The Apple TV 4K is comfortably the best streamer, but only if you change these settings (2024)

By Lewis Empson

published

Change these picture settings to get the ultimate picture experience

The Apple TV 4K is comfortably the best streamer, but only if you change these settings (1)

The Apple TV 4K has been the streamer to ruin all other streamers in my experience. It's comfortably the king of media streamers, which you can verify on our best media streamers page, but what makes it so good?

First and foremost is the picture and sound performance, which should come as no surprise. The Apple TV 4K just delivers an image that's a cut above the rest, with a crisp, detailed and rich presentation that's hard to compete with. The newest version supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ too, so there's no picking sides any more; yes that even means Samsung TVs that exclusively use HDR10+ are a perfect pairing with this Apple streamer.

Sound is also a highlight, as Apple's trademark rich and engaging presentation is a joy to listen to regardless of the content. Dialogue is bolstered with superb low-level dynamics, while Dolby Atmos delivers a stunningly immersive audio experience. This applies to music too, and while the hi-fi-inclined members of the team will wince at this, I often use the Apple TV 4K as my music streamer as it is truly a top-notch performer.

However, the Apple TV 4K isn't perfect straight out of the box, and some exploration of the settings menu is required to achieve the best picture performance. First and foremost, unless you have the latest generation model and a TV that supports Quick Media Switching (QMS), I'd recommend switching the video output to 4K SDR. This eliminates a pesky issue in which your TV will flash a black screen and disrupt content if it detects a switch in dynamic range or frame rate, which can get annoying in certain circumstances. Most notably on the YouTube app, as the mid-roll advertisements tend to not be in HDR, resulting in a disruptive black screen when it transitions back to the video content.

My concern when switching to this setting is whether it would impact HDR performance and the answer is, thankfully, no it does not. The TV 4K still recognises the HDR format that the show or movie I'm watching is in and automatically changes and displays the content in the correct dynamic range. For that to happen though, you need to change a crucial setting.

Under the match content option in the settings menu, there are two options: match dynamic range and match frame rate. You should absolutely switch both of those settings on for the best experience as that will ensure you're watching the content the way it's meant to be seen.

Sound settings can be a tad fiddly too, most recently I've noticed a couple of issues with Dolby Atmos on the likes of Prime Video and Disney Plus as I haven't yet upgraded some of my subscriptions to the premium tiers. This resulted in some audio issues with my TV attempting to play the content in Dolby Atmos – although this can be rectified by switching the sound output to 5.1 in the settings menu. I'd personally like to see a match audio format setting akin to the picture options seen above, as this would likely address this issue.

And it's not just picture and sound that makes the Apple TV 4K a superior streamer. The user interface is a dream to operate and, best of all, there are no ads plastered across the home screen. Furthermore, there are no content suggestions cluttering the home screen either, which I like as I usually find the suggestions to be borderline useless. Instead, you get a clean and easy-to-use app grid that is similar to iOS in many ways. Speaking of iOS integration, the fact I can type user names, passwords, movie titles and more in on my phone and they magically appear on my Apple TV will never cease to put a smile on my face; especially considering how tedious it is to use the clunky keyboards found on most TV and media streamer operating systems.

While I'm well aware that the Apple TV 4K costs considerably more than a Fire TV Stick or Roku box, it's a worthwhile upgrade if you're a serious AV nerd like myself – although 4K Blu-rays will always trump streaming, of course.

MORE:

Read our full list of the best media streamers

And check out our Apple TV 4K review

Lewis Empson

Senior Staff Writer

Lewis Empson is a Senior Staff Writer on What Hi-Fi?. He was previously Gaming and Digital editor for Cardiff University's 'Quench Magazine', Lewis graduated in 2021 and has since worked on a selection of lifestyle magazines and regional newspapers. Outside of work, he enjoys gaming, gigs and regular cinema trips.

10 CommentsComment from the forums

  • nervebreaker

    You should also mention that if you are not getting Dolby Atmos showing up on a connected receiver over an HDMI cable test that takes a while to run but then fixes the issue, providing the cable is certified at that level. I lost Dolby Atmos till I found the test, might have had it toggle somewhere in the beta version upgrades

    Reply

  • bytchslappa

    "The Apple TV 4K is comfortably the best streamer, but only if you change these settings : Read more"

    Maybe if you tested the nvida shield pro in your streamer tests - this statement could not be said.. it makes a complete mockery of whathifi when you haven't even looked at or mentioned it.. the problems you have talked about like screen flickering between content don't exist for example..

