Apple TV 4K Dull Colors

I have the same TV and can’t get the new 4K ATV to connect in 4K - even in SDR mode. Your post gives me some hope (despite the dull color issue) since at least you appear to be getting 4K. I need to test HDMI cables, but otherwise unsure of how to troubleshoot and/or setup TV and ATV. Quite frustrating.

Apple is talking nonsense, there is no such thing as an HDMI 2.0 cable. There are standard, high speed and premium high speed and unless you are watching any 4k at 60 fps, a high speed cable should suffice.

I am seeing the same thing on my Samsung KS8500. A 4k hdr video played via the Infuse app looks way muted compared to the same file played via my OPPO UHD blu-ray player or via Kodi through my nVidia shield. Perhaps this is a Samsung<->ATV situation.

I have a Samsung SUHD 4k TV and I think I finally figured out the correct settings to (nearly) fix this issue. First I downloaded the 11.1 beta. That seemed to brighten up the menu/home screen dullness. Then I was able to minimize the gradient banding and weird color artifacts by turning UHD Color OFF on my Apple TV HDMI input. It seems the Apple TV 4k isn’t set up to process UHD color yet. Now there is much less banding in the on screen gradients and no color artifacts noticeable in UHD movie images like flesh tones and clouds. However, I have to choose 4:2:0 chroma instead of 4:2:2, otherwise the banding and color artifacts come back. I also have Dynamic Contrast set on Medium, because High seemed to blow out details in the highlights.

I got my ATV4k yesterday and it was working fine in 4K SDR 60Hz before I changed to chroma 4:4:4 somewhere in the setup. Now I cannot figure out where the chroma setting is. Do I really need to reset to factory settings? Or is there a setting I'm overlooking?

That did it. I tried a HDR setting (something my TV do not support) and I got a choice to reduce the colorspace to 4:2:0. Of course I got a black screen for a moment, but when I tried 4K/SDR it worked.

But, why I don't have Chroma setting under Video and Audio, puzzles me.

Hi Bhavyagoutam,

I have been researching this issue with the KU6300 and while the 11.1 beta improved luminosity, it was only a 10%-15% improvement. I tried 4:2:0 and 4:2:2 chroma and the least improvements were on 4:2:2.

These are my opinions, even those I’ve assumed as fact.

I did some digging and discovered three things:

1) A majority of Samsung TVs out there do not completely support HDR. While they have the option, it’s a lukewarm experience and not worth turning on. Some apps are optimized for hdr, but those are included in their apps store (i.e. the Samsung Netflix app)

1A) The HDMI ports with HDR support only pass some hdr information. It’s part of the issue (Ah... there is data missing in transmission)

1B) Their HDR is propriety and they only partially support HDR10 (hypothesis and needs more research)

2) On my TV and many similar series, the color gamut is not wide enough to truly get full hdr experience (bingo! The dull colors)

3) The contrast and luminosity range is limited (on my model and similar series)

How did I resolve my issue? Well I agree some of it is on Apple. They too have a poor HDR implementaction and deferred the work on HDR by licensing Dolby Vision which is an end to end solution. The tv, device, and media must all support Dolby Vision. This solution is a great idea but it competes with other HDR solutions. Samsung May never adopt it. They have their own standard and have owned the market for a few years so... there is that. I always said “no” to buying one. I broke down on Amazon Days and got one. I was impressed but still feel my tv overrated.

Resolution: I switched to SDR 60hz with a 4:4:4 chroma and did two calibrations. One from rtings site and one ith the THX app on the App Store. The colors aren’t as good with HDR turned on but then again, I would need to be in total darkness and turn up the backlight to full to even see some of the HDR... not enough to justify HDR. At least I have a crisp picture now. Awesome. Guess I’ll wait for the HDR wars to subside

j

What I am having a hard time with is that my 2 other 4K devices: nvidia Shield and oppo UHD Blu-ray player both hit it on the mark in terms of HDR and color and are connected to the same KS8500 panel as the ATV 4K. I can play 65gb hevc 4K mkv file of Oblivion (for example) with those 2 devices and it looks beautiful under the same tv picture settings. However when I launch the same file on the Apple TV using VLC, MRMC, Plex or Infuse the output is dull and washed out. There has to be something wacky in the way Apple decided to implement the video output. I bought 2 ATV 4K devices assuming Apple would hit the mark but right now they are collecting dust while I wait for Apple to figure this out. Hope they are paying attention to this thread.

The problem is Apple did not feel like implementing mode switching so when you turn on 4K HDR, it is sending 4K HDR signal to the TV regardless if the content is 4K HDR or not. Mode switching introduces screen flicker which they did not want to do until they find a better method. You can play with setting on your TV but it will only get you so far and will not be able to get it to look right. Of course, once you play proper 4K HDR, everything will look great.

I simply keep the settings in 1080p SDR and when I have HDR content to watch, it's easy enough to switch to 4K HDR. UHD content is still not a daily thing so it's not that big of a deal ATM but it will be a huge problem soon.

Not all HDMI cables are made the same. There are 2.0 standard cables. There are also 1.4 and 2.0 Home Theater receivers as well. Only 2.0 equipment will be able to display 4K HDR @ 60 FPS. 1.4 equipment will only display 4K SDR @ 30 FPS.

Hi there. Thanks for your insight. I have a 2015 Samsung 4K SUHD JS8500 along with a Apple TV 4K. After experiencing extreme color banding watching the Grand Tour on the Amazon Prime app, I started researching the issue and it led me to here.

Turning UHD Color "Off" on the Samsung picture settings fixes the extreme color banding issue for sure, but will I be able to watch HDR content any more, if I shut the UHD Color option to "Off," I'll lose the ability to stream/watch content in HDR?

It looks like by turning UHD Color "Off" will disable the ability to watch any HDR content via the Apple TV. But by doing so, I get a much better picture, and no banding on HDR streamed content via the Amazon Prime app.

Anyone have any idea if Apple plans on fixing this issue (or Amazon, if this is their issue)?

You need HDMI 2.0 cable for 4K.

Apple TV User Guide by Apple Inc.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/apple-tv-user-guide/id1050195582?mt=11

By any chance are you watching standard content using HDR settings?