AppleTV X - I am playing with something new

Steve Bruzonsky said:

Chris, so you, as the Mad Scientist video expert (which I concede that you indeed are), prefer Sony OLED vs LG OLED, that Sony gives the best most accurate picture? How about the new Samsung OLEDs? And I understand Sony is discontinuing OLED and going to higher brightness mini-LED I think this next year - how might this affect your opinion? I'm asking for any of us with Appletvxs in particular who are interested in getting the OLED with the Mad Scientist best picture!

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Mad Scientist, hahaha.. Well... It so happens I just bought a Sony 42" A9K. My intent is to mod the **** out of it. The smaller size is because the smaller size panel requires less power, less power means the regulation of the power supplies can be better and have less noise. Well, once I am done with mods. Also I want a reference monitor so I don't want, or need, a big screen. I am more looking for something like a Sony BVM. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1312781-REG/sony_bvm_e251_25_trimaster_el_monitor.html but this 24" $10k OLED is not 4K.

My issue with LG is its just really annoying to get it all setup in settings, it has modes that are nearly impossible to turn off. The LGs do weird things like if I turn off HDR on the ATV a LG will still go into HDR. LG makes SDR look terrible and only Dolby Vision looks good. Its like Dolby somehow got LG to make SDR look bad so Dolby Vision looks OMG.. A sony has a really stunning video processing chip. WHere this is really obvious is when displaying 2K, its upscaling is WAY better then a LG. For me the only way I have gotten a LG to be really stunning is to use a Lumagen and do lots of settings on the LG and on the Lumagen. A Sony OLED is just stunning with 5 mins of basic settings. SDR looks stunning, as it should. Upconversion looks like nearly 4k. I believe the Sonys use the LG panel. So the difference between them is more down to the electronics. I think Sony has better electronics. While I am skilled doing intense calibration, with a Sony I have not felt a need to do it. Just the basic pic adjustments. LG I always feel a need to do calibration and this really includes a Lumagen.

I have put a A90 directly beside a LG OLED some years back after doing settings and the Sony was a easy winner.

I have been forced at times to work with a LG. Thier wall paper OLED TV I have done a bunch of those. I just found them really hard to tame. Getting all the settings right is just really hard.

BUT... That is all IMHO.. I do not have hands on with all the LGs or Sonys.. I also have not spent tons of time to battle LG settings.

I do not have hands on with the Samsung.

I lust after the Panasonic OLED. I have not been able to play with these. BUT the Sony still might be better because of the processing chip in the Sony and how well its setup right out of the box calibration wise.

I would like a Sony OLED BVM. BUT not 4K yet.

So my plan is to get this 42" A90K and mod it insanely. I need a super high end reference monitor so I can REALLY see pic quality.

Joe Whip said:

That article was from 2014 and dealt with the lack of 4K OLED panels that LG Display resolved. Sony will no doubt further refine their processing. They now secure the panels for their top displays from Samsung Not LG Display.

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Oh really.... Hmmm.... I liked the LG panels in Sony... I wonder what my 42" A90K uses..

This will be a fun project. Modding a Sony OLED should be really fun. It will be VERY interesting to see what performance improvements I can get out of it.

I want to have the best display known in order to REALLY see the Apple TV X.

I was talking to a friend who is a SMPTE, SPIE, AES guy with long histories with those organizations and paper credits. His experience with picture quality professionally is extensive and includes digital cinema, film with video standards for a number of areas. He has been shocked at the picture quality coming from the Apple TV X, as we all have been. We started talking about displays. I mentioned I was asked what display is the best. This was a pretty deep and expansive discussion. For consumers Sony has a pretty cool processing chip with really outstanding scaling. It also impliments things well so when you feed it SDR for example, it really handles it well with a reasonable calibration out of the box. Of course there are all sorts of settings that are abhorrent, but, easy online guides get you all set very quickly. No need to get into service menus. Keep in mind Sony has a big foot print and long history in aquistition and post gear. He does not have experence with the Samsung, as i also do not. LGs have marginal at best upconversion. There is a lot of 1080 HD still, so, upscaling is important. They are unwieldy. They need calibration and to get them under some control you gotta end up in service menus. The LGs do wierd things with HDR and SDR. Even when the LGs are told to not do HDR, they can still end up in Dolby Vision ( HDR ) even when its turned off at the source. As SDR is the best pic, this makes it not as good for use with a ATVX because it will end up in Dolby Vision. You sorta gotta give up on settings and just go with Dolby Vision. DV is a lot better then std HDR, but, SDR is better. The Panasonic OLEDs have a lot of settings and come really well calibrated out of the box. But. They dont have that remarkable Sony processing chip, so I don't know if they are the best. I do not have hands on A/B with the Panasonic.

But the main reason I am posting is what we talked about next..

"Well my Panasonic plasma is better then OLED".... Wait what ?..... So he is back far enough that the 1920x1080 pixels are not a issue and 4K wont really add more resolution to the eye. He discusses the issues with bit depth which produces banding and says for him, its not annoying. It has just the right amount of brightness, so not too bring or dim. The limited color space he says is not that big a deal as very little in those extended color spaces is in actual material.. The contrast ratio of the VT60 and ST60 can be really good. He then goes on and discusses some interesting aspects. Its lack of video processing and "1080 Pixel Direct" + "Game mode" results in very very little processing. Plasma also turns out that its VERY VERY fast. While I have not looked carefully yet, but I will, he says pictures in motion are clearer on the plasma VS Sony OLED. He thinks there is some resolution reduction in moving images to ease up processing power requirements. You might need a LOT of processing power to do the same processing on images with lots of motion. There are lots of tests avaliable for this and I will play some..

