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File system for 4K1042 player SD cards with >4GB files

Mark Klingensith

July 24, 2017 18:41

Answered

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We are using BA to program synced presentations for our 6 ea 4K1042's  using either BrightWall or using enhanced sync for presentations that require audio from all channels.  I am currently formatting the SD cards as FAT32 which limits the file size to <4GB.  

I tried formatting the SD cards to ExFAT to remove the 4GB file constraint but then the player won't startup from the ExFAT SD card... is this true?  I can't boot the player from ExFAT?

If so what are my options?   We are loading the BA presentations and video over the local network which has been working great.  I currently have to split video files >4GB but need to be able to load single video files larger than 4GB.

Thanks,

Mark

 

 

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19 comments

• 0
  
  Bright Scripters July 24, 2017 18:50

  Seems like VFAT may be a better choice. See below a screenshot from the player's Diagnostic Web Server page.

  

• 0
  
  Mark Klingensith July 25, 2017 19:30

  vfat merely supports long filenames so that won't fix any of my issues that I can see.  

  I was mostly trying to figure out why the 4K1042 players won't boot up from the SD card that is ExFat formatted and setup using "Setup BrightSign Unit" in BrightAuthor while they will boot from the same SD card that is formatted FAT32.

  Is this a hardware limitation or am I not doing something correctly, IOW.

• 0
  
  Lyndon July 26, 2017 23:12

  Yes, only series 3 players running firmware 6.2.94 or newer support exfat. No other players support exfat.

• 0
  
  Mark Klingensith July 27, 2017 12:45

  Lyndon,

  thank You for clearing that up.  

  2 more questions.

  1) We just bought 2 4K242's because the 4K1042 that we have 6 of are no longer available.  These aren't series 3 players either?

  How do I identify Series 3 players? is is simply a "3" in the model name?   for example, we also have 2 ea LS422's and we bought an additional LS423 because again the 422's were no longer available.  Is the LS423 a series 3 player?

  is there any issue using "enhanced sync" between the different series of the same model type (422/423)?

  2) Can I use ext4 formatted SD cards to setup and run the 4K1042/4K242's?

  it isn't clear to me from other posts on this forum if ext is supported read/write.

  I am running the latest BA and firmware on everything.

  Thank You very much for your time.

  Mark

• 0
  
  Lyndon July 27, 2017 14:34

  1. 

  Correct. Series 3 are the generation after that. So LS423, HD223, HD1023, XD233, XD1033, XT1143 - all ending in 3. The XD3 and XT3 are the new 4k players now slimmer. 

  No there's no issue using enhanced sync between the different series.

  2.

  yes, you can use ext4 for any of players.  Yes, ext3/4 supports read/write and like NTFS (read only), it supports 4gb and larger files.

• 0
  
  Mark Klingensith July 27, 2017 15:59

  Thank You!  Awesome!

  You have answered all of my questions for this thread.

   

• 0
  
  Mark Klingensith September 26, 2017 20:04

  Lyndon,

  with respect to your answer 2. above, using ext4 formatted SD cards.

  I can't get a 4K242 to startup from an ext4 formatted SD after using BA "Setup Brightsign Unit" to configure it.   I setup the SD card in BA, insert it in the unit and then after powering it up all I get is an onscreen message saying "Insert an SD card"

  Can you verify that I should be able to use an ext4 format SD card to setup and run a 4K242? 

• 0
  
  Lyndon September 26, 2017 23:16

  Before we supported exfat, I used ext3/4 cards for playback.  It should work. 

• 0
  
  Mark Klingensith September 27, 2017 15:03

  Lyndon,

  The 4K units have internal uSD and an external SD slot (as you know).  I am trying to set up 8 of these to use enhanced sync with files that are larger than 4GB.  I am using BA to publish to the players across the local network so that I can use enhanced synchronization with sound from every unit.   I have all of this working except for using >4GB files.

  Based on our earlier discussion I thought that I could use ext4 to make this happen but as far as I can tell you CAN'T use ext4 as the card that you leave in the player with the setup files on it.   

  I then thought that i could use a FAT32 card in the internal uSD slot to setup the player and then publish media files to an ext4 SD card in the external slot across the network.

  However, I can't figure out how to publish across the network using BA to the external SD card since the player is "booted" from the uSD.  Can you help me figure this out?

  Mark

• 0
  
  Bright Scripters September 27, 2017 15:18

  We had good results with ExFat formatted cards.

  We loaded them with setup files, and were able to publish to them without any issue.

  I think you'd need a recent firmware for ExFat support.

• 0
  
  Mark Klingensith September 27, 2017 15:34

  4K2xx version 2 players don't support exFAT formatted cards.

• 0
  
  Mark Klingensith September 27, 2017 15:51

  Bright Scriptures, maybe you can help me figure out an interactive script using a playlist so that I can publish using enhanced sync/audio on all of the players and just split files larger than 4GB into the playlist...  

• 0
  
  Lyndon September 27, 2017 16:09

  Mark, can you send us the system log from the player that's booted with the ext4 drive? Does the drive show up, and can you manually upload files to it, or does your ext4 drive not mount?

• 0
  
  Mark Klingensith September 27, 2017 17:21

  Lyndon,

  That is the problem... I can't boot from an SD card formatted as ext4.   When I run setup from within BA on the ext4 card put it in the player and power it up I get a message on the output (LCD monitor) "Please Insert Card".

  I updated both Bright Author and the firmware on the 4K unit to the latest versions before trying this.

  If I could boot the 4K242 from an ext4 card that should fix my issue with large files...

  Cheers,

  Mark

• 0
  
  Lyndon September 27, 2017 18:14

   

  what are you using to format the sd card? 

  I just put a fat32 sd card in my player. I booted, and logged into the player diagserver.

  I went to the diagnostics tab, and hit the reboot button under disable autorun. 

  Once booted, I went back to the diagnostics tab, to storage formatting, and chose ext4. 

  Once that was done, I uploaded an autorun zip file with setup files for my player, and rebooted. 

  

  My unit boots with it..

   

  

   

  And, my autorun.zip unpacked and ran...

   

   

  

   

   

   

• 0
  
  Mark Klingensith September 27, 2017 19:44

  I have been using a card that is formatted ext4 on the windows box that is running Bright Author. 

  I then use "Setup Brightsign Unit" under the Tools menu to configure the name/network/etc and copy the setup files to the SD card then put it in the player and power it up.  

  my method has been working fine for fat32 cards but not for ext4...   I will try your method

• 0
  
  Brandon September 28, 2017 07:45

  What software are you using to mount the ext4 volume in Windows?
  Windows doesn't support ext volumes natively.

• 0
  
  Mark Klingensith September 28, 2017 15:09

  i'm using 3rd party "Minitool Partion Wizard".   The ext4 SD card mounts just fine in Win10.  

  I know now how to format flash cards using the BS player with the diagserver so I will use that instead.    

  I got as far as formatting the SD card as ext4 in the player and that worked fine.

   I tried saving the setup files out of BA to a folder, zipping them using Windows as autorun.zip, uploaded the zip file using diagserver to the ext4 card in the player but they didn't unzip after I restarted.  The player won't show up in the Manage tab.

  I probably did something wrong...

  I found the online directions for "Editing Network Settings on a Player",  I'll use these and then ask for your help again if that doesn't work.

  Please let me know if you have other suggestions or tips for this.

  Thanks,   Mark

• 0
  
  Lyndon September 28, 2017 16:03

  Yes, follow the directions. You need to add the autozip.brs script to the zip file so when the unit boots it know how to unpack the zip file. Even through the autozip.brs is inside the zip file, it's what's used to unpack it.