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Apple TV 4K flickering issue

I have noticed very recently that when a show is particularly dark (nighttime scene, shadows in the background) the blacks will flicker in only the darkest areas. I thought I fixed this when I changed around settings but the last 10 minutes of Loki on Disney Plus are a flickering mess. I ordered a new Belkin HDMI cable. No difference. Internet is very fast, and currently no other app is causing me problems. I’ve turned everything on/off, I’ve reset settings. Still nothing! Help!

Apple TV 4K, tvOS 14

Posted on Jun 17, 2021 9:24 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 12, 2021 7:44 AM

So I think I managed to fix it.

I do have an Ultra HD Samsung TV so I had the Apple TV setting on HDR. I decided to mess around with the settings. 60 Hz SDR with Match Content Dynamic Range OFF and Frame Rate Match Content ON. HDMI output RGB High. Color Balance ON. I rechecked the last 10 minutes of Ep: 1 of Loki. Looks good with no flicker and first 10 minutes The Witcher Ep: 1 (which was also giving me trouble). It’s overall a little more contrasty. The blacks have slightly less detail than with HDR but it’s better than a constant flicker which was driving me absolutely nuts!

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 12, 2021 7:44 AM in response to axm1208

So I think I managed to fix it.

I do have an Ultra HD Samsung TV so I had the Apple TV setting on HDR. I decided to mess around with the settings. 60 Hz SDR with Match Content Dynamic Range OFF and Frame Rate Match Content ON. HDMI output RGB High. Color Balance ON. I rechecked the last 10 minutes of Ep: 1 of Loki. Looks good with no flicker and first 10 minutes The Witcher Ep: 1 (which was also giving me trouble). It’s overall a little more contrasty. The blacks have slightly less detail than with HDR but it’s better than a constant flicker which was driving me absolutely nuts!

Jun 18, 2021 11:47 AM in response to axm1208

Hello axm1208,


Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. You've mentioned that your display flicker3s during dark screens when using your Apple TV 4K. There are some additional troubleshooting steps you can take such as recalibrating your display to see if that makes a difference.


See: Adjust video and audio settings on Apple TV


Have a great day.

Jul 10, 2021 3:41 PM in response to axm1208

Its driving me nuuuts. I hadn’t noticed before Loki. Now all I can see is the bloody flickering. I can see it in every streaming service, HBO max is the worst (I believe since their video quality is usually inferior to the D+ and Netflix).


At first I thought I could be the app, or the cable, or the tv (a brand new Samsung QLED, by the way), then the file. I spent hours comparing between the apps I use the most, even tried playing movies on Infuse, from my NAS server, but the issue was somewhat persistent. Sometimes I wondered if it could really be the tv panel.


Im no developer, but to me, as a photographer / video editor, it seems like when a software is dealing badly with digital noise / compressing artifacts, since it affects patches on the shadowy areas, usually a color band with similar luminance values.


I was watching a movie on HBOmax and the quality was terrible, compared to the same movie on the netflix catalog.


I came around to blame the ATV4K when I compared that both on the ATV and the tv’s native apps and the flickering appeared only on Apple TV.

Apple TV 4K flickering issue

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