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I have an A1842 AppleTV 4K (one of the first versions) that I have been very satisfied with and which functions as expected. A few months back I started noticing that the edges around persons in movies were ... strangely fuzzy when moving, but was unable to identify it closer. Resetting the device back then didn't change anything, nor resolution change, display update speed or anything else.

Now I found that the Disney movie "The Three Musketeers" that I bought from iTunes store showed this very clearly (on this device, all my other Apple devices are fine) and made a clip out of it. This screenshot shows an artifact in front of Goofys face.

screenshot showing artifact in front of Goofys face

The whole clip is at whole clip (I do not know how to add video to questions, please edit it in if you do).

Has anyone else seen this? If yes, is it a known problem, which can be fixed?

Note: the appletv is connected directly to a 4K tv with a modern cable.

2022-07-21: Now a bit later I’ve even seen artifacts in subtitles (which are put “on top” of the decoded movie stream in the AppleTV itself) which only makes sense to me if either Dolby Vision has a compression scheme that somehow breaks or the AppleTV GPU driver has a bug.

EDIT: I ended up buying a new one (to get the Siri Remote) and used this one with an old full HD tv which doesn’t show these symptoms. So no real fix, but giving up.

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  • If this ATV is connected to a AV control device or AV system, try connecting it directly to the display using a spare HDMI socket. If you have spare HDMI cable to test with, all the better. Do the artifacts persist?
    – IconDaemon
    Commented Mar 27, 2022 at 22:01
  • @IconDaemon the appletv is connected directly to a 4K tv with a modern cable.
    – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
    Commented Mar 28, 2022 at 21:09
  • Could you please update the question with the following: - Model TV - if match frame rate is enabled - Output video settings from the Apple tv - to understand if Dolby vision, HDR or other picture settings are active
    – adamxweb
    Commented Apr 2, 2022 at 2:29
  • @adamxweb Thank you for asking me to do a bit more research. I have been playing around a lot with settings on the tv (which is a cheap Philips 58PUS7805) but I did not think of trying with another device. I now connected an old full HD computer monitor using HDMI which did not show the artifacts. I therefore agree that this is most likely the tv software that is at fault and not the AppleTV.
    – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
    Commented Apr 3, 2022 at 17:15
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    @CarstenS it’s been a while but I believe not.
    – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
    Commented Jul 4, 2023 at 10:13

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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It appears that Dolby Vision was the culprit. Turning that off on the Apple TV and going back to HDR removed the artifacts.

After having power cut to both TV and AppleTV the problem returned. Changing resolution etc didn't work, but resetting video settings did. This is highly unsatisfactory, and my answer is therefore not a real answer yet.

My TV is a very cheap Philips som this problem might be something not present on more expensive devices.

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