blackout during playback on apple TV

On Apple TV hardware, this is also happening on Down Cemetery Road. The show is produced by 60forty Films, the same company that produces Slow Horses.

The workaround is to leave the Apple TV in 4K SDR and disable match frame rate and match dynamic range.

it’s possible only turning off dynamic range matching (leaving match frame rate on) could work since the issue seems to stem from the Dolby Vision metadata repeatedly forcing HDMI handshakes.

After trying various AppleTV 4K settings, I had success with these settings in the Video and Audio menu:

Format = 4KHDR

Match Content: Dynamic Range ON / Frame Rate OFF

With this configuration, Slow Horses Season 5 Episode 1 plays without video blackouts, albeit in regular HDR (not DolbyVision). This worked on both my AppleTV's that were having blackouts on this series.

Annoying, but better than not being able to watch it at all.

Hope this helps

Same happened to me on Down Cemetary road, every episode. Changed my Apple TV 4K to turn off match dynamic range, and it works fine. But this seems to only affect those two shows. Other shows, like Loot or Severence are unaffected. Seems to be a Dolby Vision encoding issue. Apple needs to fix this.

Glad to see this is getting some more specific attention. I'm having the same issue with both Slow Horses and Down Cemetery Road. In fact, if I rewind or restart, the identical passages have black video dropouts - which makes me question the "SDR to DolbyVision hand-off" explanation I've seen elsewhere. As far as I know, shows would not shift to/from DolbyVision or shift frame rate within their own episodes.

The solution that worked for me was disabling DolbyVision, and turning both "match content" and "match frame rate" off. I do wonder whether doing just the latter two might work by themselves, though others' experiences seem to indicate not.

So, WHAT IS APPLE DOING ABOUT THIS? Is anyone at Apple listening?? We've paid for supposedly cutting edge devices, cutting edge video displays, and a cutting edge streaming service. Why are we now being forced to give up the cutting edge formats in order to view Apple TV's own content?

Anyone...?

It is probably not a device issue because it is happening to multiple people for only one Apple TV+ series.

There could be a problem with the Dolby Vision metadata, forcing the HDMI handshake during playback, and only affecting certain versions of the Apple TV. In my case it’s happening on my 2nd generation Apple TV 4K.

Another thought is it could be a file corruption specific to a cached version on a specific server in Apple’s Content Delivery Network. However, it’s odd that multiple episodes are affected.

We are having similar issues with "Slow Horses". It is the only time we have observed this problem with any content or source (not Apple TV+) showing via my Apple TV Device. We watched Season 5 Episode 1 (as well as previous seasons & episodes) with no issue. During Season 5 Episode 2, the screen blacked out with 25 or so minutes left and would come back for 20 seconds or so and go black again. I could hear the audio, but the screen would go black. I did not know what the issue was, so I changed the setting on the Apple TV device to HD from 4K, then to SD from HD and played the episode again with the same blacking out results. I then changed the settings on my TV to see if it was the TV, but that made no difference. Interestingly, I have another Apple TV Device downstairs and decided to try to watch the episode there. I was able to play the entire episode with no black outs.

I am puzzled. Is there a series of devices that is having this problem? The device downstairs is newer, I believe. If someone from Apple could share a solution with us or whether it is a content issue, device issue, software release issue, or something else that would be great! I will update my software to the version released within the week to see if that makes a difference. If not, I will bring up the Apple TV Device from downstairs to see if the issue is still the same with the TV, etc. upstairs.

Any insight from Apple is welcome!!!

Update: I moved the Apple TV device upstairs and it played the "Slow Horses" episode 2 without any problems. I can only guess that the previous Apple TV device has a data path in the chipset responsible for Dolby Vision metadata that is not functioning properly. I am not sure if it can be reset, or if a replacement is now needed.

It would be great if Apple would weigh-in......

I just started watching the new season of Slow Horses (S05 E01) last night and had this same exact issue!

The only difference is I am on tvOS 26.

I restarted my Apple TV and the TV itself, but I had this happen several times after restarting.

Same issue Apple TV A2169 and tvOS 26.1. Slow Horses, Hijack, and Down Cemetery Road all have this problem. I’ve had this issue preceding the tvOS 26 updates, and continuing after the most recent update. No issue with any other streaming service I use on the aTV.

I’m not crazy about a price hike on a service that isn’t able to deliver quality streams on proprietary hardware. If this issue persists I’ll be cancelling my Apple TV sub.

I’m getting black screen on nearly everything

in uk so have set to 50hz to watch all uk channels, yet it still does something to the refresh rate despite not needing to.

just tried watching BBC and even though disabled match rate still doing something on background. Watched same programme on Firestick and perfect. Definitely apply Tv fault.

never happened before so assuming it’s a new update causing problem.

having problems also on Prime

Same problem here. Spent half an hour trying to get it to work, glad I found this thread so I know it's not just me. This has been a discussion topic here long enough for Apple to take notice and done something about it, very disappointing.

I have the similar issue with these two shows too my 4K Apple TV.

all the other Apple TV and streamed films via Apple are fine.

i will try the suggestions being offered by the community.

thanks for raising the weird issue 🙂

I also had this happen during season 5 episode 1. In fact I’m watching episode 2 and it just did it again. Such an odd glitch and only on slow horses which is even more odd.

exactly the same happening here. you but apple hardware, you buy even apple produced shows, and it does not work! so much for the walled garden concept..