I also have 2 Panasonic Plasmas handy. I already use one in my lab because it has a lack of processing and the pic from it can be pretty shocking. So I have decided to also mod my ST60 plasma..

So I have a few interesting projects coming..

All of this because the Apple TV X seems to have exceeded my displays and I want to get a even clearer view of what is going on.

BKDad said:

I know I ask this routinely, but I'm somewhat paranoid on the topic.

Has anybody run into problems with the latest ATV software drop? I know there's another version on the horizon...

Thanks!

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Sadly, I can't fix Apple induced issues.

I recommend turning off auto updates. Dont fix what is not broken. Overall in everything I do from IT, to automation like Crestron to computers and even cars,,, DONT UPDATE UNLESS THE UPDATE ADDRESSES SOMETHING THAT AFFECTS YOU or if there is a new feature you will actually use. With EVERY update on ANYTHING there ALWAYS exists a risk it will break things or cause other issues..

System > Auto update > OFF

A recent AppleTV TVOS firmware update broke CEC control for a lot of people. That means things like volume control of a TV or surround processor using the AppleTV remote just stopped working on TvOS 17.4. It also broke control of the device for automation control like Crestron, COntrol 4 & Savant. People using those systems suddenly lost all control of the AppleTV. Apple has not fixed this. They have not said anything about it.

I run the developer beta TvOS to watch for issues. So far the Dev Beta has not fixed this CEC control issue. It was amazing as the 17.4 beta was find for CEC it was the stable main release where it broke CEC.

There are other issues I have seen. Randomly the Amazon Prime app will lock up and this requires a full System > Restart to get it working again. Its a app issue that came up like a month or 2 ago.

Netflix and Atmos seem to not work well. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. It can just loose Atmos mid stream and you gotta restart to get it back.

Those are the only issues I know about. But YES, firmware updates can be dangerous. I recommend turning them off after this last CEC issue where apple broke zillions of peoples control of other devices.

So YES, 17.4 broke things for sure.

Steve Bruzonsky said:

The ATV has issues at times. How to solve? Go into the menu and restart. Also, once a month or so, turn off the power supply for a minute, then back on to start back up - clears "crud" out of the random access memory. I find doing this solves any issues I have. And these issues aren't peculiar to the "X" model - they are simply due to the ATV being a computer and having computer issues at times.

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Exactly... And when you go to settings, turn off System > Updates > Auto updates.

tyree91 said:

Steve, Chris, I recently added a MadVR Envy Extreme to my system. Giga Foil Copper to Fiber to Copper Ethernet converter >Apple TVx>Theta Digital CB V>MadVR Envy Extreme> JVC NX9>Panamorph DCR>Stewart Luxus Deluxe Studiotech 1.3 G4, 2.35:1, 140".
Before the Envy I found SDR to be far superior to HDR with the Apple TVx. HDR looked horrible, washed out and milky with the JVC tone map settings.
When I got the Envy, we set it up to do the tone mapping when it saw an HDR flag, and I must say it is spectacular. We now let the Envy decide when to output HDR to the NX9. All the NX9 tone mapping is turned off. See any of the new Star Treks - Picard, Discovery, or Strange New Worlds. Or try Bosch, Maverick, or any new HDR movie. Just great. Highly recommended.
Norm

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Interesting. Sounds promissing

I have issues when I pick non-HDR material tho. As long as the Envy gets out of the way and the ATV does not flag the SDR material as HDR then that should be ok. I use Pluto TV and the Classic TV section to evaul who well a processor is working along with high quality sources like test material on youtube. Its REALLY hard to do material like Pluto Mission Impossible or the Andy Griffith show as it has a lot of noise and its low rez source. So scaling and all the math for tone mapping and all that tend to fail and it looks really bad. Film based shows like Mission Impossible and other film based shows on that classic section of pluto are good tests and look stunning if the scaling and all the math for everything is working well. Andy Griffith for example can look 3D and the detail is crazy.

I have been on a project for the last month to mod a display into the best picture on earth so i can really see pictures well. What has become VERY clear is that digital processing is no where near as good as directly displaying the pixels native on a display with little, or no, processing. Native format, so a 1920x1080 display is best for HD content. Also down converting looks WAY better then upconverting. So 4K matieral shown on a HD display looks stunning. At a reasonable distance back, the 4K rez is not that important VS the lack of artifacts from video processing.

I am glad to see that the Envy is doing good processing and better tone mapping then the proj. A processor like the Envy can also do wonders processing the picture for display on that exact proj. That part is very cool.

I have had such a horrible experence over a decade with HDR that you guys will need to excuse me as I think I have post tramautic HDR syndrome. I run and duck for cover anytime the letters HDR are used or Dolby Vision. So I could well have a incorrect view of all this and the Envy + HDR material might be great. BUT, I have my doubts., which could well be wrong..

My thread on AVS on my best display project.. Spoiler. Its a Panasonic ST60 Plasma insanely modded and doing a side by side with a Sony A90K and a LG is no contest.. This thread got pretty technical tho..