Channels & viewing

[Kova9611]

Recently got a new 4K stick for my 4K tv. Convinced my fiancé to watch the walking dead on Netflix. I’ve noticed that during specific scenes, the quality drops dramatically. It’s strange because it will snap back to normal as soon as the camera cuts to the next scene, and if it’s a dialog scene, if it cuts back to the person where the quality was bad, it will revert back to being poor quality. I also notice it a lot during foggy/smokey scenes, almost like there is something wrong with the compression during certain scenes. And going back to scenes where I remember it being lower quality, the same exact scenes are this lower quality. What’s even stranger, is that this only happens on the 4K stick, I have a Roku stream bar and older box Roku and have 0 issues on those, which leads me to believe it’s an issue with the stick and not Netflix. 
ive tried every troubleshooting method there is, including:

• powering on/off my router, modem, and the Roku. 
• adjusting the display settings on the stick(have tried every option)
• Trying different hdmi port, trying a different TV. I know it’s not a connection issue, as I have my router right next to the device and don’t have any issues on any of my other devices
• Adjusting my Netflix display/playback settings.
• Watching on a different Netflix user. 
  
  
• changing power source from tv, to outlet
• deleting/reinstalling Netflix on device

It seems to be just for this show, don’t have any issues with any other shows or channels at this time, and it doesn’t happen all the time, just enough to drive me insane, I’m tempted to just buy a different device but would love to avoid that. I’m also aware of the graininess of the walking dead since it was shot on 16mm film so I know the difference between poor compression and how the show is supposed to look. Not sure if this would be a Netflix issue or not, I wanted to start here as I only have issues on this specific device. Hoping someone has experienced this before and has a fix

[RokuCarly]

Welcome and thank you for posting here in the Roku Community, @Kova9611!

Thanks for letting us know about this. We'd like to share further information about this and help you find the best resolution.

Since this is content inside the Netflix app on your device, we highly suggest coordinating this with their Support team directly for further assistance as they manage and maintain their app on the Roku streaming platform independently. 

You may reach them here: Netflix Support

In the meantime, we appreciate the efforts you've taken in trying to troubleshoot. We hope this will be sorted out soon.

Best regards,
Carly

[StreamerUser · Accepted solution]

This is due to the NetFlix app on each device using different codecs for content encodings:

Your newer (RTD131x SoC-based) "4K Stick" NetFlix app is likely streaming content encoded with AV1 (or sometimes HEVC/H.265).

Your older (MStar C2 SoC-based) streambar/box NetFlix app is likely streaming content encoded with HEVC (H.265) or sometimes AVC (H.264).

So it all comes down to the NF app on the newer vs older devices streaming content using different codecs, and the encoding quality differs.

Unfortunately there is no way to configure the NF app/account to prefer one codec over another so you are limited to using different devices with different codec support to workaround encoding quality issues.

I suggest contacting NF about the AV1/HEVC encoding quality of The Walking Dead encodes - they will re-encode from time to time including due to customer feedback of a poor quality encoding.