Apple TV 4K - What's the best TV to pair with

General Discussion
#1

Hi Everyone - jiust setting up my Zwift system. I want to use an Apple TV 4K to connect with a TV and I realise that you will not get actual 4K. My question is bearing in mind the Apple 4K cannot render Zwift in 4K should I be getting a Full HD 1080 TV or a 4K TV or is there going to be no difference. I’m trying to keep cost down and I read that the less expensive 4K TV’s are not as good at upscaling the HD from the Apple unit on the 4K screen. There is little difference in price and I suppose I’d rather get a 4K TV but not if the Zwift rendering will suffer.

Appreciate any insight. Thanks!

#2

The cheapest one you can find. I’d suggest taking advantage of all the people ‘upgrading’ to a smart TV by grabbing something on Facebook Marketplace or similar.

#3

The bigger is your TV screen, the further away from the trainer you will have to set it up to be able to see the screen comfortably. You know better how much room you have. To me, it does not make a lot of sense to buy a large TV just to move it way away from you to be able to see it. Something along the lines of 40" to 46" TV would do just fine, and you can find such units at, e.g., BestBuy starting from about $150.

AppleTV is not famous for creating the best possible quality of Zwift imaginary and cannot output it in a higher quality than 1080p. You do not need 4k on screens smaller than 50" to 60". You would not see the pixels on such screens from a reasonable distance.

#4

Thanks Andrei that is all helpful but that does not answer the question I posed. My question was will I have a worse result with a 4k TV than a standard 1080 HD TV because the 4k tv has to upscale the apple signal.

I would rather buy a 43 inch 4K but not if an old type HD is better

Thanks

Tom

#5

No, you shouldn’t see a worse result with a 4K TV displaying a 1080p signal. Unless the TV is doing something really strange.

#6

Tom, 4k TVs have resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels. This is exactly twice the resolution of 1080p televisions, in either direction (1920 x 1080). Even if the TV which you get has no sophisticated algorithm for upscaling, it will simply show every 1080p pixel as 2x2 cluster on the screen. Since pixels on 4k TV are half the size of pixels on 1080p TV, 2x2 clusters would match the size of single pixels in 1080 and the image on your screen should look exactly the same as it would look on a 1080p TV of the same size.

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#7

Decent 4K TVs have pretty good scaling algorithms so it should look ok. Looks ok on my LG 55" OLED. If nothing else, use the ATV and then compare to a PC with an HDMI cable.

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#8

And don’t forget to take into account anything besides Zwift you might be using the TV/ATV combo for. I mean, ATV does a lot of things! And if you use other virtual riding apps (like FulGaz) there are 4K options on some of those.

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#9

The ATV 4K always outputs 4K if the TV is capable of it. It will automatically upscale legacy HD 1080p apps to match the TV.

#10

Thanks for all the helpful replies. Seems best to get a 4K TV and perhaps there will be an update that will allow ATV to output Zwift in 4K at some point in the near future.

#11

Oh, that would be a completely different microprocessor in Apple TV… Maybe the next generation or two generation later… it is quite amazing that it is able to run Zwift with a decent graphics quality!

My opinion remains the same, I think that a small 4k TV has no added value. There is zero benefit from extra pixels in 43" size, but it comes at a price of extra several hundred dollars. 4K makes a difference in image quality starting from 60 - 70 inches or so. Small 4k TVs is a market hype and nothing else.

#12

That may be why 4k tvs of that size seem to be similar prices to the non 4k’s

#13

Tom, I thought small 4k TVs were more expensive than HD… But I must admit, I do not go to stores nearly as often as I used to, and did not look at prices of new TVs since last summer, either. Good to know that new technology is getting cheaper quickly!

For my setup, I was looking for the cheapest TV with the desired screen size because consumer electronics is a notoriously poor investment.