Apple TV 4K - HDR issue.

macropanda

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Hi everyone

I have the new Apple TV and I’m incredibly disappointed in the way HDR has been implemented.

On other 4K/HDR devices I have the entire OS stays in SDR and then if a HDR or Dolby Vision video is presented the tv switches to the relevant settings and everything always looks great.

With Apple TV you have to set it to the setting your tv can handle and leave it there.
I have set my TV to 30fps Dolby Vision and while Dolby Vision movies look great. Everything else looks terrible.

SDR content looks unsaturated with the brights being too bright and the darks being too dark.

The menu screen is even worse. No vibrant colours and the whites all look orange. The YouTube logo is a very dull red etc.

The flyover wallpapers are similar. The one in Dubai daytime.... everything that is white turns a horrible purple. If I go to tv settings and change the white balance a little warmer it improves this screensaver but when going back to the menu it looks horrendous with the whole screen looking orange.

The only way to make viewing the majority of the content is to leave it on SDR the whole time and manually switch to HDR or Dolby Vision as and when is needed. But this doesn’t seem like something I should have to do with an Apple product.

Is anyone else feeling the same way?
 

Eclipse2K

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Oh man I feel your pain! I had to buy a Roku Ultra because the Netflix app does the exact thing you describe on Xbox One S. No other apps have this issue and I’m sad to hear Apple TV does because I was looking into buying one.
 

Eclipse2K

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I just noticed the PS4 enabled HDR on Netflix and the issue you’re speaking of is happening there now too. As of now it seems Apple TV 4K, Xbox One S and PS4 are having the issue for some reason. Roku Premier/Ultra works as intended as does The Nvidia Shield.
 

GibMcFragger

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I've had that issue since day 1 on with Netflix on my XBOX One S. Netflix is unwatchable for any content that is not in HDR. It's too dark, and the colours look like washed out crap.

The AppleTV 4K however, even though it's always in HDR mode, looks fine in non HDR content for me.
On my TV, the AppleTV content that is not HDR (which is most content), looks awesome.

I know HDR is working, because I have rented a couple movies in HDR, and they look incredible.
Maybe it's only an issue on some TV sets.

It's exhibiting the exact same "always on HDR" issue as Netflix on my XBOX, BUT the actual content doesn't look like it's forcing HDR on the AppleTV, like it does on the XBOX One S.
 

Eclipse2K

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I've had that issue since day 1 on with Netflix on my XBOX One S. Netflix is unwatchable for any content that is not in HDR. It's too dark, and the colours look like washed out crap.

The AppleTV 4K however, even though it's always in HDR mode, looks fine in non HDR content for me.
On my TV, the AppleTV content that is not HDR (which is most content), looks awesome.

I know HDR is working, because I have rented a couple movies in HDR, and they look incredible.
Maybe it's only an issue on some TV sets.

It's exhibiting the exact same "always on HDR" issue as Netflix on my XBOX, BUT the actual content doesn't look like it's forcing HDR on the AppleTV, like it does on the XBOX One S.

Exactly, I sent these images to Xbox to show the issue. My Roku and apparently Apple TV don’t have these issues. If someone sees this happening with Apple TV go ahead and report it.

HDR Activated on non HDR

f71002457592cf175a7076b7336e4903.jpg


HDR disabling as it should.

51ed8c9f6b2f6f37f0fd44b097addbf2.jpg
 

Eclipse2K

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I watched a review by The Verge for the Apple TV 4K and they weren’t too impressed. For a high priced box, it’s missing Dolby Atmos which may not effect many (including myself) but it does effect some. Plus, for some reason their box is upscaling all content to 4K (maybe HDR too) so the blacks become crushed. I’ve noticed that the Xbox One S does this too when you plug a cable box into the HDMI IN port which is why I don’t use the console as an all in one hub. Hopefully this issue is fixed on Apple TV because the degradation of the picture isn’t acceptable. The other major point is that YouTube doesn’t accept HDR 4K signals which is disappointing considering every other device seems to do so.
 

GibMcFragger

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I watched a review by The Verge for the Apple TV 4K and they weren’t too impressed. For a high priced box, it’s missing Dolby Atmos which may not effect many (including myself) but it does effect some. Plus, for some reason their box is upscaling all content to 4K (maybe HDR too) so the blacks become crushed. I’ve noticed that the Xbox One S does this too when you plug a cable box into the HDMI IN port which is why I don’t use the console as an all in one hub. Hopefully this issue is fixed on Apple TV because the degradation of the picture isn’t acceptable. The other major point is that YouTube doesn’t accept HDR 4K signals which is disappointing considering every other device seems to do so.
I believe the issue with Youtube is on Google's end. They won't allow HDR output to anything but a Chromecast device.

