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The Xbox One was released on November 22nd, and ever since, it had its fair shares of problems. With new Xbox One owners reporting their console making noises when a disc is inserted, a new issue has found its way for those new Xbox One owners in the United Kingdom.
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Xbox One owners are reporting that their Xbox One console won’t play TV. “It’s really bad on sport. Unwatchable. Perhaps the reason no Sky support at launch? Disappointed,” complained a user called Damatris on the official Xbox user forums.
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For every problem, there is always a reason. In this case, the reason why UK users can’t watch TV through their Xbox One console is because UK television providers output their videos in 50 Hz, unlike the default setting for the Xbox One, 60 Hz, which is based on US networks.
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Digital Foundry’s Richard Leadbetter has stated:
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“Assuming the reports are true, this represents a significant issue Microsoft has to address. Displaying 50Hz video at 60Hz means that every sixth frame will be a duplicate, resulting in noticeable judder on a lot of material – scrolling text on news channels, fast pans in TV and movies, and the left to right sweep of the camera in football matches.”
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In terms of finding the solution for this issue, Rich Leadbetter continues saying, “There are no easy solutions in this scenario – the kind of frame-rate up scaling required to eliminate the judder at 60Hz would probably compromise image quality. The simpler solution would be to lock the user interface to 50Hz when TV elements are on-screen, switching back to 60Hz for gameplay – though this wouldn’t be quite as seamless an experience as Microsoft originally envisaged”.
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It’s ironic because one of the major selling points for the Xbox One is the ability to play your TV through your Xbox One, making it a seamless transition between watching TV and using your all-in-one entertainment device.
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Users with this issue are in tough luck, since there is no solution by Microsoft. However, we did email Microsoft for any particular solutions, but they have not responded back, we’ll update the article once we receive a response.
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For now, there is one solution, although it’s not officially supported by Microsoft. It was discovered by a HDTVtest user and verified by gaming site CVG. Basically, the user has to change the output settings to 50 Hz and TV will work. However, there is one holdback with doing this though, everything you run on your console, be it a game or video, it will output in 50 Hz, which might affect your gameplay experience, especially if the games are supposed to be played at 60Hz.
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Do you have this issue? If not, did you have any other issue with the Xbox One? Or if you didn’t have any issues and you’re up and running, share what you like or dislike about the Xbox One in the comment section below!