# Black Flashes / Sluggishness between screen changes?



## dolfer (Nov 3, 2000)

I've been getting black Flashes / Sluggishness between screen changes for the past couple months. Definitely a more recent development. Is Tivo aware? Any fixes on the horizon?


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## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

Video Output setting?


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## allanmac (Feb 8, 2017)

Do you have various pass-through resolutions enabled?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I assume this is when you are changing channels? I eliminate that, as others have said, by fixing the output resolution.

If you are having flashes in some other format, please elaborate.


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## dolfer (Nov 3, 2000)

allanmac said:


> Do you have various pass-through resolutions enabled?


 Yes, I do. I have everything enabled except 480P.


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## dolfer (Nov 3, 2000)

cherry ghost said:


> Video Output setting?


 I have everything enabled except 480P. I have an LG EF9500 which is a 4k OLED set that does HDR and supports Deep Color.


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## dolfer (Nov 3, 2000)

jrtroo said:


> I assume this is when you are changing channels? I eliminate that, as others have said, by fixing the output resolution.
> 
> If you are having flashes in some other format, please elaborate.


What have people been doing? Just selecting one or two output resolutions? What seems to be working for most people?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I leave it at my TV default, and no others.


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## allanmac (Feb 8, 2017)

dolfer said:


> What have people been doing? Just selecting one or two output resolutions? What seems to be working for most people?


I think most people have settled on selecting only the native resolution of their panel (typically auto-selected) and leaving the Bolt to scale as necessary.

My setup is: 4K/60Hz/HDR panel <> Denon X1300W <> BOLT

I have only one resolution checked (auto / 2160p) and black screen "resyncs" no longer occur.

There might be other experts here that can describe situations when it *is* actually useful to enable additional resolutions or the pass-through feature.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

dolfer said:


> What have people been doing? Just selecting one or two output resolutions? What seems to be working for most people?


I got annoyed by the delay and black screen that would flash when my (admittedly older) HDTV would switch input resolutions so I ended up forcing the TiVo to scale everything to 1080i just so the TV never saw a resolution change. But how quickly, and how much a distraction, a resolution change is entirely TV dependent - some TVs will be better about it than others. 
(And it was especially bad with the old SD TiVo menus because every time you went between a show (720p or 1080i) and the menu (480i) or back you'd get the TV flash its black screen because of the resolution change.)

I _might_ get marginally better image if I let the TiVo output native resolutions, but the annoyance factor (at least with my TV) was way higher than any benefit. (Or there are people with really high end external scalers that would have the TiVo output native resolution to the scaler and have it feed the TV with the TVs native display resolution because it would do a better job scaling than either the TiVo or TV would)


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I have my Bolts set for 1080P output. I would rather my TV do the scaling. Plus my speaker bar doesn't have an overlay with anything higher than 2160P30.


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## dolfer (Nov 3, 2000)

allanmac said:


> I think most people have settled on selecting only the native resolution of their panel (typically auto-selected) and leaving the Bolt to scale as necessary.
> 
> My setup is: 4K/60Hz/HDR panel <> Denon X1300W <> BOLT
> 
> ...


Thanks for this info! I will give it a try tonight. Our setup is pretty much identical. I have a Bolt > Denon S720W > 4K LG OLED. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

Out of curiosity, what HDMI cables are you using?


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## dolfer (Nov 3, 2000)

OK... So I get home last night and my Tivo is LIGHTNING fast. No blank screen flashes. I haven't done anything yet. I'm wondering if I got a software update when I was complaining on Twitter?


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

dolfer said:


> OK... So I get home last night and my Tivo is LIGHTNING fast. No blank screen flashes. I haven't done anything yet. I'm wondering if I got a software update when I was complaining on Twitter?


Not aware of any TiVo updates. Maybe you got a TV software update. Does your TiVo still have all resolutions selected except 480p? We also set ours to just the resolution supported by the TV to prevent the delay in resolution changes (did this with our S3 OLED back in 2007 as well).

Scott


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## rpiotro (Oct 20, 2005)

allanmac said:


> ...There might be other experts here that can describe situations when it *is* actually useful to enable additional resolutions or the pass-through feature.


I can only speak for my own situation but I do get better picture quality by selecting all available resolutions so the TV can display the content in its native format. I have the signal passing through a Pioneer Elite AV receiver but I have turned off all video signal processing and it passes the raw signal. It just becomes a "dumb switch". By turning off all intervention by the receiver it minimizes the time to restore the picture when it switches channels.

The TV is a 50" Panasonic plasma with the S90 panel if it makes a difference.


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## rpiotro (Oct 20, 2005)

dolfer said:


> OK... So I get home last night and my Tivo is LIGHTNING fast. No blank screen flashes. I haven't done anything yet. I'm wondering if I got a software update when I was complaining on Twitter?


The update probably reverted your resolutions to "Auto". I see that occasionally here.


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## dolfer (Nov 3, 2000)

rpiotro said:


> The update probably reverted your resolutions to "Auto". I see that occasionally here.


You are right!!!!! I went in to check the resolution and there was only ONE output selected which was "2160P - Auto"

What do I lose with this setting? Is it better to have my TV do the upconverting of my 720 & 1080 cable signals?


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## rpiotro (Oct 20, 2005)

dolfer said:


> You are right!!!!! I went in to check the resolution and there was only ONE output selected which was "2160P - Auto"
> 
> What do I lose with this setting? Is it better to have my TV do the upconverting of my 720 & 1080 cable signals?


It depends. It is a matter of what works best in your setup. Experiment and decide. That's what I did. Some TV's do upconverting better. Some source devices do it better. I chose to do no upconverting at all. I just always run in native format. I have to admit I am biased against overdoing signal processing. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

BTW, I feel much the same about audio. If the source is strictly two channel PCM stereo, So be it. I leave it in stereo. If it is Dolby HD Master then great.


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## ohboy710 (Jun 30, 2008)

I have given up trying to get the Tivo to work with my LG tv at 4k resolution. I changed the Tivo settings back to 1080 and I don't have any issues... 2160 just flickers like crazy and I'm too annoyed.


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## Simon B (Jul 28, 2017)

Hoping I can get some help from the group. I am a long time Tivo user. I upgraded to the Bolt a year ago. Really happy with it. Recently, the TV picture would go black for a second or two, then come back. It was pretty random but would happen every 2 - 20 minutes. TV was a Toshiba 1080 I had been using all along. I tried a LG 4k TV and it does the same thing. I switched out HDMI cables and still get the same result so I think the issue is with the Bolt. Is anyone else having this issue? Any ideas on how to resolve? Thanks.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

Same problem here with a new TiVo Mini 4K. Any suggestions?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Set it to one resolution output. Then it doesn't need to resync everytime the resolution changes. I run my TiVos now with one resolution output and I dont get the black screens. I would only get them when there are resolution changes.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

Lots of experiments later i figured out the mini would only work directly connected to the tv, with a single cable.

Wouldn’t work thru the wall connector my non-4k works thru and neither via the same connection a Samsung 4k Blu Ray player and a Fire TV Cube share.

I’d have to re-wire things behind the mounted tv. Nope. It’s being returned.


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