General Discussion From HBO Max to Max Official Thread! (1 Viewer)

[ManW_TheUncool]

I tried all of those settings and while using my ATV unit, the Dolby Vision signal wouldn't activate on my LG OLED. No problem seeing the Dolby Vision signal come on my OLED using the Roku Ultra unit.

Are you sure HDR is activated on your display. What model is your display?

My PJ, Epson 5050UB, doesn't support DV, so I'm only seeing HDR10. Not sure how DV gets handled in that case (though one would've thought the same).

Unfortunately, I don't have any DV capable display to try/test DV output for this.

_Man_

 

[Robert Crawford]

Current subscribers are grandfathered into the 4K tier for the first six months.

That's what that article stated as it gives them more time to convince people to pay the extra four bucks. There is little doubt, I'll be talking with AT&T regarding those charges.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Warner Bros. Discovery CFO 'Very, Very Happy' How Max Launch Went - Media Play News

The day after Warner Bros. Discovery pulled the trigger on rebooting the HBO Max subscription streaming service under the Max moniker combined with Discovery+ content (along with a price hike), … Continue reading "Warner Bros. Discovery CFO ‘Very, Very Happy’ How Max Launch Went"

www.mediaplaynews.com

 

[Carlo_M]

I was wondering how long until HBO came after those of us with older AT&T plans which included HBO Max, back when they were owned by the same parent company. Once HBO was sold to Discovery, I figured we'd eventually lose the access.

My initial suspicion was that they were rebranding as "Max" to be able to say "well AT&T promised you would get access to HBO Max...and this ain't that, too bad, so sad." But I bet they would've gotten a black eye from those of us on those plans (and maybe a class action suit).

So this is their next best scheme. Put 4K behind an additional tier. Has AT&T gone on record saying that they'll cover the ad-free tier cost and allow us to pay the $4 upcharge? Or will it be "we offer the ad-free tier, if you want more than that you have to cancel this plan and pay the full amount"? I'm sure AT&T isn't happy about having to subsidize those of us on older plans given they're no longer part of the same company.

 

[Wayne_j]

At launch the credits for Director, Writers and Producers were all combined into one category 'creators'. This led to major complaints by the WGA and the DGA.

Max Reverses Credits Display “Mistake” After DGA & WGA Blasted It As “Insulting” To Directors & Writers

Warner Bros. Discovery has corrected changes it made to director and writer credits in its rollout of Max after receiving harsh blowback from the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild. In a stateme…

deadline.com

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Warner Bros. Discovery CFO 'Very, Very Happy' How Max Launch Went - Media Play News

The day after Warner Bros. Discovery pulled the trigger on rebooting the HBO Max subscription streaming service under the Max moniker combined with Discovery+ content (along with a price hike), … Continue reading "Warner Bros. Discovery CFO ‘Very, Very Happy’ How Max Launch Went"

www.mediaplaynews.com

Guess it's the usual unwritten PR rule that they must always pretend it went very well... Hopefully, they're really just pretending and will (probably quietly) fix the problems asap...

_Man_

 

[Carlo_M]

That's pretty rich, the statement of "no technical issues" coming from their...CFO. Not the CEO, not the CTO, not the COO. The money guy.

That tells you everything you need to know about what motivated the change.

 

[JohnRice]

OK... forgive me for not having read the entire thread, but I only just now realized that the service I signed up and prepaid a year for is NOT the service I am now receiving. I prepaid for a year of their top tier, commercial free, 4K Atmos service. Now, in the middle of what I paid for, they have downgraded it to a lower service?

That's about the crappiest thing I've ever heard. In situations like this in the past, the company has always continued the service I signed up and paid for, until that term had expired. I mean, this is like class action suit type of situation.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

OK... forgive me for not having read the entire thread, but I only just now realized that the service I signed up and prepaid a year for is NOT the service I am now receiving. I prepaid for a year of their top tier, commercial free, 4K Atmos service. Now, in the middle of what I paid for, they have downgraded it to a lower service?

That's about the crappiest thing I've ever heard. In situations like this in the past, the company has always continued the service I signed up and paid for, until that term had expired. I mean, this is like class action suit type of situation.

Near as I can tell, they seem to be grandfathering us at least for the next 6 months -- not sure if that's quite enough to cover your prepaid 1 year, but should be enough for me and the 1-year promo deal I got last Sept, which they presumably likely accounted for...

I'll almost certainly cancel when my 1-year deal runs out... and then maybe only reactivate for a month or two each year to catch up and binge on whatever little of interest...

OTOH, yes, those of relying on a ATV4K are running into issues w/ their new app/launch, which they'd hopefully fix asap... even though their CFO is apparently publicly claiming there are no issues w/ the launch...

_Man_

 

[JohnRice]

Near as I can tell, they seem to be grandfathering us at least for the next 6 months -- not sure if that's quite enough to cover your prepaid 1 year, but should be enough for me and the 1-year promo deal I got last Sept, which they presumably likely accounted for...

I'll almost certainly cancel when my 1-year deal runs out... and then maybe only reactivate for a month or two each year to catch up and binge on whatever little of interest...

