Anyone else having their Dolby Vision content in iTunes and Netflix display distorted during certain scenes throughout movies.
Turning Match Content off, fixes it but it also removes the Dolby Vision, and only plays in HDR. Worked fine before the 12.4 update. I even spent the money on new Belkin HDMI cables (Belkin UltraHD 8K HDMI 2.1 Cables), from the apple store which did not help.
Apple TV 4K
I don't mean to shoot the messenger and truly appreciate all and any input, but as it only happens with AppleTV, and has only occurred in recent versions of TVOS, it surely has something to do with Apple TV coding?
My workaround at the moment, to save keep switching settings, is to set the default output of Apple TV to 4K SDR 50hz, set dynamic range switching to on, and frame rate switching to off.
As a result, I get HDR when it is available (albeit at 50hz which is not ideal for films) and if the source is DV , as my TV will not support DV at anything over 30hz, and I am forcing 50Hz by the default setting, Apple TV denies DV and only provides that source at vanilla HDR. Obviously it means that I am not benefitting from DV, but at least I don't have to watch distorted scenes.
Hopefully the more people that report this to Apple, the more likely they are to investigate a solution ;)
I’ve found a work around for my LG 65UH8500. When a Dolby Vision show or movie starts playing from iTunes or Apple TV+ (I have Apple TV video set to 4K HDR @60Hz and Match Dynamic and Frame On), I pause the show or movie and turn off and back on the HDMI Ultra HD Deep Color option of the HDMI port where I have my Apple TV connected t (TV Settings - All Setting - General - HDMI Ultra HD Deep Color). The TV has to restart when you turn the option off and then again when you turn it back on, so the Auto Power Sync option has to be turned off too (TV Settings - All Setting - General -Simplink - Auto Power Sync). After doing this, the dark images and all content is shown correctly and I have to say it looks superb. Dolby Atmos also works perfectly. Of course, it’s a pain to have to this every time a Dolby Vision show starts, but at least you can enjoy shows and movies without downgrading to HDR 10. Hope it’s helpful and Apple, please fix this soon!!!
Hi,
On the Philips tv it’s the following procedure.
A bit of a pain to have to do but I’ve tested it on a few problem titles, and it seems to eliminate the issues. Hope that helps.
All Dolby Vision content on Apple TV is affected for me. Try watching the first two minutes of Daredevil Season 3 Episode 3. The scene where Fisk is in the bullet ridden car after it pulls up to the hotel is awful. I have an LG 75UH8500.
Apple is aware of the issue and is theoretically working on a fix. They had me send them videos of the files so the engineers could see them. If you call make sure they bump you up to a senior tech because the person answering the phone might not be aware of the issue.
Until now I had only seen distortion in iTunes DV movies. I had ruled out Netflix DV content played from the ATV until tonight for the first time I had persistent distorted dark scenes while watching Mindhunter from the Netflix app on my ATV. I then switched over to my TV Netflix app and played the same scenes in DV with no distortion. So to me this points to a problem with the ATV DV stream over HDMI to TV and nothing to do with the iTunes content.
I've been digging into this a bit over the weekend. I can also see the problem in Lost in Space s01e04 on the AppleTv netflix app. On my TV's netflix app it plays without any issue. I plugged in an FireTv 4k stick which also supports DoblyVision and the episode plays without issue in DolbyVision.
It seems highly unlikely that Netflix have a specially encoded apple version of the show sitting on their servers - so it would be fair to conclude that the problem is not with the TV or the encode but with the AppleTv hardware/software introduced around 12.4 update. I think short of apple issuing an OS fix, there's nothing we can do.
Thanks for that tip about turning off HDMI Ultra HD Deep Colour off then back on, romorg.
I tried watching the Matrix again using this method and Dolby Vision displayed correctly once this trick is applied. My TV is an LG UH850V.
I have been told by customer support they are aware of this fault, but still waiting on a future update.
Yes it seems to happen more with dark scenes. I was hoping that the latest update tvOS 12.4.1 (16M600) would possibly fix it but it didn't.
