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BrightSign XT for 4K playback looks choppy

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Alvin Angeles
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Hi Community,

When playing back a 4K video, the quality is perfect. However when playing back a series of still images with a dissolve/fade between each (think typical photo slideshow), the transitions are very choppy and distracting.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kW7cMWs1QwTPfn7g8

I'm using TRMS Carousel as the CMS and BrightSign XT players (XT 244 and 1144). I've tried the BrightSign-supplied SD card with no improvement. According to BrightSign support, "this is the best the unit can do."

I can't believe a $700 purpose-built player is struggling to play back basic still images in 4K. Are any of you having success with a similar use-case? If so, what CMS are you using?

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  • 0
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    Alvin Angeles

    Update... I've been using an on-prem CMS, but this particular CMS has a Cloud version with newer code and BrightSign OS integrated. The CMS company's support and engineer tested my content on their Cloud and it played back perfectly. So it seems that the newer set of commands from their Cloud CMS makes the BrightSign perform better.

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    Bright Scripters

    Which CMS are you using?

    Is it possible that in the on-prem configuration the content was streaming from the CMS instead of being locally stored on the SD card?

  • 0
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    Alvin Angeles

    I'm using TRMS Carousel as the CMS and BrightSign XT players (XT 244 and 1144).

    With the on-prem system all the content is downloaded to the SD card before the player will display it. I'm pretty sure it behaves the same way with their Cloud version, but as I mentioned before their tech support mentioned that their Cloud has newer code that seems to "enable" better performance. If I examine the files on the SD card should I be able to find some clues?

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    Ckwak

    I just found out (after much head scratching) that my XD1034 players don't support transitions between 4K images, despite playing back 4K content fine..  the only option is to downsize them to 1920x1080..  unfortunately not really an option for my project. (this limitation isn't listed anywhere I could find and was only told by Brightsign tech support) seems like a major oversight and I may have to look at a PC or Raspberry Pi 4 solution (since they can fade between 4K images no problem) 

    Perhaps your choppy CMS playback is related to the same Brightsign limitation? 

     

     

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    Bright Scripters

    What about converting the still images to a video?

    Is that applicable?

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    Ckwak

    I'd thought about that, just the process of putting 200 images into a video seemed a bit tedious.. (especially if I need to change out images from time to time) but I might give that a try just to get us up and running until I find an alternative. 

     

     

     

  • 0
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    Alvin Angeles

    @Ckwak It looks like the BrightSign XT I've been using *is* capable of smooth transitions/fades between 4K images. Please see my update from 2/9 for more info. Maybe your XD will need the latest firmware and commands to get the hardware to perform as expected.

    In my case I would need to transition over to the Cloud version of my CMS which is cost-prohibitive, so I'm looking at windows-based players which play back 4K just fine with my current on-prem CMS.

     

    @Bright Scripters In my use-case the video idea wouldn't work. Our system has end-users from multiple departments who contribute stills and videos to the main zone. As @Ckwak mentioned it would be tedious for me to publish and upload a new 4K video each time an end-user makes a change to the playlist. Multiply this by the 20 4K BrightSign players we have (each with unique content) and that task is now impossible!

    If I compared the SD cards between the Cloud version of my CMS and the on-prem version, do you think I might find clues that could potentially help my on-prem 4K content play back more smoothly?

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    Bright Scripters

    Are images loaded at exactly 4K res?

    It might worth the time to try different image formats. JPG, PNG, BMP

    Cross fade is a gentle transition but possibly other transition types might play smoother?

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