Strobe effect with HDR on Apple TV

I’m having the same issue after the 12.3 update. The flickering on dark areas happens only when watching HDR content (It does not happen on Dolby Vision). I’ve also tried different chroma and frame rate settings settings on the Apple TV, but the flickering does not go away.

At at first I thought it was my tv, but after using my other streaming devices I realized it was the Apple TV. Hoping Apple becomes aware of this issue.

I am having the exact same problem, it affects HDR10 content mostly, occasionally a Dolby Vision will bug out. The movies specifically played within the AppleTV app, you know movies played from iTunes purchases are affected. This issue began with TvOs12.3. I thought it was the new tv I purchased, but I can play movies from other sources without any issue. It does not affect VUDU, Movies Anywhere, or any other app on the Apple TV 4K for me. I too have fiddled with the settings. If you reset the Apple TV within the settings menu it goes away when you first play the movie, then it comes back is you try to play it a second time, which was Field of Dreams for me, you notice it in the darker scenes and it is super distracting. This needs to be corrected as it’s an obvious bug introduced with the latest update. Please look into this...

Yes I have, it doesn’t affect Netflix Dolby Vision content, or Movies Anywhere HDR, or Vudu Dolby Vision or HDR, I play Field of Dreams in Movies Anywhere in 4K HDR and the issue doesn’t occur there, only iTunes purchased, I have Field of Dreams for iTunes as well and it happens there, dark shadow area strobe effect. I have the proper HDMI cable also, Belkin and also Monoprice certified cables, tried both and the issue persists. All started with the 12.3 update...

has anyone from Apple commented on this my Apple TV is doing this and my friends also I’ve got another 4K Apple TV on 11.3 and it doesn’t do this on that version of the software it’s something in the new version that must be causing this

"has anyone from Apple commented on this my Apple TV is doing this and my friends also I’ve got another 4K Apple TV on 11.3 and it doesn’t do this on that version of the software it’s something in the new version that must be causing this"

Apple does not read or post on these forums, Apple is simply our host. All posts are user to user only.

Use the workaround provided earlier in this thread. I haven’t tested it myself though. As far as I know there are no other solutions at the moment.

“ A workaround until they fix this: if you use the Movies app (the one with the iTunes Store), there is no flickering. “

It may be a fix for now but when they remove iTunes from the iOS what’s going to happen then surely Apple could comment on the problem or at least acknowledge it I’ve spent a large amount of cash on movies that don’t work properly now

Hi guys,

has any of you tried the iTunes tip and THEN tried playing a movie with Apple TV player? I am asking this because I had the "strobe" problem, tried few things, nothing worked. Then I got here, read tips, tried playing a movie with iTunes player and then switched over to the standard player - the strobing was gone. Now I cannot recreate the problem. It's as if it's gone. I really doubt that this was the "cure" but I thought I'd ask, maybe someone hit the same thing. I hate to know the issue existed, solved itself and I don't have a clue why.

Just to be clear, you're saying you fixed the TV App playback bug by switching over to iTunes, starting the movie from there, then returning to TV App where the bug was no longer occuring? If so, that's funny :)

Personally I haven't tried any solution yet as I very rarely rent movies digitally. But I will post back as soon as I do.

Yes, that's what I meant :)

But as I pointed out, I really doubt that was the "cure", more of an accidental solution where some tinkering just happened to help, at least for a moment, while I was doing the switch. Not exactly a scientific approach. I was thinking overheating for a while, we've got some heat waves in Europe. I don't know. It's like one day I had this crazy strobing on "Arrival" purchase, then two days later it was gone, without a specific reason, as all solutions I'd tried also happened shortly after the initial encounter and then I left the Apple TV 4K unattended for two days. Maybe I turn it on now and the strobe is back, I don't know. I work as a T2 IT service solutions specialist, so you can imagine I hate things dropping out of a radar without a reason. I need a hard resolve.

I've narrowed down the issue. It has something to do with a new video player overlay system on tvOS 12.3

I believe this to be the case because when I play something with iTunes Movies, the flickering is gone, until I turn on subtitles and whenever a subtitle appears on screen, inside a dark scene, the strobe happens.

With the new AppleTV app, the flickering always happens.

So this leads me to believe it has something to do with (invisible) onscreen overlay functions.