[John Sadowsky Participant Posts: 169]

Computers & Displays

on: July 29, 2021 at 6:52 pm

I thought I’d share my experience with slideshows on the Sony Bravia 65″, which is a 4K HDR OLED display.  It is a great TV, but, sadly, the Andriod OS is not slideshow friendly.  I tried several screen-mirroring and slideshow apps – slow response, slow rendering (momentary low-quality).  Amazingly, the Android OS couldn’t connect to Google Photos.  I spent several hours chatting with Sony support.  Their suggestions either didn’t work or gave unsatisfactory results.  The only way I found that I could get a quality slide show was to load JPEGs from a thumb drive manually into the Bravia memory.  Then I was limited to the Bravia slideshow software.

So, I bought an Apple TV 4K brick, thus bypassing the Android OS.  It’s like day and night!

The Apple TV brick plays the Apple Photos app, which provides some nice slideshow options.  I like the Ken Burns theme (with slight zooming and panning effects).  Apple Photos is an iCloud app.  So I just set up my Photos Albums on my Mac, and play the slideshow on the TV.  Problem solved!  But there are some details.

Like most modern high-end TVs and monitors, the Bravia has a wide P3 color gamut, which is significantly wider than sRGB.  The Bravia spec is 99% of the P3 gamut.  Amazingly, many browsers still don’t support color management – so sRGB is still the rule on the web.  For example, if you try posting a P3 JPEG, Facebook will reformat it as sRGB (and probably resize it as well).  But my TV-slideshow is now an all Apple system, and Apple does color management right!  So, I used P3 for my slideshow images to utilize the full color gamut of the Bravia.

The images are stored and transmitted to my Apple TV brick via iCloud.  That’s the convenience I wanted, but there is a download from an iCloud server and the brick will cash local copies to get instant rendering.  So we need compression for fast download and local storage.  Again, Apple is the leader.  They fully support HEIC = High Efficiency Image Coding.  For example, iPhones automatically store as HEIC.  HEIC is at least twice as efficient as JPEG for the same image quality, and Apple has optimized its apps (Photos) for fast rendering.

Here is my workflow:  CaptureOne will import HEIC but does not yet export.  🙁  I export my images from C1 to TIFF as 16 bit (uncompressed) images with full resolution using the Display P3 color space.  (There are variants of the P3, but all have the same color gamut.  Display P3 is the one proposed and recommended by Apple.)  Then I open the TIFFs in the Apple Preview app from which I export to HEIC.  I adjust the quality slider to produce files 1-5 MB in size.  I then place the HEICs in an Apple Photos album, and I’m ready for display on the Bravia via the Apple TV brick.  It takes a few minutes for the images to migrate through the iCloud to the Apple TV brick.  After that, rendering is instantaneous, which is why I know the Apple TV is storing local copies.  Of course, we don’t have to get involved with that level of memory management (as opposed to the Android memory stick solution).  As with most things Apple – it just works!

Lastly, I like the Ken Burns theme, but there is a caveat.  That theme will crop your images to fill the screen.  (Other themes, such as Classic and Snapshot, do not crop, but I like the Ken Burns theme better.)  So I crop all my slideshow images to 16:9 in CaptureOne (variants, of course) before exporting.

I hope that is useful.

JSS

[Kevin Raber Silver Member Posts: 1289]

Re: Slideshow on Sony Bravia TV with Apple TV 4K

Reply #1 on: July 29, 2021 at 8:03 pm

This is perfect.  I have an Apple TV on every set in our house and at the studio.  You can also airplay your phone, tablet, or computer to the TV.  At this time I have 110,000 photos and 800 videos in iPhoto or the photos app.  They are divided up into dozens of albums.  Photos has an amazing search feature too.  For example, if I put in the word jeep it finds all the Jeep photos I have.  I ask for Polar Bear I get them.  It’s really smart and fun to use.

 

Kevin Raber
Owner and Publisher of photoPXL

[John Sadowsky Participant Posts: 169]

Re: Slideshow on Sony Bravia TV with Apple TV 4K

Reply #2 on: July 29, 2021 at 9:20 pm

It is really smart.  Not to mention a really easy-to-use menu system (unlike that other OS).   Apple TV using an iPhone as a sensor will even do a color balance adjustment of your TV.  I’m sure it’s not what a real spectrometer like an X-Rite i1 can do … but hey!

JSS

[Bud James Participant Posts: 94]

Re: Slideshow on Sony Bravia TV with Apple TV 4K

Reply #3 on: July 30, 2021 at 5:46 am

I’ve been using AppleTVs on the every set in our home and at my office for years. I still have my original AppleTV for nostalgic reasons only.

All AppleTVs were upgraded to 4k versions. All of my TVs (4 in my home and 1 in my office) are Sony Bravia models. I use the setup in my office to Airplay presentations and Zoom meetings with clients and staff. At home, it’s all entertainment.

Another advantage of using Apple TV with a TV streaming service like GoogleTV is that I returned the FIOS TV boxes and canceled my FIOS TV service. I now only have a 1GB/Min up and down internet service from FIOS for about $100/month. Add $55 for the monthly GoogleTV subscription and I still paying about 200/month less than when using FIOS set top boxes and their bundled TV content.

In the Philadelphia, PA area where I live, if you have just one cable company TV box, your bill has an extra $50-60 in “franchise taxes” for sports channels that I never watch or subscribe to. After switching to internet only service from FIOS, I pay $99 for their fastest service plus 6% sales tax per month. Once you get over the cost of buying AppleTVs, the long-term savings is fantastic.

Since “cutting the cord” about two years ago, I have saved about $4,800 and all the channels we watch are included in my basic GoogleTV subscription. I get HBO Max for free from AT&T because we have 4 iPhones in our family.

I have made the cut the cord recommendations to a lot of my associates and clients. They are now enjoying the savings too.

Cheers,
Bud

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