OTOH, yes, those of relying on a ATV4K are running into issues w/ their new app/launch, which they'd hopefully fix asap... even though their CFO is apparently publicly claiming there are no issues w/ the launch...

_Man_

Grandfathering what? I'm not getting 4K or Atmos now. I did before.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Grandfathering what? I'm not getting 4K or Atmos now. I did before.

Those are part of the list of issues w/ their new ATV4K app at launch.

Apparently, the app isn't making use of the match DR and frame rate settings (and also missing some other features standard to the tvOS player).

_Man_

 

[JohnRice]

Those are part of the list of issues w/ their new ATV4K app at launch.

Apparently, the app isn't making use of the match DR and frame rate settings (and also missing some other features standard to the tvOS player).

_Man_

I see now. They just screw up the entire operation of the AppleTV in order to get 4K Atmos on their service.

I've never used it this way, but if I still have Match Dynamic Range enabled, it should at least not create fake HDR on SDR content.

EDIT: Except, since it doesn't recognize Match Dynamic Range, if the ATV is set to 4kDV, it plays back non HDR content with fake DV, which looks very artificial. So, they managed to go from an app that worked to one that doesn't.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I see now. They just screw up the entire operation of the AppleTV in order to get 4K Atmos on their service.

I've never used it this way, but if I still have Match Dynamic Range enabled, it should at least not create fake HDR on SDR content.

EDIT: Except, since it doesn't recognize Match Dynamic Range, if the ATV is set to 4kDV, it plays back non HDR content with fake DV, which looks very artificial. So, they managed to go from an app that worked to one that doesn't.

Right.

Basically, as I mentioned earlier, you'd really need to manually change the current/default video output format in the settings for the ATV4K everytime you watch something in the Max app w/ a different frame rate or DR, if you wanna ensure those are correct/faithful to the source, which is a real pain.

I'll probably just end up avoiding watching anything in HDR (and probably non-film/24fps sourced) in that app until they fix it... or unless something I really wanna see (and only available there) is about to leave the service. IF it's some series that's not epic scope nor 24fps sourced (nor benefits greatly from surround audio), maybe I might just watch it on my PC instead -- I sometimes do that for such anyway, especially as the weather heats up during the summer (and doesn't need the extra space-heating from my PJ )...

They didn't really have much that fit into that criteria that I can't watch via some other avenue anyway (whether on some other service or something I own on disc or digital)...

_Man_

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Hmmm... seems like the new app (for ATV anyway) probably also lost whatever refinements developed/gained over the past year for the old app.

For instance, each categorized section row of content no longer keeps just a reasonable number of titles readily/easily/quickly accessible w/ the rest hidden behind a "more" tile that opens to full view w/ everything in that section. You're now forced to scroll the row for everything and/or be limited to what they can (mysteriously?) fit in the scrollable row, eg. the Last Chance section/row should definitely be bigger than what I can now see, but the row clearly shows only a fraction of what will be leaving by end of this month (compared to what I know/remember from the old app).

Also, that Last Chance section no longer indicates when each title will leave the service like it used to do.

And the sidebar seems to be missing some options now... some of which were handy in the old app to help ease navigation.

_Man_

 

[benbess]

In the transition to Max several movies have left the service, including The Great Gatsby (2013) and Nightmare Alley (2021). I assume movies will be rotating off and on, and maybe those titles will come back someday?

But several new things have appeared, including two episodes of the new documentary on the history of Warner Bros., which I thought were both very good.

For me, the new 4K versions of old and new movies make Max worth it. I'm trying cut down a bit in buying for my blu-ray collection, because I'm running out of shelf space, and so these streaming versions of various movies should help with that. For favorite movies I'll still want the blu-ray, but for titles short of being favorites I'll probably be okay with just streaming.

Anyway, I've decided to go ahead and buy a year of the highest level of Max.

 

[Carlo_M]

Until they fix the AppleTV app, I've been going with the native LG OS app which at least has all the proper 4K/UHD/Atmos codecs.

However I notice that the screen will occasionally flash to a totally black frame, every so often. Maybe a half dozen or more times per movie session. Yes I'm running the latest LG C2 firmware.

Get your #$@# together, "Max". "No technical issues" my @#$@.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I was watching the "Spider" episode of From The Earth to the Moon last night via my Roku Ultra in 4K/DV. Most of the episode is in black & white. I noticed numerous times during the b&w scenes that the color temperature would change -- sometimes there would be a shift to a green tint, other times it would shift to a pink hue during a scene. I did not notice that during any of the scenes in color, nor in the previous episodes. Not sure if it's an app issue, or if the encode on HBO is that way. I only have the series on DVD.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

They're going to have to make the app work properly on the Apple TV if they want people to pay for the more expensive 4K tier.

 

[Rodney]

I do find it strange and a bit frustrating that 4K works fine on my Roku and my Tivo Stream 4K but not on my ATV4K. I hope they can fix this pretty quickly.

 

[EricSchulz]

@benbess I also noticed those documentaries and added them to my queue.
I also noticed a LOT of documentaries (movies and short series) that I don’t recall seeing on HBO Max. I’m fine with that!

Can’t wait to watch the MTM documentary this weekend.