HBO Max HBO Max (Official Thread) (1 Viewer)

[Todd Erwin]

Here are the devices that can play Wonder Woman 84 in 4K HDR.

• Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and Fire TV Cube
• Android TVs, including: AT&T Streaming Box
• Apple TV 4K
• Google Chromecast Ultra
• Chromecast with Google TV (no Atmos audio)
• Roku Ultra 4800x, Roku 4k TVs
• Xfinity X1 (Xi6) and Flex
• https://www.engadget.com/how-to-watch-wonder-woman-1984-in-4k-231252338.html

Why do I think that HBO Max pulled a Netflix with their Atmos?

HBO Max won't play 'Wonder Woman 1984' w/ Dolby Atmos on Chromecast with Google TV

When it debuts on HBO Max on Christmas Day, Wonder Woman 1984 will lack support for Dolby Atmos specifically on Chromecast with Google TV.

9to5google.com

Among the devices where Atmos is not supported include Roku Premiere and Streaming Stick+, Chromecast with Google TV, and Android Tv's.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Heads up for viewers with Nvidia Shield Android TV devices. You must select a viewing mode with 8-bit color (and color space set to "auto") to watch HBO Max in 4k with HDR10. If you select a 12-bit color mode, the content will play (so far just Wonder Woman 1984), but the color signal will be distorted. Atmos worked, too!

 

[Tino]

Watched the opening of WW84. Looked and sounded terrific in Dolby Vision and Atmos. Thanks HBO MAX!!

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

Why do I think that HBO Max pulled a Netflix with their Atmos?

HBO Max won't play 'Wonder Woman 1984' w/ Dolby Atmos on Chromecast with Google TV

When it debuts on HBO Max on Christmas Day, Wonder Woman 1984 will lack support for Dolby Atmos specifically on Chromecast with Google TV.

9to5google.com

Among the devices where Atmos is not supported include Roku Premiere and Streaming Stick+, Chromecast with Google TV, and Android Tv's.

I never understand why some devices can't play back an audio codec. I checked my Apple TV and internal Sony TV app and both pass Atmos.

 

[Todd Erwin]

I never understand why some devices can't play back an audio codec. I checked my Apple TV and internal Sony TV app and both pass Atmos.

Apple TV and likely your Sony TV have a Dolby MAT processor, something the (New) Cjtomecast, Roku Premiere and Streaming Stick+ lack. I'll be activating my 14-day trial that came with "The Goonies" UHD Blu-ray and trying HBO Max on both my Roku Premiere and Fire Stick 4k later today and report back my findings.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Heads up for viewers with Nvidia Shield Android TV devices. You must select a viewing mode with 8-bit color (and color space set to "auto") to watch HBO Max in 4k with HDR10. If you select a 12-bit color mode, the content will play (so far just Wonder Woman 1984), but the color signal will be distorted. Atmos worked, too!

Now that is bizarre!

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

Apple TV and likely your Sony TV have a Dolby MAT processor, something the (New) Cjtomecast, Roku Premiere and Streaming Stick+ lack. I'll be activating my 14-day trial that came with "The Goonies" UHD Blu-ray and trying HBO Max on both my Roku Premiere and Fire Stick 4k later today and report back my findings.

That doesn't sound right to me, since my TV only bitstreams and doesn't output PCM with Atmos metadata, the reason for MAT.

 

[Robert Crawford]

My Roku Ultra 4660 model also plays back Atmos on HBO MAX along with my 4800 model.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Now that is bizarre!

Agreed. It is the only app I have ever run on the device that required that. When I switched it to 4k 23.97 Hz with 8 bit color (mode not labeled as "HDR ready"), the color problems went away and my projector indicated that the signal it was receiving was HDR.

 

[Todd Erwin]

My Roku Premier is playing WW84 in HD with Dolby Atmos. The Premiere is connected to a Denon X2400 Receiver which in turn is connected to an LG 65" non-HDR UHD display.

My Fire Stick 4K, connected the same as my Premier, plays in UHD and Atmos.

In my office, I have a Roku Streaming Stick+ connected to a Denon S930H and Sony 55" UHD HDR10 display, but once again, WW84 plays in HD and Atmos only. The Fire Stick 4K in that room behaves about the same, playing WW84 in UHD with HDR10 and in Atmos.

So, I am not sure as to why HBO Max claims that Atmos is not supported on Roku Premier or Streaming Stick+, or that 4K UHD is supported on those devices.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Decided to just wait a day or three to give potential showstoppers a chance to be fleshed out before watching WW84, essentially since I've been finding the newly released HBO Max app to be somewhat flakey on my Roku Premiere+ (4630x)...

We have waaay more than enough content to keep us very busy anyway...

