Google TV Streamer - Pink screen when playing Dolby Vision and freezes on HDR

[jdjta]

I have my GTS attached to my Denon AVR-S960H which connects to my Sony 55XH9299. Unfortunately on some occasions a purple/pink screen appears when I try to get play DV-content (ripped 4K discs streaming through my server). 

I already tried troubleshooting this by switching out HDMI-cables and go through all settings. I did notice that if I change the Dolby Vision-mode to Low Latency (from 'Auto') I get a black screen (no longer pink/purple). I also bypassed the receiver to rule out issues there but it does exactly the same.

The other issue I noticed is some HDR-content sometimes try start but freezes at the first frame it shows.

I also tried to check the colour space format but the GTS no longer seems to have this option (the CCwGTV 4K did have a seperate setting).

[Dannymur]

I too have the issue with DV content... hopefully Google offers a software update 

[TheOski]

Same here. Watching Squid Games 2 on Netflix. Purple flash central, so annoying. 

[Wonka_Joe]

Been having this same issue from day one on LG C3. Google HDMI cable even and tried all sorts of settings and configurations. Current firmware and am getting annoyed. 

[TheOski]

When they are going to fix it or they effed up.

Hard to believe that geeks working at google dont watch stuff on oled in dolby vision.

[leo92]

I posted on another thread, but I have the same issue as other people here.

I have a 4K HDR Samsung TV (ue50nu7090) and when I play HDR10+ content, the screen flashes green and than goes black, but the audio goes on. When I disable Match content dynamic range, the video plays in washed out colors and wrong resolution (it crops the video and other strange things).

I also have the old Chromecast with Google TV 4K, and the file plays fine on the same TV, so it's a Google TV Streamer issue. I can provide more info if necessary.

[dhdjekdne]

Also have this issue of a pink or green screen.

LG G4 to Onkyo RZ70 to Google TV Streamer - happens in both Apple TV for Silo and Squid Games.

[leo92]

I think we're wasting our time. According to some reddit users, it's a CPU bug that's been present since Firestick MAX in 2020 and it's still not fixed. There's an issue with HDR10+ fallback on DV HDR Hybrid files, or at least for me. Some workarounds suggested by the community are to use Vimu or KODI as a players which has an option to disable HDR Fallback, or manually remove HDR metadata from the file and leave only DV. I'll test these and come back with an answer.

Still very disappointed.

[Poeria]

Okee. I was wondering about your source. Can you please share this? And what about native dolby vision? Because it also happens with content that only includes dolby vision. Workaround is also (as far as I know) not possible for regular streaming services because you can't change the default players for those. 

[leo92]

This is the post that I made where some people replied to me, but you can also find the same issue in other posts, it's just that people don't know how to explain this issue correctly, but the problem is the same.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidTV/s/KQLCAWE2N7

[Poeria]

Thanks for sharing. So I did a quick search and the firestick max did indeed have somewhat similar issues but I couldn't find anything about the cpu/soc being the problem. Even found a user who started having issues after a certain update on the fire stick max (https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D56Q0000BOBgiRSQT/after-update-7633-my-fire-tv-4k-max-stoppe...). So I still believe this can be fixed in software.

It is very interesting though. If I understand correctly content that contains both DV and HDR10+ cant be handled  properly. This can (I think) also be the case with playing content on Disney+ or Netflix. I'm assuming people who have a TV that both supports HDR10+ and DV don't have this issue than. Would be nice to get this confirmed.

I'm no Google engineer but even if the hardware had any issues with playback content including both hdr10+ and dolby visions this still can be worked around in software because the Google TV OS is capable of detecting the supported content type of the TV so it would be an easy compare with input data from TV and playback data from the content. But like other hardware/software lately, big corpo don't care about support anymore because they already got your money and have vendor locked you in their systems.....

[leo92]

I asked my friend to try the same file on his Dolby Vision compatible TV (Hisense) and there weren't any issues. But the correct way to reach a conclusion would be for me to bring my Google Streamer to his tv and try it. I'll see if I have time for that. Another user is saying that the Streamer simply doesn't support DV profile 7, but I've tried other media with DV profile 7 and 8 with HDR (not HDR10+) and they work for me.

[Poeria]

Does he have the Hisense model which supports dolby vision AND HDR10+? because I have an LG G3 with DV and regular HDR10 and mine has the issue. I think the main problem is that most people (like me) cant reproduce the issue because it happends randomly. Not sure how you're gonna test this on some other tv without letting your friend borrow the streamer for at least a couple of weeks. 

And fyi I don't think the theorie is correct because @kirito basically confirmed it does not happen with streamers on the Fire Stick. It does on the Google TV streamer so it's not the same issue OR you are just having a different Issue.

