Your Apple TV might soon be able to play 8K video, according to a reference in the company’s tvOS 16 beta code.
A report by flatpanelshd says that Apple is gearing up to add AV1 support to it’s tvOS, iOS, iPadOS and macOS.
AV1 was created by the Alliance for Open Media as a royalty-free alternative to HEVC, which is used for 4K streaming.
Most major TV makers have already implemented AV1 in hardware, as has Netflix and YouTube in software, but Apple are yet to implement it, despite being part of the alliance that created it.
The question over whether Apple will add it to the current Apple TV 4K or wait until the Apple TV 2022 is released has now been raised. According to hdtvtest, the Apple TV 4K may struggle with 8K video, as the A12 Bionic chip it uses doesn’t support hardware decoding for AV1, whilst the HDMI 2.1 port is capped at 18gbps data transfer.
Whilst Apple could very well release AV1 for 4K on the current gen Apple TV, it seems like it might wait for the more capable device.
