Google has revealed it has no plans to resolve a ‘judder’ issue with its Chromecast streaming stick.
The budget streamer has seen a wave of bug reports over dodgy video playback in the UK and Europe.
It turns out that the Chromecast is set up to shoot video across HDMI at a 60Hz refresh rate – the American standard.
Unfortunately the European standard for refresh rates is 50Hz – that’s the number of times a signal passes the zero point in a single minute.
The problem herein lies – most European video content ships at 25 or 50 frames per second, neither of which sit pretty in a division with Chromecast’s 60Hz refresh rate.
This means that there’s a slight mismatch in frame display because Chromecast has to leave some frames on the screen slightly longer to achieve proper sync.
The same thing happens when you view 24 frames per second cinema footage on a 50Hz or 60Hz TV – they both judder, although 60Hz moreso due to the greater mismatch.
Google has decided to tag up the problem – dubbed Issue 374 – as ‘WontFix’, although it does acknowledge that it is a ‘defect’ and set its priority to ‘medium’.
Google’s actual response? “
It continued: “Also, every time there is a HDMI mode change, it usually leads to flashing or loss of picture for a few seconds.”
This led to further anger because other media streamers have the ability to change frame rate depending on refresh rate, confusing many over why Google wouldn’t offer the same software fix.
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Via: The Register
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
