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Poor Quality YouTube Video on 3rd Gen Apple TV

I have a 3rd Gen Apple TV (1469) and am experiencing poor quality video playback in the YouTube app. I would describe it as pixelation, digital noise or degradation - little green blocks that appear and disappear all over. After dealing with the apparently common issue of the Apple TV freezing and needing to be reset when attempting to pause a YouTube video after the 7.6 update for this model Apple TV, I downgraded my Apple TV back to firmware 7.5. I can pause again with no problems but am now having this quality issue. My bet is that it's on Google/YouTube's end, but I just wanted to see if anyone else has been having this issue.


Here's a picture of what happens:


Any solutions, suggestions or shared frustration is welcome!

Apple TV 3, 8

Posted on Oct 9, 2020 8:15 PM

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13 replies

Dec 10, 2020 10:13 AM in response to Joseitalia

That's an opinion, and compares a completely different set of new variables. It's limited to Apple TV 3rd Generation and YouTube.


YouTube on ATV3, around the world, was working as of September 18th. Then Apple pushed the 7.6 update. Now YouTube is broken. Apple then pushed-out update 7.6.1 and nothing improved, except the AppleTV+ streaming service app.


Originally, every customer that purchased into the Apple TV experience received a completely working device. It's now broken, after recent global updates that Apple initiated. There is still no official direction for Apple customers on their resolution. The problem remains unfixed, unremovable, and publicly unaddressed by Apple.


The only guaranteed solution paths are to:

1) wait

2) buy something newer

3) go to a competitor


ATV Product Feedback: https://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html

Oct 25, 2020 12:36 AM in response to Wengro

If this was a windows pc forum you would have heard immediately that you'll have to update your graphic cards drivers. In other words, YouTube is messing around with their video encoding settings and our old trustworthy 3rd gen Apple TV isn't liking it very much. We have the same issue in the household here and it is not on all videos but some popular youtube channels pop out as being the worst, making me think to believe YouTube is in the progress of testing these encoding changes.


I doubt you'll be in luck complaining to YouTube. They have stated before they are not keen on supporting old Apple Hardware.

We might have a little more luck with Apple, considering the fact they recently updated the software for the 3rd gen Apple TV and there is still a bug in the YouTube app where pausing a video restarts the device. But they could also just have thrown in the towel and gave up.


So far I can tolerate this but I do hope a new Apple TV is coming out relatively soon and if the problems still persist I will upgrade to the newer version.

Oct 26, 2020 3:39 PM in response to Seraphiel07

Seraphiel07, I'm so glad you mentioned that. My gut feeling on the matter, as it began happening right around the time YouTube started messing with 4K and picture-in-picture features, was that they were causing it. It happens too randomly to be anything wrong with the device itself, and Apple is pretty good with their software updates for the most part.


I didn't hear much from the YouTube support forums (a couple of replies, neither of which were helpful in the least), and I didn't hear ANYTHING from the official YouTube support contact I sent over a month ago now. To be fair, I didn't expect much from them - years of using their software has prepared my hopes to remain low.


I too am just "tolerating" these issues for now and waiting to see what the new Apple TV device options are in the near future.


Thanks for your reply and insight - greatly appreciated!

Dec 10, 2020 4:25 PM in response to interfacechoir

I think a couple of issues are present here and they are getting confused. I don't believe the 7.6 update for the ATV3 caused the picture quality issue we are talking about in this thread, at least not for me, as I downgraded my ATV3 back to 7.5 a few days after the 7.6 update was released (and caused the "Pausing a YouTube video freezes my Apple TV" issue) and am still experiencing the picture qulaity degradation issue to this day. I believe THAT (the picture quality issue) is being caused by YouTube.


The pause/freeze issue that occurs with YouTube on tvOS 7.6 for ATV3 could be the fault of Apple, YouTube, or BOTH.


Is anyone experiencing the picture quality issue on tvOS 7.6? Or is it just on 7.5?

Poor Quality YouTube Video on 3rd Gen Apple TV

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