Apple TV 4K official (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

For as long as I can remember, I've had a similar problem with one of my ATV, but it wakes up once I activate one of the buttons on its remote or my programmed Harmony remote.

For me, it seemingly goes to sleep (after the system is shutdown) and then won't wake up regardless of button mashing. I have to pull the power.

It might be it goes to sleep, then after wake, can't get HDMI sync because it never comes out of the black screen. But pulling the HDMI cable doesn't fix it. It takes a reboot. (But that's not definitive because with the HDMI setup, there's a case where sync is lost and I have to disconnect the ethernet relay. But that's been a specific and rare occurrence with my HTPC.)

 

[Robert Crawford]

For me, it seemingly goes to sleep (after the system is shutdown) and then won't wake up regardless of button mashing. I have to pull the power.

It might be it goes to sleep, then after wake, can't get HDMI sync because it never comes out of the black screen. But pulling the HDMI cable doesn't fix it. It takes a reboot. (But that's not definitive because with the HDMI setup, there's a case where sync is lost and I have to disconnect the ethernet relay. But that's been a specific and rare occurrence with my HTPC.)

Dave,

My issue is when I select ATV4K on my Harmony Elite, my equipment powers up as programmed except the ATV4K unit. If I select any button on the Harmony Elite or push any button on the ATV4K remote, the ATV powers up without any further issues. With my two other HT setups I have Harmony Elites and ATV4K units, but neither of them have the same power up idiosyncrasy as the ATV4K units power up correctly. If I wasn't so lazy, I guess I could figure it out why 1 out 3 units acts that way.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Dave,

My issue is when I select ATV$K on my Harmony Elite, my equipment powers up as programmed except the ATV4K unit. If I select any button on the Harmony Elite or push any button on the ATV4K remote, the ATV powers up without any further issues. With my two other HT setups I have Harmony Elites and ATV4K units, but neither of them have the same power up idiosyncrasy as the ATV4K units power up correctly. If I wasn't so lazy, I guess I could figure it out why 1 out 3 units acts that way.

I’m having the same problem with my ATV4K. When I first setup my Harmony Ultimate Home (I think) it would wake up the ATV. Then the ATV stopped waking up even though I had not changed the remote. Circumstances required I set up the remote again and the same behavior happened again.

I’m grateful I only need to touch a button on my iphone ATV app to wake it up, I’d be pissed if I had to unplug it every time.

I don’t like the remote and use my iphone app for the ATV exclusively. Which creates a problem. I get call and want to pause play but the phone app has taken over. Is there a way to hit pause while the phone app is running?

 

[Robert Crawford]

I’m having the same problem with my ATV4K. When I first setup my Harmony Ultimate Home (I think) it would wake up the ATV. Then the ATV stopped waking up even though I had not changed the remote. Circumstances required I set up the remote again and the same behavior happened again.

I’m grateful I only need to touch a button on my iphone ATV app to wake it up, I’d be pissed if I had to unplug it every time.

I don’t like the remote and use my iphone app for the ATV exclusively. Which creates a problem. I get call and want to pause play but the phone app has taken over. Is there a way to hit pause while the phone app is running?

It's definitely a handshake issue, but I've been too lazy to investigate it further for a possible solution.

 

[DaveF]

Dave,

My issue is when I select ATV$K on my Harmony Elite, my equipment powers up as programmed except the ATV4K unit. If I select any button on the Harmony Elite or push any button on the ATV4K remote, the ATV powers up without any further issues. With my two other HT setups I have Harmony Elites and ATV4K units, but neither of them have the same power up idiosyncrasy as the ATV4K units power up correctly. If I wasn't so lazy, I guess I could figure it out why 1 out 3 units acts that way.

My experience: That’s because there’s no ”power” feature for an AppleTV. Add to the startup macro a “Home” or “Menu” command and it will wake up with the rest of the system.

That’s how I’ve done it with my two AppleTV’s on two different universal remotes.

