Features, settings & updates

[duddly]

I can't get my Sony Grand Wega to run at 1080P I only can get 720.  In Roku setup it recognizes it can display at 1080 but when it switches to run at that picture is all out of Sync.  I have no settings on my TV menu to change anything to run it at that res. My TV does attempt the switch over automatically as it always has and should have cleared up and sync'd and started displaying correctly but reverts back after Roku acceptance question.  Set Roku to force at 1080 was a mistake and a pain to get it to work again at 720.

[Michelle3 · Accepted solution]

If the TV doesn’t support 1080p, you probably need to change it back to 720p.  My TV is an obsolete analog set that only supports up to 480i, therefore my Roku 3910 device has a 4:3/16:9 setting instead of a resolution setting.

~ Jordan

[duddly]

Thing is it is a 1080 capable set and does so with an older Zenith HD digital tuner, yes a real digital tuner box as big as the Apex DVD player I have. The menu on the Roku initially give two check marks in green and respond that my set is a 1080p set but that is when it doesn't comunicate with my set correctly and just give jagged line and not syncing correctly.

[Michelle3]

So the error appears to be on your Roku device?

~ Jordan

[Strega]

It might be worth stating the specific model. I searched around for “Grand Wega” and the first three that I happened upon only claimed to be “really” 720p-capable.  By “really” I mean that some of them said they accepted 1080i (not 1080P) inputs but all of them were 1280x768 to 1386x788 pixel devices.  As such, I don’t know that you’d notice any difference feeding those 720P vs 1080i. 

All the ones I found dated to the early 2000s when HD was still fairly confusing.

[duddly]

It is a KF-42WE610. I have to say you can tell when it is in 1080, very clear. If you are watching a game or Nascar or something it becomes very apparent because it is close to as if you are almost right there and they like to broadcast with the better video cameras.

[duddly]

Sorry I left out that it was manufactured in 2004.

[Strega · Accepted solution]

I found a manual here:

https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/res/manuals/W000/W0005856M.pdf

Highlights: never mentions 1080p – only 1080i.  Only claims to have 1,092,168 pixels (which is 1386x788) which is about half of a full 1080p display.  Probably “normal” for that era. Unfortunately, I don’t think any Rokus claim to support 1080i.

[Michelle3 · Accepted solution]

Plus that particular manual is copyright 2003.  They must’ve began manufacturing these kind of sets around then, and @duddly’s set was probably manufactured late.  

At one point, some Roku device models from early and mid 2010s, even those with HDMI only, were capable of 480p. As of 2018, the mid 2010s Roku models with HDMI only, no longer have a 480p option, because over time, Roku has updated the Secret Menu during their software version releases and nearly all of the analog technology was simply becoming obsolete at the time.

~ Jordan

[makaiguy · Accepted solution]

@duddly-

When a TV that was designed for 1080i only, but not 1080p, receives a 1080p signal, it doesn't know what to do with it.

If you want to understand why, your eyes will probably glaze over while reading, but here goes:

The "i" and "p" stand for "interlaced" and "progressive".  The interlaced format stems from the beginnings of standard definition tv when tv technology and over air transmission rates were too slow to send the data for the entire screen at once and still produce an image that appeared to move smoothly, not jerkily.  To cut the needed data rate in half, they sent half of the screen's analog lines at a time by sending 240 lines in one group, every other line, then on the next cycle going back and sending the other interlaced 240 lines on the next.  Each scan is sent in 1/60 of a second so you get one complete screen in 1/30 of a second.  Most humans perceive this frame rate as smooth motion (the standard for movies is 24 frame/second).  This format is now known as 480i.

When high definition digital transmission was developed it utilized data compression techniques allowing it to send a higher definition information a whole screenful of data in one cycle, scanning the full screen progressively from top to bottom.  Interlacing alternate lines was no longer needed, thus giving you 60 full frames/second instead of just 30 as you would get with interlacing. So you received, not only higher definition,  but doubling the frame rate also produced smoother motion for fast moving images like footballs and screen pans.  This could support 720 lines of digital pixils in one scan, hence 720p became the standard for 720.

Initially a full 1080 digital screen still needed more data sent in one cycle than over air broadcast could deliver at an acceptable frame rate so for 1080 they had to stick with the old system of sending half the interlaced 1080 screen at a time as 1080i, thus limiting 1080 frame rate to 30 frames/second.  This limitation in commercial broadcasting still exists today and 1080 over air broadcasts are still sent as 1080i.   Although standards for 1080p existed, many 1080 sets at the time were only designed to accommodate 1080i as that's what they could receive over the air.

It didn't take TV manufacturers long to develop displays that could handle full 1080p digital signals received by means other than over the air, such as satellite and playing video disks, so most 1080 sets started including 1080p. All 1080p tvs are designed to also display a received 1080i signal by de-interlacing the alternate lines and combining them into one progressive screen for display.  Unfortunately most (all?) non-1080p sets have no provisions for taking a full 1080p progressive scan signal and splitting it into the two alternate line interlaced scans it needs for display.

It was about this time that Netflix, who had already developed a stream-to-computers business over the internet as an adjunct to their disk rental business, wanted to be able to expand to streaming directly to people's tv sets over the internet.  Rokus were initially developed as a means of providing the needed internet-to-tv interface for Netflix.  Initial Rokus were 720p only.  By the time Roku added 1080 output, 1080p TVs had become the norm.   As far as I know, all Rokus that support 1080 have always only supported 1080p for their output.