Apple TV 4K official (3 Viewers)

[Josh Steinberg]

I’m really frustrated with something on the 4K APTV and I don’t know if it’s something I’m doing wrong or just a shortcoming in the system.

I’m potentially interested in purchasing some seasons of CSI and 24 from iTunes that I’m missing on disc, or which are only on DVD but are HD on iTunes. However, for the life of me, I cannot see audio format displayed anywhere when I look at the listings for those shows and seasons in the iTunes Store. I’m only interested in purchasing if they come with 5.1 audio. If it’s stereo only I’d pass. But it just doesn’t seem to say anywhere.

 

[Robert Crawford]

If it doesn't say it's in 5.1 then it's probably not in 5.1.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

If it doesn't say it's in 5.1 then it's probably not in 5.1.

That’s somewhat surprising as these shows were both broadcast in 5.1 and on DVD in 5.1.

From a little bit of browsing I did on iTunes, no TV show listings that I can find display audio info. Even things totally brand new. Whereas most of the movies on iTunes do display that.

 

[Robert Crawford]

That’s somewhat surprising as these shows were both broadcast in 5.1 and on DVD in 5.1.

From a little bit of browsing I did on iTunes, no TV show listings that I can find display audio info. Even things totally brand new. Whereas most of the movies on iTunes do display that.

Josh,

I don't have a ton of TV stuff on iTunes so I'll play around to see if I can pull up audio information on any of them. The Looming Tower and Luther were definitely in 5.1 audio when they originally appeared on TV.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I have some weirdness with TV Shows on the ATV4K, as well. In my case, through the "TV Shows in iTunes" app the Game of Thrones seasons 1-7 that I own all show up, but if I go through the Apple TV app it only indicates that I own seasons 1,3,4 and 5. When we were re-watching the series, the Apple TV app would show the proper "next episode" on the main screen for the "missing" seasons, but if I tried to watch the episode through that interface I was asked to buy the episode, as if I didn't own it. I had to watch via the "TV Shows in iTunes" app.

Watching this series via the TV Shows app would not keep track of which episode we had last watched, either, so I had to scroll through all the episodes to get back to where we had left off. This doesn't happen with the TV Show Cheers -- Apple properly keeps track of where we left off there, and I bought the entire series of that via iTunes. The Game of Thrones sets were acquired via digital codes from the BD releases, though.

 

[Cranston37+]

I’ve been having an issue with the mlb app on my Atv.

I keep the scores hidden because I often start watching a game after it already started and start from the beginning. So obviously I don’t want to see the score.
Lately I have to turn that back on every time I go into the app.
Also the start at the beginning feature hasn’t been working either.
I press start from the beginning and it just goes right to live.

Yeah it's been that way for maybe a month now. If you read the reviews for it, it seems to be happening to everybody, me included...

 

[Cranston37+]

That’s somewhat surprising as these shows were both broadcast in 5.1 and on DVD in 5.1.

From a little bit of browsing I did on iTunes, no TV show listings that I can find display audio info. Even things totally brand new. Whereas most of the movies on iTunes do display that.

One thing you can try - go to an episode and hit "preview" making it play 30secs worth. See if your receiver tells you what the audio is...

 

[Josh Steinberg]

One thing you can try - go to an episode and hit "preview" making it play 30secs worth. See if your receiver tells you what the audio is...

My receiver never gives great info from the AppleTV because it outputs everything as PCM. Unfortunately my receiver doesn’t give me much more info than that.

I don’t see why this is so hard for Apple to provide this info. They provide it with movies.

 

[DaveF]

My receiver never gives great info from the AppleTV because it outputs everything as PCM. Unfortunately my receiver doesn’t give me much more info than that.

I don’t see why this is so hard for Apple to provide this info. They provide it with movies.

aTV outputs as PCM? Can’t get “normal” audio out from a 4K TV?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

aTV outputs as PCM? Can’t get “normal” audio out from a 4K TV?

It appears that the APTV internally decodes everything and then outputs as PCM. You can also select it to transcode everything to Dolby Digital. But there’s no direct output setting to have it bitstream audio directly to the receiver.