 

[Osato]

Side comment.

Every time I see ATV4K I think I’m seeing AVTAK.

A View To A Kill

 

[Johnny Angell]

Side comment.

Every time I see ATV4K I think I’m seeing AVTAK.

A View To A Kill

I’ve done that too for other threads.

 

[TonyD]

My issue is when I select ATV4K on my Harmony Elite, my equipment powers up as programmed except the ATV4K unit. If I select any button on the Harmony Elite or push any button on the ATV4K remote, the ATV powers up without any further issues.

This is exactly what I do.
o have an old Harmony Hub with simple remote.
Didnt know there might be a way to make it wake the A box too.

 

[TonyD]

I don’t like the remote and use my iphone app for the ATV exclusively. Which creates a problem. I get call and want to pause play but the phone app has taken over. Is there a way to hit pause while the phone app is running?

Probly depends on the phone.
Mi iPhone just has a small banner on the top when I get a call.
The banner shows who is calling and the green or red button for answering or hanging up.
The rest of the screen is still there.
Can you answer the phone and then say hold on and then pop up the Atv app and pause?

Or just use the remote for these situations.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Over the past year, I’ve become accustomed to the tv 4K remote and don’t mind it so much. My wife still doesn’t care for it so for the tv she usually watches, I replaced the 4K remote with an old silver tv remote and it works just fine. The other 4K box on the tv that I normally watch is still using the touch remote. The Harmony remotes are really cool and I used to have an older one for my HT but stopped using it because it ate batteries and it was frustrating to have to buy and replace them about every 6-8 weeks. Now I can’t justify buying a new one when it’s just as easy for me to use the factory remotes that came with my equipment.

 

[Dave Upton]

Has AppleTV gotten an OS update in recent months affecting HDMI handshake or sync? My theater AppleTV no longer wakes up consistently. That HDMI chain goes through an Ethernet converter for the long run to projector. That converter can be quirky, but infrequently.

But the AppleTV has worked fine for over three years without this problem. No other device has this problem (TiVo mini, Shield, HTPC).

I swapped living room Appletv with theater AppleTV. The unit in the theater failed to wake up later that evening, while the living room unit behaves normally.

The problem is in the theater setup, not the specific AppleTV unit. But it’s specific to AppleTV, as my theater setup hasn’t changed and no other device has this problem. And it’s recent, after almost four years of normal functionality.

so, I think an AppleTV update broke something around hdmi syncing.

but I’m lost. And this is becoming a nightly hassle of having to pull the power cable to hard reboot the AppleTV.

Any thoughts or ideas?
@Dave Upton youve fought hdmi extender battles, right? Any ideas on debugging my theater woes?

Apple's HDMI implementation seems to be updated every time the firmware updates on the ATV. I've personally had countless issues with HDMI handshakes, including no longer detecting HDR capability to my projector after some updates. The fix is generally to swap to a different cable (ATV -> Receiver) then swap back - I've no idea why this works, but AppleTV seems to remember the cable and once you swap cables it "redetects" things.

I wish I had better news, but I have the same struggles are you from time to time.

The nuclear option is to factory reset the ATV and then let it redetect everything like it was brand new. I've only had to do this once with my ATV 4K.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

My ATK4K will occasionally - maybe once every other week at most - lose the audio portion of the handshake when starting playback, it’ll do that handshake quick flash when it changes resolution/format and the picture will show up but will be silent. Fortunately, the fix is easy - if I just turn my receiver off and turn it back on, it handshakes properly and everything goes back to normal.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Sounds pretty annoying for a streaming STB that costs nearly 2x a 4K Roku...

Thought HDMI handshake was mainly only all that much a problem w/ their app on Roku, but this would make me reconsider buying one whenever the new ATV4K finally comes out...

