AppleTV X - I am playing with something new

[Xymox]

Oops....

After making a ATVX, I dropped it on a concrete floor as I was about to put it in the box

I now have a B-Stock. It has a ding in the top front corner.

So... My loss could be your gain..

BUT I am waiting on a batch of linears. These wont arrive till aprox oct 1st. So I can reserve someone a this b-stock unit and then pay & ship would be around oct 1st.

PM me if interested.

The unit is new and the only issue is the obvious ding..

 

[Xymox]

Kinda exciting news for me

The first Used ATVX I know of has sold I helped with this and I offered a free "fact refurb" and check out. So I will get it and over it to be sure all is well. I want to do this for any used units. I like to see and measure them after time. Its valuable info for me.

 

[Basillus7]

Oops....

After making a ATVX, I dropped it on a concrete floor as I was about to put it in the box

I now have a B-Stock. It has a ding in the top front corner.

So... My loss could be your gain..

BUT I am waiting on a batch of linears. These wont arrive till aprox oct 1st. So I can reserve someone a this b-stock unit and then pay & ship would be around oct 1st.

PM me if interested.

The unit is new and the only issue is the obvious ding..

PM sent.

 

[orange55]

HDMI cables..

So I accidentally stumbled into doing some HDMI cable ABs today.. It was very interesting..

I had not done HDMI cable ABs since i modded the Plasma to produce a picture that went to 11 and then 12.. Its also been burning in and is just eye popping. The Sony A90K looks terrible side by side.

So I was making ATVs today and part of my process when i make them is after the main board and I soled up the cap network I power test with the sensing supply. But I do this with a supply on my bench and its all hooked to test equip where I measure each and every ATVX for things like noise, noise spectra and stuff. I have everything setup in a test jig, so I just plug in the ATVX with the test equip on and I get all the measurements in one pop. But I also hook up HDMI and Ethernet so I can test all that and measure the system doing actual streaming. I use a specific clip, the trailer for Avatar the wya of water. No reason for that clip. It is just fairly useful and I know it. This is all hooked to the plasma.

The bench has a 3M Amazon basic HDMI. I am not looking at quality at this stage, I just need a picture to stream so I can measure. BUT. I do look at the picture. I also update firmware at this stage..

I have been watching my own ATVX I have a lot recently.

Today when making ATVXs I had pause.. I went "hold on, that pic looks dark".. Everythign measured perfectly. I did a direct AB with my unit on the other input ( same settings ).. The test bench ATVX was clearly dark.. Like I wanted to turn up the brightness level quite a bit.. I was confuzed.. I decided to hook it to a short Wire World cable to the TV.. Perfect.. The quite obvious darkness was GONE. I went back to the 3M Amazon Basics and there again the picture was really kinda dramatically dark with blacks missing at the bottom. Also colors were too hot, like brightness was dropped and color stayed the same skewing it.

So I did a bunch of AB..

This was not in any way subtle. This was in your face. The plasma had made these difference far more obvious. I could see them on the Sony, but the Plasma REALLY made it clear..

I went thru every HDMI cable I had. I had Audioquest cables, Wireworld cables, Bluejeans cables..

This brightness thing, almost like gamma changes, was apperent on everything. Lenght seemed to matter. BUT not like you would think. SHorter might not be best..

The issue was not just subjective..

Cable changes made differences in where banding occured.. So doing a smooth brightness transistion and looking at where the TV would step to each level of brightness CHANGED WITh THE CABLE.. SO no way this is subjective. Something is very clearly changing the values of pixels based on different cables. This would seem to be concealment implimented on a chip level. Something is changing in the HDMI signal and HDMI "error correction" is varying in degrees with concealment.

SO.. HDMI cables REALLY matter.. The crazy clear Panasonic plasma made these differences REALLY obvious. I could also see them on the Sony, but not as dramatically.

