4K is not just about having horsepower

Post #438,552 by pwhysall 3/2/21 2:14:53 AM 3/2/21 2:14:53 AM Reply	4K is not just about having horsepower It's also about supporting the appropriate HDMI standard. Obviously, discrete GPUs like the 5700XT in my PC don't have any issues here. The on-board iGPU in a NUC will be a different bag of hammers. Read the manual. If you're just streaming from the network, just about any answer is better than "make a Linux PC to do it" - Xbox, PlayStation, Roku, Chromecast, Fire Stick all are vast improvements on both the UX and janitorial sides. If you have any streaming services, you have 4K services. Prime Video, Netflix, YouTube, etc. etc. all stream at 4K. Can't help you on the local content side. My idea of "playing local content" is "putting the Blu-Ray in the Xbox".
Post #438,557 by Another Scott 3/2/21 2:52:21 PM 3/2/21 2:52:21 PM Reply	Agreed, with some caveats. Unless one is ripping one's own DVDs/BluRays or something, streaming seems to be the sensible way to go. However, ... J has been watching live concerts by bands/performers she likes recently. Sometimes it's easy to cast it to the Chromecast dongle on the TV without problems. Sometimes, at the same service, it just doesn't work right at all (busy pointer or she gets kicked out or something). It's not clear to me yet what's going on - whether they're overloaded or whether they're using some sort of encoding that the Chromecast doesn't like, or what. I suppose one has to be willing to accept that this streaming stuff isn't bulletproof yet - especially for live events. Cheers, Scott.
Post #438,562 by drook 3/2/21 6:49:02 PM 3/2/21 6:49:02 PM Reply	It's not about whether it's bulletproof "yet" They've been able to do this stuff for a decade. They keep breaking it in new and proprietary ways. -- Drew
Post #438,574 by static 3/4/21 4:16:34 PM 3/4/21 4:16:34 PM Reply	One of the latest was HDCP v2. 4K on HDMI requires HDCP. And it also requires HDCP all the way from he source to the display. Which means if your streaming box is HDCP v2 and so is your receiver, your TV needs to support it (and thus be 4K capable) as well. The idiots who designed this didn't think of where the TV is _not_ 4K capable, in which case the receiver says "I can't display this content". I had to do a hack to make my streaming box drop to HDCP 1.4 (until they did a software release so I could do it in the box itself) and thus come back down to 1080p for it to all work. All because in the standard the receiver couldn't or wouldn't automatically tell the streaming box to downgrade. Wade.

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