Yea, sorry about that. But he was very direct and terse claiming no hardware limitation with no support to back it up when pressed by others. There might not be a limitation but you should have some facts when asked.

I can jump in. Disabling quick start fixes frameskips on many of the affected iTunes movies. This might suggest it’s not a hardware issue.

There’s also nothing to suggest that it is a hardware issue. Apple don’t particularly respond to the niche market and there are many posters on here who consider this a non issue although I certainly don’t agree with it.

But...evidence for apples general lack of responsiveness is their failure to implement any type of frame rate matching on the last generation of Apple TV for the entire time it was their primary streamer. This meant that everything we being output at 60hz. Many could have argued it was a hardware limitation but then they did eventually add it when the mainstream press slaughtered Apple for not including framerate switching on their 4k Apple TV. Also, we know the Apple TV can output bitstream audio because you can force it to do so....but they do not allow bitstream audio for any of their higher quality audio formats.

So...not hard and fast evidence but plenty to suggest that the issue may be software. There is also certainly no evidence to confirm that the issues are hardware related. What we do know with relative certainty is that there is no new Apple TV coming this year.


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It should be trivial, with the right device, to verify by snooping the signal if indeed the frame rate is different in this case otherwise the skipping may infact be caused by something else (or have multiple causes.)

I'm still pretty sure the Quickstart issue is likely different. The one title I bought for testing that was affected (Prisoners) appeared to glitch more often in close sequence than the 42s interval you get due to 23.976p vs 24.0p. When downloaded it was clearly 23.976p, but there is no way from the HUD to show the framerate of the HLS segments.

There is Itunes store content which is 24.0p in all versions (download and HLS streaming) - Highlanders 30th Anniversary is one such title. The download can be checked, and the HLS streaming glitches as expected every 42s.

Unfortunately verifying the output of the AppleTV will only show you that the output is always 23.976. I'm not sure if there is any way to get framerate information out of the (encrypted?) HLS segments. I might try and grab some at some point and see if anything can be gleaned for Prisoners.

Play with the motion settings on the tv. On my LG I have it set so I don’t get these frame skips and I also don’t get that soap opera effect either. Looks completely normal.

Yup, my experience on both older sonys and my LG C7 is that the various smoothing/motion options produced very noticeable skipping like artifacts more often (almost like hiccups in processing, seems more than a single frame drop.) However when using reverse pull down they fixed things up when that was the appropriate processing.

I turn off all the TV motion smoothing processing because of many of the issues that appear.

Really? I have no such issues on my B6.
De-judder 2
De-blur 9
I have everything else off.

I’ve had it set this way almost since I got my C7 that can’t be 100% positive that I’ve seen this stutter on the LG but I absolutely saw it on my older 4K Sony (which did 60hz max) often when viewing GOT and other HBO shows when motion processing was on.

But I am of the school of no motion processing so I’m also biased.


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Sure but it's beyond improbable that the hardware can manage 23.9, 25, 29.9, 50 and 59.9 but not 24, 30 or 60.

Agreed. Of the two scenarios....that they managed to install crippled hardware in the ATV, or they chose to not enable all the abilities of the hardware... the latter is far more likely given both Apple's track record -- the lack of bitstream passthrough on the ATV, for example -- and their other hardware with similar topology and chipsets having the capability -- like the iPad.

The more interesting question imo is WHY does Apple not allow or enable it. I suspect that once we know that, we'll know if it is a battle that can be won (like dynamic range matching) or not (like bitstream passthrough).

I genuinely think that it’s because not enough people are complaining about it and it’s not getting any traction in the mainstream tech media. They didn’t bother with frame rate matching for countless years until the issue started to appear in reviews.


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The sad state of affairs is that of all the external streamer boxes, if you want Atmos this is probably still the best auto rate solution (on balance). That may change if Netflix et al ramp up 24.0p distribution and there is more new content as 24.0p than 23.976p. I'm not aware of any stand alone player with native auto rate and working dynamic range / colourspace switching and Atmos for Netflix that does 24.0p correctly. If anyone is aware of one please do let me know as I can just leave you all alone then...

I'm really hoping that Nvidia are reading the various posts on the matter (I know they have staffers posting in their threads on here) and see it as a way to get one over on the Apple TV. Once there is a clearly superior product in the market in this respect it will be easier to get the media to care, and once that happens we might find out if it can be done or not, and maybe, just maybe, get all the frames we paid for...