_Man_

 

[Lord Dalek]

I don't have my Nvidia Shield with me but if its playing in anything other than PCM 2.0 I'll be shocked.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Decided to just wait a day or three to give potential showstoppers a chance to be fleshed out before watching WW84, essentially since I've been finding the newly released HBO Max app to be somewhat flakey on my Roku Premiere+ (4630x)...

We have waaay more than enough content to keep us very busy anyway...

_Man_

Decided to quickly check late last night before hitting the hay, figuring I'd at least avoid the busier-than-usual internet/streaming traffic being a potential problem, (and got sucked into watching the 1st hour of it, LOL).

Noticed the app (still) said WW84 is only in HD (at least for me), and at first, it didn't work at all. Not sure what exactly fixed it after doing some fiddling w/ my setup similar to the AppleTV app issue(s) I've been having, but finally got it to work... in 4K/HDR10 (and 24fps)... and Atmos according to my Anthem prepro AFAIK -- I don't have the height/ceiling speakers yet (and probably won't for another few months).

So looks like HBO Max probably isn't doing the same as AppleTV/iTunes for Atmos -- don't think I ever saw Atmos indicated streaming from the AppleTV app on my 3-yo Roku Premiere+ (4630x).

FWIW, my Roku also seems to have become less stable in general after the last update that was probably needed for HBO Max (and/or its implementation of 4K/HDR/Atmos). Had trouble watching other 4K streams on the MoviesAnywhere app that I never had before -- ended up watching my 4K disc of Gremlins instead after wasting 15min or so trying, and then, finally got that app working again afterward before trying WW84. Because the Roku's own internet testing indicated bandwidth was occasionally dropping down to 9Mbps or so and probably avg-ed 40Mbps most of the time before midnight instead of the more usual 60-80Mbps (on my normally 235/11Mbps bandwidth according to Speedtest.net), hard to tell if that was the main cause of trouble. I did reboot the device along w/ my (hidh-end) ASUS router (as that can sometimes become an issue), but nope. Bandwidth did seem consistently better (and much closer to the norm) by the time I got everything resolved (enough) and WW84 working properly...

One thing I noticed about WW84 is some kinda aliasing artifact particularly around golden, vertical objects/line structures that looked like downconversion from higher rez. Looked like the horizontal venetian blind artifact of old, eg. sharp, anamorphic DVD downconverted for 4x3 output w/out enough filtering, but mainly (most noticeable) in golden, vertical line structures.

I suppose this artifact could possibly just be a result of my Epson 5050UB's combo of pixel-shifting 4K tech and/or other needed HDR and/or color space (downconversion) processing. It could also be some kinda color (sub)sampling error or the like somewhere along the chain before getting to my PJ, especially since this is the first time I'm noticing it in the few months of ownership of this PJ, especially since this is HBO Max's first foray into 4K, (and I don't recall seeing it on my old, entry-ish level, 1080p BenQ whether watching 1080p source or 4K-to-1080p downconversion from discs via my Sony X700)...

This artifact isn't as obvious and distracting as the old horizontal venetian blind aliasing artifact since vertical line structures of this sort isn't nearly as prevalent. And its similarity to color (sub)sampling error is probably also less apparent/prevalent in most situations since pixels are so very small in 4K... plus it seems isolated to contrasty golden tones perhaps specific to the kind of HDR grading/look in WW84...

_Man_

PS: Normally, I might post some/most of this over in the official WW84 thread, but I haven't watched the whole thing (and w/ the HT blasting, LOL) just yet, so I've been avoiding that thread (for now)...

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Decided to quickly check late last night before hitting the hay, figuring I'd at least avoid the busier-than-usual internet/streaming traffic being a potential problem, (and got sucked into watching the 1st hour of it, LOL).

Noticed the app (still) said WW84 is only in HD (at least for me), and at first, it didn't work at all. Not sure what exactly fixed it after doing some fiddling w/ my setup similar to the AppleTV app issue(s) I've been having, but finally got it to work... in 4K/HDR10 (and 24fps)... and Atmos according to my Anthem prepro AFAIK -- I don't have the height/ceiling speakers yet (and probably won't for another few months).

So looks like HBO Max probably isn't doing the same as AppleTV/iTunes for Atmos -- don't think I ever saw Atmos indicated streaming from the AppleTV app on my 3-yo Roku Premiere+ (4630x).

