Those are webm however which the native Video app won't play.
We will see whether we will get support for it soon, even for the early 2016 models with the old MediaTek SoC from last year. At least Sony promised that back at CES:
YouTube will also start streaming in HDR quality later this year, using a new VP9-Profile 2 codec that brings HDR support to Google’s VP9 video format. Sony’s Motoi Kawamura, Head of TV Product Planning for Sony Europe, confirmed to FlatpanelsHD that the 2016 models will support VP9-Profile 2 and be capable of streaming YouTube in HDR. We saw a demo at CES and it looked very good.
I see it quite a bit differently. I see that service providers are hesitent to port their apps with the major ones (like Netflix or Amazon Video) being WebViews only. Many apps are just ported from Android to the TV platform for the sake of it, because it can be done with little effort, most of which are poorly optimized for a 10-foot UI with its controls though. Some major services in German speaking countries are still "only" accessible via Chromecast.
I don't see lots benefits over the platforms from LG or Samsung. They are however miles ahead with respect to tuner integration. As for apps, the only real advantage of Android TV is probably Kodi, which however does not run too well on the weak MediaTek SoC inside Sony TVs. My HOME screen is quite empty due to a lack of useful apps...
Major Android TV supporters are Sony and Philips. Market share of the two goes towards zero. Other devices are a gaming console (nVIDIA SHIELD TV) and cheap Chinese boxes. No surprise that Google isn't putting more effort into its own OS.
I honestly like the casting idea as mobile devices have become brilliant navigation devices compared to the bad remotes that TV manufacturers put in our hands. I find it much easier and more comfortable to find content via my phone and then simply hit the cast button. (Voice) search on Android TV integrates with YouTube and Netflix, that's it. Another indication for how much app developers care about Android TV.
I also like the customizable HOME screen of Android TV O, putting the content front and center. Every app/service can add "channels" for recent or new content for example. If content providers are smart about our habits, we can approach our media much more easily compared to the app-centric approach of today where the only way to find content is by deep diving into every single app. Pair that with a powerful unified search and you are good to go...
Even more now that Nougat is out. It's actually, after lots of time, coming together.
Really? And why do you think all your 'wrappers' are crashing, then? Not that it happens to me with that kind of apps, (currently). But I have done so many reset to factory settings. Still, I get apps like.. Settings (Yeah. The Androd TV Settings) force closing. Even just after a reset. That sure isn't a wrapper.
Same with performances. Do you really think that the fact the apps run under Android have nothing to do with it? Amazon Video (which is a "wrapper") on my PS3 performs better than in my television! Sure, 1080p top, but I get lagging and stuttering in Androd TV also with 1080p videos.
Back to the YouTube app I can assure you that when watching videos in 1080p60fps (like the ones from Digital Foundry) with version 1.3.11 most of the times the first image was getting stuck for few seconds with the audio that kept going. Now with v2.0 the videos from the same channel play immediately, some even at 1440p60fps. As I can assure you I have no gain on inventing things. I didn't spend hours analysing this app in this thread to throw everything away for a stupid argument.
Since you talk about Android 7.0 you must have an ATV2 with SoC MT5891 like I do. Thus the electronics for the Android part is the same. If you really have so many crashes I am afraid you must do what many of us keep doing: a reset to factory setting. It does fix many things, especially random app crashes. And don't make me start about the random TV reboots.
That's all due to Android TV on these televisions, that at the monent is a piece of junk. That is more beta than the beta version of macOS High Sierra I have in my MacBook! Practically an alpha release.
I can deterministically get YouTube to crash(?) in the background. I start a few apps to fill the RAM. Then I start YouTube (which BTW uses quite a bit of RAM...) and put it into background too. Then I open Kodi. Now YouTube is closed and the dialog "YouTube was closed" is displayed. Think it gets cleaned in the background to free up some RAM. It probably crashes when being terminated or something.
1440p60fps (as you know it used to be 1080p60fps max on my ATV2 TV). The CPU usage seems to be fine, but it has microstuttering. Plus now I have a new bug. I had the bad idea to change the log buffer size once (it gets reset at each reboot) and now the logcat daemon (last line) sucks 15-20% of CPU constanty.
Also i confirm that the same video, via Google Cast, plays at 4K. Same microstuttering issues. But "logcat -d" is still there.
Ok, now I have restarted the TV. This is what I get:
Mem: 1502540K used, 111172K free, 110476K shrd, 18240K buff, 237676K cached
CPU: 26.9% usr 16.8% sys 0.0% nic 55.0% idle 0.0% io 0.0% irq 1.0% sirq
Load average: 39.73 20.53 8.11 4/2380 7334
PID PPID USER STAT VSZ %VSZ CPU %CPU COMMAND
6821 1268 u0_a140 S 1294m 81.8 3 27.7 {roid.youtube.tv} com.google.android.youtube.tv
1259 1 system S < 124m 7.8 0 3.8 /system/bin/surfaceflinger
The microstuttering is at most gone (still there but smoother) and so it is "logcat -d". I wonder when it starts, since I didn't use logcat for quite a while.
Via Google Cast it's still at 4K and the microstuttering is more evident. Only 20-30% of CPU idle time.
Back to the YouTube app I can assure you that when watching videos in 1080p60fps (like the ones from Digital Foundry) with version 1.3.11 most of the times the first image was getting stuck for few seconds with the audio that kept going.
I recognized this too. 1.3 indeed suffered from frequent freezing on high res high frame rate content which indeed does not happen anymore with 2.0.
1440p60fps (as you know it used to be 1080p60fps max on my ATV2 TV). The CPU usage seems to be fine, but it has microstuttering.
Despite being improved in 2.0.0.19, the new YouTube still consumes way more CPU than the old YouTube did. See comparison here.
Also i confirm that the same video, via Google Cast, plays at 4K. Same microstuttering issues.
Yes, I also recognized that the player of the Google Cast Receiver suffers from the same microstuttering when playing high res high frame rate video, see bug report here. Also its CPU usage is quite high.
I am still on Marshmallow though. Chromecast suffers from the same restrictions as YouTube there. So no 4K for high frame rate content.
Google Cast Receiver app received an update on Marshmallow yesterday. Version is 1.26.93139 now. 60p playback still suffers from stuttering. CPU load is still high:
User 47%, System 37%, IOW 1%, IRQ 11% User 123 + Nice 7 + Sys 102 + Idle 6 + IOW 3 + IRQ 0 + SIRQ 30 = 271
PID PR CPU% S #THR VSS RSS PCY UID Name 18630 0 17% S 22 1198424K 171948K fg u0_i3 com.google.android.apps.mediashell:sandboxed_process0 28511 0 14% D 58 1098960K 62560K fg u0_a0 com.google.android.apps.mediashell 18688 0 14% S 25 1060072K 66956K fg u0_a0 com.google.android.apps.mediashell:privileged_process0 1132 0 10% D 25 139264K 10088K fg system /system/bin/surfaceflinger
Which version of the Google Cast Receiver is currently on ATV2/Nougat FW?
Apart that it depends on the day. I tested it the other day and it was smoother. Now I played the same video again, and the stuttering is much less evident (but still ugly). At the first try it was a slide show (and it also started at low res).
PS: am I the only one that that couldn't care less about 60fps? With the ugly YouTube compression I want the highest bitrate possible at 30fps, I don't care about having the soap opera effect, it's ugly.
