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[ohwnez]

As a new Roku user, I'm generally happy with my Ultra device as far as online streaming goes.  But one thing that bothers me is the mediocre video quality when watching some local content via USB or DLNA.  Specifically, anything less than 1080p looks not-that-great when viewed with the Roku Media Player.  And note that this doesn't have to do with the quality of the source material, as I'm comparing the exact same videos with two different devices attached to one TV: the Roku Ultra and the Oppo 103D in "source direct" mode (processing/upconversion disabled), connected to a Sony X900E 4K TV with video settings kept the same.

At 720p I can see artifacts, subtle color shade differences, and a generally cruder picture in the RMP video compared to the source-direct video from the Oppo.  At 480p the differences between the Roku and the Oppo are really obvious, as videos in RMP look like a soupy mess compared to the sharper, cleaner video through the Oppo.

Downgrading my Roku display settings to 720p to view 720p content doesn't improve the picture quality much, which means the Roku isn't just scaling the video, but also performing some other processing (attempting to enhance the picture quality?).

For local content, I would like all video scaling and enhancement to be performed by my TV alone, since Sony is really, really good at those things.  The Roku, on the other hand, is just not very good at making lower resolution video look better, so it would be quite useful to have an RMP setting analogous to the Oppo's "source direct" mode, where I can just send the video as-is to the TV without any extra video processing or scaling.

Basically I'm asking Roku for the option to offload a big chunk of video processing work to the TV, which doesn't sound like a hard thing to implement.

It's really a win-win situation: the Roku device has less work to do and the consumer gets better video quality.

[atc98092]

I have to say that I haven't noticed that. The majority of my media are ripped DVDs, so SD material. I also have a number of ripped Blu rays, so I have some 1080 material as well. I watch them on a number of TVs, but mostly a Panasonic 1080 plasma and a Samsung 4K. I just happened to watch a DVD rip on the plasma yesterday with my Roku 4, without any issue. My Ultra is connected to the Samsung, so everything is being upconverted to 4K by the Ultra. Never noticed artifacts of any kind. While I do pass my signal through my Yamaha AVRs, they are both set on passthrough, so (in theory) are not altering the video in any way. I'm not aware of the Roku doing any video processing other than scaling, but perhaps someone else might have better information.

[ohwnez]

"atc98092" wrote:
I have to say that I haven't noticed that. The majority of my media are ripped DVDs, so SD material. I also have a number of ripped Blu rays, so I have some 1080 material as well. I watch them on a number of TVs, but mostly a Panasonic 1080 plasma and a Samsung 4K. I just happened to watch a DVD rip on the plasma yesterday with my Roku 4, without any issue. My Ultra is connected to the Samsung, so everything is being upconverted to 4K by the Ultra. Never noticed artifacts of any kind. While I do pass my signal through my Yamaha AVRs, they are both set on passthrough, so (in theory) are not altering the video in any way. I'm not aware of the Roku doing any video processing other than scaling, but perhaps someone else might have better information.

Have you ever compared the same video with the Roku Media Player vs a built-in video player app in the Samsung?

[ohwnez]

Having just looked through the "secret" Roku menus and screens for something that might help me, it seems that an option to disable video processing/upconversion could go into one of those hidden areas.  General users should probably not have easy access to such settings, as misuse could result in some panicked calls to Roku customer support.

But for other users like myself who are trying to improve their Roku experience, hidden settings for the Roku Media Player would be very much appreciated!

[atc98092]

"ohwnez" wrote:

"atc98092" wrote:
I have to say that I haven't noticed that. The majority of my media are ripped DVDs, so SD material. I also have a number of ripped Blu rays, so I have some 1080 material as well. I watch them on a number of TVs, but mostly a Panasonic 1080 plasma and a Samsung 4K. I just happened to watch a DVD rip on the plasma yesterday with my Roku 4, without any issue. My Ultra is connected to the Samsung, so everything is being upconverted to 4K by the Ultra. Never noticed artifacts of any kind. While I do pass my signal through my Yamaha AVRs, they are both set on passthrough, so (in theory) are not altering the video in any way. I'm not aware of the Roku doing any video processing other than scaling, but perhaps someone else might have better information.

Have you ever compared the same video with the Roku Media Player vs a built-in video player app in the Samsung?

At least with my JU7100, the built in player is a piece of junk. It doesn't display any metadata, it doesn't work with transcoded files, and just overall isn't worthwhile to use. It's been so long since I've used it I can't honestly say if it was any better or worse. If I don't use the Roku, I use a Sony Blu Ray player, since it can play PGS captions from M2TS files. But I feel the Roku looks as good as if not better than the Sony.