Essential Roku Settings for an Enhanced Streaming Experience

Roku streaming sticks are known for their ease of use; simply plug the player into your TV’s rear HDMI port, connect the USB power cable, and start binge-watching. However, while Roku devices are designed for plug-and-play convenience, adjusting a few key settings can significantly enhance your streaming experience and reduce interruptions.

For instance, your video image might skip and stutter without enabling a specific setting, while your audio may become distorted unless a couple of other options are configured correctly. Additionally, you can customize the appearance of your home screen and prevent unwanted “sponsored” screensavers from appearing.

Read on for the eight most important Roku settings to check first, starting with…

Show or Hide the Recommendation Row

When you first land on the home screen after booting up your Roku, you’ll see a row of menu items just above the grid of streaming apps. This auto-generated “Top Picks For You” row features streaming titles that Roku thinks you might enjoy; some will be from your installed streaming apps, while others may not.

If you appreciate having that top row of suggestions while browsing, it can be quite helpful. However, if you find the “Top Picks For You” row to be distracting, you can easily hide it.

See that “recommended” row at the top of the apps grid? There’s an easy way to hide it.

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To hide the recommendation row, navigate to Settings > Home Screen > Recommendation rows, and then select Hide.

Change the Size of the Home Screen Tiles

Now that you’ve dealt with the recommendation row, let’s focus on the main grid of apps. Besides being able to rearrange the apps, you can also change the size of the tiles themselves.

If you opt for larger tiles, you’ll enjoy a clearer view of your apps, but you’ll only be able to display three rows of tiles on the home screen at a time. Conversely, making the tiles smaller may make them harder to read, but you’ll be able to fit four rows of apps on the screen.

You can make your Roku app tiles smaller or larger, depending on your preference.

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To adjust the tile size, go to Settings > Home Screen > Tile size, then choose Smaller or Larger.

Turn Off Sponsored Wallpapers

Roku provides a variety of wallpapers to enhance your screen while you browse, but some of these wallpapers may promote TV shows, movies, events, or brands.

If you prefer not to have your Roku home screen cluttered with paid wallpapers, you can easily disable them.

Don’t want to deal with sponsored wallpapers? It’s an easy fix.

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To turn off sponsored wallpapers, navigate to Settings > Theme > Sponsored wallpapers, and select Off.

Turn Off Personalized Ads

Roku streaming players and TVs are affordable for a reason: the company sells information about the viewing habits of its users to advertisers.

Roku is not alone in this practice; other companies like Amazon, Google, and various smart TV manufacturers do the same. While your viewing history is anonymized before being shared with third parties, you are still sacrificing some privacy in exchange for Roku’s low prices.

One way to enhance your privacy is to configure Roku to provide a non-persistent device identifier. This adjustment gives advertisers a less clear view of your streaming habits, although Roku notes that you will still see the same number of ads, which may not be as tailored to your interests.

You can boost your privacy by disabling “personalized” ads on your Roku.

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To turn off personalized ads, select Settings > Advertising, then uncheck the Personalize ads option.

Turn Off Auto-Playing Videos

While browsing the Roku interface, you may occasionally encounter video ads that start playing automatically that auto-play. These video ads can be distracting and may consume your bandwidth.

Fortunately, there’s a straightforward way to prevent auto-playing videos from interrupting your experience.

To disable auto-play videos, go to Settings > Accessibility > Auto-play video, and select the Off option.

Auto-Adjust Display Refresh Rate

Have you ever noticed that the streaming image on your TV appears to stutter? This issue can occur if there’s a mismatch between the frame rate of the source content and the frame rate that your Roku device is sending to your TV.

The good news is that you can easily resolve frame rate problems. You can set your Roku device to detect the frame rate of a given streaming title, allowing it to automatically match the content’s frame rate.

To enable this feature, navigate to Advanced display settings > Auto-adjust display refresh rate, and ensure it’s set to On.

Set Display Type Automatically

You don’t want your Roku player limiting its video quality to HD when connected to a 4K smart TV; conversely, you don’t want your Roku stick sending Dolby Vision HDR images to a TV that can only handle standard HDR.

Instead of researching the technical specifications of your TV or determining the quality of your HDMI connection, you can allow your Roku player to handle this automatically.

To set this up, go to Settings > Display type, and ensure it’s set to Automatic.

Double-Check Your Audio Settings

Just as you may experience video hiccups while streaming from your Roku, you might also find that your audio output sounds distorted.

This feature is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best streaming media players.

Your TV may only support certain audio decoders, such as Dolby Digital and DTS. If your Roku player sends the incorrect audio signal to your TV, you may hear unusual sounds from your speakers.

To ensure optimal audio performance, navigate to Settings > Audio > Preferred streaming format, and set it to Auto. Then, go to the nearby Digital output format setting and select Auto again.