I realize if I play a Blu-ray disc on my Xbox One S it will upscale it to 4K. However, I can’t seem to find out whether or not when I play my .mkv files, which are in 1080P, they will be upscaled to 4K the same way the DISC is upscaled. Thanks.
No, the app itself does not upscale videos. The Xbox One S itself might if there is an option for forcing 4k output, but the app itself will not request a transcode to a higher resolution or try and upscale something by itself.
Assuming your TV is 4K it does the upscaling. After all 4K is a specific number of Pixel (width x height). if your content isn’t actually 4K, 1080 for example, its doesnt just play in 1 corner of the TV.
the TV, has hardware that attempts to scale it up (sort of)… but it’s not actually producing 4K content. the 4k upscale with have artifacts. This process is generally very good, however, if your looking to ACTUALLY convert 1080 to 4k, its a very long and painful process with no good answer.
Transcoding to another format is generally down 4k -> 1080p -> 720p -> etc…
Is it possible to have the xbox app change its output resolution (and thus the output of the xbox) to one that matches the video?
Currently, no it is not possible. The App is restricted from changing system settings. This is what prevents the Xbox from switching refresh rates, resolutions, or sound modes.
That’s too bad. The bluray player supports this, but I guess that’s because microsoft wrote it.