[leo92]

From what I'm gathering, it works fine on TVs that support both DV and HDR10+. I'm able to reproduce this error every time on my Streamer, so I just need to go to friend's house and try the file. 

[kirito]

I have a Fire Stick Max and I'm not experiencing the issue on it. Plays Dolby Vision just fine on Netflix.

[leo92]

Do you have a Dolby Vision compatible TV?

[kirito]

Yes. I have an LG C4 OLED.

[leo92]

The issue is for TVs that don't support DV. It blacks out (or shows strange colors) when trying to fallback to HDR10+.

[kirito]

Oh, that's another issue. Most people here complaining about pink/purple screen flash when playing DV content in streaming service like Netflix.

[leo92]

Even OP's TV doesn't support Dolby Vision, which led me to believe it's the same issue.
EDIT: Doesn't support HDR10+

[Poeria]

I don't think you're having the same issue as other people man. Still....it's messed up though.

[kirito]

OP said he has  Sony 55XH9299. Specs is showing it has DV support.

[leo92]

Sorry, it doesn't support HDR10+. It works fine on TVs that support both DV and HDR10+, but if one is missing, there's this issue.

[leo92]

Just an update regarding my issue, and sorry for hijacking this thread because I'm not sure if I have the same problem or not.

I've narrowed the problem down to files with both HDR10+ and DV metadata.
What worked for me:
1. Using Plex to stream it. Maybe plex has a default setting like Kodi below. (My friend's test doesn't mean anything now since he used Plex to try it)
2. It plays fine with Kodi only if I selected either HDR10+ or Dolby Vision in 'Settings -> Player -> Advanced -> Allowed HDR dynamic metadata formats', not both.
3. Manually removing either DV or HDR10+ metadata from the file. 

What doesn't work:
1. Playing it natively with VLC
2. Streaming it via Jellyfin

As I said in my first comment, the same file in the same TV plays fine using the older CCwGTV 4K, so it must be a Google Streamer issue. I have no idea what the issue may be and I don't know if it's an issue with every Google Streamer or just mine. If somebody can help me troubleshoot this part, I'd be grateful. I can even share a sample of the file.

Thanks in advance.

[Jagmit]

Same issue. Cable and settings on TV are all good. So many problems with this device. Posting to follow for a fix 

[elvisapresley]

5 months after release, and this is still happening. I can convert that same DoVi content to HDR10 in ffmpeg and it works. So the DoVi content itself is fine, there's just something clearly broken with the Google TV Steamer's DoVi decoding.

What's even sadder is that the ancient and out of date AndroidTV build on my 2021 Sony Bravia A80J can play this content. But the much more recent Google TV Streamer can't.

Are you out there, Google QA? Do you even care? Is this just standard big tech customer service now, where standard features don't work, and you aren't interested in helping your customers? 

[EastIsUp]

Are you mother**bleep**ers going to reply to this at any point in time? Ever? 

[Dannymur]

Google needs to respond we need an update!

[Jagmit]

I think we should keep bumping this until we get some acknowledgement of the issue. This is making watching anything on my streamer useless. 

[jsadie]

I agree that this issue is unresolved and very frustrating. I'm still getting pink and green flashes with my setup and I am close to throwing in the towel and going back to my CCwGTV 4K

[tofthakon]

Same issue. LG C9, playing on AppleTv+, happens on mostly darker scenes. 

[nalrodriguez]

I feel like this will never be fixed.

[HiNick808]

Part of me is glad that I'm not the only one experiencing this but the other part of me HATES that it's been months since the release of this product and there's still no update or acknowledgement of the issue. Ironically, the older Google TV with chromecast never had this issue but I really, really don't want to go back to that slow device...

[nalrodriguez]

Yep Ive read on Reddit that the issue is the processor used on this device causing all this issues because the FireTV that used this same processor had the same issues, like Profile7 incompatibility for hdr etc, but i believe it was fixed years later doing fallback to profile 6, like the CCTV does. oh well

[dhdjekdne]

do you have a link to the post?

[nalrodriguez]

I might have to look because it was by the time it was released a few months back, but if i find it ill send you the link

[tofthakon]

Has anyone tried to restrict the streamer from using dv, or is it a more general HDR issue? 

[leo92]

Disabling formats in advanced display doesn't work, deselecting "match content dynamic range" messes up the resolution and the colors for me. From my tests, I've narrowed it down to a fallback issue from DV to HDR10+ when DV is not available.

[peti5566]

hi, I met this issue as well, purple/pink flash occasionally.
At first I thought it was something to do with my TV so I bought another one to replace it... still meet this issue and now I see this thread discussion.

Anyone find ways to fix this issue? or any update from google?

[Poeria]

No no fix. And nothing from Google either.

[Dannymur]

Got the January update, large over 300mb and so far I have not seen the pink flash on Dolby Vision content. I think it's fixed.