I still can't say one cable, or lenght, is best.. BUT I can sure tell you that the HDMI cablle REALLY matters.. AND its not just subjective.

Sound also varied with each cable. BUT in a very different way. So be aware as you try out different HDMI cables to look AND listen as they BOTH change and sound might be best with one and pic might be better with another..

So if you have not played with HDMI cables, you should.

Interesting post as I tested a whole bunch of HDMI cables myself a couple of years ago. I was using my Oppo player a the source, but the changes you describe is exactly what I observed also. Plus the sound was actually the biggest impact, but only a few sounded much better than the rest, a lot sound had subtle changes.

My selection include similar ones, Wireworld, multiple Audioquest, QED, freebie, cheap from amazon. The best for sound and picture was actually the same cable, The Chord Company Epic 48Gpbs HDMI cable. Sound was the biggest jump over all the other cables, but also had the best picture. I have that cable throughout and not looked back.

 

[Xymox]

Interesting post as I tested a whole bunch of HDMI cables myself a couple of years ago. I was using my Oppo player a the source, but the changes you describe is exactly what I observed also. Plus the sound was actually the biggest impact, but only a few sounded much better than the rest, a lot sound had subtle changes.

My selection include similar ones, Wireworld, multiple Audioquest, QED, freebie, cheap from amazon. The best for sound and picture was actually the same cable, The Chord Company Epic 48Gpbs HDMI cable. Sound was the biggest jump over all the other cables, but also had the best picture. I have that cable throughout and not looked back.

Yes, I had seen differences like this going back to my Oppo long before the ATVX.. But my Plasma, wowee, these differences have become VERY clear.. The Plasma has issues of course, flicker and banding stand out most, but, it does not have processing like all these 4K displays and that lack of math makes for a very clear picture. ALl the modding I did to it took it to a insanity level. Of course its 1000% not piratical or even legal. I am very sure its vastly exceeding legal limits for RF emissions. I also cant put the back back on as it wont fit with the parts on it. And with 1000V all over it, its really dangerous.. BUT WOWEE it looks SOOO good, hahaha.. It is a REALLY good piece of test equip for me. I can REALLY see the picture and its not modified by any video processing or scaling.

What still just stuns me is watching things like "classic TV" on Pluto. Things like I love Lucy, Mission Impossible, The Andy Griffith Show, this kind of old show shot on film is just wonderful on the Plasma, but completly unwatchable on a 4K like my SOny A90K. I think the noise and film grain cause modern video processing to reduce the pic to ****.. The plasma just displays the moise and grain in the pic as is and this ends up being very pleasing to the eye somehow VS the **** that results from video processing a noisy pic. The problem is you cant get away from this math on a 4K. Even if you turn off everything and do all the right settings, the TV MUST still do moath to correct for things like the LED color gamut and gamma.

There is another unknown with my plasma mods. Lifetime. While I have not increased avg power draw and all I have really done is seriously sharpen up nano second pulses that fire each plasma cell with a tiny lightning bolt while making them far more precise and accurate,,, I do not know what this does to the life of the plasma panel. So far, so good, but I am keenly aware that I may have shortened the life of the panel..

SO.. I just want to make sure no one goes down the plasma path without realizing the issues. I need the best pic on earth for my work and I am willing to take the risks involved.

It has burned in.. What i know for sure is the pic coming from a ATVX is way better then you think using a 4K.

YES sound is a stunning difference with anything HDMI.. Its also the biggest thing that changes with the mods I do. The pic is a big jump, but the sound,, well,, its like a whole difference device..

 

[Xymox]

PM sent.

I have 3 people in line now. I will keep everybody updated. No commitment yet. So at this point, I think its taken.

 

[Xymox]

While I have posted this before.. Just for anyone who did not see it and wonders what i am talking about with my plasma and wanted more info on how a 1080 plasma could exceed a 4K OLED by so much,, here is the thread where I modded it.. It is also a guide in case anyone else is crazy enough to do it, even tho i do NOT recommend it for a lot of reasons.. There are of course completely lethal voltages inside - 2KV + lots of current in AC form - so caution for even experienced techs.

