If that was the case they would say so at the keynote. That would actually generate more sales. I think the issue is 4k performance for games (but yes games could be forced to run in 1080 or 720). More likely issue with video decoder and cost of 4k hardware. But most likely the lack of established HDCP hardware chips. This is just so fresh, and I am sure studios want to lock all this down. I think they will do new hardware for 4k once it’s more mature. Probably throw in the high color standards and so on. . Just one year too early for 4k. I think this time next year all these standards will be set in stone, and hardware will be on the shelf to build these boxes in 4k at same price point. HDMI 2.0 and possibly DP will be added. If they are smart they will also add 4k tv tuner , which should be standard by then. That would actually get them in the door big time since no 4k tv now has the tuner, they only have 1080 tuners. 4k broadcasts are being tested as I type this. But nothing set in stone yet. Japan is actually doing 8k tests since 1995. Once 4k is set, TV stations have to upgrade and we see the same cycle happen when 1080 came out. But bottom line is this Apple TV is not bad. For those that don’t have any smart box connected to their TV, it’s either this or Roku from what I can see out there. Roku however also missed the mark in their recent update of the box. No fireworks from either. Just ok, this will hold you out for about a year or two. Then get a new one.
Looks like amazon answered apple with new 4k AFTV’s and AFTV sticks (available October 5th before the aTV4 coming in late October):
$50 AFTV stick
$100 AFTV
$140 AFTV gaming edition
Let the streaming box wars begin (or continue…).
While Amazon, Netflix and YouTube offer some 4K content, I’m curious what percentage of content is available in 4K on Netflix/Amazon? My guess is that it isn’t a lot at all. Less than 5% of the library at best?
Apple wouldn’t do 4K until two things can happen:
- WAY MORE CONTENT and they can provide an extensive catalogue of 4K content in the iTunes Store, which means that distributors need to make 4K titles available, something I’m sure they are working on. A lot of Apple customers would complain like crazy (I used to work there) if they released a 4K AppleTV that had barely any 4K content.
- when 4K TVs hit a higher market penetration 4K TVs are not in most homes, not by a long shot. Apple isn’t really a company interested in making a device for the TV you are thinking of buying in the next 3-4 years, or for a small segment of the market who already own 4K TVs.
Personally I would rather have a device that is future ready then the other way around. Second I would provide my own 4K content on my local plex media server or pull from shared servers with 4K content and use the plex for AFTV along side any 4K apps. For the amount of time it took apple to develop the aTV4 not having 4K is pretty disappointing. Once aTV’s have 4K I will consider it, until then I will be looking elsewhere since other products already have this feature. At the rate apple rolls out new aTV’s 8K will likely be here. I’m more concerned about picture quality then rotating a poster or app with the new aTV remote.
Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, but the one thing I haven’t seen mentioned by anyone yet is whether the new Plex app for the new AppleTV will be direct play or transcoding like the existing Roku/Chromecast/Plexconnect alternatives. I’m running Plexconnect via Openplex on an ATV3 in the bedroom, and the transcoding looks okay for watching TV at the end of the day, but the picture quality is not as clean as my living room setup, Plex HT on a Hackintosh. It’s really no contest.
In a nutshell I’m definitely buying the new AppleTV if it can do direct play from my Plex Media Server. But it’s limited to transcoding like all the other pucks and HDMI dongles, I’ll keep my ATV3, as I can’t see how the picture or sound would be improved if files still require on-the-fly transcoding.
Does anybody have the inside track on this? Thank you.
There is no “native” Plex client. And nobody knows if aTV4/Apple will allow to directplay anything over m4v - though according to some rumors, VLC is looking to bring its player to aTV4 as well.
I guess you have to wait and see…
Thanks baa. I’m hoping Apple’s opening up AppleTV to a new App Store means there’s hope for a native Plex app with direct play of m4v, MKV, et al. I’d even be happy to remux MKVs if it meant native playback. But as I said, transcoding is a deal breaker for me. It’s surprising to me that this issue doesn’t seem to concern anyone on this board, I’d think transcoding vs direct play would be the first thing prospective ATV4 buyers would want to know about for Plex.
The only other niggling issue for me is the lack of digital audio output on the new AppleTV. In my case I can just use my Pana plasma’s Toslink output to get digital audio into my surround system, but I can this as a deal breaker for other setups where the TV has built-in speakers but no digital output.
