Roku’s ‘high-end’ Pro Series TVs feature Mini LED screens

Roku is stepping into premium TV territory at CES 2024 with its new Pro Series sets, which feature Mini LED backlighting for better brightness and contrast, as well as enhanced audio. The company announced its first self-made TVs at CES last year — a surprising move, since it has also partnered with TCL and others for years to build "Roku TVs" powered by the Roku OS. Roku's first batch of TV sets, the Select and Plus models, were clearly value-oriented, with prices ranging from $149 to $999. The Pro Series — which includes 55-inch, 65-inch and 75-inch models — tops out at $1,500. We expect to see them in person in Las Vegas next week once CES kicks off.

Calling these "high-end" TVs is relative, of course. You can easily spend thousands more for QLED sets from Samsung, Sony and LG, and the prices only get higher once you're looking at OLED TVs. Rather than gunning for the top of the heap, Roku still appears to be targeting value-oriented shoppers who would normally consider TCL's cheaper TVs. (Roku told us last year it wasn't planning to compete with partners like TCL, but that seems harder to believe now.)

While Roku's earlier mid-range Plus TVs included some notable features, like QLED displays and support for Dolby Vision and Atmos, the Mini LED backlighting in the Pro Series TVs will be a noticeable upgrade. Most mid-range TVs feature a small amount of local dimming backlight zones, which can increase the brightness and contrast in specific areas of the screen. Mini LED backlights offer higher brightness, and since they're so small, they allow for hundreds (and potentially thousands) of dimming zones.

At this point, Mini LEDs are the closest you'll get to the power of OLEDs — which can turn individual pixels on and off to achieve perfect blacks and extreme levels of contrast — on a standard LED screen.

A family watching a Roku Pro Series TV
Roku

On top of a new family of TVs, Roku also announced that it will be tapping into AI and machine learning for its new Roku Smart Picture features, which can automatically adjust Roku TVs for specific types of content. The company says most consumers don't typically adjust their TV settings, which means they're likely stuck viewing content in sub-optimal ways. We won't see Smart Picture in action until Spring 2024, but it could potentially help to tone down motion smoothing during films and bump it up for sports, where you want footage to look more realistic. (And of course, image purists can always turn it off.)

Roku says its new Pro Series TVs will arrive in the US in Spring 2024. The company will also expand retail availability for its Select and Plus series sets, but we don't have specifics on where they'll show up yet.

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/roku-high-end-pro-series-tvs-feature-mini-led-screens-164354589.html?src=rss

Roku is finally building its own TVs

Roku TVs will finally live up to their name this year. At CES, the streaming device company announced that it'll be building its own smart TVs for the first time. When the Roku TV program debuted in 2014, it was a way for the company to bring its streaming software into TVs built by partners like TCL and Hisense. But now Roku is debuting it's own family of HD and 4K sets ranging from 24 to 75-inches, which are set to arrive in spring.

Value appears to be the key, as the company says the TVs will range from $119 to $999. That should help Roku's partners to rest easy — we've seen some sets like the TCL Series 8 scale into premium $2,000 territory. The company isn't divulging many technical details around these TVs yet, but don't expect them to have some of the nicer features TCL and others are including, like super bright MiniLED panels. Still, Roku's sets may eat into the lower-end offerings from its partners.

Roku TV family breakdown
Roku

Chris Larson, Roku's VP of retail strategy, tells Engadget that the company isn't trying to directly compete with existing partners, instead it wants to have a bit more control over how some Roku TVs are produced. For example, Roku is bundling its voice remotes with all of its new sets, even the cheap HD models (Select Series TV's come with the Roku Voice Remote, while Premium Series sets include the rechargeable Voice Remote Pro) . That's something the company couldn't push partners to do, especially when it came to budget TVs.

Down the line, Larson says the new TVs will also bring Roku closer to component suppliers, like the companies behind screen panels and the chips that power smart devices. That could help the company "drive innovation in the TV process." These new Roku TVs will work alongside Roku's existing home wireless speakers and other home theater equipment, just like partner offerings. But the company could potentially cook up some new features that are exclusive to its TVs — or at least, capabilities partners may not want to implement.

Netflix enables its bandwidth-saving AV1 codec on PS4 Pro and select TVs

Early last year, Netflix started using a new codec called AV1 on a select set of titles on Android. Now, the streaming giant has enabled AV1 streaming on the PS4 Pro and a limited number of smart TV models. Netflix was a key contributor to the development of AV1, which is available for use royalty free under the Alliance of Open Media. It shared this list of supported TVs with The Verge:

  • Select Samsung 2020 UHD Smart TVs

  • Select Samsung 2020 UHD QLED Smart TVs

  • Select Samsung 2020 8K QLED Smart TVs

  • Samsung The Frame 2020 Smart TVs

  • Samsung The Serif 2020 Smart TVs

  • Samsung The Terrace 2020 Smart TVs

  • Any TV connected to a PS4 Pro streaming with the Netflix app

  • Select Amazon Fire TV devices with Fire OS 7 and above

  • Select Android TV devices with Android OS 10 and above

The company explained that deployment on TVs took sometime because playback on TV platforms depend on hardware. It was only over the past year that the industry released models capable of AV1 streaming. Netflix conducted comparison testing before rollout and found that AV1 delivers videos with better quality than other codecs, especially when there's network congestion. It also noticed fewer noticeable drops in quality due to changing network conditions and lesser time to start streams. In addition, since AV1 has higher compression efficiency than the codecs Netflix is currently using, it needs lesser bandwidth. That could lead to longer streaming sessions in 4K resolution. 

