I have OSMC installed on a Pi 4B and enabled 4K on it. The pi is connected to a Vankyo V630 projector via HDMI cable.
The problem is OSMC screen lacks brightness ! I have to increase brightness to almost 70 on Projector settings to get some brightness !!! I also have a chromecast with google TV 4K
hooked to other HDMI Port of projector and it looks bright enough. Swapping the hdmi ports doesnt help, the OSMC is screen lacks brightness to whichever hdmi port its connected to, unless i manually increase the brightness level to +70.
My log file that consists of edid, the osmc is reading from projector is below:
Hi @sam_nazarko , yes i have attached the log file now ! media plays ok because i have enabled 4K, set the display to 1920 X 1080 60 HZ, and enabled auto refresh on start / stop. Its just the GUI thats lacking brightness !
4K sounds larger but the specs on the manufacturers website say itâs native 1920x1080 resolution. Not sure why you would want 4K unless the projector performs better out of itâs own spec range
If you are worried 4K material wonât work if you have a lower resolution, Kodi will scale it down. Just try 1080p, should be the same end result with less stress on the Pi
(ps:
[ 5.357294] vc4-drm gpu: [drm] The core clock cannot reach frequencies high enough to support 4k @ 60Hz.
[ 5.357311] vc4-drm gpu: [drm] Please change your config.txt file to add hdmi_enable_4kp60.)
This device is listed as having 270 lumens. Isnât that basically only enough light for projecting onto a couple square feet? Also, I donât know what your trying to play but do note that a RPi cannot convert HDR to SDR so any HDR material played on a SDR display will be dim and washed out. The Veroâs do not have this limitation.
Well I have modified the setup to include a HDFury Arcana. The Pi is connected to hdmi input of Arcana , arcanaâs earc output is connected to sonos arc soundbar and arcanaâs hdmi out is connected to projector using a 10m flat hdmi ethernet cable
The pi outputs 4K and hdfury arcana converts 4k with HDR to 1080p Full HD HDR. Vankyo v630 supports full HD but not sure if it supports SDR / HDR.
What I suspect is the projector might support SDR, this is because when I connect chromecast with google TV 4k to hdmi input of Arcana instead of Pi 4 running OSMC, I could see the projector displays the Google TV Home page very brightly ! Definitely itâs a improvement compared to when I was connecting google tv stick directly
to projector !
Exactly why I am using a HDFury Arcana in between Pi and Projector which apart from sending earc output to my sonos arc soundbar can also convert 4k to HD , HDR to SDR etc âŚ
Currently 4k is enabled on pi 4 running OSMC which passes the 4k video to HDFury Arcana which is set to scale it to full HD, HDR.
May be my projector perhaps only supports SDR and is the reason why the Osmc GUI is dim and washed out ! Perhaps will change the setting on Arcana to convert 4k to Full HD, SDR and see the result.
But I am curious if google tv stick is connected to hdmi input of Arcana with the same settings as above , the google Home Screen doesnât look dim / washed out ! It looks very bright even in some ambient light conditions ! Never understood why OSMC on pi behaves differently than the google tv stick in this scenario when Arcana is used in between !
Also I know Kodi can be set to downscale 4k to full HD, but I prefer to preserve the Pi CPU and rather use the Arcana for that ! Let me know if this is an good approach ?
The logs I provided in first post were only when Osmc on pi is directly connected to projector ! I will take anothe set of logs with HDFury Arcana in between and paste it here and would appreciate if someone can help me in understanding the log to identify why the Osmc is dim and washed out on projector display
The UI will only be output in SDR and a maximum of 1080p on that RPi. By setting the UI to 4K what you are doing is making the RPi upscale things it shouldnât need to and then using a second device do downscale them all over again. This isnât the way things should be done. What you want is the UI to be set to 1080p and settings>player>videos>adjust display refresh rate> set to on start/stop or always. If the UI doesnât have correct looking contrast you could try playing with the display setting âuse limited color rangeâ but otherwise I donât see how it could possibly be anything other than the settings in your projector combined with the limitations of your projector (assuming Kodi default video settings hadnât had adjustments made to them which they didnât in the log your previously posted). As for the HDR->SDR conversion I would think your device would handle that only when it saw the video mode switch color depth when you started actually playing a HDR source. Iâm not 100% on this but you probably need that HDFury to send a modified EDID telling the RPi it can do HDR so the RPi will output it as HDR instead of SDR.
