Solved: Re: Judder when watching on Now Tv Stick - NOW Community

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Hi, Don’t know why but my TV prefers 60hz as it is really smooth but the default 50hz for Now Tv produces slight judder in the picture no matter if I watch Now Tv or Netflix on the stick.

Is is there anyway of me changing 50hz to 60hz on Now tv?

1 Solution

Hi @Anonymous User

No solution if you keep using the NowTV stick which outputs video at 50hz.

You will need to look at another nowTV supported device such has a Roku which offers 60hz forced playback.

From my various testing on 50hz and 60hz playback on all my Panasonic Televisions when watching UK broadcasted content such has NowTV, BBC iPlayer etc 50hz is smoother for me on all my TV's where 60hz on UK video content introduces micro judder on panning camera shots or news ticker bars.

Sounds like to me that your Television screen can handle 60hz better than 50hz.

Out of interest what is the make and model number of your television and if you are playing 50hz native content and if your television remote controller offers on screen information on the incoming signal is it displaying 50hz or converting the signal to 60hz on your TV screen ?

Back in the early days, when NowTV brought out their old white and black boxes these devices originally outputted all video at 60hz (inline with the full blown Roku Players in the USA) and a lot of NowTV customers complained about 60hz playback on UK content where micro judder was introduced on their TV screens.

Since NowTV rectified this by forcing 50hz on their boxes and stick, the 60hz micro judder discussion seems to have disappeared on the forum, where the majority of customers find 50hz more watchable over 60hz here in the UK.

So unless NowTV can offer a functionality in the future, like the option of selecting 50hz or 60hz in the menu settings which i don't know if it is possible with their hardware or software then you are stuck with 50hz using their NowTV stick.

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19 Replies

Hi @Anonymous User

The NowTV stick is locked at 50hz and there is no option in the previous or latest software to select or force 60hz.

Perhaps consider a Roku Express which outputs all video at 60hz fixed, but again you won't be able to revert to 50hz on the Roku Express.

Also the Roku Express is a mini streaming box and technically not a stick where using the Roku Express remote you need line of sight where the remote works over infra red.

Also the Roku Express remote doesn't have the TV standby and volume adjust together with a voice search button, but does incorporate more Apps than the NowTV stick.

So no solution at all to fix this. More noticeable when watching Sky Sports News and the bottom ticker bar moving across the screen it’s not smooth it’s glitchy and frustrating.

Hi @Anonymous User

No solution if you keep using the NowTV stick which outputs video at 50hz.

You will need to look at another nowTV supported device such has a Roku which offers 60hz forced playback.

From my various testing on 50hz and 60hz playback on all my Panasonic Televisions when watching UK broadcasted content such has NowTV, BBC iPlayer etc 50hz is smoother for me on all my TV's where 60hz on UK video content introduces micro judder on panning camera shots or news ticker bars.

Sounds like to me that your Television screen can handle 60hz better than 50hz.

Out of interest what is the make and model number of your television and if you are playing 50hz native content and if your television remote controller offers on screen information on the incoming signal is it displaying 50hz or converting the signal to 60hz on your TV screen ?

Back in the early days, when NowTV brought out their old white and black boxes these devices originally outputted all video at 60hz (inline with the full blown Roku Players in the USA) and a lot of NowTV customers complained about 60hz playback on UK content where micro judder was introduced on their TV screens.

Since NowTV rectified this by forcing 50hz on their boxes and stick, the 60hz micro judder discussion seems to have disappeared on the forum, where the majority of customers find 50hz more watchable over 60hz here in the UK.

So unless NowTV can offer a functionality in the future, like the option of selecting 50hz or 60hz in the menu settings which i don't know if it is possible with their hardware or software then you are stuck with 50hz using their NowTV stick.

@Anonymous User The Now TV 4k Smart Box has an "Auto-adjust display refresh rate" option, which switches the outputted frame rate to whatever frequency is needed to match the video's native frame rate (e.g. 60Hz for US TV/50Hz for UK TV/24Hz for Movies).

Using this option should ensure that you get the best quality video playback, although a side effect is that your TV may go blank for a second or so while switching frequency when video playback starts and stops.

I don't think that will work with regards to enabling the Auto Refresh Frame Rate on the NowTV 4K Smart Box which will playback the native frame rate of the broadcast.

