UHD setup not working UH031 error

[AshPion]

Hi,

I have a Labgear HDXS450K 4 way HDMI splitter that is capable and setup for 4K @ 60Hz within the EDID management setup. 
I use this on my Sky Q box. 
However, I have noticed the screen resolution is a little bit blurry on my new Samsung 65 inch TV that is 8K capable. 

I have attempted to setup the Sky Q box to 2160p resolution and it's giving me the EH031 saying the setup for UHD has not worked. It gets to the stage of asking if I want 10-bit, 8-bit or Find For Me. I've tried all options with the same result. 
The screen went blank and then for a split second I could see a little box in the middle of the screen with the countdown but then it comes up with the error message and goes back to the 1080p. 

I'm not sure what to do now. The splitter is doing its job fine so I know it's not that now. 
Could it be a setting on the Samsung TV?

PS. I don't have the UHD subscription but do have HD upgrade on. I just want to set it up as I know the picture quality on BBC1 HD, BBC2 HD, ITV HD, C4 HD are not as they should be really. Something isn't right. 

[AshPion]

I forgot to add that I can successfully watch Netflix, Prime etc on UHD on the same TV without any issues and great quality viewing. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@AshPion wrote:

PS. I don't have the UHD subscription but do have HD upgrade on. I just want to set it up as I know the picture quality on BBC1 HD, BBC2 HD, ITV HD, C4 HD are not as they should be really. Something isn't right. 

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Irespective of what any splitter may or may not be doing, I'd suggest feeding broadcast HD to an 8K set is a little optimistic for truly excellent picture quality: the television is doing a lot of upscaling of already compressed/lossy information.

The native bitrates from Netflix and Prime (assuming you have a reasonable internet connection)  are almost certainly better than what is coming from the Q box.

[TimmyBGood]

@AshPion 

Ideally for troubleshooting you'd want to remove the splitter temporarily though, to see what the image looks like directly from the Q box, although note that the box could only scale HD to UHD at most and then the television would have to do the UHD to 8K transformation: that's a whole lot* of pixels to fill.

Given the video chipset and processing engine in any 8K television set should be far better than the one in a Q box, leaving the television to do all the upscaling is probably best.

* 33,177,600 to be precise, or sixteen pixels for every one pixel at HD resolution.

[AshPion]

Would you assume the Samsung upscales irrespective of what level HD it's receiving? I always assumed it doesn't display 8K unless it's receiving 8K. Or at the very most only be possible to upscale UHD to 8K because otyerwise the jump up is just too much to handle or get any quality as the end result. I know that's pretty much no content at the moment. 

Sadly I cannot test without the splitter as the Sky Q box is in a plant room far away from any TV. 

I have an 75 inch Samsung that is only 4K and I am experiencing the same issue. 
im going to test 2x Samsung Frames that I have in other rooms(both 43 inch) and see what difference I can see now that Inhave changed the splitter setting output to a better level.

I suppose I could also test out Freeview HD channels bypassing the Sky Q box and see what quality difference there is. 

I have fairly decent broadband speeds of 50-60mbps for streaming UHD from Netflix, Prime etc. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@AshPion wrote:

 I always assumed it doesn't display 8K unless it's receiving 8K.

No, that's a common misconception.  A display panel always has to be equipped with the number of physical pixels required by its maximum resolution, so an 8K set has 33 million-plus pixels to fill with something  extrapolated from the available data: as I noted above, from an HD source there's 1 pixel of actual information for every 16 pixels being lit up.

By comparison a UHD television has 8,294,400 pixels, so when using an HD source (2,073,600 pixels) there is one 'real' (data-defined) pixel for every four being displayed

[TimmyBGood]

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@AshPion wrote:

 otyerwise the jump up is just too much to handle or get any quality as the end result.

That's what I suspect you are seeing: while extrapolation from existing data to fill a screen is extremely good (as routinely employed from HD to UHD for example) it's still not magically capable of perfect results, and 8K is a distinctly edge technology despite what the television manufacturer marketing departments may claim.

Having said that, if your television is currently running on default settings there may well be tweaks which can improve how this interpolation is perceived: try the model number online for suggestions.

[AshPion]

It's the Samsung QE65QN700BTXXU

[oldfella]

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@AshPion wrote:

.......

Sadly I cannot test without the splitter as the Sky Q box is in a plant room far away from any TV. 

Hi @AshPion 

It would appear that you are using long HDMI cables.   These will have an adverse effect when trying to set up UHD on the Q box

[AshPion]

The Labgear splitter is a special one for long distances upto 60m. The actual distance is about 30m in reality. 
It claims to still be able to transmit 4K@60Hz upto 35meters. At 60meters it's limited to 1080p@60Hz. 

[oldfella]

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@AshPion wrote:

The Labgear splitter is a special one for long distances upto 60m. The actual distance is about 30m in reality. 
It claims to still be able to transmit 4K@60Hz upto 35meters. At 60meters it's limited to 1080p@60Hz. 

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Hi @AshPion 

If you are are using standard HDMI cables 4 maybe 5 metres will be the max for UHD

[TimmyBGood]

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@AshPion wrote:

The Labgear splitter is a special one for long distances upto 60m. The actual distance is about 30m in reality. 
It claims to still be able to transmit 4K@60Hz upto 35meters. At 60meters it's limited to 1080p@60Hz. 

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Using ethernet cable as the carrier medium rather than HDMI though.  I'm interested to note that they appear to suggest using Cat6 or better rather than Cat5e.  As @oldfella indicates, anything like those distances is simply impossible for UHD over passive HDMI and they would be marginal at best for HD.

https://redappleav.co.uk/labgear-hdxs450k-4k-18gbps-60m-4-way-hdmi-splitter-extender-kit-hdmi-ir-pas... 

[AshPion]

As the property is a new build/conversion I made sure we had minimum Cat6 everywhere and I've even noticed CAT6E in some areas. 

I must admit, changing the EDID has definitely improved the picture quality for sure. I just can't setup the UHD on the Sky Q settings for some reason still. It still struggles at the 10-bit or 8-bit choice stage. 
Perhaps I'm overthinking it and kidding myself that changing to UHD will make any difference to the standard HD channels. 
I've not got any sports packages or UHD packages that I'm subscribing to to get the full UHD experience. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@AshPion wrote:

Perhaps I'm overthinking it and kidding myself that changing to UHD will make any difference to the standard HD channels. 
I've not got any sports packages or UHD packages that I'm subscribing to to get the full UHD experience. 

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If the Q box was upscaling HD to UHD it could conceivably make things worse: as I noted above, it's reasonable to expect the upscaling engine in a £1000 television to be rather better than that in a £100 set top box.

Unfortunately in acquiring an 8K set you've bought into a technology which has really over-reached itself at the current time, with almost no native content available and frankly no sign of any emerging within a reasonable timeframe.

[AshPion]

Update on this, I've just upgraded my Sky package with the UHD addon in the hope it will maybe help resolve the issue I was having before trying to setup UHD on my various Samsung TV's. Still no luck!

So it's either the settings on the splitter or the settings on the TV itself that is making it not work. Although I know UHD content from Netflix is working absolutely fine and looks stunning on the TV's bit it's natively a drop down to HD when watching normal sky TV. Even watching ITV HD is looking a bit blurry weirdly. 🤦🏻‍♂️