Problems with Pi3B+, 4K videos and full-hd tv

1st Official Post

    Hi,
    I have a question for you. I've a Raspberry 3B+, with Libreelec 9.2.1 based on Kodi 18.6, connected to a Panasonic VT50 plasma full-hd.
    Some films in 4K make a reboot of my Raspberry without being reproduced. Those films, with VLC on my PC, works fine.
    What can I do?

    Thank you all

    Quote from Klojum

    The answer will not change if you ask it on a different forum.

    You'll need at least an RPi-4B if you want to process/watch 4K videos.

    Or other 4K capable hardware.

    I know that the answer will not change. But I think that there's no problem if I ask for the same problem on two different forums.

    BTW, the 3B+ didn't support 4K, ok, but I supposed that wasn't a problem because my TV is only full-hd, so I expected that the 3B+ will reproduce it downscaled only at 1080P.

    I apologize if this supposition was wrong.

    • Official Post
    Quote from Ime81

    but I supposed that wasn't a problem because my TV is only full-hd, so I expected that the 3B+ will reproduce it downscaled only at 1080P.

    There are a couple of factors:

    - the video source

    - the max processing video resolution

    - the video output resolution

    - video format

    As an example: I've used a Intel Celeron C1037 motherboard for quite a few years until the HEVC video format came along. Until then, most videos were h.264 formatted. With a few tricks, LibreELEC's predesessor was able to internally render 4K h.264 videos. The video output on the C1037 motherboard however is only 1080p.

    As long as the graphics card of a computer can render the video file, the video output port (DVI, HDMI, VGA) on the motherboard will have to match those specifications. After that, it doesn't matter if you connect a 4K,1080p, a 720p or 1280x1024 monitor to the computer. It will display it.

    It's like the weakest link in the whole video chain. If one link only does 1080p and no 4K, 1080p becomes the maximum. Or even lower.

    Your Raspberry Pi 3B+ cannot handle 4K to begin with. The GPU only computes/renders up to 1080p. That is simply your 'problem'.