PS4 Pro Suffering Widespread TV Connection Failures

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
Talk about a rocky launch. Most likely HDCP related, the PS4 Pro isn’t playing nicely with many TVs, and even stranger is that there is reportedly a lack of consistency even between identical displays. Sony is recommending switching from HDCP 2.2 to 1.4 but that is no fix, as 4K and HDR may not work properly with the older standard.

…many PS4 Pro owners are finding themselves staring at blank screens rather than basking in the lovely 4K HDR pictures that are supposed to be the PS4 Pro’s key selling point. The issue is being reported with an alarmingly wide range of different TV models from LG, Samsung, Sony, Philips and Vizio, as well as with multiple brands of AV receiver and sound bar. As if this wasn’t bad enough, many other PS4 Pro users are reporting that while they are getting an HDR picture, the PS4 Pro is incorrectly recognising their TV as being incapable of handling 4K in HDR and so limiting them to 2K HDR signals. Even with TVs that handle Ultra HD Blu-rays in 4K HDR with no problems.
 
The article mentioned he had problems when hooking it up through his sound bar. Remember, every decide between your PS4 Pro and your television can limit what you can do. My receiver can't accept anything above YUV420 nor does it support HDR, yet in the documentation, it claims 4k60 compatibility. It's the fine print. As such, when I hook my PC to my TV, I have the video separate from the audio. It's why I still am forced to use my Samsung UHD player, despite having an Xbox One S. Having one HDMI out is not acceptable. I went from 7.1 surround with the PS4 to optical out, which is compressed 5.1 with the Pro, so I could keep the picture. If anyone knows how I could split the HDMI signal, please let me know. I heard it was possible with a device like the Integral 4k, but I haven't been able to seem to get that to work.
 
Did anyone test if this is an issue with Polaris cards too? Since its pretty much same hardware.
 
As Nytegard has already mentioned. This is no doubt related to 2 issues. 1) morons plugging their PS4s into stereo receivers and other devices that are not complaint with 2.2. Easy fix is to plug the PS4 pro into the TV directly... until they upgrade their other devices. 2) people with crappy off brand Televisions that don't properly comply with standards.

Sony can likely fix number 2 with software updates. Number 1 is users needing to dumby up. :)
 
Plug the PS4 directly into the TV, make sure you are plugging it into the right port (many TV's only have 1 compatible HDMI port), and make sure you are using the Premium Certified High Speed HDMI cable that came with the system, not your ebay cable. Also toggle between RGB and YUV420.
 
My Pro has been working fine for the most part on my LG OLED C6 but a few times when I loaded up Infamous: Second Son it would go to a black screen with flashing green columns on the sides after switching to HDR mode. I would still get sound but no picture. After restarting the Pro it hasn't done it since. Another thing I noticed is that when I have Infamous running in the background then check the TV output information in the settings it shows that it's outputting 4K YUV422. When I play other games it shows 4K RGB. Not sure if YUV422 for Infamous is normal or not. I need to load up Uncharted 4 and see if it does the same thing.

EDIT: Alright, read the whole article and they mentioned that the color range changes depending on the game being played.
 
Last edited:
Did people actually buy/want this? I thought it was just over priced, over hyped BS, kinda like that new 3k sony walkman
 
Vizio P55 and Yamaha RX-V581 Zero issues but everything i have is newest standards.
 
Hypergreatthing said:
Did people actually buy/want this? I thought it was just over priced, over hyped BS, kinda like that new 3k sony walkman
Click to expand...

Well, maybe for 4k, but it's still better for 4k TV's than what the regular PS4 can do, and those with 1080p TVs get a way smoother gameplay and higher settings. to be honest it's not shabby, plenty of independent reviews have already shown this. Consoles are always overpriced for convenience factor I guess, I got my Pc, no use for any of them.
 
Crappy frame rates, now this? Oh yeah, Microsoft is absolutely snickering.
 
HisSvt76 said:
Vizio P55 and Yamaha RX-V581 Zero issues but everything i have is newest standards.
Click to expand...