I have watching a ton of content so far on my AppleTV 4K, both 4K HDR/non HDR and 1080P. Everything from Apple (movies, TV, etc) looks great, as well at Netflix. I was watching an NHL game via the NHL app yesterday, and it looked terrible. Because my TV is in HDR mode all the time due to the AppleTV, the backlight and contrast are jacked, and the hockey (being so white) was blown out.

It think the only reason AppleTV 4K non HDR content is bearable on my Panasonic, is that my TV barely qualifies as an HDR TV. I had to manually flash an update from Panasonic to enable it, as they never released the HDR patch over the air.

Off topic: I have a 2008 Panasonic plasma that works as good as the day I bought it, so I jumped on a deal on a Panasonic 4K TV. Man, do I regret it. They abandoned the Firefox OS it runs, and the HDR update they only put out because people jumped on them for advertising it as an HDR TV, when it barely qualifies. The picture quality is awesome for normal TV and 4K, but HDR and support is a joke.
 

Eclipse2K

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I believe the issue with Youtube is on Google's end. They won't allow HDR output to anything but a Chromecast device.

I have watching a ton of content so far on my AppleTV 4K, both 4K HDR/non HDR and 1080P. Everything from Apple (movies, TV, etc) looks great, as well at Netflix. I was watching an NHL game via the NHL app yesterday, and it looked terrible. Because my TV is in HDR mode all the time due to the AppleTV, the backlight and contrast are jacked, and the hockey (being so white) was blown out.

It think the only reason AppleTV 4K non HDR content is bearable on my Panasonic, is that my TV barely qualifies as an HDR TV. I had to manually flash an update from Panasonic to enable it, as they never released the HDR patch over the air.

Off topic: I have a 2008 Panasonic plasma that works as good as the day I bought it, so I jumped on a deal on a Panasonic 4K TV. Man, do I regret it. They abandoned the Firefox OS it runs, and the HDR update they only put out because people jumped on them for advertising it as an HDR TV, when it barely qualifies. The picture quality is awesome for normal TV and 4K, but HDR and support is a joke.

The NHL issue sounds more like an app developer issue. I say this because as you can see from my images above Netflix does the same thing on Xbox One S and PS4 Pro. My Roku Ultra, however, is capable of switching HDR on and off with Netflix so the image isn’t dull and washed out. I’ve brought these issues to the attention of both Xbox and Netflix and was given the runaround so I don’t expect a fix anytime soon if at all.

As for YouTube, I guess you’re right. I heard him say there is no 4K HDR so I assumed he meant 4K or HDR. My Roku supposed 4K but I don’t recall seeing any HDR content but that in itself doesn’t bother me. The thing that does bother me with the Apple TV is that you’re experiencing some HDR issues that caused me to not use my Xbox One S in the first place. In my case, it’s unbearable as my Sony Bravia XBR 55” 930D has HDR10 built in and while the colors on HDR content look great on NETFLIX other content that doesn’t support it on there look awful.

I am all for technology upgrades but when the so called upgrade makes a small amount of content look great but 99% of it look bad, why even bother? Luckily I am able to solve the issue by using another device but it’s not an ideal solution. I did try one more solution which involves switching my HDR mode on my Bravia to HDR VIVID which made the content look as it should. However, while the colors were still fairly realistic, the brighter colors popped too much and sort of ruined the HDR experience for me. However, my friend that loves vivid pictures wouldn’t use HDR until I found this setting. To each their own I guess.

By the way, you say your Apple TV is in HDR constantly? That’s the reason the Netflix application on Xbox One S acts up. The console itself isn’t in HDR until a game or applications asks for it. Netflix asks to do so upon start up and never turns off so all content looks terrible. The correct way for HDR to work is that it never turns on until an episode, movie or game asks it to. By defaulting to always on HDR it tends to ruin the picture for 99% of the content.
 

GibMcFragger

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The NHL issue sounds more like an app developer issue. I say this because as you can see from my images above Netflix does the same thing on Xbox One S and PS4 Pro. My Roku Ultra, however, is capable of switching HDR on and off with Netflix so the image isn’t dull and washed out. I’ve brought these issues to the attention of both Xbox and Netflix and was given the runaround so I don’t expect a fix anytime soon if at all.