So for example NowTV native playback is 50hz so @Anonymous User will be getting a 50hz signal using the Auto Refresh Frame Rate feature when switched on,

Where reading @Anonymous User post, 60hz forced output is what is needed all the time which suits @Anonymous User television screen better when it comes to reducing micro judder.

Though i haven't got a US television to check what happens if you use the Auto Refresh Rate with UK 50hz content on a US TV if it will up convert the signal from 50 to 60hz to match a US 60hz TV display.

I can only report what's happening on my UK sourced Panasonic TV's using the Auto Refresh Frame Rate feature.

My NowTV 4K Smart Box recently received a new Software update OS9.0.3 and for some reason the Auto Refresh Rate is now not working or broken on the latest update 😠.

I have raised the loss of this Auto Adjust Refresh Rate functionality on my NowTV 4K box to the NowTV Forum Team to investigate.

Saying that my NowTV 4K Smart box is always now forcing 60hz output on everything thing that i throw at it such has the NowTV App, BBC iPlayer App, Netflix App etc.

Because i always used the Auto Refresh Frame Rate Functionality, i can't remember for the life of me where my mind has gone totally blank, where if you left the box in it's default mode (Auto adjust display refresh rate left disabled) what was the default video output setting.

On OS9.0.3 it showing for me 60hz fixed where i can't remember if it was 50hz or 60hz going from the previous software version OS8 ?

Where my older NowTV Freeview Smart Box running on the newer OS 9.0.3 is fixed at 50hz which i was expecting to output.

@schnapps My Now TV 4k Smart Box has upgraded itself to 9.0.3 and auto-adjust display refresh rate is still working fine (maybe a factory reset might help your box)? And when auto-adjust display refresh rate is disabled the smart box defaults to 50Hz.

Reading @Anonymous User's question again, I wonder what is the "smooth" content they are watching at 60Hz compared to Now TV/Netflix at 50Hz?

Firstly that's good news that you have Auto Refresh Frame Rate working on OS 9.0.3 on your NowTV 4K Smart box.

I did try a forced software update on the box by going into the secret menu where i was still getting the same results.

I would try a full factory reset but for reasons i can't talk about on here i won't be able to factory reset my box for a few weeks.

Hopefully like you said a full factory reset will resolve it.

I can still use my Roku Stick Plus in the meantime when watching NowTV, BBC iPlayer etc, but unfortunately Netflix on the Roku now doesn't output 24hz anymore and is locked at 60hz where i was reading a few weeks back different conflicting reports on the Roku Forum if this was Netflix or Roku's who have locked this down at 60hz.

Might have to jump over to the Roku Forum to find out the latest on what's happening about this.

One quick question, because i can't check on my NowTV 4K Smart Box since OS 9.0.3 has been updated on my box, assuming you have a Netflix Account can you confirm when playing back Netflix on your NowTV 4K smart box is it displaying at 24hz or 50hz when the Auto Frame Rate in enabled.

When i was using OS 8 it was still running Netflix at 24hz which is my preference.

Anyway at least i know now OS 9.0.3 Auto Adjust Frame Rate is working fine for somebody else and the good news also the default video output signal is 50hz when disabling the Auto Refresh Frame Rate functionality 😁.

Was getting a little worried that Auto Refresh Rate functionality was possibly being removed from the NowTV 4K boxes, which in my opinion is one of the best engineering features on the box.

@schnapps Yes, on the 4k box Netflix's own content is 24Hz, while UK sourced content on Netflix like Bodyguard (BBC), Unforgotten (ITV), Toast of London (CH4) is 50Hz.

That's the answer i was looking for thanks 😁 👍.

Hi @Anonymous User

Just another thought you could have a play around with your television picture motion settings to see if you can smooth out the judder on the Sky Sports News ticker bar, but this might introduce the Soap Opera effect to the picture which is especially noticeable when watching things like movies.

I personally can't use any motion or smoothness picture processing on my televisions, where i can't tolerate the soap opera effect.

No harm giving it a go, where i am assuming your television has some sort of motion / smoothness processing available to adjust ?

I am happy to report that the Auto Refresh Frame Rate functionality with 50hz default video output on my NowTV 4K Smart box running on OS 9.0.3 is working fine again as intended 😀.

What i should have checked early on was the Display settings in the box menu, where the box was set to 4K HDR 60hz.