The funny thing is I got my mother-in-law a cheap Chromecast dongle and I guess because it’s so cheap and easy to use, I find its picture quality pretty amazing considering it’s streaming across the state over two home WiFi networks and transcoding down to Chromecast bitrates. But if I’m spending real money on a Plex client i.e. >$100, it better have direct play and it better look as good as if I played the native file locally in VLC right on the server.
If the ATV4 doesn’t allow for direct play Plex, I’m just going to sling together another cheap i3 Ivy Hackintosh and call it a day.
Looks like the new Amazon fire boxes support 264 and 265, so that is a good thing. 4k at 30fps a bummer, but still better than no 4k at all. Not sure about the Plex app on there. But then again, most movies are in 24fps so not a big deal. I’ll have to try one as an alternative to Roku. The game controllers are a plus for those that want to play basic games but don’t want to dish out for a PS4 or Xbox. Might get one of these to test it out. I suppose this is a very good option for those that have a 4k monitor (dumb TV) with HDCP 2.2 support. It needs HDCP 2.2 to output 4k.
At this point I’m pretty certain that whatever flavor of Plex winds up in the new AppleTV app store, it will be more like the existing iOS Plex app than Plex Home Theater on a Mac. So, the Plex Media Server will transcode all media on the fly to a lesser quality than the original file. I just don’t see Apple letting a 3rd party app, even from an existing and popular developer, direct play previously unsupported formats and wrappers like MKVs, AVIs, VOBs, etc. I would love to be wrong about this, but my guess is Plex on the new AppleTV will be like running the iOS app on a set top box. Picture quality will be no better than if you just “flung” movies from your Plex server to an ATV3, which you can buy today, from Apple, for 59 bucks.
Which is a bummer, because what I really want is an inexpensive puck that direct plays from my Plex server. That’s all I want. I don’t want to use my phone or tablet to “fling” content over to the puck, and I don’t want to take painstakingly encoded high-res films and run them through a YouTubeizer so they can play back on the puck. I want the picture quality of a Mac running Plex Home Theater but without the expense and hardware overkill of a Mac. I was hoping the new AppleTV would be that solution but the more I look into it, the less I think it’s going to fit the bill. Best-case, it’ll be officially-sanctioned and easily installed Plex on a puck, with the same 2nd-best video quality as all the other must-transcode clients.
If I’m wrong about this and the new AppleTV has a direct play Plex app, I’ll buy two immediately. But I have a feeling I’ll be replacing the ATV3 in our bedroom with another Hackintosh Plex box instead of the new AppleTV.
@Allan68 said:
Hmm… that’s just lunch money for the month at work lol
i agree and disagree on the changes, slow and fast.
it all depends. the jump from 720p (yay) to 1080p (unhackable, boo), was pretty quick (you can argue whether or not this was big or small, fast or slow). i think apple is finally pushing tvos out of “hobby” mode into contender mode. they’ve been watching amazon and google (and probably snickering at roku) and finally have a plan of attack. games. smart channels. are gonna blow this thing up.
the end of the day for apple is user experience. they’ll do 1080p 'til they can deliver 4k in style (which is content, bandwidth and more).
Roku 4 seems to be the way to go. 4K at 60fps and upscale of all content built in. One can get away with a dumb TV now.
Would you go roku 4 over the new AFTV/AFTV stick? Can Roku 4 do kodi or other side loaded apps. Never tried one myself…
I hear you on sideload of apps. What I was going after is out of box, easy to setup, no hacking required approach. I mean the ultimate setup is to have an PC connected. But for a basic users , using official apps and official Plex app, Roku 4 seems to be the deal. It’s probably the best bang for buck from what I see. I have Roku 3’s and they are only item attached to two dumb TV’s. Also the new Roku 4 can play the MKV’s and 4k files direct! Unlike the old Roku 3’s that didn’t have the 265 264 support. So you can get the Roku media player and play the files directly from an attached USB drive, no need for Kodi or Plex. However for kids and family use , official Plex app is easier to use. The headphone on remote and app store is good. I just wish Plex worked the crap out of supporting hardware more directly. Roku voice or no voice search will probably never work, not Plex’s fault. It’s just near impossible. But for my gift giving list it’s Roku 4 as of now. Before Roku 4 was announced I would vote for Amazon’s 4k player, but that only does 30fps at 4k. So They lost there. If you want sideloads then yes, Amazon. For 4k playback lookslike Roku hardware is better. I do have to add that the Nvidia Shield is a close second if not a tie, but lacks the Amazon app support.
