Fascinated and frustrated with the Roku Ultra

T

Trebdp83

Audioholic Ninja
Since years had passed since using a Roku, I decided to get one after seeing a Roku Ultra and Roku Stick+ combo at Costco. I was also interested in it after reading about one user's issues with it in this thread: Surround Speakers Not Engaging While Using Roku or TV Streaming. It doesn't do any good to guess about what a particular issue is with a particular device if you are unfamiliar with it. My curiosity usually wins out when Costco stocks the shelves with enticing deals. That warehouse can be a very dangerous place for some and I have, so far, avoided a new TV purchase. But, I am not sure how long I can resist it.:p

The Roku Ultra is a simple little box. It is shorter yet wider and deeper than an Apple TV 4K. It is also much lighter with a flat finish. The remote control is small enough but a bit heavy for its size and the weight is further increased by the installation of AA batteries. It is very close to the width and length of the new Apple TV 4K remote control but is twice as thick. The Roku Ultra remote control can be connected to headphones for private listening and includes a pair of them. I connected the Roku Ultra to my AVR and experimented with the headphones. When connected, audio is output from just the headphones and not from the AVR at all. This is fine for private listening but not useful for those who want audio output from the headphones AND the AVR. To get audio from both of them, I had to use a Volume button cheat code that reminded me of old joystick codes. Using the volume buttons on the Roku remote control, , I pressed Up Up, Down Down, Up Up, Down Down, Up Up Up, Down Down Down. Suddenly, audio was output from the AVR as well, though, some A/V Sync adjustments had to be made within the AVR to compensate for a delay. Once audio was output from the AVR, the Roku remote control's volume buttons only adjusted the volume within the headphones and an icon and volume level appeared on the TV screen. Using the volume buttons on the AVR remote control only adjusted the volume in the AVR. This can be a useful setting for those families with a person hard of hearing in the home. They can enjoy loud volume using headphones while others enjoy the speakers connected to the TV or AVR.

One thing that interested me was the Roku's support of HDR10+ as my TV supports HDR10+ but not Dolby Vision. I connected it to my Onkyo TX-NR6050. Yeah, more one that one later in another thread. I did not get HDR10+ to work initially and then realized that the Onkyo will only pass HDR10+ from devices connected to HDMI ports 1, 2 and 3. Connect to ports 4, 5 and 6 and there is no love for HDR10+ or any HDMI 2.1 features such as 4K @120hz. Once I made a connection change, HDR10+ was available and worked. I was only able to use it playing material from Amazon Prime and Hulu. While Hulu supports HDR10+ on the Roku Ultra, it does not support 24Hz playback and everything is played back at 60Hz. The Amazon Prime app via the Roku Ultra is interesting. It does support 24Hz playback but it only did so after HDR10+ was enabled.o_O Disney+ and Netflix do not support HDR10+. Paramount+ ONLY supports HDR10+ and 24Hz playback with their commercial free subscription.:mad: I have one year of the basic service at no cost to me so I'll just have to live with SDR @60Hz when using Paramount+. I watched some "Carnival Row" from Amazon Prime. It played back in HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos. It looked great. I also played some episodes of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." That one looks great but is not in Dolby Atmos.

I did have some issues here and there and ended up setting it up similarly to the Apple TV 4K. One has to go a bit deep in the settings to change some things and the menus could use some work. After going to Settings>System>Advanced system settings>Advanced display settings, I set "Auto-adjust display refresh rate" to ON so that the native rate of any given material is played without conversion. "HDR subsampling" was set to 4:2:0 and "HDR always on" was set to OFF. While these settings are great for proper playback of SDR/HDR material at their respective frame rates, there is no "Auto" or "Direct" setting for resolution. This is also the case for the Apple TV 4K and Nvidia Shield. You can force a resolution on these devices for output, but you cannot set them to output an app's native resolution. The closest I was able to get was using the Sony UBP-X800. It can be set to output "original resolution" in its screen settings. It works for discs as well as apps. But, that means the material will be output in the app's native resolution and rate and not necessarily the resolution and rate of the content itself. It is what it is.