    Reply

  • Downhuman74

    "If you're in the Apple ecosystem, then the Apple TV 4K is comfortably the best streamer..."
    There. Fixed the headline for you. For someone who's not in the Apple ecosystem, the Apple TV makes zero sense. And there are better options overall.

    Reply

  • LillaQuqen

    Having another box for streaming is so 2010. All good TVs come with all the streaming capabilities built in and optimized for the TV you bought.

    Reply

  • manicm

    Downhuman74 said:


    "If you're in the Apple ecosystem, then the Apple TV 4K is comfortably the best streamer..."
    There. Fixed the headline for you. For someone who's not in the Apple ecosystem, the Apple TV makes zero sense. And there are better options overall.

    No, even if you're not in the Apple ecosystem it's easily the best AV streaming box, and you can get bitperfect audio out of it through Tidal etc.

    Reply

  • ActionJ

    manicm said:

    No, even if you're not in the Apple ecosystem it's easily the best AV streaming box, and you can get bitperfect audio out of it through Tidal etc.

    Lol, must be an Apple fanboy. Universally accepted nothing beats the Nvidia Shield Pro.
    Talk to any Kodi user. Apple is totally gimped with zero passthrough on Kodi.

    Reply

  • Pottsy320

    I have two of these, and they accumulate dust on the back of two high end TVs.

    There is no audio passthrough for Plex (same for Kodi).

    The PCM output (that the Apple TV loves) sounds like mud through my Sonos speakers. This may be the fault of the Sonos, but I don't care, the dreadful Apple TV box remains unused.

    I have an Nvidia Shield Pro, but while the audio is perfect, the frame rate issues are horrible.

    Also, the Apple TV has a colour tint on all output formats other than RGB high. You can see it, and the calibrator can definitely see it!

    Although the interface is slow, the inbuilt apps on my Sony TVs are better than both streamers.

    Reply

  • blenky

    This article is nonsense. ATV Netflix app is terrible and way out of date. BBC iPlayer app is a joke. No subtitles or UHD HLG. Amazon app is not much better and the Disney+ app has had major issues for awhile. The best streaming app unsurprisingly is ATV+! For the price of this box the streaming apps should be much, much better. And don't get me started on not having bitstream audio pass through!!!

    Reply

  • scgf

    The BBC is the national broadcaster in the UK yet only provides 720p streaming on Apple TV. Apple uses HLS which the BBC will not fully support, the BBC uses MPEG-Dash which Apple refuses to support. The UK licence payer loses out. EE is now providing its TV service via Apple TV so it's customers also get a sub par iPlayer service. The viewer has to use an alternative hardware solution to view iPlayer material in 1080 let alone UHD. It is not acceptable, given we are forced to pay our licence fees.

    Reply

  • scgf

    Downhuman74 said:


    "If you're in the Apple ecosystem, then the Apple TV 4K is comfortably the best streamer..."
    There. Fixed the headline for you. For someone who's not in the Apple ecosystem, the Apple TV makes zero sense. And there are better options overall.

    I don’t understand. Why is the AppleTV better if you have a Mac or an iPhone? I have a Google Pixel phone and a Mac Mini and use no interactions whatsoever between my Mac and my AppleTV. When I had an iPhone similarly I didn’t need to interact with the AppleTV. The reason the AppleTV is so good is that you pay for very good hardware and are not constantly bombarded with adverts from streaming companies or finding your devive is prioritising certain platforms. Yes, Apple does push AppleTV+ and I’m not happy about that, but that’s one service and I can overlook it because of the other benefits AppleTV offers. The only fly in the ointment is poor BBC iPlayer support.

    Which device do you feel is better than AppleTV? I’ve tried the obvious competitors like Roku, Google TV and FireTV and they were spectacularly awful. The Nvidia Shield I haven’t tried, but isn’t that a bit long in the tooth these days? I’ve love to be convinced otherwise.

    Reply

The Apple TV 4K is comfortably the best streamer, but only if you change these settings (2024)
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