I have a Vero4K+ that I have had connected to both an LG 65" 4K/3D LED as well as a BenQ HT-2050, 1080p projector. It worked flawlessly on both right out of the box. On the projector I have it running through a Denon AVR730H which also works flawlessly with anything I have thrown at it including HD audio etc. I had an NVidia Shield connected to it until very recently when I moved that to my living room and decided to just go with the Vero4K+ with my projector. I don’t watch a lot of live TV or commercial stations up there, but I do consume a lot of TV and movies including 4K/3D. Again, all worked perfectly with the Shield and the RPi3B+ for all my media.
I recently upgraded my projector to an HT-3550 which is 4K/3D. I have a general issue with how long it takes to sync (I believe that’s what’s happening) and send a usable both audio and video signal to it. What I mean by that is that the audio will play pretty quick, but depending on the source media it can take 20+ seconds to get an image on the screen for 4K material and somewhat less for 3D media. I went in and adjusted the media start delay to 10 seconds so the audio wouldn’t start so long before the video. I’m hoping though that there is a way to optimize this so it is faster. That’s more of an annoyance than a problem.
The main issue I have had is the sporadic failure of particularly 4K media to display proper video at all. I went in and whitelisted every resolution in the list and in conjunction with the “HDR processing” setting set to “Force Passthrough” it is better, but still not 100%. I was using the new Top Gun and Thor movies as test media. I ripped them using MakeMKV to an uncompressed, HEVC file. Yes, the files are huge.
By whitelisting everything I got these two movies to play most of the time. Top Gun is pretty consistent and Thor plays most of the time. When a movie does not play it is either a blank screen (projector thinks there’s no signal) or I get what looks like the horizontal hold is way out of whack:
This is a different movie (compressed 4K) that is doing it now, but in my trials I have tried many of both and it doesn’t seem to be affected by whether it’s compressed or not.
Anything with a resolution of 1080 or lower is not affected by the video issue, but there is still a slight delay to start even with 2D, 1080 media.
The only things I can see that might be a bit funky is that the media files have sync rates slightly different than any of the whitelist options. So far all the movies I’ve had an issue with are 23.976Hz. In the whitelist options the closest thing is 23.98Hz. Since some play and some don’t I have no idea if that’s an issue, but it’s the one thing I’m noticing. Also, some of the videos come up as “2159p” instead of 2160p. Is there something else I can look at for this? I can’t be the first person who has seen this issue and oddly it played fine with the same brand 1080 projector.
Am I even looking in the right area for this issue? Appreciate any help!
The OSMC guys would probably appreciate some debug logs.
Speaking as a non-OSMC person (just a curious passer-by): are you connecting the Vero 4K+ directly to the projector, or via an AVR? If the latter, what happens when you connect directly? Are your HDMI cables actually certified for this type of signal - are they either “Premium High-Speed” or “Ultra High Speed”? (Properly certified cables generally come with a QR code label you can use to check the certification). And have you tried using a different cable?
Well, they are 4K rated at minimum, but of course quality varies. I have the projector ceiling mounted and the cable is run through the attic so it’s not easy to casually check.
The thing I can say is that I was able to play content (even 4K although it only displayed in 1080 on my old projector) without issue from the NVidia Shield and never saw this. Again, the projector could only display that content at 1080, but no sync or interference issues.
I did just replace the short cable from my ceiling to the projector because although the 3550 is a direct physical replacement for the 2050 I had there, the HDMI ports were not in the same place so the cable was an inch or two too short. I had to replace it with a 3 foot cable I had on hand, but it is a 4K cable.
The one I took out:
Sounds like it might be a long cable. Anything more than about 10ft and you need to be thinking about something other than a standard cable - Cat 6 ethernet cable or fiber-optic.
What matters for the cable is the signal passing through it, not the source material.
Exactly. The higher the frequency the more picky the cabling will be.
Just as a test, can you hang the Vero off a cable attached direct to the PJ? That should confirm if it is indeed cabling that needs attention.
