Poor experience on new 4K TV

[Syphacleeze]

I have a new samsung 4K TV. 

We had it working with no issues for the first week or so and then I figured I should try the 4K channels to see what they're like. I changed the ignite TV to one of the 4K channels and the box popped up and said it needed to optimize for UHD settings, i figured no problem that makes sense so I hit ok. The TV then lost display and it didn't come back for a very very long time. I actually thought it had bricked the ignite box or something. Eventually it did seem to come back and it was working, i tuned to the 4K channel and watched for a bit but it wasn't super impressive if im honest so i just forgot about it. 

Since I did that i had found that basically 100% of the time i turn on my Samsung tv it would say the set top box was not powered on, even though it looked like it was. We found at one point that the Samsung tv settings actually included an option to sort of remote control the peripherals for 'power management' so I think for a time it was actually shutting off the rogers box, but we disabled this. 

Even after that feature was disabled on the TV settings we continued to have issues. We dug a bit deeper and found the rogers box also had a setting for power saving which we disabled too, but still after that the problem has remained. 

I just now monkeyed with the whole setup again and finally went back and turned the rogers box from 4K UHD back to 1080p-60fps and now when i turn the tv on and off the rogers ignite tv seems to be instantly available again.

I guess my question is then what could be going on here? Is the rogers box struggling when being on the 4K setting? i wonder if maybe my box is bad or if there could be some problem with the HDMI cable or something. Has anyone else experienced this? 

It's probably easy enough to take the box in and get a replacement and a new HDMI cable. We have the Xi6-A box and have had it since I think 2020 so not sure if there are newer boxes available ?

*Added Labels*

[mebe]

There are several complaints dealing with Samsung TVs and Xfinity products (Xfinity PVR cable tv boxes, or set-top IPTV boxes). And since Rogers Ignite TV uses the same IPTV box technology (with fewer options), compatibility issues with box recognition, frame-rate settings, HDMI connectors, etc., are often theorized.

You can try the Gateway Xi6-T model or perhaps newer boxes, but there's no guarantee that it will make a difference (when compared to your Xi6-A), and it might be difficult to choose a specific Gateway model (unless you meet certain requirements, or perhaps start to cry).

Even if it's all good at 1080p 60fps, you might notice some frame-rate issues with certain content.

If you unplug your TV and then plug it back in, that can sometimes fix a problem, but not always.

In a related thread, a Rogers Ignite TV subscribers, had his Samsung's UHD TV motherboard (which includes the HDMI connectors), REPLACED, and that fixed the box-recognition frame-rate problem.

A Comcast Xfinity subscriber with a Samsung 4K TV, set his cable box to its maximum setting of 4K 60fps, and although it worked fine for On Demand content, it caused jitter and perhaps Judder too, for his Recordings and Live TV. Even changing his cable box to 108Op 60fps, still had the jitter issue.

To fix his Xfinity cable box issues, he had to change the cable box settings to either 4K 30fps, or 1080p 30fps.

However, when he used the Xfinity App, and connected his 4K Roku streaming stick set to 4K 60fps, to his Samsung 4K TV, it was all nice and smooth, with no jitter. By the way, he had already replaced the Xfinity cable TV box, and made sure that the soap-opera effect was turned off, but it made no difference ... So only the 4K Roku streaming stick solved the frame-rate problem.

If you have another brand of 4K TV, or perhaps any 120Hz TV (or one that can automatically reduce itself to 48Hz, or increase itself to 72Hz -- which is also evenly divided by 24p motion), that might eliminate or reduce any frame-rate issue  ,(stutter, jitter or Judder). But it might not make much of a difference.

I don't really know if Samsung 4K and UHD TV versions, are any more problematic than other brands, but the Samsung brand seems to be mentioned quite often, when concerning the Xfinity technology.

Related thread:

https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/Ignite-TV/Samsung-tv-issues-with-Rogers-ignite-TV/td-p/466818

[Danielson99]

"In a related thread, a Rogers Ignite TV subscribers, had his Samsung's UHD TV motherboard (which includes the HDMI connectors), REPLACED, and that fixed the box-recognition frame-rate problem."

Samsung is well known to cripple their tv's with firmware updates that cause more issue than they fix. I also own a new Samsung (S90C) qd-oled. A couple firmware updates ago (before I even bought the tv) they basically broke the motion handling on this tv. Panning left/right in any content creates huge stutter and makes the tv almost unwatchable depending on the content and your patience or tolerance to the stutter/judder. 