FWIW, my Roku also seems to have become less stable in general after the last update that was probably needed for HBO Max (and/or its implementation of 4K/HDR/Atmos). Had trouble watching other 4K streams on the MoviesAnywhere app that I never had before -- ended up watching my 4K disc of Gremlins instead after wasting 15min or so trying, and then, finally got that app working again afterward before trying WW84. Because the Roku's own internet testing indicated bandwidth was occasionally dropping down to 9Mbps or so and probably avg-ed 40Mbps most of the time before midnight instead of the more usual 60-80Mbps (on my normally 235/11Mbps bandwidth according to Speedtest.net), hard to tell if that was the main cause of trouble. I did reboot the device along w/ my (hidh-end) ASUS router (as that can sometimes become an issue), but nope. Bandwidth did seem consistently better (and much closer to the norm) by the time I got everything resolved (enough) and WW84 working properly...

One thing I noticed about WW84 is some kinda aliasing artifact particularly around golden, vertical objects/line structures that looked like downconversion from higher rez. Looked like the horizontal venetian blind artifact of old, eg. sharp, anamorphic DVD downconverted for 4x3 output w/out enough filtering, but mainly (most noticeable) in golden, vertical line structures.

I suppose this artifact could possibly just be a result of my Epson 5050UB's combo of pixel-shifting 4K tech and/or other needed HDR and/or color space (downconversion) processing. It could also be some kinda color (sub)sampling error or the like somewhere along the chain before getting to my PJ, especially since this is the first time I'm noticing it in the few months of ownership of this PJ, especially since this is HBO Max's first foray into 4K, (and I don't recall seeing it on my old, entry-ish level, 1080p BenQ whether watching 1080p source or 4K-to-1080p downconversion from discs via my Sony X700)...

This artifact isn't as obvious and distracting as the old horizontal venetian blind aliasing artifact since vertical line structures of this sort isn't nearly as prevalent. And its similarity to color (sub)sampling error is probably also less apparent/prevalent in most situations since pixels are so very small in 4K... plus it seems isolated to contrasty golden tones perhaps specific to the kind of HDR grading/look in WW84...

_Man_

PS: Normally, I might post some/most of this over in the official WW84 thread, but I haven't watched the whole thing (and w/ the HT blasting, LOL) just yet, so I've been avoiding that thread (for now)...

Just checked out the first 1/2 hour of WW84 again and found the aliasing more noticeable/distracting and widespread this 2nd time...

_Man_

 

[Sam Posten]

Wonder Woman looked like shit for me. Gig Ethernet, Xbox Series X, OLED. Lots of macro blocking, resolution drops, and other fuzziness.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Wonder Woman looked like shit for me. Gig Ethernet, Xbox Series X, OLED. Lots of macro blocking, resolution drops, and other fuzziness.

I roughly checked bitrates on my router late last night (after 2am) when traffic should've been fine, and the encode seemed quite low for 4K/DV/Atmos. Seemed like low teens Mbps, which would be lower than Netflix and about 1/2 of Apple/iTunes, MoviesAnywhere and Disney+. And yet, the encode seems to try for very sharp and contrasty most of the time... that would likely yield lots of aliasing and macroblocking artifacts me thinks -- the latter particularly around densely high frequency detailed regions in motion like in parts of the opening and competition scene(s) where there were lots of (intended) sharp looking leaves/grass and such...

_Man_

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Heads up for viewers with Nvidia Shield Android TV devices. You must select a viewing mode with 8-bit color (and color space set to "auto") to watch HBO Max in 4k with HDR10. If you select a 12-bit color mode, the content will play (so far just Wonder Woman 1984), but the color signal will be distorted. Atmos worked, too!

FYI, if I use Chromecast from my Android phone HBO Max app to the Nvidia Shield, I get 4k and HDR with no distortion if the Shield is set to a 12 bit color mode. Atmos audio works via Chromecast as well.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

They really should've made the trailers and especially that 3-min opening scene preview from a week ago (beta) testing ground for 4K/DV/Atmos presentation before the actual WW84 release me thinks.

The app (at least) on Roku still doesn't even indicate it's in 4K (on WW84's own page) even though it obviously is 4K (for at least some Rokus like mine)...

_Man_

 

[Todd Erwin]

During a bout of insomnia last night, I perused the offerings on HBO Max while still on my 14-day trial (courtesy of Warner's 4K UHD Blu-ray of The Goonies).

Was surprised that under recent additions under TCM was Lawrence Kasdan's under-rated Grand Canyon. For anyone who has not seen it, I highly recommend it. It's from a very old transfer, so image is soft and colors appear very undersaturated, but still watchable.

Speaking of old transfers, I also came across Innerspace, and am sad to say that HBO Max's transfer is worse than the old transfer still being used by Movies Anywhere, Vudu, iTunes, etc. So bad that it was unwatchable!

 

[David Deeb]

I don't really want to see Innerspace, but that's ridiculous. Just because they own the film and can show it, if there's not a good transfer, then just don't show it. Wait till one is available.

Same goes for edited versions of digital rentals on Amazon - Several foreign and international films on Amazon are edited for content & the film reviews are mostly by angry renters wanting their money back.