I have a vizeo d50, cant get any video on hdmi port 5. other ports are only up to 1080p. None of the workarounds have effect. Oh well, im sure the fix willl come soon, non confirmed sources say patch this week.
 
And who can you blame? HollyDickWood for forcing HDCP on everyone. Protect themselves but who cares about customers.

My parents have some older Vizio TV that has constant issues with the HDCP handshake. I try to explain to them the reason why. My father gets it I think maybe. But my mother nope. Half the time they try to watch a DVD/BD, no audio and video gets forced to 1080i because the TV has issues with the handshake.
 
Nytegard said:
The article mentioned he had problems when hooking it up through his sound bar. Remember, every decide between your PS4 Pro and your television can limit what you can do. My receiver can't accept anything above YUV420 nor does it support HDR, yet in the documentation, it claims 4k60 compatibility. It's the fine print. As such, when I hook my PC to my TV, I have the video separate from the audio. It's why I still am forced to use my Samsung UHD player, despite having an Xbox One S. Having one HDMI out is not acceptable. I went from 7.1 surround with the PS4 to optical out, which is compressed 5.1 with the Pro, so I could keep the picture. If anyone knows how I could split the HDMI signal, please let me know. I heard it was possible with a device like the Integral 4k, but I haven't been able to seem to get that to work.
Click to expand...
what receiver do you have some of them have a stealth option you have to turn on for 4:4:4
 
Isn't this a problem with low quality hdmi cables? Or is it happening using the supplied cable (if there is one idk)
 
I just looked at the product,
"***Compatible 4K display required as well as subscription to 4K-compatible content streaming service. PS4 Pro does not support 4K Blu-ray Discs. PS4 Pro provides auto-upscaling for standard Blu-ray Discs."

Now why didn't they include a UHD player in this machine?
 
No body likes testing any more cos testing and finding flaws is ...well you know...'negative'.
 
Zepher said:
Now why didn't they include a UHD player in this machine?
Click to expand...
Most likely because they want to keep selling stand alone UHD players. The PS3 basically killed the BR player market it was so cheap. They don't want the same happening to UHD yet.
 
M76 said:
Most likely because they want to keep selling stand alone UHD players. The PS3 basically killed the BR player market it was so cheap. They don't want the same happening to UHD yet.
Click to expand...

The Pro sells for $400, Slim at $300, I think Sony wanted to keep the price low as possible to avoid consumers deciding to wait for Microsoft's Scorpio next year.
 
SighTurtle said:
The Pro sells for $400, Slim at $300, I think Sony wanted to keep the price low as possible to avoid consumers deciding to wait for Microsoft's Scorpio next year.
Click to expand...

The Xbox One S has a blueray player at the price of the ps4 slim. I think Sony's only concern was their profit margin and standalone player market as mentioned above.
 
The problem may be the TV's supported color formats. The PS4 pro might be reporting 4:4:4 and the TV only supports 4:2:0. Both are valid color packing formats. However the former requires an 18mbps chip while the later requires a cheaper 11mbps chip to process the bandwidth required. If they can't negotiate a similar color packing format it drops out as non-supported.

The new epson 5040/6040 HDR projectors suffer from the same problem. It took a couple of us tearing apart the projectors and reverse engineering the chip identifiers in the engine path to determine the issue as Epson engineering wasn't so forth coming.
 
Zepher said:
I just looked at the product,
"***Compatible 4K display required as well as subscription to 4K-compatible content streaming service. PS4 Pro does not support 4K Blu-ray Discs. PS4 Pro provides auto-upscaling for standard Blu-ray Discs."

Now why didn't they include a UHD player in this machine?
Click to expand...

I myself gave up physical media a few years ago. It is much nicer having a movie at a couple keystrokes than browsing my library, plus I am not watching movies over and over as much as I used to. Hell I still have BR discs people get me for xmas that I haven't opened yet.

Though nothing was cooler than a big collection of movies you could look at, but when formats started changing a bit faster, I didn't want to invest heavily anymore.
 
