Maybe I haven't looked in the right place, but what resolutions and refresh rates does the new Apple TV support?
Does it support 720p TVs, or only 1080p? What about 4K/UHD?
In the keynote someone mentioned that it can do a 60hz refresh rate. What about older TVs that don't support anything above 30hz? Or European TVs and 25/50hz? Is there a way to detect what refresh rate the device is using, or does it only do 60hz and just drop every other frame if the TV only supports 30hz?
See the Video Formats section of http://www.apple.com/tv/specs/
- H.264 video up to 1080p, 60 frames per second, High or Main Profile level 4.2 or lower
- H.264 Baseline Profile level 3.0 or lower with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
- MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
-Max
As you can see 4K/UHD is not supported and, yes, if the refresh rate of the TV is lower than the ATV4 output then that fraction of frames won't display.
Sorry, I should clarify. I didn't mean in terms of what videos it will play.
Rather, I meant more in terms of game development. If the Apple TV supports 720p TVs, will the game's resolution be 720p, or will it be 1080p (at least as far as the game is concerned), then scaled down to 720p for output? And if the TV only supports up to 30hz refresh rates, will the Apple TV internally use a 60hz refresh rate and then drop every other frame (kind of a waste) or will it drop down to 30hz?
And if it drops down to 30hz, will I be able to detect this programatically?
As far as screen resolution goes, your game will always be given a 1080p window to draw into, which may be scaled to 720p if needed for output.
