Apple’s 4K Content Incorrectly Streaming as ‘HD’ on Brand New Device

More and more Apple users are noticing that some of their TV shows and movies on the new Apple TV 4K, are labelled as HD. It has not been established if this is a UI bug or Apple has reduced the quality of streaming for said titles. The issue was reported in external apps and devices like Playstation and Amazon Firestick while the primary app reported no quality errors.

The following titles have reportedly been downgraded to 2K: Conjuring 3, Those Who Wish Me Dead, Wonder Woman, WW84, BvS Ultimate Edition, and JL Snyder Cut Gray.

At first, it was thought to be an HDMI cable issue, but users later confirmed that despite switching out their first-generation Apple TV 4K with the newly-released model and using the same cables, the problem still persisted. Which is to say that a 2017 Apple TV, when used with the same HDMI cable/port and video settings, showed 4K. But somehow the new 2021 Apple TV 4K displayed only HD.

Meanwhile, Justice League Snyder Cut is currently unaffected and playback in Native 4K Dolby Vision. The primary Apple TV app, also, appears to be unaffected and correctly labels all 4K content as 4K.

Earlier in May, a similar issue with quality of Apple TV+ content was reported. Users took to the official complaint portal of Apple to report the removal of 4K option on certain titles in the Apple TV 4K 2021. The issue particularly arose when it was plugged into content from other apps like Amazon Prime and Netflix.

It’s a shame that the new Apple TV 4K theoretically offers the highest video quality ever with up to 4K HDR at 60 frames per second. However, they have been behaving as if they were an Apple TV HD from 2015.

Despite having fixed the “bug”, reports of similar issues have resurfaced in June. Since the issue seems to be from Apple’s end, there isn’t much one can do to resolve it. In the past few months, Apple has made improvements to its infrastructure. As a result, streaming issues have gone considerably low.

Let’s see when Apple resolves this mysterious “HD syndrome”.

ABOUT APPLE TV

Apple TV is a digital media player and micro console developed and sold by Apple Inc. It is a small network appliance and entertainment device that can receive digital data for visual and audio content such as music, video, video games, or the screen display of specific other devices. Play it on a connected television set or other video display.

Source: Reddit