Most Everything to Know About Apple TV 4K

The Apple TV 4K (5th generation) shipped on September 22, 2017. The 32 GB model is widely available online at Apple, Apple retail stores and Best Buy—to name a few. (Not Amazon, currently.). Physically, it is very similar to the 4th generation model. The difference is that it has ventilation slots on the bottom. In terms of the connectors on the back, they are exactly the same.

When I installed the Apple TV 4K, I simply unplugged the HDMI, power and Ethernet cables from the old unit and put the new unit in its place. (Later, I upgraded the HDMI cable from 2007.)

The Apple TV 4K. Image credit: Apple.

Notable Features

The 4th generation Apple TV (released in October, 2015) supported High Defintion (HD) at 1080p at 60 Hz. It only supported Standard Dynamic Range (SDR). A model with 32 GB RAM is still for sale at US$149.

The new Apple TV 4K brings this product well up-to-date.

• HDMI support moves from 1.4 to 2.0a with HDCP 2.2. HDCP is High Definition Copy Protection, essential for protected content.


• The Ethernet port has been upgraded to gigabit speed.


• Bluetooth has been upgraded from BT 4.0 to 5.0.


• Wi-Fi remains at 802.11ac with MIMO but adds both 2.4 and 5 GHz capability.


• The processor moves from an A8 to an A10X.


• UHD video (3840 x 2160p) is supported at 60 Hz. There is HDR support for Dolby Vision (Profile 5) and HDR10.


• Audio support remains the same at AC-3 (Dolby Digital 5.1) and E-AC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound). There is a report that a future upgrade will support Dolby Atmos.

Rear panel. Image credit: Apple

Purchasing Sequence

If you buy an Apple TV 4K before you get a new 4K/UHD TV, it will detect that the best picture the TV can accept is HD and auto-select 1080p (or 720p/1080i if the HDTV is older). You won’t have to worry about the Apple TV selecting a video mode your current (HDMI-based) TV can’t handle.

Setup

Early in the setup process, if you have an iPhone running iOS 9.1 or later, you’ll be invited to place the unlocked iPhone very close to the Apple TV 4K. Less than hand’s width. It will then transfer your Apple ID credentials and whatever else is needed. This is a very helpful, stellar feature and speeds things up dramatically.

Single sign-on

The single sign-on feature is not limited to the Apple TV 4K. It’s also supported in the Apple TV (4th gen) and iOS. The feature, presented at setup, allows you to authenticate with your TV provider, and that authorization automatically extends to supported apps without having to sign into them separately. It’s very much a work in progress, and notably absent is Comcast/Xfinity support. Read about it from Apple.

If you don’t do this at setup, you can come back later. It’s in tvOS Settings > Accounts > TV Provider.

Primary Streaming Services

The Apple TV supports many subscription-based and free TV apps. Notable, for this short discussion, is Netflix, Hulu, CBS All Access, ESPN and many others. I’ll discuss these in a future article.

If you’re looking for the Amazon Prime Video app, you won’t find it. Back in June, at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), Tim Cook said that the app would be coming to Apple TV later this year. It still hasn’t appeared, and no one knows when it will be released. Meanwhile, the Apple TV/4K has been (again) removed from Amazon’s website. That’s not a good sign.

Meanwhile, you can always use your iPad/iPhone (which does have that Amazon app), and invoke AirPlay from the iOS device to the Apple TV. I’ve done that frequently.

Next page: the geek stuff. HDR, frame rates, chroma, reviews.

Scaling and Mode Switching

The Apple TV 4K includes a scaler. This is helpful when driving a 4K/UHD TV with 1080p (or less) content. Why Apple made this decision is a little unclear because any modern 4K/UHD TV will have its own scaler. It’s possible Apple wanted to make sure the user would get a consistent experience no matter which TV this very mobile device connects to.

Speaking of a consistent experience, that brings up a notable problem with tvOS 11.1. My Sony tech representative told me:

We tested the latest 4K Apple TV. The player outputted everything including 24p movies at 60p. The player also outputted everything in SDR or HDR regardless of native format. The goal was to eliminate the blank screen that occurs with switching between frame rates and formats (SDR, HDR) See: “Apple has a fix to one of the biggest issues with the Apple TV 4K.”

This had an adverse effect on picture quality. The latest Apple TV’s tvOS 11.2 update will allow the set-top box to automatically switch its display settings to match the native frame rate and dynamic range of a given video.

For best HDR performance, the user needs to go into the menu and verify following settings:

1. Format to “Match Dynamic Range and Match Frame Rate”

2. Chroma to “4:2:0”

There is a menu option to set the 4K Apple TV’s Chroma to 4:2:2 which I do not recommend because it raises the bit rate to nearly 18 Gbps but with the older firmware it also reduced the color depth to 8-bit which causes HDR color banding. I not have tested the 4K Apple TV after the latest update but when 24p was selected manually for 24p HDR content, the color was remained 8-bit at 4:2:2.

 

tvOS 11.2. Image credit: The Verge

The upshot is to upgrade immediately to tvOS 11.2 when it’s released. It’s due out any day now. You likely won’t be able to see the difference between a chroma of 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 (a property of the human eye) but you will see a better picture with 10-bit color (if your TV supports it).

Speaking of chroma, I tried driving the Apple to 4:2:2 when watching an iTunes movie. I saw a disruptive sparkle pattern, like many hundreds of little twinkling stars all across the display, not just the letterboxed video content. When I backed off to 4:2:0 the sparkles disappeared. I’m fairly sure my top-notch HDMI cables aren’t at fault. I noted that the Apple TV 4K had been in operation for over a week, continuously. Perhaps, as Sony suggested, the unit’s firmware is a bit stressed. Dare I say over-heated? A guess.

Just to be sure, I now turn off the Apple TV 4K every night with a power strip. I haven’t seen the sparkle pattern since that one incident. I noted also that the Apple TV 4K recently auto-reset itself to a chroma of 4:2:0 anyway. So there it will stay, and I am pleased with the video produced.

Great Reviews

Here are two very good, thorough reviews of the Apple TV 4K, just in case you’re hungry for even more details.

• Apple TV Review by Nilay Patel


• Apple TV 4K review by David Katzmaier

Final Notes

As you can see, 4K/UHD TV isn’t as effortless as it may seem. The deceptively simple 4K moniker brings with it a lot of underlying technology. Understanding it better will help you get the maximum performance out of your final Apple TV 4K system and avoid buyer’s remorse or disappointing, nagging incompatibilities.

Share this post