What are U looking for with new TV4k

[6749974]

OK, I'm not going to have this debate again

Confused because you're declaring this first and then continuing to debate me.

Anyway, I'm not saying, "Don't add 8K functionality." Progress is good!

I'm just saying that from a product design perspective, I would think lowering the price, or integrating it as a soundbar, or making it a gaming device, are all things people can use it for today that would make it fly off the shelves in higher numbers than last year. Products are mostly sold based on high-demand value propositions, and I haven't yet been convinced in this debate that that 8K resolution is a high-demand value proposition. Hypothetical Olympics footage or the promise of next year's iPhone isn't translating to demand—today—to buy 8K TVs. So if Apple sells 1 million Apple TV 8K in 2024, what percentage of buyers will be connecting to an 8K television immediately?

From quick google searches:

As of 2023, about 5.36 billion people worldwide have a TV in their homes, which is roughly 79% of households. The number of TV households is expected to increase to over 1.8 billion by 2026​

​

8K TV is failing to appeal to consumers according to Omdia’s latest research which I recently shared at the NAB show for my session focused on the reality of UHD deployments. Our exclusive research has found that just 2.7 million households worldwide are expected to have an 8K TV by the end of 2026.​

According to Omdia, shipments of 8K TVs only accounted for 0.15% of all TV shipments in 2021.​

​

That's pretty sad.

Apple supporting 8K TVs can do no harm. I'm not voting against it, I'm more saying, "the chicken-and-egg problem with 8K is 10x more severe than it was in adopting 4K—and the Apple TV is not a chicken-and-egg-solver." Sure, make it support 8K, why not, but if that is Apple's big feature announcement it will be a slow mover and frankly disappointing.

 

[HDFan]

It doesn’t have high res audio?

Depends on how you define it. Only Dolby Digital Plus, not the lossless audio on Blu-Rays.

HE-AAC (V1), AAC (up to 320 Kbps), protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (up to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Apple Lossless, FLAC, AIFF, and WAV; AC-3 (Dolby Digital 5.1), E-AC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound), and Dolby Atmos

 

[Borjan]

Offered some of that in a prior post. But does it really matter? What's available to watch in 5K? Nothing... but Apple makes 5K monitors anyway. What was available to play with Ray Tracing when M3 hit? Nothing... but Apple added it anyway. Where could one watch Spatial Video shot on iPhone 15 at launch? Nowhere... but Apple added it anyway. New Macs can export 8K video now but there's no Apple monitor able to show it at 8K... but Apple added that capability anyway.

Don't worry man, I'm confused at how this concept is lost on others as well.

 

[6749974]

Don't worry man, I'm confused at how this concept is lost on others as well.

How did you both manage to equate

• Apple simply adding SUPPORT for 8K televisions and 8K content …that won’t be adopted for at least another decade by mass market buyers…
• With a 5K computer monitor that has IMMEDIATE benefit to the buyer with no value-proposition-dependency on the rest of the industry creating 5K content, because it’s not a "5K content viewer" but a computer monitor?

Like seriously! Did I need to wait for Hollywood to support 5K for me to buy an Apple Studio Display and immediately start producing work? No! Absolutely not!

You’re both conflating the argument for an Apple TV supporting 8K with an argument for an actual 8K TV—which aren't selling—and Hollywood isn't making content for. Like these are two very different things. You both don’t know which argument you’re in. They’re not analogous. At all.

Ray Tracing is something that has HUGE demand in games that have actually been shipping for the last five years and Apple is very behind the trend! So of course Apple adding hardware support in their chips is a must given that Apple uses Metal and Apple Silicon in their iPads and iPhones—two of the biggest game platforms combined. They need to support all those game developers! That’s Apple's job—to solve the chicken-and-egg problem for them! Apple make 30% off these games and Apple is catering an entire ecosystem for game devs. Is Hollywood years and years into making 8K content like gave devs are years and years into making games with Ray Tracing effects? No!

Not to mention, Ray Tracing support on the M3 is merely hardware accelerating Ray Tracing that has already had support in Metal 2.0 since WWDC 2020. Thats's 4 years ago! We're now on Metal 3.0. How is this at all parallel to the market issues of adopting 8K televisions—Which Apple TV isn't a television but a streamer with no 8K streams to be found?

And Apple is a chip maker now, playing catch up to Nvidia and AMD on ray tracing support that is well adopted in games now. Apple is competing to have those games ported to Macs, iPhones and iPads now, and for devs to take the Apple ecosystem more seriously. Completely different situation.

How did you fool yourself into thinking you were the smart one and everyone else was just dumb?

How did you get fooled into thinking these were parallel situations?

