Why is content / Video via AppleTV app on an Apple TV so dark?

Here are some helpful suggestions from this post which may help those using TV sets, especially #2:

• Are your HDMI ports set to RGB? If so, change to YCbCr (on both devices at either end of the HDMI cable).
• Is your display HDR capable? If the Apple TV 4K box thinks it is, but if the display is not, then you may get unintended effects, such as low contrast dark picture.
• Do all the HDMI ports on the TV have the same specs? That is common now for new models, but that was often not the case a few years back. See your TV manual.

IT'S THIS! THIS IS THE SOLUTION!

albert.hash wrote:

Solution:

Settings > Video and Audio > Match Content > Match Dynamic Range (Off)

I did some research on this, and there are loads of posts on this forum and Reddit’s Apple TV+ subreddit from users having the same issues with content from the Apple TV+ app on every device and OS.  However, nearly all of the other Apple forum threads are locked b/c this happens very quickly if no one responds for a little while, which prevents you from being able to follow up with help, provide a link to a new thread, or ask users if they have since found a resolution: a completely pointless and counterproductive process that helps no one.

It’s an issue with HDR (and Dolby Vision/Dolby Atmos) contrast, and how it’s being delivered from Apple.  It causes the picture to look unbalanced, not just dim.  I’m pretty sure that the only viewers who are able to get it to display properly are those with certain models of the Apple TV and some other HDR-compatible TVs.  This has been happening since at least 2021.  It’s mind-boggling that they have fixed it yet.  This is how the issue can be confirmed:

I encourage everyone who’s experiencing this to do these tests and reply back, as I’m trying to open a case w/ a senior advisor at Apple for this issue, and it would be very helpful to have more people on board who can confirm these details:  

– Firstly, it’s happening with every Apple TV original that I tried (series as well as movies), and I tested about 10 different ones on my iPhone 11 Pro Max and 2019 MacBook Pro.  Downloading the titles makes no difference.  Increasing the brightness on device screens doesn’t resolve it b/c it’s a problem with the HDR contrast, and there are no settings for this on laptops, iPads, or iPhones, only dispaly brightness.

– All of the official Apple TV+ trailers in other apps/sites like IMDb and YouTube have normal contrast, which is totally inconsistent with what you see in the same titles within the Apple TV+ app, so it’s definitely not the films.  Compare the titles you are watching in Apple TV+ to the official trailers for the same titles on IMDb or Youtube.  These Apple originals have first-rate, state-of-the-art cinematography, production, and encoding, and no other streaming service delivers video that shows up incorrectly formatted with unbalanced/dark color contrast (except also Showtime on iOS for the past year, but it’s not nearly as bad as Apple TV+).  These films should look perfect on every device, just like any titles you’d stream/download from other apps including YouTube, HBO MAX, Netflix, Paramount+, Tubi, Disney, Hulu, Peacock, etc.

– Even all film scene screenshots in the app itself (such as for all TV episodes) and in all Apple TV emails look normal/balanced.  A consistently bright talk show like The Problem with John Stewart looks perfect on YouTube, but has this same contrast problem in the Apple TV app.  There’s also no way that every filmmaker would do this intentionally only for Apple TV series titles, and never for other titles which they produce.  I’ve also never seen a film where it was intentionally and consistently so dark/unbalanced thru the entire video.  Even watching at night w/ lights off and brightness set to max doesn’t make up for the overall gloom and unbalanced, muted colors.  Comparatively, even the darkest scenes from dark films like The Batman or Malignant are still clearly visible, and look intentional and color balanced w/ normal, expected contrast like you’d see in the theater or on cable TV.

– The issue wasn’t happening with content I streamed a year ago from Paramount+ and AMC+ within the Apple TV+ app, only w/ Apple originals from what I’ve tested.  To clarify, the Paramount/AMC titles were ones that played and downloaded within the Apple TV+ app thru trial subscriptions.

For anyone with an LG OLED trying to figure out how to address this, you'll want to...