The same thing happened to the previous year's S95B series tvs and they still haven't been fixed. 

The only way you can use one of these TV's and have it working perfectly is by not letting the TV update to the firmware that messes it up. My guess is that the person you mentioned who changed the main board and suddenly it was working again was simply because by replacing the main board you start your tv over with the original firmware it comes from the factory with.

I don't believe this issue has anything to do with the Rogers cable box. It's the Samsung TV, sadly. I'm returning my TV before my return window closes.  

[-G-]

@Danielson99 What specific issues are you experiencing with your Samsung TV?

I also purchased a Samsung 4K QLED TV last fall and was initially shocked and horrified as to how poor and glitchy the picture was, especially when compared to the beautiful picture that I had with my 10+ year old Sony HD TV.

Things got a bit better when I dropped the set-top box's video output from the best 4K setting to 1080p HD.

I also swapped the XiOne set-top box with an Xi6 from another TV, and that did not help either.

I took the manual out of the plastic wrap and scoured the TV's settings looking for all the picture processing options (e.g. noise reduction, motion smoothing, judder reduction, and anything called dynamic or automatic) that could be turned off.

I set my set-top box video output back to 4K, and started by experimenting with the TV's Picture Mode setting, and ultimately settled on using Filmmaker Mode.  I then dialed down the motion processing options bit by bit, and turned off the Energy Saving option for a more consistent picture.

That made a HUGE difference.  I also updated the TV's firmware.  For more tips, try searching the Internet for "improve samsung tv picture quality"

You may find these Samsung support articles helpful as well:

- Discover the available picture settings for your Samsung TV

- Motion smoothing and the soap opera effect on Samsung TVs

- How to use the energy saving mode on the Samsung Smart TV

Hope this helps.

[Danielson99]

Hello. My issue isn't fixable with settings on the TV or the xione set top box. This issue is related to a firmware update (1410 to be exact) that created a motion handling bug. In AVS Forum in the S90C owners thread you can read about it. 
"05/23/24 - There is potentially an issue with firmware 1410 regarding frame cadence/pacing with certain streaming sources. The recommendation currently is to avoid updating if you are on a lower firmware version until this gets sorted. Please see the section entitled "Firmware Updates" near the end of post #3."

Several professional calibrators and tv reviewers have talked about it. It's only something Samsung can fix. The TV's worked great before the firmware update. For me, it feels like something the blur/judder settings could fix but they do almost nothing to fix the motion issues since the update. As I mentioned, Samsung has done this to other TV's. 

Obviously this issue is going to affect people differently. Some will notice the motion issues more than others but for me it makes the TV much less desirable considering there are many other TV's out there that have basically perfect motion handling. I wish we could just roll back the firmware but Samsung doesn't allow that.

[57]

Although the issue posted by @Danielson99 regarding his TV may be specific to that brand, there are optimization steps that anyone can do to their TV to get the best possible picture.  I optimized TVs and home theatres for over 10 years and developed the following post for those interested in that topic:

https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/Archived-Posts/4K-PVR-Picture-Quality-Poor-on-1080i-TV/m-p/416...

[akrawitz]

I have a Samsung 4K and I just got an XiOne. It worked fine at low-res, but when I set it to 2160p60 4K UHD, I had all kinds of problems. More often than not, I couldn’t get any picture at all. The fix was to turn off HDMI UHD Color on the TV. Seems to work fine now.

[kepler]

I too just replaced a 15 year old Sony Bravia HDTV with a Samsung QLED.  With the 4K setting on the Ignite box the picture would sometimes start flickering every few seconds (looked like a few frames were being dropped) after being on for a few hours. Restarting the Ignite Box cleared the problem but would start again after a few hours which clearly isn't acceptable. Last thing I tried was disconnecting the HDMI with the TV on and waiting a few seconds to reconnect it.  The Samsung then reported "New connection detected. Optimizing settings for 3840x2160."  (This made me realize that when I first set up the TV, I changed the setting on the Ignite Box to 4k *after* it had been connected to the TV. The Ignite box then was at the lower resolution so the TV probably had initially adjusted settings for the lower resolution.)  So far the flicker hasn't reappeared.  Hopefully it solved the issue.