Darunion said:
I myself gave up physical media a few years ago. It is much nicer having a movie at a couple keystrokes than browsing my library, plus I am not watching movies over and over as much as I used to. Hell I still have BR discs people get me for xmas that I haven't opened yet.

Though nothing was cooler than a big collection of movies you could look at, but when formats started changing a bit faster, I didn't want to invest heavily anymore.
Click to expand...

Anything you stream from the net is of lower quality, plus you might not always have access to it when you need it. Low luminance (Y Channel) block noise drives me bonkers, so does sky banding on high luminance. Unfortunately Macro de-blocking isn't perfect and these artifacts are more prevalent in streamed movies.

And While Rec 2020 colorspace improves upon this, consistency of hardware,software, and mastering at the streaming center provided inconsistent results at best. Even netflix and the latest Roku's and paired with a middle-high end JVC RS Projector still has issues. So there is still an argument for owning a physical copy.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
When I initially plugged mine in it took like 30 seconds for a picture to show up even though audio was working okay. In looking at the color scheme output, it seems like different games use different schemes. Very odd.
I only have one game that uses the new features (Uncharted 4) and at least IMO the HDR version of the game looks inferior to the normal version of the game. Colors aren't very vivid, which seems like the opposite of what should have happened.
 
Darunion said:
I myself gave up physical media a few years ago. It is much nicer having a movie at a couple keystrokes than browsing my library, plus I am not watching movies over and over as much as I used to. Hell I still have BR discs people get me for xmas that I haven't opened yet.

Though nothing was cooler than a big collection of movies you could look at, but when formats started changing a bit faster, I didn't want to invest heavily anymore.
Click to expand...

No way in hell am I ripping 4K movies yet. 50GB+/movie? That's tedious.
 
DigitalGriffin said:
Anything you stream from the net is of lower quality, plus you might not always have access to it when you need it. Low luminance (Y Channel) block noise drives me bonkers, so does sky banding on high luminance. Unfortunately Macro de-blocking isn't perfect and these artifacts are more prevalent in streamed movies.

And While Rec 2020 colorspace improves upon this, consistency of hardware,software, and mastering at the streaming center provided inconsistent results at best. Even netflix and the latest Roku's and paired with a middle-high end JVC RS Projector still has issues. So there is still an argument for owning a physical copy.
Click to expand...

Oh I agree with your points, I do think the ps4 choosing to eliminate the uhd br player was a cost choice and likely a bad one at that over time. I myself am okay (although I do see the difference) with the quality loss to the material, I may not be the majority but not the only person either. On the flip side, I would probably be more apt to buy a dedicated uhd player because if sony were to squeeze it in there, it would be the lowest cost one they could order in bulk.
 
Darunion said:
Oh I agree with your points, I do think the ps4 choosing to eliminate the uhd br player was a cost choice and likely a bad one at that over time. I myself am okay (although I do see the difference) with the quality loss to the material, I may not be the majority but not the only person either. On the flip side, I would probably be more apt to buy a dedicated uhd player because if sony were to squeeze it in there, it would be the lowest cost one they could order in bulk.
Click to expand...

I think Sony took a lot of heat from the industry over the PS3 blu ray drives. It was good for the format ps3 forced Toshiba to sell hddvd under cost and kill all support of that format with other manufacturers. This time around the industry is a bit more unified and likely didn't want to deal with Playstations eating up the majority of their high margin UHD players.

MS isn't beholden to that industry in the same way. At the end of the day I doubt it sells many xboxs anyway. MS has lost the console wars at this point... their Xboxe 2.0 isn't likely to sell in the numbers required to stave off a MS console exit in the next year or two. With MS reporting Surface sales in their "device" division now as well to help hide loss numbers I would have to think investors are going to put the brakes on, unless 2.0 manages to sell 20 million units in its first year or something crazy. Of course unless MS signed some insanely pro MS manufacturing contracts, or have a MS owned game hit stupid big sales numbers I don't think strong console sales alone would really help their bottom line.
 
