Movies look bad

[TyWahn]

Why do my purchased iTunes "HD" movies look so terrible on my 2017 4K iMac? They are streaming, but I have plenty of bandwidth. They are "noisy" with movement and look SD at best.
Does anybody have any ideas? I'm definitely not expecting 4K but I am expecting HD at least.
Thanks
Ty

 

[Lunder89]

I just fired up a movie from 2011, one of the few I have in my movie library. I am using a 5K iMac. There is a little noise in some places and the edges are a little undefined on close-ups. But I wouldn't say SD quality.

But if the movie is on full HD (1920 x 1080) which is what I was playing, it still has a way to scale. The 4K resolution is 3840 x 2160. Everything needs to be scaled up 2x, that can easily compromise quality. If you are watching 720p content (1280 x 720) the scale is 3x, and I can see if things start to look grim. But I don't have any 720p stuff.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Why do my purchased iTunes "HD" movies look so terrible on my 2017 4K iMac? They are streaming, but I have plenty of bandwidth. They are "noisy" with movement and look SD at best.
Does anybody have any ideas? I'm definitely not expecting 4K but I am expecting HD at least.
Thanks
Ty

iTunes offers "HD" and "Full HD" resolutions.

I wonder if you're seeing the 720p version instead of the 1080p version?

 

[fathergll]

Why do my purchased iTunes "HD" movies look so terrible on my 2017 4K iMac? They are streaming, but I have plenty of bandwidth. They are "noisy" with movement and look SD at best.
Does anybody have any ideas? I'm definitely not expecting 4K but I am expecting HD at least.
Thanks
Ty

Can you give some specific examples of movies?

 

[Moonjumper]

In iTunes, go to the preferences and check the following: Under Playback, make sure the Video Playback Quality is set to Best Available. Under Downloads, make sure Download full-size HD videos is checked. It shouldn't make a difference for streaming, but worth checking. On a related point, do you have the same image problems if you download a movie?

Something to bear in mind, the iMac 4K is a true 4K screen at 4096 pixels (cinematic 4K), but UHD is 3840 (consumer 4K), a pixel doubled Full HD. As the scaling is not doing a perfect pixel doubling, extra work is needed to upscale, potentially creating issues.

 

[TyWahn]

Can you give some specific examples of movies?

Force Awakens, Finding Dory, Hugo
Those are just a few.
[doublepost=1524162968][/doublepost]

In iTunes, go to the preferences and check the following: Under Playback, make sure the Video Playback Quality is set to Best Available. Under Downloads, make sure Download full-size HD videos is checked. It shouldn't make a difference for streaming, but worth checking. On a related point, do you have the same image problems if you download a movie?

Something to bear in mind, the iMac 4K is a true 4K screen at 4096 pixels (cinematic 4K), but UHD is 3840 (consumer 4K), a pixel doubled Full HD. As the scaling is not doing a perfect pixel doubling, extra work is needed to upscale, potentially creating issues.

I will check that. Thanks for your reply. And I haven’t tried downloading but I’ll try.
[doublepost=1524163121][/doublepost]

iTunes offers "HD" and "Full HD" resolutions.

I wonder if you're seeing the 720p version instead of the 1080p version?

How do I tell?
Funny thing is, if I stream to my Apple TV from my iPhone they look great.

 

[Lunder89]

How do I tell?
Funny thing is, if I stream to my Apple TV from my iPhone they look great.

Unless you have the 4K Apple TV, the explanation is that the Apple TV doesn't have to do any upscaling of the content.
Also, I am betting you are sitting further from your TV, than your iMac. (I know I do )