_Man_

 

[dpippel]

I have no handshaking problems with my ATV4K.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I wonder. Is it happening mostly/primarily w/ FP setups (that take significant time to start up), particularly 4K compatible ones, ie. FPs that accept 4K input, perhaps in combo w/ a prepro or AVR (or HDMI switcher) that doesn't use EDID caching(?)?

I've had to fiddle w/ my Harmony remote setup to extend the delay between initial power-on of my Epson 5050UB and cycle thru an HDMI switch detect on my Anthem AVM-60 in order to get my Roku to wake up properly. In my case, I think the prepro doesn't detect the FP properly until after a certain point, but since I seem to have no way to delay power-on of the prepro on my Harmony remote, I've had to program a delayed HDMI switching cycle to force it to redetect after 10secs(?). After that, it knows it's dealing w/ 4K HDR capable display and then is able to synch properly w/ my Roku in 4K HDR.

Without that extra startup programming, the Roku somehow wakes up in a mode (maybe 720p? which may be the Roku default?) that's not in synch w/ the prepro -- prepro thinks there's no HDMI signal, and it happens even if I try to force the Roku to a manually set output of 4K HDR instead of auto-detect. IF/when that happens, which can still happen if the programming gets interrupted, a power cycle of the prepro usually resolves it for me -- an HDMI switching cycle also works, but that requires more button presses for the AVM-60... although it probably causes less wear-and-tear than a power cycle.

Didn't have this problem w/ the 4K HDMI switcher I tried for a couple months before upgrading to the AVM-60 prepro although I did have to manually set EDID for 4K HDR 60Hz.

Note also that my Roku doesn't actually wake up until remote activity via its own remote AFAIK, and I find also need to wait pass a certain point to wake it up for this extra programming to work properly.

Yeah, it's a tad annoying, but it seems to work consistently if not interrupted, so...

BUT the AppleTV app on my Roku in 4K is just absolutely awful w/ its 4K HDR synching. I just can't get it to work anymore at all unless I disable playback in original frame rate (and probably end up w/ everything in 60fps), and that's very annoying. Was hoping to get an ATV4K so I don't have to deal w/ that anymore, but alas...

This problem doesn't occur for my disc players (Oppo 103 and Sony X700) in this setup, so I don't bother w/ the extra programming (w/ delay) when using them instead of Roku.


So for those w/ this kind of problem w/ your ATV4K, maybe try what I did w/ your Harmony remote startup programming...

_Man_

 

[TonyD]

Is it happening mostly/primarily w/ FP setups

Sorry it’s on me but lately just about everywhere people are contracting words down to one or two letters and it’s driving me nuts.
FP
?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’m 99.9% sure that the handshake issues in my case have to do with an older receiver with the HDMI board on its way out. I do not find it inconvenient to turn the receiver off and back on (a five second process) once or twice a month to fix it. At this point, that is the better solution for me than buying a new receiver.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Front projector

 

[Robert Crawford]

HDMI handshake issues have been prevalent since the concept was developed. I get some that don't even involve my ATV units.

 

[DaveF]

Sounds pretty annoying for a streaming STB that costs nearly 2x a 4K Roku...

Thought HDMI handshake was mainly only all that much a problem w/ their app on Roku, but this would make me reconsider buying one whenever the new ATV4K finally comes out...

_Man_

As I’ve noted elsewhere, i don’t recommend AppleTV to other people. A roku is a much better price for the same core features.

That said, for me, where $150 vs $50 doesn’t matter for this hobby, AppleTV has the best UI hands down. I’ve also got a Shield and a Roku and a webOS TV (LG), so I can now compare from experience. The AppleTV AppleTV app (yes, naming sucks) is fantastic. After using it, not having it on the Shield is noticeably annoying when my AppleTV is is crashed.

(Caveat, I was reminded that the AppleTV app is available on other platforms. If it was on NVidia Shield, I might switch to the shield 100%.)

If the AppleTV supported audio bitstreaming for Atmos support of HTPC (yes, hyper niche) it would be the perfect streaming box and be worth every dollar for me.