Most of these issues could be taken care of if people RTFM for their TV (receiver too if that is in the mix)

1) Example I have a 4k Sony TV with HDR compatibility. By default it doesn't accept HDR on it's inputs. There is a setting that has to be enabled to Enhanced. This is for compatibility reasons as many devices don't like that setting.
2) Colors looked washed out, too dark, bad contrast. Change the settings for color depth AND HDR. Mine were washed out too until I took the time to change settings on the TV.
3) Receiver. I have a new Yamaha RX-A3050. There is a settings for hdmi and HDR passthrough that was only allowed after a firmware update.
4) Frequent flashing. Upgrade hdmi cable. Had to do this twice as 2 cables from Monoprice didn't work.

These are just 3 examples and I'm sure there is many more depending on your equipment. I wouldn't necessarily put all blame on Sony, as the industry is not equipped for this to be automatic.
I think Sony should put out a FAQ on this though to help people look for what the issues could be.
 
The biggest issue is that both the Xbox One and PS4 went with a 60hz output which is not capable of outputting RGB or 4:4:4 color when using 10/12bpc.
So what the Xbox One does is it uses a 4:2:0 sampling when outputting 10/12bpc.
The PS4Pro, however, has two options. 4:2:0 and "RGB". I quote it because that is what the setting is named but it actually sends a 4:2:2 signal with its 12bpc output. But it is not RGB if using HDR via "Deep Color" (12bpc). It is only RGB in non HDR games.
It is possible that many users with issues are experiencing them from this 4:2:2 output. The HDMI 2.0 spec is supposed to accept a 4:2:2 signal of 8/10/12bpc color. I currently have an issue with my TV downconverting 4:2:2 with 10/12bpc to 8bit. Basically ruining the picture by introducing heavy banding issues. You can check if you have this problem by staring at the sky. Especially in Infamous with the pink hued clouds.

So, I'm thinking, if I have this problem it's possible there are more extreme issues.
I ended up going with the "YUV420" output option on the PS4 and it cleared things right up. It's a bummer since it is objectively a lower quality signal but it's the only way I get the higher bit depth to work.

My assumption before the consoles released was that they would lock them at 30hz and go with 4:4:4 chroma with 10/12bpc. Considering a lot (if not all) of their games will be 30fps in 4k anyways, this seemed like a no brainer to me. Or at least have these various options available in order to get the highest quality signal possible or lowering the color quality to get 60hz.

Someday we will have the new HDMI standard giving us 4k/60hz/4:4:4/10-16bpc and we can all rebuy our A/V equipment! Yay!!!
 
M76 said:
Most likely because they want to keep selling stand alone UHD players. The PS3 basically killed the BR player market it was so cheap. They don't want the same happening to UHD yet.
Click to expand...
Except the fact that stand alone UHD Blu-ray players are still limited in choices or costing as much as a console anyways. The Xbox One S can play UHD HDR Blu-rays for almost the same price which is exactly what Sony doesn't want happening, but is.
 
The Xbox One S is probably selling 3X as many units as it would have otherwise thanks to UHD Blu-Ray. It's only a bit more than a normal stand-alone player. With many people holding out for the Scorpio next year, that one addition made the S model worthwhile for a lot more people.
 
xX326Xx said:
Except the fact that stand alone UHD Blu-ray players are still limited in choices or costing as much as a console anyways. The Xbox One S can play UHD HDR Blu-rays for almost the same price which is exactly what Sony doesn't want happening, but is.
Click to expand...
That's exactly why they don't want to offer a cheap alternative to them. Chances are you buy both a ps4 pro and a bluray player, that's what they're counting on. Their market share is already much bigger than xbox, so they think they can get away with it. Time will tell if they made the right choice. Maybe they even have a failsafe built in which means they can enable UHD playback on the PRO in a firmware update later, who knows.
 
I got the black screen issue last night on my LG OLED C6. What seemed to cause it was turning on the PS4 Pro before turning on the TV. Putting the Pro in sleep mode then turning it back on fixed it and I couldn't get it to happen again with the TV already on. Not a big deal but still, this should be fixed.
 
ps4 pro patch 4.06 came out today, but so far no one is reporting any hdcp fixes so still no 4k for many vizio and lg users.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top