The next Apple TV won't play 4K video

[patrickjp93]

Shame as Apple's market power would create a domino effect if they included 4K. All other streaming boxes would have to include it to compete and customers would begin to demand 4K TVs in which TV manufacturers would create supply, satiate demand, and bring prices down.

On the other hand, ISPs are still a very big problem especially with data caps. I'm not sure how advanced compression has gotten but no doubt 4K streaming would devour a monthly data cap even with average use.

Ah, but Apple needs features to add to the next generation, because Apple sells equipment after all.

[LukaP]

Ah, but Apple needs features to add to the next generation, because Apple sells equipment after all.

Everyone here gives Apple way to little credit. 

 

They know their markets. They know only a small minority wants 4K. They also know that they can make more money by pushing 4K onto Apple TV Retina or something like that. So they adopt a strategy that will make them most money, while not losing any customers really.

 

Kudos to Apple is my summary of this news.

[LAwLz]

No, they shouldn't make it 4K ready out of the box IMO if it's so much more expensive. Most people don't have 4K capable devices to stream things off of so it's not like they'll lose anything substantial.

 

Low price or 4K? I'll take low price for now. Update the firmware later when 4K gets more popular (not anytime soon)

But adding support for 4K is not expensive. My guess is that the SoC Apple plan on using just has an outdated video decoding block.

There are a ton of other SoCs that supports it.

 

 

Tegra X1-integrated devices also cost a lot more than Apple's $99 price point, considering Shield costs $200 and it's other use is in the automotive computer field so far.

The chip itself shouldn't be that much more expensive. The reason the shield costs more is because it has more components, comes with more things (like a controller) and most likely has a higher margin.

The SoCs themselves are both most likely in the ~20 dollar range. Support for 4K is a 1 time cost in development and then it doesn't cost anything extra.

 

 

I think it's a shame that it won't support 4K. We are already seeing more and more 4K content come out, and don't you want your devices to be at least a little big future proof? At this point it is barely "future proof" to include 4K. Netflix 4K is avilible to some people, YouTube does 4K, you can download quite a lot of 4K video and play it locally.

It's most likely not a deal breaker or a huge issue for most people, but I think it's sad to see companies not try and push for newer and better things.

[LAwLz]

"Future proofing" is too weak of an argument for Apple to implement 4K imo.

 

Most users don't have the internet speed capable to stream 4K, they don't have 4K capable TVs or monitors, and implementing 4K is pricier while only satisfying less than 5% of the consumers. It's not that Apple doesn't want to push the technological threshold, they do, evident in their 5K Mac, but you have to push the boundaries within reason. This isn't within reason for them.

Well like I said in my post, 4K support is barely "future proofing" at this point. You can already get plenty of 4K content. Don't have fast a fast enough Internet connection to stream it? Then download the videos and watch it locally.

[LAwLz]

4K videos are huge. The average user wouldn't have enough comfortable space for an hour long TV show or 2-2.5 hour movie.

I agree, but you can't say they are trying to push the limits and cater to the average user and what they can do/want right now.

If you have to resort to "the average user don't want to download big video files" (they aren't even *that* big if you look at for example YouTube videos) then you can't say that they are trying to pushing technology forward.

 

It's not like there is a drawback to including 4K support either.

[silberdrachi]

With the fact that Comcast is starting to re-implement caps (mine is still disabled thankfully) and the lack of 4k content... i couldnt care less.

 

Sure it looks pretty, but call me when i can actually get more than 3-4 shows id want to watch in 4k. Sure youtube has 4k, but most videos i watch are 3-10 minutes and are filmed in a way that it doesnt really matter that its 4k because it would look just fine in 1080p.

 

To me 4k isnt a hardware issue at all, its a policy and standards issue. until one or both change, there is no way im spending that type of money on it.

[Bsmith]

looking at the amount of 4K available, internet speeds and the amount of 4k TVs in common household's, then this is a very good decision, because admit it most of the things for normal people are far form ready for it, man even console's which are meant to last 5-10years each gen are far form ready for it.

[Swndlr]

way to move smoothly into the future, apple.

[Misanthrope]

No, they shouldn't make it 4K ready out of the box IMO if it's so much more expensive. Most people don't have 4K capable devices to stream things off of so it's not like they'll lose anything substantial.

 

Low price or 4K? I'll take low price for now. Update the firmware later when 4K gets more popular (not anytime soon)

 

Apple doesn't seems to have a problem selling expensive things though.

[LAwLz]

Not counting YouTube videos, 4K sizes are huge uncompressed. 32GB won't even get you 2 minutes of uncompressed 4K video if I'm not mistaken. (Compressed idk, I'm assuming it's going to be sliced in half or 75% at most).

 

But, they are pushing the envelope, just not on the Apple TV lol. 5K Mac, rumored 8K Mac, Apple is definitely trying to push 4K. They're just smart about what they push.

 

And yes, there are no drawbacks for the person buying the Apple TV if 4K is an added feature (except possibly price) but there might be drawbacks in terms of sales for the manufacturer, though I can't guarantee that. 4K would be awesome, but Apple is playing it smart and safe in my opinion.

Good luck watching anything that's not compressed... Completely uncompressed video with a 16 bit color depth is about 1 gigabit per second for 1920x1080 progressive (at 30 FPS). That's about 1TB for a 2 hour movie.

Everything is huge when uncompressed.

 

NetFlix uses/will use a ~15Mbps bit rate for their 4K video (thanks to HEVC, otherwise it would be something like 25Mbps for the same quality). YouTube is also in the 15Mbps range if you use VP9.

