Technical question about Xi6 v.s XiOne cable box

[ziggurcat]

Hey there,

So I just renewed my plan the other weeks, and decided to add a second TV box to the household for the bedroom.  What I received was one Xi6 model and one XiOne model.  I set up the XiOne model in my main HT system, and after a few days, I noticed that when watching some 4K HDR content that there was an intermittent flicker of pixels every so often (a line or two of pixels across the whole screen) - I say this only because it only ever seemed to happen with that specific content format.  Having 

I checked out the same content with the new Xi6 box I received on the same gear (i.e. AVR, TV, HDMI cable, etc...), and no such issue occurred.  Video settings for both boxes was the full 16:9 2160p60 4K UHD as that's what is auto-detected by the cable box.  

I had tech come in this evening, and replace what I believed to be a faulty XiOne box (because under the same conditions, only the XiOne exhibited a problem), and he mentioned something about if there's a mismatch related to the setting that it will cause that kind of glitch to occur on screen.  

He replaced the box with a new XiOne, and when he left, I put all of the settings back to what I had before (video set to 2160p60 4K UHD), and tested the new box with the same content.  Sure enough, the issue occurred again. 

Tech mentioned before he left to probably leave it set to 2160p30 4K UHD since "that's how most of that content is mastered anyway", so I then set the video setting to 2160p30 4K UHD on the XiOne box.  Following that, I put on the same content one more time (again... same gear, etc...), and the issue did not occur.  

Given all of that, my question is: what is the actual, technical differences between the two boxes, and why would it be fine to set the Xi6 box to 2160p60 4K UHD without any issues? What is it about the 2160p60 4K UHD setting that the XiOne doesn't like? My system is absolutely capable of handling that setting, so I know it's not my gear.  Is there a way to correct this or is this something that is: a) an inherent flaw in the box itself or b) fixable via FW update?

For now, I have moved the XiOne box to the bedroom since we only have a 1080p TV in the bedroom, so I won't encounter the problem there.  I set up the Xi6 box in my HT system, with the max Video setting, and it's working flawlessly.  

If there's anyone else out there with the same cable box model, do you encounter this issue, too? The specific content where this issue is very apparent is Ashoka Episode 5 on Disney+ as there's not a lot of action going to to distract you (it's quite a quick flicker of pixels, so you have to pay close attention).  Because it's intermittent, it won't happen right away, but when I demonstrated for Tech, it happened within the first 30 seconds of viewing.

[mdk]

@ziggurcat -- which Shaw cable-modem do you have that is feeding the XI6 & XiOne devices? Is it a "wired" feed, or a "wireless" feed?

[ziggurcat]

I currently have the XB7 model, but the 1.5Gbps plan I signed up for should "entitle" me to have the newer XB8.  When I signed up, I was told that the XB8 is "out of stock", so I just have to keep checking back in every once in a while to see if they're available, and have one sent out.  

It's a wireless feed, but that's not the issue, otherwise it would also show up on the Xi6 box.  It's not the same thing as this at all:

https://support.shaw.ca/t5/tv-articles/how-to-troubleshoot-poor-picture-quality-pixelation/ta-p/5513

It's a line or two of pixels that will flicker green/white/cyan/pink/yellow (most of the time it's green), and it'll either go the whole way across the screen or go about halfway.  My guess at this time is there's an inherent flaw in the XiOne box that causes this "mismatch" (the term the Tech person used) because the Xi6 box works flawlessly with the video set to the max 2160p60 4K UHD setting.  In order for the issue to go away on the XiOne box, I have to set it to the lower 2160p30 4K UHD video setting. 

That's why I'm asking what the technical differences are between the two boxes.  If they are "interchangeable" as one CS agent told me, then there shouldn't be any functional differences between the two, yet I can't set the XiOne to the max video setting without seeing this glitch on screen.