Local media players (e.g. Kodi and plex) auto switch framerate on the shield so I think nvidia’s stance is that it is up to app developers to implement.


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Not true. There is a native frame rate option in the latest Shield TV beta build. You have to manually invoke it but it works. I set the UI to 23.976 Hz which is fine for most things and use the beta frame rate option when I use something like Shudder. I hope it gets integrated as an automatic switch in a future release.

Is this not what I said? The old shield certainly had the ability to switch framerate when I had it. Netflix on the shield didn’t do it but apps such as plex and Kodi did.


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No I don't think that's what you said

You said "I think nvidia’s stance is that it is up to app developers to implement."

OK the developers of Kodi/MrMc and Plex have implemented it but not all. Nvidia have also implemented it so you can force correct frame rate for apps such as Netflix and Shudder.

I had 2017 a long time ago and I'm sure you had to change UI to match the frame rate for apps such as Netflix.

Yeah you did for Netflix but not for Kodi. Has that changed then? We’re probably off topic here...


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Hi everyone, new Apple TV 4K owner here. Just got this streamer today, and I have not taken it out of the box yet. I need to know if the remote needs to be charged before first use. And if so, how do I know when it’s fully charged?

My remote was ready to roll. I share you interest in feedback on the charge condition of the remote.

Thanks for your quick reply. Good to know, I’ll go ahead and start getting this thing connected and set up.

This youtube video shows how to check it.

It's easier to just say "Battery" while pressing the microphone icon on your remote and you'll see the charge level on your screen.

The remote comes charged. You need one for set-up.
See this Apple document for the remote: [Charge/Check Siri Remote].
Refer to the first post in this thread for various notes about the ATV.

this is mainly for new users: Once you fire up the box YOU MUST NOT forget to tap/press on the remote's touch pad once. Then in the upper right hand corner you will see a pop-up notice that the remote is 'connected'. Otherwise it won't respond as expected at first!

This even occurs for me since I use a Harmony Smart remote and once in awhile I will use the Apple remote!

Think that’s the bond films coming back with added Dolby Vision...in the US at least. Still not in the uk but hopefully won’t be too long.


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The first one...

Attached Thumbnails

 

They ALWAYS come back.


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I recently bought a 4K receiver (Denon X1500H) and I'm confused about some things...

1) when using certain ATV 4K apps like HBO Go and EPIX, when I check the Video Output information on the receiver it shows as 4K...but HBO Now/HBO Go etc doesn't output in 4K, it's still 1080p (and 1080i for the HBO cable channel)...so is Apple upconverting everything to 4K?...I prefer things be shown in their native resolution but I'm guessing Apple doesn't do that...for example with my FiOS cable box I enable native passthrough which means it shows a 720p signal as is and same with a 1080i signal...I know my TV upconverts it to 4K but my box keeps it as native

2) the ATV handles audio differently then I'm used to in that it puts out a lot of PCM and doesn't give out traditional Dolby Digital+ etc...I can't tell if this is a good or bad thing (or if it doesn't matter)...another quirk is that I don't have Atmos speakers yet I'm getting an 'Atmos' notification on the front of my receiver for certain content...is this just Apple downmixing an Atmos signal into my 5.1 speakers?

All of this is covered in the first post of this thread, but I’ll save you some reading...

1) Yes, the ATV4K scales everything to 4K, but actually does a very good job of doing so. Likely just as good as your TV and certainly the best of any streaming device currently available. The new 2019 nvidia Shield supposedly does a decent job (the older versions did not), but also does not support automatic resolution switching at the OS level.

2) Yes, the ATV4K does decode the incoming audio format internally and outputs either multi-channel PCM or (in the case of Atmos audio content being sent to Atmos capable receivers) Dolby MAT 2.0. Your receiver will downmix to whatever speaker configuration you have set. If you do not have an Atmos speaker configuration, the Atmos metadata is ignored.

Lastly, no, it does not matter where the “decoding” occurs as the end results are the same.

Hope this helps...

but if the Atmos metadata is ignored in the end then why does my receiver show as 'Atmos' on the front of the display?...shouldn't it show whatever the end result of the final conversion is?

I know Apple is highly regarded as far as their video encoding but is the way they handle their audio good or bad?...compared to the way Netflix or Amazon handles their audio via Dolby Digital Plus, Atmos etc which sends the content to the receiver to handle the decoding is Apple's method just a different way of getting the same results or does it result in worse audio (even if it's only slightly worse)