 

[Unami]

- Return of a dedicated audio-out
- Less controller lag, better support of haptic features of controllers, better bluetooth antenna/connection for controllers
- Some software fixes: Used storage shown in settings. It‘s pretty bad that you only start to notice that storage is full, when games begin to lag. Also, that it‘s even possible to use so much storage that the device gets noticeable slower.
- No more 4GB limit for app sizes.
- A faster CPU/GPU obviously, but unless they fix game controller lag/connectivity/features, app sizes and slowing down when full AND show that they care about gaming - revive apple arcade with less shovelware, work with game developers or make their own game-studio - ist‘s not that useful for gaming, even with better hardware (it‘s like the iPad, it can have all the M-series-chips in the world as long as it got iPad OS and not a lot of professional software, it won‘t do much with it)
- Possibility to store your own videos directly on the device without using third-party software
- Doubles as wireless charger (this also for homepods)
- UWB-Chip for handoff
- Back to a smaller form-factor - I liked the proportions of the old (black) Apple TV more

- 8k - would be a nice to have for media professionals who target huge LED displays. Mostly for animation, though. On the other hand, I‘m still fine with a lot of cinemas being 2k- Even 4k IMAX is sharp as hell and if I‘m sitting close enough for my eyes to resolve individual pixels, I won‘t be able to see the whole image anyway, so where‘s the point? As someone who does video and film for a living, even if I had one of those few, clunky and not „industry standard“ 8k - Cameras (there is just no 8k Arri), why would I produce in that resolution, unless to produce demo-content for 8k TVs? It just needs 4 times the ressources for very little benefit. And no producer and very few consumer are going to pay for that. As a content producer, I`m sceptical, that 8k will ever become standard - at least it will take much more time than the jump from HD to 4k (which is still far from over). 8k makes sense for VR, though. But then it‘s really 2 times 4k and you‘d need something like a 14k - camera to film for that with a dual-lens setup. And about 8K re-releases: Most stuff filmed on analog s35 film has a resolution equivalent of about 4k. But even then, most lenses used back then don‘t resolve that high. Also, it‘s on old film stock, which has aged a bit. So you‘d have to re-scan that footage and probably remaster, restore and uprez it - e.g. artificially and automatically “invent“ 3 pixels for every real pixel - for it to be re-released in 8k. That‘s even more true for a lot of movies over the last 25 years which were filmed digitally in 2k or filmed in 4k but then postproduction (editing, vfx, grading) was done in 2k to save space and computing power. Meaning: For e.g. Star Wars Episodes 2 + 3, you‘d have to extrapolate 15 more pixel for every one that‘s actually there).

 

[6749974]

To clarify my original argument—theres a chicken-and-egg market problem unlike the one we found with 4K TVs.

In 2017, when Apple released Apple TV 4K it was

• to support 4K content that was an already growing format prior to the release of the device
• you could actually buy 4K movies in physical retail stores starting 1.5 years prior
• and 4K TVs were being sold in the 100 millions, with projections showing sharp growth year over year
• and Netflix began streaming 4K content 3 whole years before Apple even announced the Apple TV 4K—so 4K streaming was already adopted for 3 years when Apple finally jumped into 4K.

The entire entertainment and retail industry was pushing 4K. It was big! It was here! And it was growing exponentially!

Now...

• Can you walk into Best Buy and buy an 8K disk? No! 8K Blu-Ray media doesn't exist—Oh Oh!
• And Best Buy quit selling physical media, with other stores following in that trend—Oh Oh!
• Netflix doesn't stream 8K content and has no immediate plans to—Oh Oh!
• Only 2 million 8K TVs shipped in 2023, globally, and there isn't immediate sharp growth being projected—Oh Oh!

So how is this the same as Apple TV 4K?

It isn't! We're in a completely opposite situation.

We're facing new market forces, new adoption challenges, Hollywood and streaming industries are resistant to 8K media, and 8K as a resolution has reached diminishing returns at living room viewing distances.

Heck, most movies are still projected at 2K which is what 35 mm is. To see 4K you have to visit a Dolby cinema. Hollywood studios make CGI at 2K and have to then scale it to 4K after print. Hollywood is far from adopting 8K as an output format. We may be a decade or more away.

It really /petergriffen.gif/ grinds my gears that you guys as misunderstanding the argument. Of course 8K support should come just to have it for early adopters. Throw it in. But my question is—how does the value proposition of 8K support in 2024 mirror the value proposition of the Apple TV 4K in 2017?

It doesn't! Not even close. Near polar opposite situation.

 

[Ctrlos]

An M1 processor and full Metal support so it can play all the high-end games from the app store without devs having to do a thing.

