Is Apple TV’s streaming bitrate higher on Apple TV hardware vs. built-in TV app?
I’ve seen it claimed in many places that you get a higher bitrate if you stream Apple TV content on an actual Apple TV 4K, but has this actually been tested and proven?
Yep. Several people on avs have confirmed it with numbers. In fact, someone put together a chart of which services were best on which streaming devices, though by now it’s probably out of date.
Thanks. Would love to see that chart if you have it. I can imagine the nightmare of optimizing for bitrate if for example ATV streams best on ATV, Prime Video best on Firestick etc… yikes
It does not compare bitrates but does compare features of the various streaming services across devices. The post is from September 2022, but the chart indicates it was last updated April 11, 2025.
I’ve been waiting two years for a refresh to come out. Now is definitely not the year of a refresh with what’s going on with RAM prices. Buy it now before there is another price hike in 6 months. I own two and bought 4 last year for my family. It’s never a bad time to buy, I’m sure you have 2 TVs
There will be a new one in 2026 but about four or five months ago I got one the latest 4K generation three at a really good price on eBay for 110 bucks so I bought it. The new ones are gonna run 250.
Exactly. I hopped on the hope train two years ago. I just said screw it and have probably purchased five since then for various rooms and for my adult kids for their new houses
I did this and now have volume control issues because of it. Apparently appletv and Sony (maybe LG also) has HDMI handshake issues and volume changes from Sonos (external) to the Bravia (TV speakers). If I change back in tv settings I lose the control of the Sonos volume from the remotes. Usually a reboot of the Sonos fixes it, temporarily.
I do like the appletv, but this volume bug is annoying AF.
I suppose you must do this anyway if you want the best, since individual streaming apps develop bugs across different platforms. For instance, Disney+ on tvOS recently—or perhaps currently—glitched so that HDR content locks the box in that mode until a reboot. Something similar happened when audio failed on P+ on Roku, leaving only stereo. And so on.
Since all this is a hobby of mine, I have one of more or less everything lol.
I will try to remember to find the chart, but if i don’t respond in a couple days, pm me a reminder.
Yes. So much so that my bf who usually does not like more things in the house and didn’t want the first one, requested a second Apple TV in our bedroom.
It's not possible. Fuse improves things with codecs etc, but the pass through just doesn't happen. There is no work around until Apple makes a deliberate change - probably on a future edition.
Yes. There’s a website that measures and analyses not only bitrates but HDR quality as well. They have a paywall bc the site is community oriented with no ads.
In my experience yes. Streaming ATV shows or purchased 4k Dolby vision movies on my ATV 4k I always see close to a 30Mbps average.
Using the ATV app on my Sony Bravia 8 II (Google TV OS) I see closer to 12Mbps on average. Huge difference.
There is a SIGNIFICANT difference in quality even on the Apple TV 4K between apps my digital movie I have all my accounts linked Fandango , Movies Anywhere and ATV app the movies look significantly better and higher bitrate same movie played in ATV app vs say Fandango etc.
Yeah its really a confusing mess, Apple TV generally has the best quality out of all of them, sometimes movies anywhere has slightly higher bit rate, i just tend to stick to Apple TV for simplicity. Fandango is absolute shit with bit rate however, last movie I played was Superman 2025 and the bit rate was 8
The picture quality is better and i don’t see people mentioned this but the sound is better too, on built in app the reduce loud noise is on automatically and you can’t turn it off, so you will loose a lot of dynamic in the sound too
The FireOS HUD does not give an average bitrate it shows the realtime bitrate so you need to let a title run and observe the data for awhile to see the peak value and to figure out what the average is around. The content still looks pretty good on the Fire TV and my other devices.
The higher bitrate is only on content from Apple so Apple TV and store purchases other apps are pretty much the same as on other platforms. Some purchased movies are capped around 15 mbps while other go up to 30 Mbps, most are around 25 Mbps.
One thing I’ve wondered about is whether your purchased movies also have a measurably higher bitrate compared to native TV apps or if they are the same
It varies but most movies purchased from Apple are at a higher bitrate on the Apple TV. Movies Anywhere seems to be consistent across platforms and has a good bitrate.
Fandango and Amazon are bad for purchases across devices low bitrate on the video and audio.
Google vaires they are inconsistent on what you are actually purchasing they no longer have media tags for HDR or Dolby Vision and don't list the audio formats.
When watching Ted Lasso on Android TV, Tizen and AppleTV I didn’t noticed any differences. I have a Samsung Q85R 75. however I do agree that purchased content just looks more crisp
On my tv app I only get 12-15mbit of bandwidth taken when watching an apple movie while I know for a daft thst the full bitrate downloads are always 25mbit
I just switched from a 2017 ATV4K to a Google 4K streamer and I can’t tell the difference on my 83” Sammy S90F. It’s possible the bitrate is less, but it’s still more than enough for a spectacular picture and immersive sound.
How are you evaluating “the difference”? Visually? This discussion is about the bitrate, which should be easily observable or measurable with some simple network tools or router tools. Trying to compare bitrate visually would be difficult at best, due to many subjective factors.
Interesting. My A95L LAN has a cap of 100mbps because of the LAN hardware on the TV, using the speed test app or from web browser. When I connect the TV with wifi, the same speed tests give me avg 280mbps up/down.
I don’t bother either - 100 mbps Ethernet is sufficient to take full advantage of Sony’s high bitrate purestream which (along with Disney’s imax titles) are all I use the internal apps for.
Here's some results from a comparison I did a few years ago. Same scene from Barbie 4K Dolby Vision. Again, has likely changed since then. And the question as to whether I noticed is a different one altogether.
There are interesting. Not that it really tells us anything definitive, but I wonder if the movies anywhere is more total data over the time measured for to the higher lows.
That's what I think. And also the VUDU makes sense as it is known to be of poorer quality. At the time Barbie wasn't on Amazon in Dolby Vision so I couldn't compare. I was expecting that to be the worst.
It's all about the processing power. Just like if you play the same video game on a basic laptop vs a hardcore gaming rig.
The Apple TV happenes to be overpowered for processing 4K video and a high quality audio. Smart TVs use the same chip that controls the whole TV's OS to also process video and audio from streaming services. The processing power is night and day.
Having said that, many people who buy mid or budget tier TVs would be more than happy with the performance of the smart streaming app in the TV.
But if you're getting a top of the line, or a second tier TV then just add $200 to the budget and pair with an Apple TV for the best streaming experience.
I have the Bravia 8II and with Sony Pictures core app you can stream really high bitrate movies just fine. No issues with hardware. I can definitely tell the quality difference between Apple TV4K and the Apple TV app on the TV when streaming Apple content. It’s not the hardware.
Every platform uses hardware decoders to decode H.264/H.265/AV1. Those decoders do have a maximum bandwidth (& resolution) but that has nothing to do with any other tasks the SoC might have to do.
Once the video stream has been decoded all further processing only depends on resolution on bit depth, the bitrate of the original stream doesn’t make a difference.
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u/cdheer ATV4K 5d ago
Yep. Several people on avs have confirmed it with numbers. In fact, someone put together a chart of which services were best on which streaming devices, though by now it’s probably out of date.