The Roku Ultra has some fun themes, wallpaper, screen savers and sounds. Speaking of sound, it needs to be set properly. After going to Settings>Audio>Streaming audio format, I set it to "Auto." From there, I went to "Digital output format." I thought setting it to "Auto" would do the trick as the poster in the linked thread had thought. This resulted in the click sounds being disabled and audio output being converted and Dolby Atmos displayed on the receiver.o_O This was bulls#%t because it did not convert the 2.0 track I played to multichannel Atmos at all.:mad: While it displayed Atmos, the audio was still two channel and some sound modes were disabled. Audio was only present in the FL and FR speakers unless I selected ALL CHANNEL STEREO. It was a mess. For proper output of audio from a given track, the "Digital output format" in the Roku Ultra must be set to "Passthrough." Once set there, everything played back as it should no matter the codec. Sadly, the Roku Ultra is not supported by Tidal for Dolby Atmos music playback. If one wants to play Dolby Atmos tracks from a streaming device connected to their AVR, one will have to choose an Apple TV 4K, Amazon Fire device, or Nvidia Shield. Dolby Atmos tracks via Tidal still play at low volume to this day compared to Dolby Atmos tracks from Apple Music using the Apple TV 4K. We'll see if Roku devices are ever added to the list of devices that can play Dolby Atmos tracks from Tidal's service in the future. I'll continue to play with the Roku and am enjoying it for the most part so far. But, ask me to pick the better of the two devices right now and I'll pick the Apple TV 4K. That one has its own issues but the ability to play Dolby Atmos music tracks from not one, but two music streaming services puts it over the top. That is worth more than getting HDR10+ from the Roku Ultra for me. Now, where is that 2022 Nvidia Shield Pro? It must be coming out around the same time as Spotify HI FI.:D
 
Mark E. Long

Mark E. Long

Audioholic General
Since years had passed since using a Roku, I decided to get one after seeing a Roku Ultra and Roku Stick+ combo at Costco. I was also interested in it after reading about one user's issues with it in this thread: Surround Speakers Not Engaging While Using Roku or TV Streaming. It doesn't do any good to guess about what a particular issue is with a particular device if you are unfamiliar with it. My curiosity usually wins out when Costco stocks the shelves with enticing deals. That warehouse can be a very dangerous place for some and I have, so far, avoided a new TV purchase. But, I am not sure how long I can resist it.:p

The Roku Ultra is a simple little box. It is shorter yet wider and deeper than an Apple TV 4K. It is also much lighter with a flat finish. The remote control is small enough but a bit heavy for its size and the weight is further increased by the installation of AA batteries. It is very close to the width and length of the new Apple TV 4K remote control but is twice as thick. The Roku Ultra remote control can be connected to headphones for private listening and includes a pair of them. I connected the Roku Ultra to my AVR and experimented with the headphones. When connected, audio is output from just the headphones and not from the AVR at all. This is fine for private listening but not useful for those who want audio output from the headphones AND the AVR. To get audio from both of them, I had to use a Volume button cheat code that reminded me of old joystick codes. Using the volume buttons on the Roku remote control, , I pressed Up Up, Down Down, Up Up, Down Down, Up Up Up, Down Down Down. Suddenly, audio was output from the AVR as well, though, some A/V Sync adjustments had to be made within the AVR to compensate for a delay. Once audio was output from the AVR, the Roku remote control's volume buttons only adjusted the volume within the headphones and an icon and volume level appeared on the TV screen. Using the volume buttons on the AVR remote control only adjusted the volume in the AVR. This can be a useful setting for those families with a person hard of hearing in the home. They can enjoy loud volume using headphones while others enjoy the speakers connected to the TV or AVR.

