[mythtv-users] Mythtv-frontend operation with 4K TV?

[Jim Abernathy]

On 9/10/20 3:59 AM, Mark Kendall wrote:
> There are potentially a couple of advantages to running at 1080p.
>
> Firstly any 4k TV worth its salt will do a better job of upscaling 
> 1080 and/SD content than most media players. This is largely due to 
> better, dedicated hardware. If you feed it 4K it can't do much scaling 
> wise.
>
> Secondly, with the way mythtv rendering works at the moment, 
> displaying both the UI and video at 4K is going to work the system 
> harder - both in terms of gpu load and memory consumption. Admittedly 
> it's probably not enough to be an issue on a modern, desktop system 
> but will be relevant on less capable hardware (e.g. pi4 etc). All the 
> current mythtv themes are max 1080 by design and scaling them up could 
> be better handled in hardware - it's something on my to-do list.
>
> I would recommend enabling resolution switching , set both the UI and 
> video resolution to 1920*1080 and use 'auto' for refresh rate 
> matching. If you have some 4k content then add an override for that as 
> well.
>
> (Note: display mode switching should work with 'regular' Linux and 
> macos setups but is limited or not implemented in other cases e.g. no 
> pure Wayland support in .31, raspberry pi without X can only switch 
> refresh rate, other Linux without X no support)
>
> Regards
> Mark
>
Mark,

Thanks for the recommends. I have noticed that 1080P content looks 
better on my 4K TV when the TV is setup automatically with all the 
enhanced features turned on like HDR, etc.

I've also notices that the RPI4 goes out of it's way with the pi-utils 
scripts to keep it's resolution at 1080P with no desktop; and that seems 
to work better with 64bit RPI OS than 32bit with my current testing, but 
that could be because of the more current version number you get when 
building from source.

I have found a setting in Xubuntu that, if turned off, will keep the 
display at 1080P when the HDMI switch is moved away from the PC and then 
back.

All my 4K content comes from Netflix and Prime Video and run on the 
Nvidia Shield TV so no issues with the PC.

I think I'm in the final stages of troubleshooting my Frontend problems. 
The keys I think have been.

1. Eliminating my 8 yr. old Denon AV Receiver from the the video chain 
because of it's 4K30 limit, and replacing with HDMI 2.0 5x1 switch.

2. Removing the USB3 memory stick from the Nvidia Shield TV (This was a 
bitch to find and caused very peculiar problems with the Android version 
of mythfrontend)

3. Setting the TV to HDMI 2.0 enhancements.

Thanks again,

Jim A