4K PUBLIC DISPLAY

[Mark Andersen]

I'm needing to get a 4K TV up and playing 4K content in a public setting as easily (cheap) as possible. What's the current state of the tech for playing continent, or what players are simple and inexpensive? Could I stream video and and sound off a USB3 device (HDD, Thumb drive) right to the TV? Are there TVs that will play certain codecs right from such a device? What about TVs with built in memory or HDD?

 

[Christopher*Seguine]

Samsung UHD tvs with quadcore processors support 4k 45mbs h265 4:2:2 10bit, octacore models support 4k 125mb h265 4:2:2 10bit - this is well beyond their listed specs, I just tested them until they would not loop reliably for 24hrs.

You can playback off a usb 3.0 stick, there is a pause at the loop point so pad the beginning and end of the file. None of the cheapo players do a completely clean loop without a pause, you could use a cheap pc or a hyperdeck if that is required. If you want it to auto loop at power on, on some models, you can put the tv in store demo mode and name the file on the usb stick DEMO_LED.tp. Check the SamyGo forums for more details on that.

If you encode it properly it looks excellent. You can use the free x265 encoder but its not really very good yet, we've tried about everything and TotalCode Studio is the best for h265 now.

 

[L. Langer]

There are UHD digital signage solutions available with older hardware and media boxes sporting the newest chipsets with HEVC and HDMI 2.0 are starting to hit the market. I will post here if I hear of anything new that might fit your needs.