 

[Robert Crawford]

My receiver never gives great info from the AppleTV because it outputs everything as PCM. Unfortunately my receiver doesn’t give me much more info than that.

I don’t see why this is so hard for Apple to provide this info. They provide it with movies.

I tried over 20 different movie titles in my iTunes library and the only titles that indicated what audio codec is being used are those with Dolby Atmos. No TV series such as Black Lightening, The Looming Tower, Luther or even FX Feud would indicate the audio codec on my 4KATV. I had to verify each audio codec being played with my Yamaha Receiver for each movie and TV ttile.

As expected, those movies and TV series with 5.1 audio were confirmed and even those with only Mono were confirmed too like original The Twilight Zone, MASH and Magnum P.I.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

So I tried one episode of CSI - I can afford to blow 99 cents on this - and I’m rather frustrated with the result. The free “preview” clip played in 5.1, but the actual purchased episode was 2.0.

It’s bizarre to me that a show from this decade that was broadcast originally in 5.1 and was released on disc in 5.1 is only 2.0 on iTunes, but that appears to be that.

Dilemma: buy disc version which is DVD only but has 5.1 surround and costs $10, or buy iTunes version that is HD but only 2.0 and costs $20. Neither option appeals to me.

 

[Robert Crawford]

You can't go by previews as I've seen movies in their proper aspect ratio during preview playback, but the actual stream is windowboxed.

 

[DaveF]

I don't understand why the AppleTV is *so* close to being awesome, and marketing claims to be high end for discerning enthusiast, and then does basic things so wrong.

Match frame rate.
Bitstream the audio bits.
Don’t add dumb processing that doesn’t improve anything. And if you can, make it an option that’s off by default.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Match frame rate.

It does this but it’s hidden in the setup menu.

But everything else you said, yeah, I don’t get it.

And I really don’t understand why they can’t tell you the audio format of a TV title before you purchase. They do with movie content. This shouldn’t be difficult.

There’s a lot of potential TV purchases I was thinking of making but now feel wary of doing because I don’t know what I’ll be getting.

 

[Robert Crawford]

It does this but it’s hidden in the setup menu.

But everything else you said, yeah, I don’t get it.

And I really don’t understand why they can’t tell you the audio format of a TV title before you purchase. They do with movie content. This shouldn’t be difficult.

There’s a lot of potential TV purchases I was thinking of making but now feel wary of doing because I don’t know what I’ll be getting.

They only do it for movies in Dolby Atmos!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

They only do it for movies in Dolby Atmos!

That’s not how it displays on my AppleTV.

If I open up a movie page on the AppleTV, at the top it only displays Atmos (or not). But at the very bottom when I scroll down past the cast, crew, summary and related titles, it then shows an information blurb, which includes detail like “English 5.1” or whatever format it is for the movie in question. When I look at the same space for TV titles, it either just says “English” or is totally blank.

 

[Robert Crawford]

That’s not how it displays on my AppleTV.

If I open up a movie page on the AppleTV, at the top it only displays Atmos (or not). But at the very bottom when I scroll down past the cast, crew, summary and related titles, it then shows an information blurb, which includes detail like “English 5.1” or whatever format it is for the movie in question. When I look at the same space for TV titles, it either just says “English” or is totally blank.

I stand corrected! There are still some titles in my collection that doesn't have any audio information even when I scrolled down.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

They are bizarrely stingy on details and I don’t get it.

 

[Mark-P]

So I tried one episode of CSI - I can afford to blow 99 cents on this - and I’m rather frustrated with the result. The free “preview” clip played in 5.1, but the actual purchased episode was 2.0.

It’s bizarre to me that a show from this decade that was broadcast originally in 5.1 and was released on disc in 5.1 is only 2.0 on iTunes, but that appears to be that.

Dilemma: buy disc version which is DVD only but has 5.1 surround and costs $10, or buy iTunes version that is HD but only 2.0 and costs $20. Neither option appeals to me.

And I assume that on the episode you bought, you checked to make sure there wasn't a hidden 5.1 track and it wasn't just defaulting to a 2.0 track?