Changing back to Auto Detect sorted it out, so everything is now hunky-dory again 😊.

I am sure when running the older software versions previously in 4K HDR 60hz mode on the box the Auto Refresh Frame Rate was working perfectly for me (where i haven't played with the box settings since last year).

Anyway all sorted now including Netflix 😆.

Thanks all for your responses, very helpful.

I Will just have to get used to the judder on 50hz. I have been using Sky Q through my Xbox One console which has the 60hz settings in the menu. But I will be cancelling Sky Q when contract expires next month and be going full Now TV as this is much cheaper.

Unfortunately my TV is a 50” Bush which is a full HD tv but as it’s a budget TV it doesn’t include any picture motion options or anything related in its settings. It just forces me to watch at 50hz for Now TV and changes to 60hz for Xbox One/Sky Q.

Watching Netflix on Now TV stick is almost unwatchable as when the camera pans around the judder is really noticeable like when you used to try to watch a full HD program on an old computer. Luckily I have Netflix on Xbox One and that through 60hz is smooth for me.

Hi @Anonymous User

Reading your post, i am assuming you have compared the NowTV App which is available on your Xbox One against the NowTV App on the NowTV stick and there is no noticeable difference between both devices when watching NowTV ?

To be fair I didn’t realise Xbox One had a Now TV app 😂

I bought the stick as it had good reviews especially about how quick it is and the voice support. Plus I got a deal with passes when buying it. Was a no brainer at the time.

Hi @Anonymous User

The NowTV App is definitely available on the Xbox One if you are a UK customer.

Maybe check it out and see if there is any improvement with your Bush TV.

What about the Now TV stick though? This doesn't have an auto refresh option (unless there is one and I'm missing it) and this is very frustrating watching Netflix!!!

The NowTV Stick doesn't have the Auto Frame Rate feature 😠.

Only the NowTV 4K Smart box has it on NowTV branded devices.

Auto frame rate doesn't work anymore on the Netflix App where everything is displaying 60hz on my television and the micro stuttering is quite noticeable on camera panning shots 😠.

The Auto Frame rate was first lost on Netflix on my Roku Stick Plus, then a few months later lost on my NowTV 4K box.

I haven't looked into it for a while but not sure if it's Netflix or Roku fault (reading some early posts on the Roku Forum each party was saying the fault lie with the other).

Other Apps still work fine with the Auto Adjust Frame Rate on both my Roku & NowTV 4K Smart box.

Just wished that Roku & Netflix would sort this out and offer playback at the native frame rate the movie or TV show was filmed at on the Netflix App.

I've ditched the NOW TV stick and gone for the Roku Streaming Stick+ and this is now my go to, one size fits all, one stick to rule them all stick. Menu is a bit cheap and simple but it works for every major streaming app out there (apart from Eurosport player). Looks good and sounds tremendous.

Hello there. Hopefully I can be of some help to you today.

For all UK produced tv content, 50Hz is the correct refresh rate 100%. What you're noticing in terms of the Sky Sports News ticker tape at the bottom of the screen is that through NowTV, the maximum quality stream you can get (at the moment) is 720p 25fps. On a normal sky hd or sky q box, the hd channels comes through at 1080i50. This is where 50 half fields per second are captured and then the box/tv deinterlaces the images to try and effectively reproduce 1080p 50 fps.

As I stated before, NowTV maxes out at 720p which is a lower resolution, and also the frame rate is literally half the effective frame rate of the deinterlaced normal sky image. This is why you are seeing the 'skipping'. It is absolutely nothing to do with 50hz vs 60hz. 60hz for uk tv content is just WRONG.

Where 60hz is an issue is for Netflix. A lot of content on netflix is either 24 or 30 fps, and naturally this doesn't play nicely with a 50hz refresh rate.

To be honest you may have been better off with a Roku Streaming Stick + which has auto frame rate matching and auto dynamic range matching (and maybe auto resolution matching as well), which has a dedicated NowTV app as well as Netflix, Youtube, Prime Video, iPlayer etc.

Also on your Xbox One, deep in the video output settings there is an option to enable 50hz output for content that needs it (like iPlayer and PAL DVDs). If you are watching the sky q app or bt sport or nowtv through the xbox one you want this 50hz output setting ENABLED so that you are viewing at the correct frame rate.

I hope this clears a few things up for you.

Cheers.