I have some highly technical questions on Panasonic...

www.avsforum.com

I just cant see the detail and the fine changes in gamma and color rendering on a OLED anywhere close to what just stands out on the plasma..

Also i wanted to mention that DO NOT think you can just go buy a used ST/VT/ZT Panasonic and get these results. It took the mods to bring it to life. Also most of these units are reaching the age where caps need replacing and you have no idea what shape the display panel is in. Keep in mind they age.

 

[Xymox]

Because of the overload of orders, which is now under control as long as i dont drop another one, hahaha,, I have setup a initial intake workstation..

There is a very time consuming process I go thru with each one. I have to update firm ware, charge the remote, update remote firmware and then reset & reload. This is very time consuming. Doing 1 at a time I end up waiting in-between. I can do all this BEFORE I do mods..

So I have figured out I can do most of that initial stuff before I work on them. This also allows me to do check out before I commit parts to each one. So I setup a station where I can do 4 of these at the same time. While these chug along doing firmware/reset/remote/remote charging I can build units at the same time. I can use just a **** monitor for initial firmware work.

So that is a big savings for me time wise.

Once I am done with units I need to do initial burn-in and testing and after I look at each one individually on the plasma do a full reset before shipping.. This workstation will also help me do that as well as i can be burning in 4 units while testing one on the plasma.

So this is a step toward more mass production sorta..

I can still only do 2 a day just because its really intense work and I am worn out after 2. But this still saves me time and might get me to 3 a day.

 

[Xymox]

VERY FUN... As I mentioned earlier I got to help on the first sale of a used ATVX. I offered a fact refurb free. Mostly I admit, I wanted to see and check out the unit. So this unit was from a batch I did right at the start, nearly 3 years ago now. I now know its history too. It first went to my distributor who used it in his showroom and also took it to shows. He then sold it to client. It has been on nearly the whole 3 years.

I have now done a lot of measurements and looking at / listening to it..

I was keen to measure it for a number of parameters. I wanted to look at long term drift of its regulated output. Voltage regulators drift with age. Low long term drift is something you pay extra for in a regulator chip. Well it was still spot on. No need to adjust at all. That means these units will stay dead on voltage for a really long time. This was awesome and confirmed the long term drift spec. I measured noise, noise spectra, I cheeck the HDMI, i looked at the jitter on the CPU busses,, looked at the clocks... Everything was just like new..

I took a close look at the Apple PC board for any sign of aging, it looked brand new.

I checked the linear for aging. All perfect..

Overall I was really happy to see that these are essentially not aging. This was part of my design. The use of a 4A power supply even tho it draws 0.2 A means the linear should last nearly forever. As we all know the AppleTV itself seems ageless as i have never seen one fail and i have them going back to the very first gen Apple made and it still works. The only weak spot for a ATV was its crappy power supply and I removed it and used a linear. This also removed a bunch of heat from inside the ATV case, which makes things last longer...

So I am very happy with seeing how these are working long term.

SO... Interestingly, it looked better then a new one. Exact same parts. It must be the 3 years of burn-in.. SOund was maybe a bit better, but the pic was clearly better..

All my CRT projectors I made back in the day are all still working, the ones still in use, and making things work for a long time is very much part of my engineering..

 

[Xymox]

I had a ATVX client send me email saying he was watching a show it the performance was so bad it was unwatchable. He had tried everything including a new TV, HDMI cable, Ethernet, more Eeros for a faster connection.. But still there were shows that were "HORRIBLE"..

He used terms like "blurry" and "jumpy" and "just terrible"..

He was at his wits end..

I had him find a section of a show that demonstrated the issue..