At the end of the day though what you have is a bit of a confusing setup. Your using a Playback device that you want to play 4K HDR to a Full HD SDR display that isnât capable of doing so on its own (the Veroâs are capable of this BTW). Your using a soundbar designed to be used with an ARC enabled display on a projector that neither has ARC or smart TV features that would take advantage of such a thing. Moreover the fallback connection for this soundbar is toslink which the RPi does not have without an accessory (the Veroâs do) and so your stitching it together with a rather advanced adapter.
So you have a ~$60 RPi connected to a $270 projector via a $300 HDMI adapter that splits off to a $700 soundbar. I think your problem here ultimately is what you really need is a better display device or a player that is a bit more capable.
Yes this is how it is setup from beginning. when I meant 4k is enabled on rpi4, I just enabled it /boot/config-user.txt through OSMC Pi config setup !
And yes I did set UI to 1080p and enabled adjust display rate on start/stop too.
All I need is I donât want the pi to convert 4k to full hd and take the extra load ! This is what happens if 4k is not enabled in Osmc pi config right ? I had to use a HDFury Arcana anyway for my sonos arc so relying on it to scale down 4k to full hd for my full hd projector !
Yes my current projector is very outdated and with all my sound system and hdmi adapter setup not really in a position to afford a 4K projector ( I donât want TV as I need a 100 inches screen and spend a bomb on sonos arc + sonos sub + two sonos era 300 for 7.1.4 dolby Atmos setup, so really canât afford a 4k ust projector) so I ordered a formovie R1 nano ust projector that is again full hd capable but can decode 4k and HDR (HDR 10 & HLG) very smoothly as it has a good quad core ARM with 4 GB RAM). I looked around for 4k projector and a decent ust laser one costs over 2000ÂŁ so had to settle for R1 Nano UST Laser projector (link here and here !)
Yes I enabled limited color range and Osmc UI is now a bit brighter.
So much thanks for your help ! Yes I am interested in Vero device but please help me to understand how it would be better than rpi 4 in my current setup. My display device is still a full hd with 4k decoding and HDR decoding ! Also I want to use Plex app on vero and not sure how updated the Plex app on Osmc ! But definitely itâs on my list for this Boxing Day sale â
I think you may misunderstand this setting. A RPi 4 supports 4K up to 50hz out of the box as long as it is connected to a display that can support this. The 4K setting that would be added to a config.txt file is for enabling 4K@60hz which is not enabled by default as that disables the second HDMI output.
I RPi 4 doesnât break a sweat downsampling a 4K video to Full HD so that isnât really putting any âloadâ on. Additionally the RPi will NOT send out a 4K or HDR signal unless it thinks it is connected to a display that can support this so unless you programed your HD Fury to tell the RPi it supports these capabilities, because your projector certainly is not reporting that it supports these features. Thus when playing a 4K HDR video your RPi will be sending out a Full HD SDR image that has not been tone mapped.
As I stated with your particular setup the Vero V would be able to play a 4K HDR file and output it tone mapped 1080p and connect to your Sonos Arc via toslink directly since your current projector doesnât support ARC. This isnât going to get you Atmos support however as you need HDMI for that, but you could use a less expensive HDMI splitter to accomplish that task as you wouldnât need the video conversion features.
Plex on Kodi is a bit⌠complicated. Plex has mostly switched to only giving first class support to their iOS and Android clients. They donât actually currently maintain any Plex add-on today. The âofficialâ add-on has been on life support by the person who makes the Plex mod add-on and he has recently stated that he is no longer going to do this and solely focus on Plex mod. That add-on gets you closest to the Plex interface you would see on the mobile clients and the web interface. There also exists PlexKodiConnect which basically just adds a Plex library into Kodiâs library so it looks and acts like Kodi, but with Plex actually managing your media on the backend. Then there is Composite that allows you to interact with Plex in sort of a file/directory tree kind of browsing mode but also allow you to add this content into a regular Kodi library similar to PlexKodiConnect. Plex can also be a DLNA server and Kodi can be a client but this is a whole other thing that I donât know why someone would actually want to go that route.
Yes there is a setting in HdFury Arcana to select 4k which should tell RPI that itâs actually supporting 4K and send 4k to projector ! But yeah I understand thereâs no point in that as end of the day my projector only support Full HD !!!
With 5Ghz I can reliably get 500Mbps+ speeds with iperf testing. This should be sufficient for steaming even the most demanding 4K content. 4K Blu-Ray has a max bitrate of 120Mbps.
There are external antennas with one dedicated for WiFi and one for Bluetooth for additional performance.