A team within the company created a rollout strategy to minimize associated costs with encoding its whole catalogue. Netflix will consider a title's popularity into consideration and start with well-known shows like La Casa de Papel (Money Heist) to make sure the AV1 streaming reaches the most number of viewers. The streaming giant also said that it's working with more manufacturers to develop more devices with AV1 playback capability.

What to expect from an online-only CES 2021

Despite a global pandemic, the annual Consumer Electronics Show must go on. Well, virtually anyway. CES 2021 will officially take place from January 11th to 14th, but it’ll look very different this year. Instead of filling a giant convention center w...

How to make sense of Logitech’s universal remote lineup

When I was a kid there were two devices attached to the television in my family’s living room: a VCR and a cable box. And we had a universal remote to tie it all together. These days, the amount of gear in my home theater is far greater and it’s all...

The best pre-Super Bowl deals for 4K TVs and streaming

With the big game right around the corner -- I mean Super Bowl LIV, in case that isn't clear -- it's once again time to consider making a TV upgrade. If you need a little something extra to make sure football fans stop by your party instead of stayin...

Which 4K OLED sets are worth buying?

There's a ton of 4K content available now thanks to services like Netflix, YouTube and iTunes, with the latter two not even charging a premium for the higher resolution. Many high-end phones record in UHD as well. Combine all that with falling TV pri...

VIZIO M50-E1 SmartCast 4K HDR Display Review: An Amazing Picture for an Amazing Price

I’ve been a fan of VIZIO displays for a number of years, and have had several of their big screen TVs in my house. Currently, my living room sports a first-generation 70″ P-Series 4K display which has served us well for a few years now, offering up very good image quality, and great reliability. When VIZIO reached out to me to test their latest M-Series display, I figured that it would offer a lesser image quality than my high end 2014 P-Series, but to my shock, this sub-$600 display looks even better than the screen I spent about four times as much on a few years back. Now I know it’s unfair to compare a 70″ display to a 50″ display, but for sheer image quality, it’s amazing how much VIZIO’s latest displays have taken things since 4K UHD first hit the scene.

The M-Series 50″ display I tested was the M50-E1, which is currently on sale from VIZIO for just $579.99(USD), including free shipping. For that money, you get a razor-sharp, local-dimming 4K display with built-in apps, Dolby Vision HDR, Chromecast support, and much more.

Unpacking and setup is easy, and takes less than 10 minutes, including attaching the chrome leg stands, connecting to your home network, updating to the latest firmware, and configuring a smartphone if you want to take advantage of Chromecast streaming. The display has 4 HDMI and a 1 component video input for attaching cable boxes, DVRs, game consoles, etc, but is also more than capable of serving as a standalone entertainment system – as long as you have a high-speed internet connection.

Once set up, it became immediately apparent that image quality has reached such a point that even an inexpensive display like this can look stellar. Gone are the days of patchy, grey LED backlighting, replaced by rich, inky blacks, amazing contrast, and brilliant, almost hyperreal color. The photos below are only about 1/4 resolution, so they don’t do it justice, but definitely click to zoom in to get a little better idea of how good the image is. Also, ignore that vertical line on the top left of the display – it’s just a reflection from a window in the room.

Thanks to a robust suite of built-in apps, I was able to start viewing some amazing 4K and Dolby Vision HDR encoded content in minutes. Right out of the box, you get apps for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Crackle, iHeartRadio, Vudu, xumo, Pluto, HaystackTV, and Fandango Now. Not all of these providers offer UHD or HDR content, but I tested out some 4K content from Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, and it all looked amazingly sharp on the VIZIO.

The display offers something VIZIO calls “XHDR Plus” which is a fancy way of saying that its high dynamic range is better than others on the market, with richer color depth, and more extreme contrast. Since I didn’t have another HDR display to run alongside the M-Series, I can’t say if that’s the case, but the picture quality sure is impressive to my eyes. Everything pops off the screen, with rich colors, and the ability to push out some impressive brightness while still maintaining contrast and detail.

Black levels are amazingly good for an LED backlit display, thanks to a 32-zone local dimming array, and VIZIO’s proprietary Xtreme Black Engine Plus. Even challenging content like the white text on a black background in closing credits is well defined, and with none of the blooming effect that earlier full-array local dimming sets displayed. Also, off-angle viewing is surprisingly good, with little drop-off in contrast or color until you’re at a really extreme angle.

The built in app interface is easy to use with the basic remote that comes with the display, and is fast and responsive. There’s also support for using your iOS or Android smartphone as an interface for streaming content via Chromecast. This technology has continued to improve and support more apps than ever before. Simply load up any Chromecast-compatible app, and you can use your phone to control the stream running on the big screen. One thing I did notice with Chromecast was that it took maybe 10 seconds more for the resolution to bump up to the full 4K, versus a near instantaneous 4K stream on the VIZIO’s built-in apps.

Right now, there are literally thousands of apps with Chromecast support, including everything from HBOGo to Google Play to Playstation Vue, and many more. There’s a full list available over on the Google Chromecast website. Of course you can hook up set top boxes and other video sources, and the M-Series does a great job with that content as well.

Overall, VIZIO has knocked it out of the park with the M50-E1 SmartCast 4K HDR Home Theater Display. Its picture quality, app flexibility, and great pricing makes it a fantastic choice if you’re looking for a new television for any room. For those interested in other sizes, VIZIO makes its M-Series displays in 50″, 55″, 65″, 70″ and 75″ sizes, with list prices ranging from $599.99 to $2499.99.


FTC Disclaimer: Technabob was provided with the hardware tested in this review by VIZIO at no cost. However, all reviews on Technabob are the unbiased opinions of our authors, and in no way represent the views of the product manufacturers represented here.