TVOS 11.2 and Channels with LG C7

This sounds like a bug in tvOS 11.2. I guess we’re going to have to revert the SDR change and just let the app run in HDR mode until Apple figures this out.

Going direct did seem to fix it. Odd that the AVR Key worked fine before 11.2 and this only happens when the Channels App. Have an email out to HDFury to get they take.

tvOS 11.2 added automatic SDR/HDR switching. Channels is probably the only app you have that’s taking advantage of this feature. Other apps and previous versions of tvOS don’t attempt to switch from HDR to SDR, that’s why they don’t have any problems.

I hope not. I’ve waited weeks for 11.2 to release so I didn’t have to look at washed out shows.

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Please try the latest beta.

Just set the ATV4K to 4K SDR 60hz with frame rate and color depth auto-switching. The whole ATV interface looks better. The Channels interface looks better. The broadcast shows look better. The screensavers look exactly the same. And the ATV auto-switches to HDR (and matches source framerate) when you play HDR content from Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, etc. It looks fantastic. I am not sure why people are fighting this. This is a perfect solution.

Well on the Apple TV 4K thread a few users insist they want to keep their ATVs in HDR mode because they like the screensavers. Personally I can’t tell a difference either. It may just be my unique circumstances. In fact I can’t tell any meaningful difference between 4K HDR and 1080p SDR. My TV is 60” wall mounted but the viewing distance is about 2.5m so I shouldn’t be able to resolve individual pixels at either resolution. I can see a difference if I stand in front of the TV nearer than 2m. I suppose if I went for a 70” screen 1080p would start to look a bit ropey at my usual viewing distance but I can’t afford that at the moment.

Like @djcastaldo I set mine to 4K SDR and let it change to HDR when required. Obviously each change into HDR is accompanied by a change back to SDR so I’m surprised Netflix/Amazon/iTunes isn’t causing these hangs as-well

That’s not going to happen.

OK, well, for people who want the best quality picture for all content with auto switching, including the best quality user interface for the ATV and Channels, then set to 4k SDR 60hz with auto-switching to HDR. For everyone who doesn’t care about the best quality video, then do what you want.

EDIT: If you don’t believe me, just try it breifly. Take a look at the appleTV home screen, the top shelf options for stuff like channels, netflix, amazon, itunes movies, etc. Click into any app and take a look at the user interface. Then do the same thing in 4k SDR. You will notice that one really pops with vivid colors and bright images. Its not HDR. HDR works for the HDR videos. Not the rest of the menus, not the screensavers, not the broadcast networks. People should be choosing the settings that produce the best results for all content.

Mine looks way better set to Dolby Vision as the default. It’s an LG C7 fwiw. It doesn’t look bad on SDR but the colors aren’t as vivid for me. That said, color settings are obviously different for each.

Oh, hadn’t thought about it like that. People should obviously choose whatever setting looks the best on their TV.

v3.1.5 is now available on the App Store. The auto-SDR switching has been removed until Apple can sort out these issues.

Awesome. Looks and works fantastic for me now!

Why wouldn’t you have the handful of people with issues use an earlier channels beta version?

For now, I have to do just that. I’m dying to hear what Apple has to fix.

I wonder if there is a way to handle both use cases? Have a setting in Channels that determines if it should force SDR? I suppose they could do that if the setting can be read prior to the handshake on the app opening?

Part of this is a bug in TVOS or Channels app it seems. With the matching turned off it still allowed the Channels app to force the change to SDR. Not sure if the onus to honor that setting relies on the API in the OS or the application to honor that?

The HBO Go app has the same requirements as the Channels app. HBO’s entire library is SDR. HBO chose to go a different route that, IMO, makes for a smoother experience. One can bounce in and out of HBO, Netflix, etc. looking for something to watch and only when one attempts to p,ay an HBO selection will there be a switch to SDR. This is way less annoying as one expects a pause when starting a show anyway.

I suppose the Channels guys have optimized for hanging out in the Channels app jumping from show to show. For those of us who jump around in Channels, HBO, Netflix and [now] Amazon Prime, it’s not the best experience.

I’m not one to ask the Channels devs to optimize for my experience; but perhaps they could consider switching temporarily to this scheme as it is a known working scenario. Right now, there is no way to watch Channels shows in the dynamic range they were authored in without running an old beta.

There is a way. Auto dynamic range swithcing will switch to HDR automatically when playing HDR content.

Will you quit suggesting something that looks better on your TV. It doesn’t on mine. I’ll stop using Channels before I make that change.

BTW, the Channels developers may find that tagging the app as SDR Is meant to always switch to SDR, even when content matching is turned off.

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Auto switching only works at the moment for video played using the stock Apple video player. All the usual suspect apps use the stock player - iTunes, Netflix, Amazon and presumably HBO Go that @jkline uses. These apps therefore keep to the UI depth and frame rate that the user has selected in Settings and only switch when the video is played.

Channels does not use the stock player. They use a custom player. I think it’s mainly to do with playing MPEG-2. I’m not sure if it’s also the de-interlacing that has to be done.

Up until this issue the current player worked fine for all use cases. However the custom player does not trigger a depth/framerate switch. There is supposed to be a separate API for developers to use to trigger a change on a per video basis but apparently it is broken as a test version of Channels was crashing using it - I think @tmm1mentioned . Channels sets a manifest value that puts the whole app into SDR whether or not depth switching is enabled in settings. However that probably is no more a culprit for these TV issues than any other HDR/SDR switch. I’ve had issues with every other app that does switching and even the aTV settings menu.

Also would like to point out that I have now had my first non-aTV “HDMI crash” (for want of a better term).

This occurred with my Xbox One X changing from SDR to an HDR game. The problem is obviously with my TV not handling this issue correctly sometimes.

Infuse uses a custom player and has been able to implement framerate and HDR/SDR switching in 11.2. So far it has been flawless for me, though I don’t have any content to test HDR/SDR switching, just framerate switching. But it shows it is possible to implement correctly in a custom video player.