The Maevex supports 4K. Officially 4K has a resolution of 4096×2160. However, but mostly people mean 3840×2160 (Ultra HD) when referring to 4K. I will go with the flow and do the same thing. Although the Maevex supports both resolutions, in this section I will focus on 3840×2160 and refer to it as 4K.
Now that’s cleared, we have to clear another important point: Maevex has different 4K capabilities for the HDMI inputs and for the streaming outputs.
HDMI Inputs:
The HDMI inputs seem to be HDMI 2.0 10.2Gbit. This means that you can do a maximum resolution of 4K30 4:4:4 or 4K60 4:2:0.
4K Streaming Outputs:
4K streaming takes a lot more processing power than full HD. This is what you can do with the Maevex 6150:
- 3840×2160 @ 4:4:4
1 stream at 30fps - 3840×2160 @ 4:2:0
2 streams at 60ps
or 4 streams at 30fps
I tested the following 4K encoding setups:
- 4K30 HDMI signal coming from a laptop
- 4K60 4:2:0 HDMI signal coming from the BrightSign XT1144 4K player, showing 4K video content
Both setups worked fine. But there’s one interesting other 4K setup to test. Do you remember the multiviewing feature? What if we input 4x HDMI 1080p60 sources (Quad View) and stream 4K60 4:2:0!! Let’s try.
Above are the settings to make it all happen. Don’t forget to set both the encoding and processing settings to 4K. Initially I only set the encoding to 4K and was disappointed. But then I set processing to 4K as well and was blown away by the quality. VLC decodes and display it on a 4K TV:
It’s hard to show the quality by taking a picture, but I can assure you that you will be amazed if you switch from a 1080p stream to 4K.
My last 4K test was with a BrightSign XT1144 Digital Signage player. Initially I could not get a 4K Maevex RTSP stream to play with the BrighSign player. Checking with Matrox learned that it had to do with Maevex “multi slice encoding” that BrightSign does not support.
After following Matrox’s instructions to change a config file and revert to “single slice encoding”, it worked. Again with encoding profile set to “Main”. I hope Matrox will create a preset that can be used for 4K encoding specific for BrightSign players.
Next page:
8. Quality
Content:
1. Introduction
2. Maevex Facts
3. Connecting
4. Streaming Protocols
5. Start Encoding
6. BrightSign Decoders
7. 4K
8. Quality
9. Verdict