Mods can remove if this breaks any rules…
What the title says. I don’t know if the Apple TV is sincerely better than the Ultra, but since I’ve built up what I’d consider a fairly standard home theater system (4K tv with HDR, soundbar w/ Dolby Atmos…no surround system or anything overly fancy) the Roku has caused some annoyances. Right now the hassle is the Paramount Roku app keeps blanking the screen when watching Dolby Vision content, sometimes requiring a tv power cycle.
Anyways, I know I’m asking the Apple crowd here but I’m considering the switch but don’t know if it’s a difference of preferences or if Apple TV (4K) is genuinely superior?
You will still have the blanking issue with Apple TV, but the picture and sound quality are both better than Roku Ultra.
That’s disappointing. What causes this issue? Bad cables? Poor app development? I kinda irrationally hate it
The blanking is momentary for a second or so when you switch from SDR to HDR content. From then on it should be stable. Is that what you are experiencing on the Roku? You mention rebooting so seem to be describing something more serious.
Here are the issue cases: paramount plus is the biggest offender, but YouTube and Max does it too. Screen blanks when I browse between videos, regardless of if it’s Dolby content or not (Paw patrol show, blaze, pp movie which is Dolby…). The screen does blank briefly when starting a video, and I get that that’s normal. Where it’s a problem is sometimes the blank doesn’t correct (screen doesn’t come back) and I have to power cycle the app, or the Roku itself to get the screen to come back at all. I assumed it was either the Roku, or poorly developed app for the Roku (and I’m hoping that if I went Apple, I’d not get these issues).
You are correct, with Apple TV you won’t experience those issues or have to power cycle, but will still go blank for a second when starting Dolby vision/hdr content
I force mine to always out put 4k hdr 29.97 to my projector and never experience blanking. Match content and frame rate off. I use an Epson 5040ub and it limited 4k hdr due to its chipset
Something about the handshake between the TV and device. Doesn’t seem to be a great fix available.
You could set the Apple TV to always run in Dolby Vision and turn Match Content off. I do this and don’t notice any issues. But I’m sure some videophiles would cringe at this.