Roku makes a nice box but the hardware and software are not as refined in terms of design and user experience as even the current AppleTV, much less the new and improved one coming in Nov. I’ve had a few Rokus and while they’re perfectly fine for getting content from a Plex server onto a TV, the UX is a bit of a letdown from PHT on PC hardware or PlexConnect on an ATV.
What’s this “only 30fps” stuff and why is that somehow a bummer? 60fps video looks beyond soap opera bad, and in any event no Hollywood films are shot at 60fps, not even the high frame rate Hobbit trilogy, which looked bad enough at 48fps. If anything, the hope is that the new AppleTV and the new Plex app for it will do a better job with 24p material than the current offerings.
Don’t get me wrong, Roku makes a great bang for the buck set top box. It streams practically everything out there, and it’s the cheapest OOTB Plex client for the non-hacker. But the quality of the hardware, the UI, and the remote is not at Apple’s level, which is why $150 for the new AppleTV is such a compelling thought if the new Plex app is indeed native (direct play) and not just the iOS always-transcoding app ported over to tvOS.
I agree about movies not being shot in 60fps. Heck, most of it is at 23.7 or whatever the fractional 24 is. But it’s just one of those things, like why limit future content? If you are going to dish out money for one box, might as well get the one that is a little future proof. Like at least a year? I don’t think 8k will be out anytime soon. Hardware that can handle 4k at 60 shows me that it will kick ass at the 24 or 30fps stuff with no stutter at higher bit rates. The core problem with 4k is content and internet speed. You really need at least 25mbps for anything to play in 4k on a stream. One note: Roku only does YouTube in 30fps, Nvidia Shield can do YT in 60fps. I have to say I am now torn between the Nvidia Shield and Roku 4k. I might get both! 
I agree Apple has it’s appeal, but for those that look under the hood, Apple really blew it on the hardware side. No 4k support even at 30fps killed apple TV IMO. Don’t get me as some apple basher. I have Iphones and Ipads. I think the HDMI port on the Apple TV could support 4k at 30. But not sure if they will enable this. That was a big miss. Even if it was one of those software update issues, they would have mentioned it at the keynote (*4k support with future update) This X-mas season everybody will jump on 4k especially if Comcast and others release the receivers that will do 4k. Once you do 4k there is no going back. It really does look a lot better on 65 inches or larger. (if you are getting a TV smaller than 55 then hard to justify 4k especially if you sit at distance) I think over time with new 4k cable receivers and perhaps (one hopes) better bit rates with the streaming apps 4k will be even better. Live TV at 4k standard is the other thing holding it back, people are like why get 4k if TV broadcast is only 1080?.
I think you’re getting a bit ahead of yourself. 4K is by no means a slam dunk yet - broadcasters haven’t even gotten up to speed on proper 1080p yet, and the vast majority of homes lack the bandwidth, hardware, and even just faint interest in 4K. It’s a marketing feature to get people to buy a new TV at this point, nothing more. Forget the utter lack of program material - the infrastructure just isn’t there in the US and won’t be for many years. Because you can download a 4K clip and watch it on a computer doesn’t mean 4K is the new HD. And frankly, I’ll take high quality 1080p over highly compressed 4K any day. Most demos I’ve seen starve the 4K so badly to fit into bandwidth channels that you’re better off allocating that data to great 1080p.
65" or larger TVs? How many people do you know who buy TVs that big? Again, I think we’re getting into video geek fantasy vs. market reality. 4K is the least of my concerns when considering whether to buy the new AppleTV solely for a Plex client, or build another Hackintosh Plex box.
Higher resolution is not always what wins in the market. Years ago the CE industry came out with two super audio formats to kill off the CD - SACD and DVD-Audio. Both had better specs, better measured performance, 24-bit 96kHz audio, and consumers did a collective yawn because they couldn’t hear the difference even when they wanted to. Even hardcore audiophiles conceded the difference just wasn’t audible. What ended up killing the CD? Measurably inferior and lower resolution formats like MP3 and AAC.
I’m not saying 4K is the next SACD. But I am saying that I could give a rat’s about 4K, especially as it pertains to the new AppleTV. And who buys a set top box for life? Who’s still rocking the original AppleTV with the laptop hard drive inside? Or the original Roku? We upgrade these boxes every few years. By the time 4K is a real thing to worry about, if it ever becomes that, trust me, Apple will have you covered. Until then, good clean 1080p is still king.