I can work around it with some titles by taking the HDMI cable out of the AppleTV and putting it back in. Other titles this knocks out my Dolby Atmos sound and only comes out as PCM, so for those titles I turn off Match Content's Match Frame Rate setting and the movie plays in HDR instead of Dolby Vision, and keeps my audio as Dolby Atmos. It's sucks because I own 281 iTunes movies and the majority of them are in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.
I just purchased Annabelle Comes Home in iTunes. The movie is in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. In the very beginning of the move there is a scene where the camera is on the doll in the back seat of a car and that is where it gets distorted. I did my unplugging of the HDMI from the Apple TV which seemed to work. The movie happened to also be added to my Vudu library so I tried watching it using the Apple TV's Vudu app and the same scene did not get distorted. It is starting to look like an iTunes issue, since it works fine in Dolby Vision and Atmos on Vudu.
I spoke with support a week or so ago. They were sympathetic to the issue, but suggested they could not do anything there and then, but would put in a report. It will require a TVOS or a TV update to fix and all they could suggest for the meantime was a work around of using 4KSD and switching off HDR matching for DV movies, which I'd already worked out for myself :)
I have only seen this issue with the Apple TV and Dolby Vision Content.
I have two TVs that support DV and here are my observations of this issue:
Built in Netflix App, Vizio P65-F1 - No Issue
Netflix on Xbox One X, Vizio P65-F1 - No Issue
Netflix on Xbox One X, TCL 2018 6 Series - No Issue
Netflix on Roku TV, TCL 2018 6 Series - No Issue
AppleTV+ on Apple TV, Vizio P65-F1 - Issues
Netflix on Apple TV, Vizio P65-F1 - Issues
I have not tried my ATV on the TCL, but will try and do that and report back.
I have an update for the problem. I have an LG TV UH850V model as I have previously posted and I tested my iPad Pro with a USB-C to HDMI 2.0 converter by Apple and guess what no problem with the Apple TV+ content! So the problem must lie in the Apple TV 4K software or hardware and not on the iTunes or Apple TV+ Dolby vision encoding. The problem is there for months and Apple had done nothing to fix this.
I called this in last week as well and have an active case open with Apple. Received a call back today stating that engineering is most definitely aware of the overall issue and working to resolve. Remember, the more people that call in for case numbers, the more traction it will get. Thanks.
I can confirm this is a bug with iTunes content specifically. On my 2018 Vizio P series I have no trouble with Dolby vision on any other input device or app except for Apple TV’s movie rental or tv show content. The Dolby vision content through Apple results in dark scenes being totally distorted, crushed blacks, and all around painful on the eyes. It’s such garbage I had to set the Apple TV to 60hz HDR10. The only way to rectify the issue is to disable Dolby vision on the Apple TV. Again, This is not a problem on my Xbox or built in smart TV apps. It only happens on the Apple TV and only on the Apple content specifically (not Netflix etc).
i guess Apple just doesn’t care to fix it? This bug is clearly known to them and has been around for almost a year now by measure.
Really sad how buggy Apple has become. Latest Mac OS is so buggy I switched to Windows 10. Shame. Steve Jobs would have never tolerated it. RIP.
Thanks for your reply. I have found the problem on various titles. Unplugging the HDMI cable from the AppleTV once I notice the distorted scene, and plugging it back in seems to work for iTunes movies as long as I keep the movie running. It is not helping when scenes get distorted in Netflix. The Netflix series Altered Carbon is a real bad one.
I have an LG 70UH6350, TV. It has the latest firmware 05.30.60
I tried running the HDMI cable directly to the TV from the AppleTV (bypassing my Sony Atmos receiver), and it still does it. So it kinda rules out my receiver. Also when I watch Altered Carbon using my LG smart TV Netflix app, it does not get distorted. Unfortunately my LG smart TV Netflix app does not work with Dolby Atmos, but it does display in Dolby Vision. I really feel that the 12.4 update is causing the issue. Hopefully another update will fix it.
Dolby Vision content displaying distorted since tvOS 12.4 update.
