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[dtc]

I am setting up a laptop to show movies (DVDs and BluRay, no 4K) at my second home in Florida. I want to get the best resolution to my 4K TV. The laptop has a resolution of 1366 by 768.  The 4K TV is connected via HDMI. On the laptop, the resolution for the TV/HDMI shows as 4K (3840x2160).  I want the signal to the TV to be either the native resolution (1920x1080 for BluRay) or the 4K resolution, bypassing any conversion to the laptop native resolution (1366x768).  I am not worried about 4K at this time.

So,

1) If I have the laptop display active, how do I ensure that a 1920 or a 3840 signal goes directly to the HDMI without converting to 1366?

2) If in Windows I set the display to only be on the HDMI, does that bypass any 1366 conversions?

3) Are the conversions to 3840 done by Windows or by MC (either Red October or JRVR)?

4) What else should I pay attention to?

As an audio guy, I really appreciated the Audio Path display, which tells me all the conversions that are happening. It would be nice to have a Video Path display, for at least the resolution conversions.

I have done a lot of searching, but can only find bits and pieces of this information.  I am obviously new to the details of watching movies.

Thanks for any insight or recommendations.

[fitbrit]

If you use ROHQ or JRVR, ctrl-J brings up an OSD which shows the resolution conversion, if any.

[dtc]

Thanks. Ctrl J works with JRVR and ROHQ but not with Red October Standard. It is very useful, although not very obvious.  It would be nice to have it as a Video Path option like Audio Path.  Maybe a Red gear, for Red October.

From my initial look, the output is generally 1366 although I sometimes get an output of 1280, but only when I set the display resolution to 3840. I need to do more experimenting with that to be sure.

I guess I should have gotten the 1920 display option on the laptop, although at the time I had no intention of doing movies. But, the picture looks pretty good as is. The TV is a pretty good upscaler.

Thanks again.

[BryanC]

As I recently learned, you need to set your TV as the primary display in Windows in order to get full resolution/upscaling.

[dtc]

Thanks. I tried making the TV primary, but it did not help. I can get 1280x720 or 1366/768 but nothing more with ROHQ or JRVR.  I guess it is a limitation of the laptop and the Intel graphics.  I understand the limitation for the laptop display, but I wish there were a way to send the resolution in the file directly to the HDMI like you can for audio.  Next laptop will be 1920x1080.

[BryanC]

Thanks. I tried making the TV primary, but it did not help. I can get 1280x720 or 1366/768 but nothing more with ROHQ or JRVR.  I guess it is a limitation of the laptop and the Intel graphics.  I understand the limitation for the laptop display, but I wish there were a way to send the resolution in the file directly to the HDMI like you can for audio.  Next laptop will be 1920x1080.

Which laptop? OS? Driver version? Most recent laptops should support 4K output, at least <=30hz.

[dtc]

The laptop is a relatively new I5 - 10th generation with Intel graphics.  And, yes, the graphics adapter should support 4K graphics through HDMI. I just cannot figure out how to do it.  Any recommendations would be appreciated.

HP Pavillion x360 Convertible 14-dh1xxx

HP Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10210U CPU @ 1.60GHz

Windows 10 Pro - 19042.1415

Intel UHD Graphics

Driver 27.20.100.8984  11/19/2020

Thanks.

[JimH]

Research cables. Example:

https://www.techhive.com/article/3330376/do-i-need-a-4k-hdmi-cable.html

[dtc]

Research cables. Example:

https://www.techhive.com/article/3330376/do-i-need-a-4k-hdmi-cable.html

The cable I am using is a 4K 60Hz HDR, 18 Gbps one. It works fine on my 4K BluRay player.  I am simply trying to get BluRay out of the PC, so I do not think the cable is the problem.  The BluRay is only 1920x1080 4:2:0. My 4K cable should be able to handle that.

Does JRVR actually test the bandwidth and reduce the resolution to the desktop setting if the bandwidth is not adequate? If it can do that, then I would hope it would send it at BluRay resolution, which my cable clearly handles.

