“Now remember that Apple hasn’t said a word, at least officially, about what you might expect in the next Apple TV. Not a thing, yet there’s the assumption that it will not, at first, support 4K, the new high definition standard that’s introduced on more and more TV sets. Why this should be is never really explained,” Gene Sternberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “The one article that made a big deal of it attempted to frame it in connection with making it some big reveal later on for reasons that don’t make much sense. It’s not as if adding 4K after the fact would necessarily represent a significant development.”
“The article also suggests that Apple might try to trump the TV makers and go 5K, forgetting that a key reason to have 5K on the new iMac, and a small number of third-party displays, is that you can edit 4K video at its natural resolution, and use the extra pixels for menu bar and other app navigation aids,” Sternberg writes. “So it’s a big deal for content creators, but not so much for regular people watching a TV. Besides, the visible difference would be minimal. Right now, you need a fairly large set even to see 4K.”
“Besides, the next video standard touted by the TV makers is 8K. What sense would it make for Apple to deliver a picture with a resolution unsupported on any TV set since Apple doesn’t plan to make one?” Sternberg writes. “I trust you see my point.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We wouldn’t get too worked up over yet another Cringely conspiracy theory.
SEE ALSO:
Apple TV’s 4K future – May 28, 2015
These tech writer idiots need to stop obsessing about 4K. Hardly anyone is affected by whether Apple TV supports 4K.
The big deal for Apple TV will be if it supports a development kit and the applications that would result from same.
A development kit is even beyond offering content. And with Apple TV apps, a new remote that allows either Siri voice control and/or a touch screen surface that can used in the dark for typing in long search queries and other text.
Having to press left/right/up/down to find particular letters and characters is very 90’s.
UHDTV (the proper name for “4K TV”) is here to stay. A large fraction of new TVs being offered today are UHDTV and a large fraction of the TVs being sold are UHDTV. It would be wise for Apple to support UHDTV in the Apple TV that is supposedly soon to be announced. Saying “Hardly anyone is affected…” is just not true.
Yes, a Developer’s Kit and a better user interface are very important, but not supporting technology that has been out in the consumer segment for well over a year is short sighted as Apple likely won’t do an Apple TV refresh for at least 18 months and maybe two years after the next one comes out. By the time the follow on Apple TV ships quite possibly 20% or more of main TVs in people’s homes will be UHDTV and Apple will have missed out on that segment completely.
And, adding UHDTV, HDMI 2.0 and hardware accelerated HEVC (H.265) decoding is not just a simple software upgrade.
But, even given all that, I would not be surprised if the next Apple TV supports JUST UP TO 1080p60, HDMI 1.4 (and not even 1.4b), and AVC (H.264). Over the past few years Apple has developed the bad habit of playing it conservatively in the consumer space.
Sure there are plenty of 4k tvs bit where is the content. I bought my first HDTV in 2005 and still channels are in sdtv. The content providers are slow to provide content in 4k so there really isn’t much point buying a TV or apple making it possible to stream on an Apple TV.
4k Blu Ray will be out in just a few more months. The white paper was just published, and now this key component of the 4k infrastructure is about to flood the market. Many, many important films shot on 35mm have been scanned at 4k and are ready for release: the James Bond movies, The Godfather, Indiana Jones, etc., etc. Most movies made during the last half decade were shot at 4k, and some TV shows too. There will be an avalanche of content by year’s end, even for those not interested disc media. 4K streaming is going to explode. The BBC is already committed to making it a standard in 2016.
Arguing against these developments due to current bandwidth issues will also prove to be pointless. 4K is happening and a year from now the discussion will be moot. The Apple TV needs to be future-proofed, since it isn’t upgraded annually. For an already significant percentage of buyers, not supporting 4K will be a problem. Case in point: the new Roku will support it. In fact, almost everything does now. I love Apple, but they’re behind the curve on this one (if the reports are true).
New physical media formats. That’s so cute.
Apple’s new AppleTV will ONLY support 4K. That’s the Apple way.
Then it’d be UFOTV, right?
I’ve heard his show and he was clearly influenced by the great Art Bell.
The author just shows his inability to grasp reality by even bringing up “8K” TVs. The standards for those are still in a state of flux. Even if the industry moves as fast as they could dream of doing, Super Hi-Vision (as some of the early sets in prototyping are called) won’t hit mainstream for five to 10 years or more. If the industry stalls at UHDTV (as I suspect it will), we won’t see “8K” TVs take hold until as much as 15 years from now. The entire set top box industry is likely to be *radically* different by that time from what it is now — not just in terms of hardware but also in human interfaces and delivery methodologies.
4K is the new 3DTV. I know my opinion doesn’t carry much weight but I’m quite happy with 1080p TV. That’s about as good as it gets for someone with senior citizen-class eyes. I’m happy if companies want to build 4K TVs because I’ll be able to pick up another 1080p TV for less money.
I went to see a movie on Wednesday. In big letters it pointed out that the movie was being shown in “4K“. Great! And maybe in the near future theatre movies will be 8K!
But why does anyone need 4K resolution at home? Unless of course they have a theatre sized screen on their TV.
IOW: No, Apple isn’t in the movie theatre business Gene. If 4K TV prices drop to a trivial level where anyone could buy one (but still not need one), then we’ll have a chat.