As for YouTube, I guess you’re right. I heard him say there is no 4K HDR so I assumed he meant 4K or HDR. My Roku supposed 4K but I don’t recall seeing any HDR content but that in itself doesn’t bother me. The thing that does bother me with the Apple TV is that you’re experiencing some HDR issues that caused me to not use my Xbox One S in the first place. In my case, it’s unbearable as my Sony Bravia XBR 55” 930D has HDR10 built in and while the colors on HDR content look great on NETFLIX other content that doesn’t support it on there look awful.

I am all for technology upgrades but when the so called upgrade makes a small amount of content look great but 99% of it look bad, why even bother? Luckily I am able to solve the issue by using another device but it’s not an ideal solution. I did try one more solution which involves switching my HDR mode on my Bravia to HDR VIVID which made the content look as it should. However, while the colors were still fairly realistic, the brighter colors popped too much and sort of ruined the HDR experience for me. However, my friend that loves vivid pictures wouldn’t use HDR until I found this setting. To each their own I guess.

By the way, you say your Apple TV is in HDR constantly? That’s the reason the Netflix application on Xbox One S acts up. The console itself isn’t in HDR until a game or applications asks for it. Netflix asks to do so upon start up and never turns off so all content looks terrible. The correct way for HDR to work is that it never turns on until an episode, movie or game asks it to. By defaulting to always on HDR it tends to ruin the picture for 99% of the content.
Apple chose to make it always on HDR mode, so we wouldn't have to wait that one second for it to switch over every time we watched something in HDR.

Even though it acts like my XBOX One S Netflix and it's always in HDR mode, non HDR content looks fine on my AppleTV, whereas it looks like crap on my XBOX One S.

I am thinking that the AppleTV is doing something to the output so that normal content looks fine. Apple made the AppleTV 4K set the TV to HDR mode all the time on purpose, and they know that non HDR content looks horrid when HDR is forced. 1080P and 4K non HDR content looks fine on the AppleTV, so they must have done some kind of wizardry to compensate.
 

Eclipse2K

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Apple chose to make it always on HDR mode, so we wouldn't have to wait that one second for it to switch over every time we watched something in HDR.

Even though it acts like my XBOX One S Netflix and it's always in HDR mode, non HDR content looks fine on my AppleTV, whereas it looks like crap on my XBOX One S.

I am thinking that the AppleTV is doing something to the output so that normal content looks fine. Apple made the AppleTV 4K set the TV to HDR mode all the time on purpose, and they know that non HDR content looks horrid when HDR is forced. 1080P and 4K non HDR content looks fine on the AppleTV, so they must have done some kind of wizardry to compensate.

I think it may disable HDR when necessary to be honest. Not sure how because that’s how my Roku works too. The content looks great yet I don’t get that “flip” when I choose HDR or non HDR content. On Xbox, I get the flip. I don’t mind the delay though and wish companies would just do it if it’s necessary (looking at you a Xbox...)
 

Eclipse2K

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Apple chose to make it always on HDR mode, so we wouldn't have to wait that one second for it to switch over every time we watched something in HDR.

Even though it acts like my XBOX One S Netflix and it's always in HDR mode, non HDR content looks fine on my AppleTV, whereas it looks like crap on my XBOX One S.

I am thinking that the AppleTV is doing something to the output so that normal content looks fine. Apple made the AppleTV 4K set the TV to HDR mode all the time on purpose, and they know that non HDR content looks horrid when HDR is forced. 1080P and 4K non HDR content looks fine on the AppleTV, so they must have done some kind of wizardry to compensate.

I just bought an Apple TV 4K and I can honestly say HDR is enabled on all content and definitely takes some brightness away. But like you said it doesn’t seem to impact it in the same way as the Xbox One S. It’s almost as if the image is dimmer on a show like Family Guy but also higher quality. It’s odd but definitely superior to Xbox.

Edit: I’m actually liking the Apple TV. The colors are excellent but don’t display so bright that I want to have auto dimming on. Definitely happy so far but I’ll know more for sure as the days go on. Going to sell my Roku Ultra to my best friend for about $40 so it’ll help cover some of the $180 here. I’m now an iPhone 7, Apple Watch S3 and Apple TV 4K user. Go figure...
 
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Eclipse2K

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Well, I’m changing my mind. The HDR activated on all content isn’t great and definitely not ideal. While it’s better than my Xbox it’s still leaving a lot to be desired. But that’s okay, hopefully they address it later on. As of now, I’m just going to set it to 4K SDR since I rarely watch HDR content anyways. I couldn’t do this on my Xbox One S because I play a lot of games in HDR so I refused to compromise there.

