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baffling (ersatz) UHD issue with Epson 5040UB (1 Viewer)

Dave Emory

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Hello, all. I'm completely baffled by something I am experiencing with my Epson 5040UB, which only has about 50 hours on it, and pretty much all of it has been with HD 1920x1080 sources.

I'm attached to the Oppo UDP-203 player, which is 4K capable. And I've got it set to "source direct" as its output, i.e. it is supposed to send whatever the native resolution of the media is. (I should mention that I have also had its output set to "Auto" and am still seeing this strange issue.)

But if I play a UHD disc, the playback resolution (as shown in the Info menu setting) comes up as 1920x1080. Huh? This is incredibly weird, because if I am playing any _other_ source, the Info setting claims it is 3840x2160. I know that the Epson is doing some sort of pixel trickery, and isn't actually UHD-native, but it sure seems I am getting downscaling when playing UHD media, at least, based on what the display is reading.

What the heck is going on here? I have tried every conceivable setting on the Oppo to try changing the output resolution; when I make such changes, the projector does what I'd expect: it blinks black as it re-syncs. But when it comes back up, it's at 1920x1080, no matter what UHD output I believe to be selecting on the Oppo.

Essentially, I'm trying to figure out if there is some sort of weird bug on the Epson, or if the display is inaccurately showing what the resolution actually is, or..? I hope someone can help out here, because I don't seem to be taking advantage of the UHD media I am throwing at it.
 

Josh Steinberg

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Shot in the dark: is it a more recent generation of HDMI cable? Older cables are limited to certain resolutions either by bandwidth or by lack of copy protection circuitry present in the newer standard. If it’s a cable that doesn’t support UHD, that’ll force the player to output at a lower resolution.
 

Dave Emory

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Shot in the dark: is it a more recent generation of HDMI cable? Older cables are limited to certain resolutions either by bandwidth or by lack of copy protection circuitry present in the newer standard. If it’s a cable that doesn’t support UHD, that’ll force the player to output at a lower resolution.

That is an excellent clue, and I will investigate with several cables. What is attached now is a 15-foot Monoprice cable that was purchased well after the projector was, but what it was rated for I am not sure.
 

Gregg Loewen

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Definitive answer:
the Epson will only support 24 / 30 fps, you also need to turn down the color depth to allow it to hand shake with the Oppo (think 422 or 420).
 

Dave Emory

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Interesting. Especially because Josh Steinberg's comment above turned out to be on the nose: when I switched cables, voila – UHD.

Gregg, are you saying color depth needs to be adjusted on the output/Oppo side, or the Epson side? HDR is available on the Epson and seemed to work correctly with the 4K/HDR disc I tried.
 

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