Interesting. The main run in the attic is probably a dozen feet. There is probably another dozen that runs from the wall jack at the AVR down to where the AVR is physically located. Then there is a 12-18" cable from the ceiling jack to the projector so a total of about 25 feet.
I have never heard of using Ethernet or fiber for home video. Do they make such things for mere mortals?
If you’ve got an HDMI cable 25 feet long, then pretty much no conventional HDMI cable can pass a 4K video signal over that kind of distance. A hybrid fibre cable might be a good option.
(The reason it worked with the Shield is because the projector told the player that it couldn’t handle anything above 1080p and the player downscaled the video before outputting it).
If you’ve got an active device in the middle of that run (so that no one cable between HDMI ports is more than three or four meters) then you could get away with a decent quality conventional cable. I usually use Blue Jeans cables myself. But anything that’s independently certified as “Premium High Speed” or “Ultra High Speed” or “HDMI 2.1” should do you.
Any device that is producing its own HDMI signal. If it has its own power supply, it’s probably okay. If it’s a passive, unpowered switch box, that’s no help. I guess the “wall jack” is not an active device? If so, then the AVR to projector connection is basically all one cable run.
Not for a 4K signal. You need something rated up to 4K60, or 18Gbps.
Could you install a powered booster device in the attic between the two 12 foot cables?
Buy a good optical HDMI cable for all distances over 2 meter … all other solutions may work (sometimes) but must not.
Since i use " LinkinPerk HDMI-Kabel 2.0 Glasfaser HDMI 4 K @ 60 Hz High Speed 18 Gbps Unterstützung 4K 3D für HDR TV LCD Laptop PS3 Projektor Compute 10M" for connecting my EPSON 9400, all problems are gone.
First off, are you switching between the LG and the BenQ by swapping the Denon’s HDMI output cables?
If so, you may need to power cycle the Denon and perhaps the Vero, and reset the Whitelist as the EDID will be different. It sounds like it is taking a while for the EDID handshaking to complete.
Even though my Vero is connected directly to my Epson projector, it still takes 8 seconds to show a picture anytime the framerate or resolution changes…such as starting a 4K movie from the Vero’s 1080p display size. Setting your Vero display menu to 2160 may help reduce the handshaking time when selecting a 4K movie.
Shortest cable they have 30 feet, but since mine goes through a wall and is routed around a large opening in that wall it kind of needs to be two pieces. I have a cable that goes from a wall jack I put in the ceiling near my projector to another wall jack at the top of the wall where the screen is. That is the best access I can get. The second cable that goes from that jack above the screen around the wall opening down to my AVR. Each is around 12 feet in real distance. The cable in the attic may be a bit longer though with slack in it. I can’t remember for sure since I put it in several years ago, but I’ll take a look.
For me to switch to this cable I’d have to buy two and have a massive amount of slack coiled up somewhere. It may not hurt anything if optical is the answer, but I don’t want it to look like a hatchet job either. I’m going to see if I can find shorter versions of this cable. I’ve never seen one that was HDMI with optical fiber connecting them. Very cool!
Absolutely not. They are in two completely different rooms on different floors of my house. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. I was only comparing to the LG setup because I didn’t have any of these issues on that TV/AVR setup using the Vero. The cables are certainly shorter though!
OK that is interesting. Mine is even slower, but obviously shares the delay. I will get audio after about 8 seconds, but the video can take up to another 10 after that. I’m starting to lean towards the cable for sure…
OK, I haven’t received the little booster yet, but I did get the 18" cable to replace the 36" cable I had to put in when I switched projectors. That change alone seems to have made a difference. I’ll do more testing, but at least one of the videos that was jumbled yesterday is now playing.
One thing to note is some devices (maybe only the Cat 5/6 boxes) don’t carry the data channel that has the EDID info. There are workarounds but best if you get the full-fat HDMI with all channels passed through.
To say that small gauge HDMI cables are fragile, would be the understatement of the year.
But you just never know…I use 2 30ft., 22AWG Monoprice cables purchased in 2008, run through the ceiling…1 for the Vero, the other to a Denon AVR…and they both work fine for 4K. Always good to have a backup.
