Will a 4K downscaler between my Apple TV 4K and 1080P TV improve image quality?

[12eward]

Hello LTT Forums,

 

This has been something I have wondered about for a while. If I buy a 4K downscaler (like one of these), will it make a meaningful difference in video quality on my 1080P TV (by causing the Apple TV to output at 4K) and while I haven't found anyone else with this exact idea, other similar questions posted online (asking about 4K bluray playback on 1080P TVs) get wildly varied answers. 

My instinct would be *yes* a noticeable improvement occurs, because the 4K stream is at a higher bitrate, so even after being downsampled back to 1080P it still looks better, but the lack of consensus on forum posts makes me think I am missing something.

 

And I would just buy a downscaler and test it myself, except that it would be difficult to be objective without a capture card, which I do not have. 

 

To pre-empt someone saying "Just Buy a 4K TV!", I am waiting for QD-OLED to come down in price :-). Plus I have a Panasonic Plasma, so as 1080P TVs go, it's a good one. 

 

[TheGreatestGazoo]

I use a AppleTV with my Z-series plasma Panasonic (the end of the great plasma TVs) . I just set the resolution in the AppleTV to 1080P and don't need to worry about a downscaler. You'd need to spend a LOT of money on a downscaler to beat out what the AppleTV does to be compatible with a 1080P TV. If you can't objectively compare without a capture card, then the differences would be negligible anyway - either there is a "wow" factor or not.

[rrats]

No, unless your Apple TV refuses to play YouTube videos in 4K unless it's output is 4K. YouTube compressed the hell out of 1080p videos