Roku is looking into complaints about washed-out HDR streams

Roku is investigating user reports of washed-out colors when streaming HDR content from Disney Plus, according to a thread on the Roku issue tracking board. However, the issue seems to go beyond that, affecting almost any app for Roku TVs, suggest user comments on the thread over the last week. The problem appears to be tied to a recent Roku software update.

A community moderator called RokuEmmanuel-D writes in an update from Thursday that the company is “investigating the Disney Plus HDR content that was washed out after the recent update,” and asks for community members to share examples and details about what content is being affected, which model of TV they have, and what software version they’re on.

The first several comments only report the problem in Disney Plus, and only on TCL TVs, with users saying that app menus and that colors are okay in non-HDR content. But as one user shows in the above images of Disney Plus show Andor taken from two different TVs, normally-vibrant colors have instead taken on a gray-ish pall.

Later comments report the same problems with YouTube TV, Netflix, Apple TV Plus, Amazon Prime Video, and others. One said they saw the issue with their Hisense-branded Roku TV, rather than a TCL model. The same person reported HDR working fine over HDMI from their PS5, while another said the signal from their 4K Blu-Ray player looked good, implying the issue is limited to Roku streaming, rather than any deeper TV firmware issues. People in the thread said their TVs — Hisense and TCL — were on Roku software version 14.5.

Washed-out or flat colors can already be an issue when watching HDR content on a TV that’s not bright enough to produce a good HDR image — that was the reason I turned the feature off the old, cheap TCL Roku TV I once owned. But these reports describe something beyond that, with Roku producing desaturated, almost black-and-white images when HDR is on. It’s unclear how widespread the problem is, but there are recent Reddit threads that seem to fit the bill, mentioning grayish or black-and-white picture that doesn’t affect streaming app menus.

Roku didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.