 

[lenningj]

Ability to view spatial recordings/photos somehow within the tvOS.

 

[Rychiar]

Depends on how you define it. Only Dolby Digital Plus, not the lossless audio on Blu-Rays.

HE-AAC (V1), AAC (up to 320 Kbps), protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (up to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Apple Lossless, FLAC, AIFF, and WAV; AC-3 (Dolby Digital 5.1), E-AC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound), and Dolby Atmos

Then why does my stereo get DTS out of it when I run DTS files through it? I ripped high res blu ray audios like david gilmour and porcupine tree

 

[cawsllyffant]

An M1 processor and full Metal support so it can play all the high-end games from the app store without devs having to do a thing.

I'd prefer an M3 so we get that ray tracing! But realistically, that would be cost prohibitive (for Apple) unless they found a way to make it a loss leader and make up the cost with other tv-oriented revenue streams. (Like most console makers do.) And as far as I know, the streaming/rental revenue they are getting these days wouldn't be enough.

 

[Unami]

Heck, most movies are still projected at 2K which is what 35 mm is. To see 4K you have to visit a Dolby cinema. Hollywood studios make CGI at 2K and have to then scale it to 4K after print. Hollywood is far from adopting 8K as an output format. We may be a decade or more away.

Technically, S35-film is said to be about 4k resolution (although, when you remove noise, lens imperfections, etc… it‘s probably a little less.) VFX are also slowly becoming more and more 4k as computers get faster and storage gets cheaper. So, after around 2 decades, the industry is slowly getting there. But there’s even less rush to get to 8k than it was 20 years ago to get to 4k. So I’d say, it’s probably more like 2 decades, if ever, as it doesn’t really make any sense to produce in 8k. And you‘re right, a lot, probably an overwhelming majority of movie projectors are still in 2k and nobody ever complains about that.

I‘d even say, the 4k/HDR upgrade didn‘t help, because most normal people who did upgrade didn’t notice a significant difference unless they looked specifically for it. (sure, there is quite a difference, but do you notice it unless you‘re viewing it side by side? Most guys don‘t even change the settings of the TV after they take it home and leave all that moton smoothing, noise reduction crap, auto-dimming,… crap turned on)

 

[6749974]

Technically, S35-film is said to be about 4k resolution (although, when you remove noise, lens imperfections, etc… it‘s probably a little less.) VFX are also slowly becoming more and more 4k as computers get faster and storage gets cheaper. So, after around 2 decades, the industry is slowly getting there. But there’s even less rush to get to 8k than it was 20 years ago to get to 4k. So I’d say, it’s probably more like 2 decades, if ever, as it doesn’t really make any sense to produce in 8k. And you‘re right, a lot, probably an overwhelming majority of movie projectors are still in 2k and nobody ever complains about that.

I‘d even say, the 4k/HDR upgrade didn‘t help, because most normal people who did upgrade didn’t notice a significant difference unless they looked specifically for it. (sure, there is quite a difference, but do you notice it unless you‘re viewing it side by side? Most guys don‘t even change the settings of the TV after they take it home and leave all that moton smoothing, noise reduction crap, auto-dimming,… crap turned on)

Good points.

I was referencing this study discussed here where they say it’s closer to 2K as far as perception. Seems a bit more nuanced than I made it so I’ll stand back on that point.

Regarding CGI, my point was that to most people’s shock, the industry standard is still 2K because studio’s want to do cgi at 2K, and scale camera shots down 2K, and then print and scale that back up to 4K, because it’s way cheaper, takes less time, and blends imperfections better. But unfortunately modern movies like Marvel movies don’t show off 4K sharpness like older film movies they simply rescan for, and which have film grain which our brain perceieves as sharp detail. I say all that to say, which you reiterated well, that Hollywood is looking at 8K very differently than the move to 4K because they are in no rush to produce output in 8K. Blu-Ray for 8K or streaming movie catalogues in 8K is, as you say, maybe two decades away. The industry is not really fulfilling the capabilities of 4K yet.

And im waiting for streaming quality to match physical media. It’s fallen short of its promise. So we’re way premature to demand 8K streaming if we can’t get 4K streaming in order.

 

[AgeOfSpiracles]

It's not going to happen, but I would love a smaller form factor.

$79 AppleTV stick would be an instant buy. I'm a bit jealous of my Roku evangelist friends... the sticks aren't great for everyday use, but for travel they rule. Plus Roku has soundbar models. Apple should borrow their product strategy in this segment.