Bandwidth can be an issue for 4K, but I do not think that is the problem here.

[JimH]

The testing of the cable is done by the consumer electronics products.  It's related to HDCP copy protection. 

[dtc]

The testing of the cable is done by the consumer electronics products.  It's related to HDCP copy protection.

The files play, just not at the resolution I would like.  Are you suggesting that an HDCP error is causing the signal to be processed at the desktop resolution rather than at the BluRay resolution? I thought HDCP errors caused the device to not display the data, not to change its resolution. The PC is a year old and the Sony TV is a few months old.

Just to add, the cable is HDCP 2.2

[Hendrik]

The reason for the wrong resolution showing in a setup like this is usually Windows' awkward UI scaling, which makes it pretend that both screens are the same resolution, so applications get an easier time.
You can disable this scaling in the Windows display settings by setting it to 100% - although that means that anything shown on that display would be significantly smaller, since it no longer gets upscaled by Windows. That might be OK if all you use the TV for is fullscreen video playback.

[JimH]

Hendrik's advice is probably better than mine, but yes, if your cables don't support HDCP, or any of the devices don't, your play will be limited or broken. 

[dtc]

Thanks Hendrik. The only way I could find to do that was to turn off the laptop display and only show the TV but that gave me a screen on the TV that is unreadable, so I could hardly even find the MC icon. So, not sure how to do this, but I will keep trying.  Maybe Windows will just not let me easily do what I want.

The picture on the TV is very good. Is it possible that the signal to the HDMI is actually HD but CTRL J is just showing the desktop conversion?

Thanks.

[dtc]

Success!!

Setting the resolution to 4K and dropping the scaling to 100% sets the output resolution to 4K according to JRVR.  The scaling was the key. I am doing this with just the TV as the display (Show only on 2 in display settings).

The text and apps are hard to read at 4K, 100%. Since I am doing Blurays and not 4K movies I dropped the resolution to 1920x1080 and that makes the 100% scaling quite readable on my 65" TV.  Then the TV can do its own upscaling.  Should be even easier to read when I get south to my 75" TV.

Thanks Hendrik!

It is easy to bypass Windows audio, but I never realized that it was so hard for video.  But now that I know the magic, my laptop with MC plays my movies very well.

FYI - I am bitstreaming the audio using source number of channels and the TV passes either DD or DTS to my receiver using ARC, so I get good audio also.

Thanks everyone.

[Hendrik]

If the TV is your only screen, then you can also enable scaling. Its only an issue if you have multiple screens enabled with a mixture of scaling values - in which case Windows will apply the scaling from the primary screen to all the screens, at least with how MC currently interacts with Windows.

Windows also supports per-screen scaling, which would entirely avoid this problem, but its rather complicated to make use of that, but hopefully we'll eventually get that as well.

[dtc]

I tried using scaling with the TV as the only monitor and I get reduced output resolution. The only way I can get full 1920 or 3840 output resolution, even with one screen, is to set scaling to 100%.

Per screen scaling would be nice, but it is not necessary for what I am doing currently. But it would be very useful for 4K output.

Thanks again.

[BryanC]

FYI I have scaling enabled (225%) in Windows 11 w/ AMD graphics and JRVR correctly outputs to the resolution of my display. If it is not a hardware or OS-specific issue then I don't know why your setup would be any different. Is MC launching in compatibility mode or something?

[Hendrik]

It works as long as the display with the scaling is the primary one. Not sure how that works with laptops exactly if you just turn off the built-in display, maybe thats a particular special case.

[dtc]

There is nothing special about my setup, other than that it a laptop. MC is not in compatibility mode.  I tried running as administrator and the result is the same. I have to believe it is something specific about the laptop.  Interestingly, when I scale up the size the output resolution drops to 1280x720, not to the default laptop output of 1366x768.  It may be that the TV does not support 1366 so the resolution drops to the next closest one.

Screen shots attached. The only thing different is the scaling.

Anyway, at 1920 with 100% scaling and just the TV for display I am good to go.