My image viewer is in low resolution

Help and Support Vero 4K / Vero 4K +
1

Hi,

Please help me.
One of the main reasons I got the Vero 4K is to display my photos on my 4k TV Screen (the image viewer of tv is terrible)

But the photo are displayed in low resolution. I can can compare with the TV viewer (it is terrible to use but, at least, it does 4k display of the images)

The video resolution of the Vero4k is set to 4096x2160p
I have the last update

Is there a specific setup to do to use the UHD on the image viewer?

Thanks.

2

How do you know the images are being displayed in ‘low resolution’?
Can you send a sample of an affected photo so I can try and reproduce this?

3

Hi,

thanks for the quick answer.

Well, first I can see there are a lot of details lost. Which is a sign of lower resolution

But I tryed specificaly the images test there :

And with my main computer or the TV viewer, I can read the third sentence and I can see the small dots in the background
With the Vero4K I can’t read the third line and the background is gray.

So that means it is not displaying the image at 3840x2160 as it should.

Please tell me what is the setup needed?

Vincent

4

Anyone having the same problem?

Who managed to visualize their pictures with the resolution of 3840x2168?

Vincent

5

Hi,

Currently we scale the GUI for 4K output for performance reasons.

We also recommend running the GUI at 1080p on most 4K displays as
the Kodi scaler is not as good as most TVs. This will likely change in the
future.

Video playback however will be output as 4K, as it should be. You can test this
yourself.

Sam

6

I understand the GUI should run at 1080p and will still display the videos at 4k if needed

But if I want to display my Photos with the 4k resolution what should I do?

Vincent

7

I’ve seen lots of pictures on my tv and they were fine, I assume the refresh and resolution are adjusted for any type of content.

8

I don’t know what you mean by “fine”. The picture I display are fine. They are just in 1080p

My question is, do you have a display in 4k? In this case, I will know that my setup has a problem.

To make sure, can you try this picture :

and confirme you can clearly read the third sentence and see the dots in background (and not full grey)
Thanks.

Vincent

9

There’s a year-old thread on the Kodi forum here where this issue is raised. Assuming the points still apply, it seems that the GUI interface runs at 1080p for performance reasons, since running at higher resolutions would produce a more “clunky”, less fluid interface on a Vero 4K (or Raspberry Pi, for that matter), hardware acceleration only being available to video formats such as H264 and HEVC. Photos, not being video, are therefore displayed at the GUI’s resolution. That, at least, is my interpretation of what’s on the thread.

10

That interpretation is accurate.

The issue is also that Kodi’s scaler isn’t very good; so it’s better to run the GUI at 1080p and have the TV do the scaling (which almost always looks better).

11

I posted in the other thread (which was one year old), nobody replyed so far.

On what I read here and in the other thread, it seems that it is normal to not be able to display a 4K photos
What has to be “hardware accelerated” to display still images?

Am I the only one pointing that it is a problem or a bug?
I bought a 4K device and I can’t display photo in that resolution, I’m really surprised and disappointed.

Vincent

12

The device is primarily intended for playing back 4K content.

We recommend the GUI runs at 1080p. The quality will likely look better than if you
run the device at 4K. OSMC is based on Kodi, so the usual limitations of that platform apply.

Scaling is configured as follows:

case $hdmimode in
  4k*|smpte*|2160*)
    echo 0 0 1919 1079 > /sys/class/graphics/fb0/free_scale_axis
    echo 0 0 3839 2159 > /sys/class/graphics/fb0/window_axis
    echo 1920 > /sys/class/graphics/fb0/scale_width
    echo 1080 > /sys/class/graphics/fb0/scale_height
    echo 0x10001 > /sys/class/graphics/fb0/free_scale
  ;;
esac

So you could disable the scaling, run the GUI at 4K and then see your
pictures at their native resolution without any clamping.

  • Set GUI to 4K, stop Kodi
  • Adjust framebuffer
  • Start Kodi

But it’s not something we really recommend. The GUI performance
will likely not be as fluid.

Sam

13

I would really like to do what you are suggesting.
But I have no idea how?

How do I disable the scaling?
What do you mean by “Adjust framebuffer”?

The configuration you are showing is what I have to do or what I have to change? How? Which file?

Is it possible to have the exact procedure?
Thank you

14

Hi

I can add support for running the GUI at native 4K resolution.
I haven’t done this yet as you’re the first / only user to request
this. Be aware that the GUI performance would be quite degraded
however, and we wouldn’t recommend this.

Sam

15

Yes, please.
Thank you

17

OK – I’ll see what can be done. It’s a little lower on the list of priorities because there haven’t been many requests for this, but it can now be considered on the list.

18

Oh, yes, I’m also interested in knowing the solution for switching pictures to 4k
Thanks

J

19

Now we are two interested by the answer.
Is it possible to have one?
Thanks

20

I am currently running osmc on a rpi2 and am generally pleased with its performance. I am thinking of replacing my panasonic plasma with a 4k display and upgrading to a vero 4k. My main activities are playing music and showing photos and home videos. I have read in one of the threads that the vero will only show my photos at 1080 max. Its clear from the forum that most users stream video and that photos are probably lower on the developers todo list but I wondered if there were any plans to introduce 4k photos.

21

4k photo display would require your photos to be in 4k quality to start with. Most domestic digital cameras will not produce a file of this quality.

Your 4k TV should automatically upscale the 1080p photos outputted by OSMC to 4k anyway but it won’t improve the quality of them.