Ok, I’d take any uncompressed format over anything over compressed. Yes full throttle 1080p is not bad. But what I meant about 65 inch 4k is true. Even when 10 to 15 feet back from TV. And it if was smaller than that I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. But there is a clear difference, day and night actually. I played 1080 and 4k clips back to back and it’s very clearly an impact. Even with compressed YouTube videos are very different in 4k. There is some rule about this, but it all depends on how far back you are from the TV. There is a relationship between screen size and resolution and how far back one is. There is a point at which it’s hard to tell what resolution the image is at. I agree that 4k is not fully ready. I think the bandwidth of most homes will not be sufficient for 4k. But the data speeds are going up and the cost is staying same and sometimes even going down. As more and more copper is replaced with fiber the faster this will become. More and more people get faster connections. The magic of 4k only shows when you have a fast connection since anything slow will buffer a lot or play at a reduced 1080 as most of the streaming apps do that on the fly and automatically adjust the resolution. As I watch Netflix 4k I can see clearly the points at which the video increases resolution as it buffers and kicks in the next level of resolution. Same goes with Amazon. And as 4k kicks in it’s like wow, like someone with bad vision just had glasses put on.
Unlike other tech fails, I don’t think 4k will fade away. It will change and evolve and take time to become the standard. Movies have been filed in 4k or higher for a while, so the 4k disks will be out soon and higher bit rate of these will make 4k shine even more. Even the Apple IPhone 6S line is now filming in 4k@30fps. I know I will film important events in this format. Maybe action stuff in 1080 60 or 120fps.
I never implied we need to hold onto these boxed for more than a year. I suggested at least a year, since most people don’t really want to change tech that often and can’t justify tossing things every 6 months.
If anything will fade it will be 3D, as it’s doing now anyway. 3D will never work with current stereo image tech. This is stuff that has been around for over 100 years. The format is just different. The only way it will work is if allows multiple focus points. The tech is not there yet, probably a holographic in nature tech will do the trick. I have actually made holograms , and that is the only way 3D will work without giving people headaches and vision issues. But that’s like 20 to 25 generation of apple TV from now. And some leap in holographic motion picture recording and playback.
ED: here is the future: http://news.discovery.com/tech/holographic-3d-tv.htm
Still going with a future proof client if I have a 4k TV or not yet. I’m not going to buy a aTV every few years just like every other iOS device they like to slow roll you into for more revenue. 4K tv’s are already reasonable and buying a 2K device is not future proofing your home and @ the rate of technology, video gaming systems already running 4k along with computers its still a deal breaker and pretty sad that other clients can simply include a 4K output regardless of fps but apple did not again to sell you the next “The new aTV” just like they marketed “The New iPad” and look now how many more iPads and other iOS devices have been released with better specs. They need to concentrate on future proofing not revenue. I will be skipping this old technology 2K client. If they want a chance in the TV client war to be a real competitor they need 4K now not later and anyone buying into this revenue 2K client might as well throw money down the toilet when Amazon or roku has 4K already and apple will gladly sell you another “New aTV” to make more revenue off of you. They may have gotten me in the past with wanting the latest and greatest iOS devices but patience has proven to be key with iOS devices if that is your device of choice. If you want to buy one have at it, my personal preference is and always will be future proofing as much as I can and in my opinion this 2K aTV is anything but. Why on earth would you want a device only with half the resolution of 2160P? Out with the old 1080P, 4K is where it’s @. If you really believe aTV3s can’t handle tvos to a certain degree then you really have bought into apples sell you a new product trap. Limiting firmware is just another marketing scheme, sure it wouldn’t run as smooth as a aTV4 but you can bet if they offered a upgrade option our atv3’s could utilize tvos to a certain degree.
If you’re worried about “future proofing” when it comes to CE, you’re better off changing your hobby to stamp collecting because there’s never been such a thing as “future proof” when it comes to video. The industry is based on drumming up new and irrelevant features to make consumers feel underserved by the expensive hardware they bought only last year. Remember when 120Hz TVs were all the rage at Best Buy, even though it did nothing at all to improve picture quality and actually degraded the experience by making 24p film look like interlaced soap operas? But 120 is a higher number than 60 so it had to be better.