He was describing what sounded like film judder. When a camera pans and the frame rate is 24fps. This of course is intended and exactly the way something shot in 24(23.98) should look. But he seemed to be experencing something worse.

His example was "between 1:57 and 2:10 on Lord of Rings rings of power S2 E7" on Amazon...

So I went and looked... OMFG.. What a huge mess... Horrible is correct..

So it mas shot in some version of 24, but, also seems how had some 50hz base in there someplace. But 25 is not it either.

Some googling produced interesting results.

Amazon streaming is broken. It is apperently not doing frame rate matching correctly when streaming.. Tons of discussion online on this..

https://www.reddit.com/r/appletv/comments/1ff1g0v/match_frame_rate_for_amazon_prime_rings_of_power

After a lot more research and into the wee hours of the morning, I agree, something is really wonky over in Amazon land.. I reproduced the same issues on Roku.

After a LOT of playing around, I did find settings that make it mostly watchable but they involve changing ATV & Sony TV settings just for this show and maybe just for Amazon.

It truens out that the best way to try and avoid the issue are the following settings..

Apple TV > Video & Audio > Format > scroll all the way to the bottom and pick more then scroll way way down to 4K ( SDR or HDR ) 23.98 and pick this and then OK it. Leave frame rate matching off

Sony > settings > Video > Motion Flow > custom > set to 2..

This produces the best rendering of this bad mistake.. It appears the whole Amazon app can have this issue.

Remember tho to put your TV back to normal settings when you watch other apps and material.

While I can do cool things to the analog electronics side of the ATV, I cant do anything about things in firmware or streaming issues like this. In fact the ATVX will make it clearer as it renders each frame very clearly.

So I found this interesting that such a big main stream show & app got this so badly wrong.

ALSO I want to cover something else.. EACH PERSON IS DIFFERENT. There are online guides to do settings for displays. You just dial in settings someone else thought looked good. EACH PERSON IS DIFFERENT.. So some people might prefer motion smoothing or different settings for nearly everything in those guides. So remember, there is no "correct" set of settings. Its personal and each person has very different visual perception and so all these settings WILL vary.. So dont be scared of adjusting things. Write down your current settings and go play with things. See if you can find the best pic for YOU.

 

[Xymox]

Wellll.... I went back and revisited the whole Dolby Vision / HDR VS SDR thing on a Sony A90K OLED.. The below applies to a Sony A90K OLED and LG and projectors are different.. But the observations still apply in many respects..

It has been a while since i really sat down and fully explored this topic. Apple has TVos on 18.1 dev beta now. Sony has a bunch of TV updates..

I will go over settings first and then discuss..

This worked for *ME* and BE AWARE each person has different picture elements that work well for them. Some may like smooth motion, so may prefer a brighter pic, pic preferences are VERY personal and so to get the best pic FOR YOU you really gotta play some.. Just be AWARE that before you reset your TV to know what your settings are now as you may be accustomed to them and my suggestions may not to be your liking.

This assumes a completly dark room.
__________________________
I started by resetting the AppleTV.
Then setting video format to 4K SDR 60 / Match Frame rate ON / match dynamic range off
I hooked to port 2 on the Sony A90K. This port is designed for devices like the ATVX, it does not do 120hz etc. It might be OK to use port 4.
I started by doing a factory reset of the Sony. About > Reset > Fact reset..
I picked "basic TV" rather then google TV as i use mine as a monitor and do not want google in my TV.
During setup of the port 2 device on the TV pick "other" rather then "4K HFR device"
followed the rest of setup. You can opt out of Samba TV by not agreeing and just save and continue.

Once setup was done..

I picked the ATVX on input 2.
Then did:
Settings > Picture > Picture Mode custom
> Light sensor > off
> Brightness > Gamma 0
> Motion > motion flow > off
> Clarity > Smooth Gradation > off
_____________________________

This alone produced a very reasonable picture for most material. This is what I suggest as the best generally as a starting point as it looks good across all material including HDR / DV material.

