How to Adjust These 8 Settings Before Streaming on Roku

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Roku streaming sticks are celebrated for their user-friendly design. Simply plug the device into your TV’s HDMI port, connect the USB power source, and dive into your favorite shows. However, even though Roku offers a plug-and-play experience, a few adjustments can significantly enhance your streaming quality and reduce buffering.

For instance, you may notice video playback lagging without enabling a specific setting, while sound issues could arise unless particular options are configured correctly. Additionally, you have the flexibility to customize the look of your home screen and prevent intrusive “sponsored” screensavers from appearing.

Read on to discover the eight essential Roku settings to tweak, starting with…

Toggle the Recommendation Row

Upon booting up your Roku, the home screen displays a row of suggestions labeled “Top Picks For You,” situated just above your apps grid. This section showcases streaming titles that Roku believes you’ll enjoy, some based on your installed apps and others from outside those sources.

If you find this row helpful while browsing, you might want to keep it. However, if it feels more like clutter, you have the option to hide it.

Simply navigate to Settings > Home Screen > Recommendation Rows and select Hide.

Resize Home Screen Tiles

Now that you’ve addressed the recommendation row, let’s focus on the main apps grid. Not only can you rearrange your applications, but you can also adjust the size of the tiles.

Choosing larger tiles offers improved visibility, but limits you to three rows on your screen. Conversely, if you opt for smaller tiles, readability may decrease, yet you’ll gain an extra row for apps.

To adjust tile size, go to Settings > Home Screen > Tile Size, then select either Smaller or Larger.

Roku provides a variety of wallpapers to enhance your browsing experience, including occasional promotions for shows, films, or brands.

If you wish to keep your Roku home screen free of advertising-themed wallpapers, there’s a way to disable them.

Just head over to Settings > Theme > Sponsored Wallpapers and select Off.

Disable Personalized Ads

Roku devices are cost-effective largely because the company gathers and sells user viewing habits to advertisers. This practice is common among companies like Amazon and Google. While your data is anonymized, some privacy is sacrificed for the sake of affordability.

To enhance your privacy, you can configure your Roku device to use a non-persistent device ID, which makes it harder for advertisers to track your viewing habits. Keep in mind that while you might see the same amount of ads, they won’t be as closely aligned with your preferences.

To turn off personalized ads, go to Settings > Advertising and uncheck the Personalize Ads option.

Disable Auto-Playing Videos

As you navigate through Roku, you might encounter video ads that start playing automatically. These can be intrusive and consume your bandwidth faster than expected.

Fortunately, you can easily stop auto-playing videos from distracting you. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Auto-play Video, and select Off.

Auto-Adjust Display Refresh Rate

If you’ve noticed your streaming image is jittery, it could be due to a mismatch between the source content’s frame rate and the rate your Roku is sending to your TV.

The solution? Enable your Roku to automatically detect and adjust to the frame rate of the content you’re watching.

Simply navigate to Advanced Display Settings > Auto-adjust Display Refresh Rate and ensure it’s set to On.

Automatically Set Display Type

You want your Roku device to send the highest quality possible to your 4K TV, but without overloading screens that can only handle basic HDR. Instead of manually checking the technical specs of your TV or HDMI connection, let your Roku do this automatically.

Visit Settings > Display Type and ensure it’s set to Automatic.

Double-Check Your Audio Settings

Just as video might stutter, audio can also go awry during streaming. If the audio output isn’t compatible with your TV’s audio decoders, such as Dolby Digital or DTS, you could end up hearing distortions that are less than pleasant.