Still love the Apple TV though.
 

Rob Phillips

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The #1 complaint I hear is how the Apple TV tries to up-convert everything to 4K and makes it look terrible. Hopefully Apple adds a toggle to disable automatic up-converting in the near future.
 

zinity

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I have my Apple TV settings set to 4K HDR 60 4:2:0. When I have it set to 4:2:2 everything looks like crap. I have a Samsung JS9000 which is HDR compatible. One thing that I find really annoying is the HDR/ Dolby Vision tags. In the built in Netflix app on my tv it displays HDR tag on HDR shows but on the Apple TV is displays Dolby Vision, I don’t know what’s happening, am I still getting the proper HDR or apples fake up conversation? Same thing with iTunes movies some say HDR while Most say Dolby Vision. My tv is HDR10 only so am I not getting any HDR?
 

Eclipse2K

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I have my Apple TV settings set to 4K HDR 60 4:2:0. When I have it set to 4:2:2 everything looks like crap. I have a Samsung JS9000 which is HDR compatible. One thing that I find really annoying is the HDR/ Dolby Vision tags. In the built in Netflix app on my tv it displays HDR tag on HDR shows but on the Apple TV is displays Dolby Vision, I don’t know what’s happening, am I still getting the proper HDR or apples fake up conversation? Same thing with iTunes movies some say HDR while Most say Dolby Vision. My tv is HDR10 only so am I not getting any HDR?

I think you are getting HDR10. I assumed, which I know is dangerous at times, that Ultra HD 4K means HDR when using Apple TV since HDR is always enabled. Dolby Vision is also showing because it’s enabled but not necessarily running unless your TV supports it. I know this is different from other devices which say HDR but I do notice shows do have HDR enabled regardless. However, due to the HDR always on degrading the quality of 99.9% of the content I watch I turned HDR off. I can always enable HDR when I want to use it or use my XBOX ONE as I always have HDR enabled there.
 

ZenMoment

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I think you are getting HDR10. I assumed, which I know is dangerous at times, that Ultra HD 4K means HDR when using Apple TV since HDR is always enabled. Dolby Vision is also showing because it’s enabled but not necessarily running unless your TV supports it. I know this is different from other devices which say HDR but I do notice shows do have HDR enabled regardless. However, due to the HDR always on degrading the quality of 99.9% of the content I watch I turned HDR off. I can always enable HDR when I want to use it or use my XBOX ONE as I always have HDR enabled there.

The Apple TV 4K converts the Dolby Vision content to HDR10 and does a really bad job of it from some of the reviews i've seen. Personally its so bad on my Samsung screen i've just resorted to turning off HDR on the Apple TV.

You can see exactly what the Apple TV is doing by enabling the Developer menu and turning on the heads up display option, then you'll be able to see the source video is really Dolby Vision but the Apple TV is outputting HDR10 metadata.

There is a new feature coming in tvOS 11.2 that finally does what they should have done from the start, and auto switches to the optimum frame rate and dynamic range depending on the content being watched, so everything not streamed in 60Hz HDR when the source is 24Hz SDR.
 

Eclipse2K

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The Apple TV 4K converts the Dolby Vision content to HDR10 and does a really bad job of it from some of the reviews i've seen. Personally its so bad on my Samsung screen i've just resorted to turning off HDR on the Apple TV.

You can see exactly what the Apple TV is doing by enabling the Developer menu and turning on the heads up display option, then you'll be able to see the source video is really Dolby Vision but the Apple TV is outputting HDR10 metadata.

There is a new feature coming in tvOS 11.2 that finally does what they should have done from the start, and auto switches to the optimum frame rate and dynamic range depending on the content being watched, so everything not streamed in 60Hz HDR when the source is 24Hz SDR.

Glad to hear about 11.2 because 11.1 didn’t address it. Actually it made it worse as the frame rate is off.

Edit: I downloaded the beta and it doesn’t do as it claims. The wording does sound like the developers such as Netflix and Hulu will have the option to enable it though. But that doesn’t sound promising because Netflix still denies any issues on XBOX and PS4

Edit 2: Okay, so there is a setting in the beta called “Match Content”. If you enable this, it does indeed work as intended and HDR is activated by default for all of the menus but disabled on non HDR programming. You must go to Settings and click the link to it as it’s not in the same area as resolution settings. I’ve tested this on Netflix and FXNOW and it’s been flawless. Thank you, Apple!
 
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