So for a 2 hour movie that would be about 13GB. I find it hard to believe that people don't have 13GB to spare on their computers (the Apple TV can stream from your local computers, right?)

 

I think the reason for the lack of 4K support is simply because the chips they will use for it don't support it. I am not sure if Apple's newer chips supports it but if they do then they are probably using old parts for the Apple TV. If Apple's newer chips don't support it either than they just don't want to spend the money developing it.

 

 

Anyway the bottom line is that people already have access to 4K content if they want. The amount of people that are interested is pretty small though so this is bad news for a few but most won't even notice the lack of 4K support. I think it is silly to argue that Apple are trying to push technology forward with this device though since the way forward is 4K.

[mikat]

my dad has a 4K video camera (he sells cameras) but we dont have a 4K screen XDD we need to go to the shop next to his to watch 4K on their tv's XDDD

[JAKEBAB]

I don't think people are reading this properly... It says INITIALLY won't support 4k so in the future it will, Apple would have to be complete idiot's not to have support for 4k eventually with all the hype around 4k even non techies will know what it is by the time this is released. For people saying oh only 19% of Americans have the speed for 4k guess what, 4k is offered in Australia which im pretty sure the amount of people that have that speed for 4k is in like the 1% - 2% it's not going to stop 4k from being a thing lol.

[Misanthrope]

Neither do other companies like Samsung & HTC, yet they keep a lot of their products affordable...that's business I suppose lol.

 

The point is that the reason why they don't support 4k isn't because that would make the product expensive. What I think is that they aren't ready to distribute 4k content yet when it comes to their infrastructure and such.

[LAwLz]

Ehh, looked it up and it looks like the codec does create smaller file sizes. Not quite 13GB for a movie, closer to 25-30, but that is seemingly reasonable for the most part, though downloading a 25GB file would fill up ones monthly data cap (for certain ISPs *cough cough Comcast) like, instantly.

Well you're wrong. It is about 13GB if you use a 15Mbps bit rate for a 2 hour movie. It's simple math.

15Mbps with HEVC or VP9 is the same quality as about 25Mbps with H.264/VP8 so that is not with a low bit rate either. It is high quality, 4K content.

[HatallaS]

How many people have 4k TVs anyways

[zacRupnow]

Why would they make it support 4k when they don't have any 4k content on iTunes? Apple TVs are pretty much only used for iTunes and videos captured with Apple devices.

[Victorious Secret]

Why would they make it support 4k when they don't have any 4k content on iTunes? Apple TVs are pretty much only used for iTunes and videos captured with Apple devices.

 

 

HBO

Netflix

NBA

NFL

MLB

NHL

 

A lot of content available on Apple TV. As well as streaming from other devices. So no, not just for iTunes and videos captured with Apple devices. 

[zacRupnow]

HBO

Netflix

NBA

NFL

MLB

NHL

 

A lot of content available on Apple TV. As well as streaming from other devices. So no, not just for iTunes and videos captured with Apple devices.

Thats better. Not sure if Netflix has 4k though.

I've only used the first model that was Mac or iDevice to tv.

[dalekphalm]

Why would they make it support 4k when they don't have any 4k content on iTunes? Apple TVs are pretty much only used for iTunes and videos captured with Apple devices.

I know people who use an Apple TV almost exclusively for Netflix. To say that people pretty much only use Apple TV for iTunes content is vastly underselling its capabilities and what the average person will use it for.

[dalekphalm]

Thats better. Not sure if Netflix has 4k though.

I've only used the first model that was Mac or iDevice to tv.

Netflix most definitely has 4K support for certain content. Pretty much all of their Original Shows, for example.

[AlwaysFSX]

No, you git

If this is powered by an A8X then all they will need is a firmware patch that adds 4K60 support and that is all. (if this thing has a HDMI2 port, otherwise 4K30)

What I'm saying is not if it should include it now, because that's already out the window, but they should have included the ability for 4k60 back when it was being created.

[dalekphalm]

What I'm saying is not if it should include it now, because that's already out the window, but they should have included the ability for 4k60 back when it was being created.

I must admit, I don't know why 4K60p would matter for a device like Apple TV, in which most content is filmed at 24p or 30p.

 

4K60p would be nice, no denying. But for a media consumption device, hardly necessary. 4K30p over HDMI 1 even is totally fine for non-gaming.

 

 

 

 

...

 

At least until HFR Blu-Ray home media-like content becomes a thing

[AlwaysFSX]

I must admit, I don't know why 4K60p would matter for a device like Apple TV, in which most content is filmed at 24p or 30p.

 

4K60p would be nice, no denying. But for a media consumption device, hardly necessary. 4K30p over HDMI 1 even is totally fine for non-gaming.

 

 

 

 

...

 

At least until HFR Blu-Ray home media-like content becomes a thing

I do believe it has the ability to use other media outlets such as YouTube that have 4k60 content on them, so some people are going to be missing out.

[dalekphalm]

I do believe it has the ability to use other media outlets such as YouTube that have 4k60 content on them, so some people are going to be missing out.

Fair enough. And Youtube 4K60p is exceptionally awesome for Video Game gameplay.

 

60p at all on YouTube is great. So much smoother and more natural looking.

[AlwaysFSX]

Fair enough. And Youtube 4K60p is exceptionally awesome for Video Game gameplay.

 

60p at all on YouTube is great. So much smoother and more natural looking.

See? Now you'd be missing out on all that goodness with the Apple TV.