[LordDrakkon]

The main reason Rogers 4k is not impressive, is the compression. 4k requires a lot of bandwidth that is shared with a lot of other channels. At best, Rogers 4k is 1440p and at worst closer to uncompressed 1080p. Even the 1080p channels on Rogers and other TV providers are highly compressed. You will only get uncompressed TV signals with an OTA antenna and for anything 4k, you need an ATSC capable tuner that supports encryption and need to live within range of TV stations in the US. Living in Scarborough, I can get ABC, NBC, CBS, CW, My9, and all of their many subchannels out of Buffalo with ease and they look amazing on an LG 4k 120Hz TV using a ZapperBox M1.

[57]

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@LordDrakkon wrote:
1. You will only get uncompressed TV signals with an OTA antenna 

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A bit OT for this thread.  My comments follow:

1. This is totally false. The highest bitrate for HD OTA is 19.4 Mbps.  An uncompressed original HD signal is over 1 Gbps, so the OTA compression factor is around 50.

2. The bitrate for Rogers HD channels is around 10 Mbps and for 4K is around 25 Mbps.

3. The technology used for the compression also comes into play because some are more effective and/or efficient, so the bitrate alone is no guarantee of quality, although when a website like SportsNet or TSN only provides say 2-4 Mbps, then that's definitely going to affect quality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_coding_format#List_of_video_coding_standards

[akrawitz]

Whatever the nominal compression is, many HD TV channels look horrific on Rogers Ignite - especially for live sports events. The compression artifacts are terrible. Way worse than what I had previously with Shaw Blue Curve over coax. Meanwhile, when I watch other streaming services (Apple TV+, Disney+, etc...) on the same TV over the same Shaw/Rogers WiFi network the picture looks great, and the Ignite box reports "excellent" connectivity. Rogers Ignite is overcompressing channels to such an extent that calling it "HD" is a fiction.

[57]

Premium services like AppleTV+ or high quality Netflix or even YouTube can have excellent PQ.  For example, if you right-click on a YouTube video on a computer you will see the "stats for nerds" and for 4K videos the bitrate can be from 25-over 100 Mbps.

I have found that most channels on IgniteTV are superior to legacy digital cable here in Ontario.  I cannot comment on out west.  I optimized Home Theatres for over a decade a few years back, so I do know a bit about this topic.

[kepler]

@57 Out of curiosity, do you know if the Rogers standard HD signal over the network to the TV box is still 1080i at 60 fps?  Also do you know the format of the 4K signal?  (I realize the resolution is settable on the Ignite TV box but the box is just converting the signal it receives to the selected resolution. With 2160p60 selected on the box  it must be upscaling the regular HD signal to that since my TV reports receiving a 4K signal even when viewing standard HD.)

[57]

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@kepler wrote:

@57 Out of curiosity, do you know if the Rogers standard HD signal over the network to the TV box is still 1080i at 60 fps?  Also do you know the format of the 4K signal?  (I realize the resolution is settable on the Ignite TV box but the box is just converting the signal it receives to the selected resolution. With 2160p60 selected on the box  it must be upscaling the regular HD signal to that since my TV reports receiving a 4K signal even when viewing standard HD.)

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1. Incoming HD is 1080P.  I don't know the framerate.

2. Yes, all incoming signals are converted in the box to whatever the box' output setting is.

[kepler]

Makes sense since some (most?) standard HD sources are now 1080p.  Just tried googling  OTA HD in Canada and didn't find much current technical detail.  I'd guess Rogers is 60 fps since 1080i was 60 fields per second (1 frame is 2 interlaced fields for interlaced video) and seems unlikely that the field rate would have been reduced (with progressive frame rate = field rate).

[kepler]

Actually, after some digging appears that almost all non-streamed standard HD channels are still providing only 1080i or 720p (including American/Canadian networks, Crave, etc). In fact I couldn't find one that is 1080p. Taking that into account, perhaps Rogers is only 30 fps over their network if they're using 1080p.

[57]

@kepler : You had asked what Rogers sends for HD channels and that is 1080P.  I don't believe 1080i can be sent over IPTV.  I created an FAQ regarding formats sent by "broadcasters" and others years ago.  It has been updated as applicable - link below:

https://www.digitalhome.ca/threads/faq-hdtv-4k-formats.76129/?post_id=654997#post-654997

[kepler]

@57, thanks for the link to your doc.  Also came across this list of US channels and formats (updated Aug 2024): https://hd-report.com/hd-channels/  .

For uncompressed video, 1080i at 60Hz is the same amount of data as 540p60 (since only half the frame is sent with interlacing) which of course is actually less bandwidth than 720p60.  Not sure how the data rates for 1080i at 60 Hz and 720p60 compare after compression though (obviously also dependent on specific compression algorithms chosen for each).