Disable both ASBL/TPC (Auto Static Brightness Limiter/Temporal Peak Luminance Control) + GSR (Global Sticky Reduction) on 2021 and earlier models (both require the LG service remote; 2022 and newer models have received firmware making this typically unnecessary outside of professional applications), disable logo luminance adjustment, disable Eye Comfort Mode, disable all energy-saving features, disable all AI features. It's also a good idea to ensure your Screen Shift is disabled, Aspect Ratio is set to Original, and Just Scan is enabled.

Also, ensure your Apple TV is set to 4K SDR by default with RGB High and Match Range & Match Frame Rate all selected/enabled.

If you're in a dark room, then use the (DV) Cinema picture preset with OLED LIGHT 100 (except C8 which should be 50), Contrast 100, Sharpness 0, Color 50, Tint 0, Dynamic Contrast = Off, Super Resolution = Off, Peak Brightness = High, Color Temperature = Warm2, Noise Reduction = Off, MPEG Noise Reduction = Off, Smooth Gradation = Off or Low, Real Cinema = On, Motion Eye Care = Off, TruMotion = Off

If you're in a room with lights on or sunlight, then use the (DV) Cinema Home picture preset with OLED LIGHT 100 (except C8 which should be 50), Contrast 100, Sharpness 0, Color 50, Tint 0, Dynamic Contrast = Off, Super Resolution = Off, Peak Brightness = High, Color Temperature = Warm2, Noise Reduction = Off, MPEG Noise Reduction = Off, Smooth Gradation = Off or Low, Real Cinema = On, Motion Eye Care = Off, TruMotion = Off, Precision Detail = On (2022 & newer), AI Brightness = On (2019 & newer)

If you follow all of this, then you should be able to come really close to seeing everything as the director & colorists intended given that all Apple TV shows are tested in the studios on LG displays as Client Monitors.

With that said, a known issue with LG displays is that they frequently crush shadow detail near black even once all readily apparent settings are optimized. LG does this partly due to panel variances, partly to increase the perception of contrast, but also just to hide near black chrominance overshoot issues WOLED panels often have. The only way to correct this is with a professional calibration (unless you know how to do this yourself). A professional calibrator can perform a profiling of the display and generate a new 1D & Matrix LUT (Lookup Table) for Dolby Vision (even many professional calibrators can't get this right though FWIW). The 1D LUT enables the grayscale to be aligned to the standard D65 color temperature while also correcting issues with the display coming out of black.

Thank you so much, this worked also for me.

A brighter TV won’t compensate for the problem though, b/c it’s due to something very specific with the way that the HDR contrast is formatted and being delivered from Apple, not the brightness.  This is why the colors are dark and muted even when you increase brightness to 100%, and why it happens only w/ Apple Originals in the Apple TV app, and not with any titles I’ve seen from other services thru rentals or subscriptions in the same app.  Additionally, to reiterate what I explained before, trailers/clips of Apple Originals in other apps (e.g. IMDb, YouTube) also look fine, which proves that it has nothing to do with the way that the specific titles are filmed/produced.

However, I do not have an Apple TV, or any TV for that matter, so I cannot provide input on this.  But I can confirm that all of the Apple Originals look fine in the macOS Apple TV app 1.0.6.8 on Catalina 10.15.7, though these versions are very outdated now.  It is still not woking properly on the iPhone though, and updating to the latest iOS 17.6.1 makes no difference.  It’s most definitely unwatchable, and straining to the eyes, even at night w/ the lights off and screen set to max brightness.

I followed up w/ a senior advisor on my old case recently, and am trying to get him to submit it to the engineering team after we arrange another phone call.

Unfortunately it’s definitely not just Apple Originals doing it, for me at least it’s like an Apple Original broke the rest of my app on my TV. I tried to watch the movie “Luck” and first noticed it. So I opened other movies to see if it was my tv or the movie. I had just purchased the Back to the Future trilogy and watched it within the past few days, and the first one of that was what I opened, it’s apparently been revamped because that’s now HDR too. It did the same thing, I tried another three different titles that I have purchased, none of them Apple Originals, eventually I clicked one that wasn’t HDR and it worked perfectly fine.

So I still don’t understand what the problem is but I know it’s only on the app and only HDR movies and tv shows.