Consumers are largely ignorant of technology, and the manufacturers know that, so every year you see new buzzwords fed to the “tech press” to make people feel like they’re missing the boat unless they “future proof” their system by buying a new 120Hz or 3D TV, or a 4K set top box, or 10.2 surround. Except the actual experience usually gets worse because consumers are also cheap, so they go for the $150 10.2 receiver and the $400 65" 4K LCD, which certainly hit those new numbers but don’t deliver better A/V quality than the perfectly good ten year-old 5.1 receiver and five year-old 50" plasma, and a year later the same people will be dumping this stuff for cheap 8K Korean TVs and 20.5 receivers made with car stereo amp chips, all in the name of “future proofing”.
If you’re caught in this endless cycle of feeling bad about your current setup because the industry keeps telling you to, that’s a shame. I have a great two year-old 1080p Panasonic plasma, a 10+ year-old Harman 5.1 receiver, and with a Plex’d Mac running the show, I’ve been doing this for a long enough time to know that things just aren’t going to blow away the experience I enjoy in my living room any time soon.
4K as it is now and will be for at least a few more years is for suckers - any purchasing/planning decision based on 4K at this point is misguided, unless you spend your time watching 4K demos downloaded from the net, and plant yourself a few feet from the glass. No broadcaster is remotely interested in upping their bandwidth to give you better looking 4K. They don’t even care about giving you clean 1080p today. Instead, all the movement at NAB is about higher and higher compression schemes for 4K, so they can deliver it with the same stingy bandwidth. This is how broadcast (and I include streaming delivery here) has always been, and always will be. There is no utopian future of pristine 16K waiting for you if you just promise to be a good dog and buy new TVs and set top boxes every year. Only bigger buzzword numbers for consumers, and lots more lossy compression on the back end to make the whole thing fly with the cheapest possible cost per eyeball.
I am by no means anti-progress. There is certainly room for improvement when it comes to home theater. 1080p is not as high resolution as 35mm film. But I do feel that 1080p may in fact be the high water mark, where quality finally got good enough that further resolution increases were no longer perceptually significant enough to consumers in a typical home viewing scenario. Like 16-bit 44.1kHz CD is where audio got so good people signed off on it as problem solved, let’s move on to the next thing that needs fixing. Even when audio got slightly worse with MP3 and iTunes AAC, it didn’t, really, because most people, even experts, can’t hear the difference. Between LP and CD, yes, obvious differences. CD and MP3, not really.
And that’s how it is with 4K. In a controlled demo at NAB, with raw 4K footage from an Alexa on a huge cinema screen in a trade show hall, 4K looks better than 1080p. But in a living room, 10 feet away, on a 50" TV most consumers top out out, and with the 4K compressed to fit the same bitrate as 720p, forget 1080p? Not a deal breaker. Certainly not worth fretting over whether this year’s AppleTV is 4K ready.
If you’re a spec geek and you watch your TV instead of the movies displayed on it, then yes, 4K and all the other BS the industry’s feeding you this year in the run-up to Black Friday is tantalizing. If you’re like me and you’ve already got a great 1080p playback system that lets movies look and sound like movies, it’s hard to get excited by all this nonsense. Instead, I just want to know if I can stop building little i3 Plex boxes for my TVs and just get the new AppleTV and be done with it. If it gets a new Plex app with direct play, the answer is yes.
Most people don’t buy TV’s every year like some people buy Iphones. Just saying if your TV explodes, or you need a new one don’t limit yourself. 4K TV’s are cheap now. But anything less than 60 inch of 65 inch you are wasting money, just get 1080 unless you are using it at a monitor for a PC. No I do not site in front of it, that is why it has to be so large. If one needs a monitor there are 4k and 5k monitors out there in smaller sizes. But it’s not hype like the refresh wars are, for example my TV says 240Hz but found out it’s really 120. So yea most people are aware of that. Those 120’s you refer to where all fake trickery. But 4k is not a trick, content is there. And now with boxes like the Roku4 that have built in upscale, you don’t even have to worry about the smart features on the TV, just as long as HDCP 2.2 is supported. You can just rotate boxes if they change, no need to get a new TV when the next streaming app comes and TV doesn’t have a download for it.
Side note, If you replace that Plasma with a modern 4k TV, it will pay for itself within a year on electrical savings. Did you ever see how many watt’s that plasma uses? You are better off with a modern ISP screen even at 1080. A 50 inch version of that will pay for itself sooner due to just the power savings. That is progress and not a Black Friday gimmick.