One thing that interested me was the Roku's support of HDR10+ as my TV supports HDR10+ but not Dolby Vision. I connected it to my Onkyo TX-NR6050. Yeah, more one that one later in another thread. I did not get HDR10+ to work initially and then realized that the Onkyo will only pass HDR10+ from devices connected to HDMI ports 1, 2 and 3. Connect to ports 4, 5 and 6 and there is no love for HDR10+ or any HDMI 2.1 features such as 4K @120hz. Once I made a connection change, HDR10+ was available and worked. I was only able to use it playing material from Amazon Prime and Hulu. While Hulu supports HDR10+ on the Roku Ultra, it does not support 24Hz playback and everything is played back at 60Hz. The Amazon Prime app via the Roku Ultra is interesting. It does support 24Hz playback but it only did so after HDR10+ was enabled.o_O Disney+ and Netflix do not support HDR10+. Paramount+ ONLY supports HDR10+ and 24Hz playback with their commercial free subscription.:mad: I have one year of the basic service at no cost to me so I'll just have to live with SDR @60Hz when using Paramount+. I watched some "Carnival Row" from Amazon Prime. It played back in HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos. It looked great. I also played some episodes of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." That one looks great but is not in Dolby Atmos.

I did have some issues here and there and ended up setting it up similarly to the Apple TV 4K. One has to go a bit deep in the settings to change some things and the menus could use some work. After going to Settings>System>Advanced system settings>Advanced display settings, I set "Auto-adjust display refresh rate" to ON so that the native rate of any given material is played without conversion. "HDR subsampling" was set to 4:2:0 and "HDR always on" was set to OFF. While these settings are great for proper playback of SDR/HDR material at their respective frame rates, there is no "Auto" or "Direct" setting for resolution. This is also the case for the Apple TV 4K and Nvidia Shield. You can force a resolution on these devices for output, but you cannot set them to output an app's native resolution. The closest I was able to get was using the Sony UBP-X800. It can be set to output "original resolution" in its screen settings. It works for discs as well as apps. But, that means the material will be output in the app's native resolution and rate and not necessarily the resolution and rate of the content itself. It is what it is.

The Roku Ultra has some fun themes, wallpaper, screen savers and sounds. Speaking of sound, it needs to be set properly. After going to Settings>Audio>Streaming audio format, I set it to "Auto." From there, I went to "Digital output format." I thought setting it to "Auto" would do the trick as the poster in the linked thread had thought. This resulted in the click sounds being disabled and audio output being converted and Dolby Atmos displayed on the receiver.o_O This was bulls#%t because it did not convert the 2.0 track I played to multichannel Atmos at all.:mad: While it displayed Atmos, the audio was still two channel and some sound modes were disabled. Audio was only present in the FL and FR speakers unless I selected ALL CHANNEL STEREO. It was a mess. For proper output of audio from a given track, the "Digital output format" in the Roku Ultra must be set to "Passthrough." Once set there, everything played back as it should no matter the codec. Sadly, the Roku Ultra is not supported by Tidal for Dolby Atmos music playback. If one wants to play Dolby Atmos tracks from a streaming device connected to their AVR, one will have to choose an Apple TV 4K, Amazon Fire device, or Nvidia Shield. Dolby Atmos tracks via Tidal still play at low volume to this day compared to Dolby Atmos tracks from Apple Music using the Apple TV 4K. We'll see if Roku devices are ever added to the list of devices that can play Dolby Atmos tracks from Tidal's service in the future. I'll continue to play with the Roku and am enjoying it for the most part so far. But, ask me to pick the better of the two devices right now and I'll pick the Apple TV 4K. That one has its own issues but the ability to play Dolby Atmos music tracks from not one, but two music streaming services puts it over the top. That is worth more than getting HDR10+ from the Roku Ultra for me. Now, where is that 2022 Nvidia Shield Pro? It must be coming out around the same time as Spotify HI FI.:D
We got one of the 4K sticks have always been pleased with it and its performance . But like ya say the menu needs work but everything you need is there but they do make ya work for it lol !
 
Last edited:
Cos

Cos

Audioholic Samurai
Wow, that is a long read. I don't use Roku anymore, switched it out with the Apple TV 4k 64GB (latest gen). Overpriced...yes it's apple. that being said, I like the remote and menu organization so much more
 
T

Trebdp83

Audioholic Ninja
My apologies. Figured I’d get it all out at once and be done with it like my morning s#%t.:D
 
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