So.. Can a 4K Dolby Vision setting on the ATVX look better then the above. With current firmware and updates, YES but only on a small subset of material. Strangely Dolby Vision looks great when you play material NOT encoded in DV or HDR.. But setting 4K Dolby Vision on the ATV will make HDR / Dolby vision encoded material mostly look dark with a lack of bit depth in dark areas and, strangely, a loss of detail overall VS SDR. When you have Dolby Vision enabled on the ATVX every show and app is a crap shoot. Each show is different. You really have to play with knobs like tone mapping, black level, gamma, black enhance PER SHOW to get to a watchable picture. Its a struggle. This makes technical sense as there are no standards for Dolby Vision or HDR production and monitors used for grading all also vary in tone mapping and settings from set to set, post to post house.. So everything is a mess and vary widely. It is possible to find settings if you play with them for each show that will get close and maybe exceed the SDR, but for me, not worth it..

4K SDR with the above settings looks fantastic for me on everything.

I did note a strange increase in detail I can't explain while doing SDR VS Dolby Vision. Skin pores and color gradation.. Its like maybe 4K HDR is getting more processing and loosing some detail. All the detail and clarity settings were the same for Dolby Vision VS SDR..

The above are base settings. Its possible to get more fine tuned.

I could not find settings on Dolby Vision based content that worked consistently across all shows while SDR worked great across everything.

SO.. While HDR/Dolby vision offers a possible better picture, because of a lack of production standards and a lack of standards for production displays for HDR/DV tone mapping, it does not work in real life in a consumer home.. Which is what SMPTE discusses in this months SMPTE journal. PLUS each person is different and these differences are not taken into account in standards.

Can devices like MadVR and Lumagen help ? Yes, for some displays and for sure for projectors. These require careful setup tho and the right kind of settings on the display as well. Best to get someone who knows these products to set them up for you.. REQUIRE a SDR profile and a Dolby Vision profile. You do this by setting the ATV to 4K SDR and setting up a display processor. Then setting the ATV to 4K Dolby Vision and doing the same thing. But again with Dolby Vision, you will end up with different settings on the display processor for different mastered shows. So you still need to play with settings even if you have a pricey display processor. With 4K SDR on the ATVX you dont really have to play witrh any knobs. You also may not need a processor as tone mapping is not required.

So a LG is a different beast and its nearly impossible to get SDR to work and calibrate correctly, so, Dolby Vision is best so far from feedback with clients. Projectors are also quite different. Display processors might help with these devices.

So if you REALLY want the best pic from a show and your dead set on the VERY best and have the time,, you would need to play around with a bunch of settings and try out SDR vs Dolby Vision and if DV then play with a bunch of settings because of the lack of production standards and a standard set of tone maps on production displays.

It sounds like SMPTE has recognized the issue, but, who knows when/if things will get fixed..

SO.. SDR looks great on the Sony A90K.. So I am sticking to that..

A good example of Dolby Vision looking too dark and inferior to SDR is Lord Of The Rings - The Rings Of Power on Prime. You really had to play with knobs in Dolby Vision to make the dark scenes watchable VS SDR.

There are other issues I could not fix in HDR/Dolby vision material. In AppleTVs Slow Horses in S4 E6 at 6:20 there are lights in this bar scene that in 4K Dolby Vision are WAY too bright and this brightness looks artificial and I cant make it look real no matter what tone mapping, or gamma or brightness peaks I set. This scene just looks like caca VS the 4K SDR.

You almost have to adjust knobs scene by scene when watching HDR/DV material when the ATVX is on 4K Dolby Vision. Its the lack of standards and things like stretching the brightness out in ways that are unnatural which would vary display by display..

HDR / Dolby Vision encoded material is just all over the map with no real standards.. This makes it most unusable for me as I dont want to adjust knobs for every show I watch and maybe even scene to scene..