.  This HDR profile is only applied to 4K or 8K streams. This makes me think that the Prime stream is actually 4K. Additionally, YouTube reports over its completely different info function that it is playing a 4K stream.

I have a theory (a bit of a stretch perhaps) that this is just a labeling problem in the info pull down with apps that still use the "old" video API on the AppleTV.  The video player or API set has been updated to work in the new "circular scrubbing" gesture with the new AppleTV.  Netflix and Prime can use this new gesture, but they still use the old info pull down and so are somehow affected by this bug (partial use of the latest API set). The AppleTV player uses a new API set that has the info displayed at the bottom of the screen by pressing the back button. This player (AppleTV+ or purchased content) does not seem to be affected by the bug.  YouTube and Disney+ appear unaffected by this bug, but both use a completely different proprietary player that does not behave at all like the AppleTV+ player and also does not yet support the circular scrubbing.  

Hopefully this is indeed just a software issue. Whether it be with Apple or some of the various streamers that need to update their apps to correct this issue.  This would be pretty bogus if it is a hardware failure that necessitates a replacement. My theory above may be a stretch and ultimately prove to be incorrect, but the testing and observed behavior may help other's see that the issue isn't something they can fix and so save them time.  Those affected will have to wait on more info from Apple (perhaps a software update) or an App update from affected streamers. 

I think that this “inconsistent” behavior is a combination of user error/no documentation from Apple and that the various streamers out there have different “video players” (APIs ?) built in to their apps. This site was pretty helpful in understanding what to do to get the “circular scrubbing” (which the author of this article calls “rinsing” [maybe a translation error?]) to work. https://www.aroged.com/2021/05/23/siri-remote-2-fast-forward-and-rewind-on-apple-tv/

I did find that this article says that this scrubbing method doesn’t work with Netflix although it does in my case (Germany with a US account base). It also works with Prime and Apple’s native video player (AppleTV+ and iTunes Store purchases). I doesn’t work with Disney+ (yet?). I haven’t yet tried YouTube or any other streamers (HBO et al). 

Strange choice of extract posted to this article.  The text is written in Portuguese (not Spanish) and includes a link back to Apple's Brazilian (apple.com/br) website.  I'm not sure that the article references the correct design document as this would likely not be so helpful to a Mexican business. Likely inadvertent mistake. 

What is a bit strange is that now many of the chargers regardless of wattage (Fast-charge or not) are all the same price.  The beloved / bemoaned 5W cube is $19, the "standard" iPad 12W charger with the "duckbill" is also $19 and the new 20W charger that replaces the 18W charger that came with the iPhone 11 (Pro versions only) is also $19.  I can't imagine that too many people will buy the 5W (or really the 12W either) when they can now get quick charging for the same price.  The only market for the older chargers will be those that have hordes of USB-A to lightning cables and don't want to pony up another $19 for a USB-C to lightning cable like @bestkeptsecret  alludes too.

bestkeptsecret said:

I have lots of iPhones and iPads. What I don't have is even a single USB-C charger. 

Apple makes a strong case for the environment, but their argument that people have dozens of chargers lying around falls flat when this will be the first iPhone with a USB-C charging cable.

I think those people are going to be few and far between since users will be getting at least one USB-C to Lightning cable in the iPhone box (regardless of which iPhone they buy; SE, XR, 11, or 12).  Either they will buy the iPhone and not a charger because they already have hordes of them or they will pony up the $19 for the 20W and use it with the included cable. When their old chargers are removed from service (broken, lost, etc.) and they see that they are going to have to shell out a Jackson regardless of if they go for 5W or 20W they will probably buy a new cable to go with it (whether Apple branded or not).

The "duckbill" style would be perfect if it were 18-20W because then it would support fast charging and be pretty great for international travel (not a big issue at the moment of course).
This brings me to the below comment:

fred1 said:

The price reduction is nice and would be even better if it were enough to appease the people who want a price reduction for the iPhone 12es that don’t have these. 

I hope the USB-C adaptor price is reduced for the European version too. That bad boy is expensive!

The EU versions of the chargers mentioned above (5, 12, and 20W) are also all the same price at 24.35€ (in Germany).

If you want fast charging with the "duck bill" you have to step up to the 30W which now seems over priced at $49 / 53.60€ (more than double the price of the 20W). A price at $29-$39 / 35-45€ would be a bit more in line with the other chargers' pricing IMHO.

There is also an update for TVOS (14.0.1) out as well. There was a bit of a weird visual problem with some menu elements when watching AppleTV plus content when  the “up next” menus popped up at the end of a show. Menus elements would be very dim. I’m installing now and hoping to see this fixed.