 

[HouseLannister]

Most of the improvements I would want are for tvOS, not the hardware itself. Give it some AI tract.tv/simkl type thing where it lists the shows I am following, tells me how many episodes remain to binge, tells me what's airing next, recommends similar shows, and has a whole social layer to review and comment. Work with the app providers so I can see what app I need to subscribe to in order to watch new episodes.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Quieter buttons on the remote

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK



Siri Remote with Trackpad version had dead silent smooth quiet buttons (chefs kiss)

 

[Piplodocus]

Either cheaper or more powerful so it can run more games/apps when paired with a keyboard/controller.

And somewhat related: I'd like better Home app as well. Obvs the TV's got Thread and can act as a Home hub. But I find some annoyances with Home such as no way to save or copy settings. I've got some Thread switches that are great and have 5 buttons on each. You can also double-click or long press them. So 30 different things. When I've had to reset one of them, or want to mirror those buttons on a second one, I have the painstaking job of re-writing all those shortcuts. I wish I could just drag and drop or recall a saved button config. Or if I've decided I want to swap 2 buttons around: re-write the button shortcuts from scratch. 🤦‍♂️ Obvs Matter is in early days, so hopefully this will improve anyway. But having got into some home automation the end of last year some of it still seems more painful than it needs to be and I'm also avoiding doing some improvements because it's too much of a PITA I couldn't currently be bothered to sit down for a couple of hours to change it all. Should be easier generally and easy to undo/swap/backup settings.

 

[bigjnyc]

$79 AppleTV stick would be an instant buy. I'm a bit jealous of my Roku evangelist friends... the sticks aren't great for everyday use, but for travel they rule. Plus Roku has soundbar models. Apple should borrow their product strategy in this segment.

Absolutely. I would buy a few of those, including one for traveling.

 

[narenh]

It doesn’t have high res audio? I’ve been ripping lossless DTS blue ray audio discs onto a NAS that i then play on my Apple TV via VLC or Mr MC and they go to my stereo as DTS HD just fine….

Apple TV cannot bitstream audio, it decodes everything to LPCM. Which is fine for regular lossless DTS HD-MA or TrueHD but not DTS:X or TrueHD Atmos since the object metadata is lost.

 

[BotchQue]

Ummm. Hold down the power button for a definitive couple of seconds and TV is off.

I've been experimenting with this all day today; sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't (instead I get the drop-down from the upper-right corner, and have to move my thumb to the large central "Select" button to turn it off.)

Weird.

 

[kerr]

Why are some asking for a smaller form factor? Isn't the current model the smallest and lightest of all ATVs?

 

[Boyd01]

Isn't the current model the smallest and lightest of all ATVs?

No, the 2nd and 3rd generation models were .9 inches (23mm) tall. The 4th generation was 1.4 inches (35mm). That continued until the current generation, which is a little shorter but still larger than the old ones: 1.2 inches (31mm). Personally, I couldn't care less about the size, it just sits on a shelf under the TV.

My old Sony 1080p TV died last summer, went to Best Buy for a replacement and ended up with a Samsung 4k TV just because you can't get 1080p TV's anymore. Not all that interested in 4k content myself, but have been thinking of replacing my old AppleTV HD anyway (for the faster ethernet, if nothing else).

But looking at the "wish lists" here, gotta say that I just don't want anything being discussed. 🤣 But - bring it - then I should be able to get a better deal on a refurb older version.

 

[HDFan]

Then why does my stereo get DTS out of it

but not DTS:X or TrueHD Atmos since the object metadata is lost.

There are a lot of DTS formats.

Definition of DTS

What does DTS actually mean? Find out inside PCMag's comprehensive tech and computer-related encyclopedia.

www.pcmag.com

 

[Jim Lahey]

Multi-channel unprocessed bitstream out. Apple positions this device as some kind of home theatre leviathan yet it can't even pass an unmolested digital bitstream out to an AVR for external processing. Also I resent the price-tiered partitioning of ethernet for those who use a wired LAN. Most likely it'll be erased completely before long.

 

[kerr]

No, the 2nd and 3rd generation models were .9 inches (23mm) tall. The 4th generation was 1.4 inches (35mm). That continued until the current generation, which is a little shorter but still larger than the old ones: 1.2 inches (31mm).

So the only measurement of size is height? The old models were indeed shorter but they were also wider, longer and heavier.

 

[Boyd01]

Sorry, just quickly looked at the specs. You can do your own comparisons here, there are links to the specs for each generation

Identify your Apple TV model - Apple Support

Learn how to identify your Apple TV by its model number and other details.

support.apple.com

After another quick look (caveat emptor), it appears that the width and depth were the same at 3.9 inches (98mm) square, starting with the second generation device and continuing all the way through the second generation 4k version. The third generation 4k device actually got smaller at 3.66 inches (93mm)