Well, there’s definitely more than one problem noted in this thread, and there could be multiple problems with the Apple TV and HDR/Dolby Vision from what I’ve read here, and in many other threads.  I don’t have an Apple TV though, so I can’t test the scenario you describe.  It also appears that the issues people are having w/ the Apple TV are much more varied than with the Apple TV app on other devices.  This is expected since the TV has many settings and cable routing options that can be customized, and can be used with different TV sets, where other devices like phones, tablets, and laptops have no settings except brightness.  This will naturally have an effect on the consistency of issues being reported.

For ex: Watching the dark scenes especially on any content in AppleTV app on my 4K AppleTV is much darker than the same dark scenes on my Playstation 5 running AppleTV app

Do these other HDR titles you refer to have the same problem on other Apple devices, or just your Apple TV?  Note that all of the Apple Originals seem to use Dolby Vision, which is a proprietary HDR format.

Escape the Field (2022) is in 4K HDR10+, and it played fine w/ a STARZ trial subscription on my iPhone.  Tomorrowland is in HDR, and it also played fine thru a rental – so does the trailer.  The Oppenheimer trailer (4K Dolby Vision, was on Peacock, now on Prime Video) looked fine thru both streaming services as well, but when I play trailers for Apple Originals (e.g. Napoleon, Monarch, Masters of the Air) they all have the same mega-darkness issue w/ HDR contrast.  Same goes for 100% of Apple Original titles I watched during 2 free trials.  But so far, 0% of non-Apple titles/trailers have this problem for me on the iPhone app.  All of them play fine w/ normal contrast.

Do you have any examples of non-Apple Original trailers that have this problem in the Apple TV app for iOS or macOS?  I played all 3 Back to the Future trailers, and they have normal contrast on my iPhone, but they’re using the original videos which have low resolution, and are not widescreen letterbox.

There is NO “video and audio.” There is only video troubleshooting and I can’t make choices at all. It has you click on it and it makes a whirly icon while it goes through the connections (i guess’) then it said OK and that was it. Everything is still dark.

But the same issue exists on iPhones. All Apple TV+ content is very very dark to the point of being unwatchable, while all other streaming video apps play normal brightness. And there is no setting like this on the phone, so is there a fix?

Same issue with a 27 inch Apple Studio Display! All other streaming services are fine but Apple TV+ content is noticeably darker - with any scenes filmed at night unwatchable. A good example is episode 6 of 'Invasion' - I could barely see what was going on!

I've tried changing my display settings and looked for a solution online to no avail.

Also tried watching on my iPad Pro - still dark!

Thank you for working on this so hard! I have had a little improvement changing the Displays setting Color Profile to LCD TV. I can now make out (sort of) what is happening in the nights scenes in Invasion on my MacBook Air built-in screen. I have tried all of the other suggestions from the other posts on this topic on Apple with no luck. However, most of those posts apply to external displays which I do not have. Thanks again!

Good suggestion. I don't have that specific profile on my MacBook Pro (using Catalina still), but other display color profiles will help compensate for whatever HDR formatting incompatibility is occurring in the Apple TV+ app, though it's only a workaround and won't fix it. Manually calibrating it in that same system preference may or may not work better, or finding a utility app that allows you to adjust the contrast and other settings.

The better option, however, is to use other streaming services until Apple eventually fixes it :/

I contacted Apple Support yesterday and after being "sent around the houses" I received a phone call to discuss the issue. I explained how some scenes such as episode 6 of the series 'Invasion' are so dark they are practically unwatchable!

The reply I received was "the programme has been filmed that way to add to the style of the content." 😂

It was suggested I try watching other programmes on Apple TV+ where I'll notice that there's no issue with darkness and I shouldn't be comparing Apple TV+ to Netflix, Prime etc (whom I experience no issues with).

Easy answer to that is to unsubscribe!

To be fair, the guy I spoke to was trying to be helpful but he didn't really have a solution. All he could offer, was to report my feedback.

What has happed to Apple? I remember the days when their customer service and support was second to none.

How times change.

In my opinion this is yet another example where Apple are not acknowledging there is an issue.