Any suggestions for an external media player capable of playing .h264 mp4's at 4k 60fps?

[techyjunkie]

Title says most of it... Any suggestions for an external media player capable of playing .h264 mp4's at 4k 60fps?  Something like this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0986MMXBP/ref=emc_b_5_t 

I have been using NUC's so far per display but would like to find something with a much smaller price tag for adding additional displays. It just needs to smoothly loop a video file with a 2160x3840 resolution for around 9 hrs a day. Thanks!

[jaslion]

How many displays?

 

Because you can just network hdmi connect em which would be the cheapest option depending on what needs to happen

 

Or like a cheap af roku or something

 

Does it need to be 4k?

[techyjunkie]

4, 4k displays. Each needs its own separate video player as each will be playing its own, separate content. I already tried using one NUC with two display outputs, playing the same file (copied), first with two instances of VLC, then one in VLC and one in MPC-HC but the videos just stuttered/jumped around and everything in Task Manager was maxed out. Even my main PC stutters at trying to play 4 instances of my video and that is with an RTX 2080 TI. My video file is a 38 minute, video only (no audio), mostly static images, besides a few scrolling pages, animations or screen transitions. I am hoping to find a Plug & Play, external media player capable of handling high quality 4k video output for each display for less than $200 each.

[emosun]

5 minutes ago, techyjunkie said:

Even my main PC stutters at trying to play 4 instances of my video

well that'll be becuase you exported it at an overly high bitrate for the content especially if the content was simplistic in nature. whats the bitrate of the files and size

[techyjunkie]

I didnt make the video, the media team did. I was just told to figure out how to make it work...

[jaslion]

17 minutes ago, techyjunkie said:

4, 4k displays. Each needs its own separate video player as each will be playing its own, separate content. I already tried using one NUC with two display outputs, playing the same file (copied), first with two instances of VLC, then one in VLC and one in MPC-HC but the videos just stuttered/jumped around and everything in Task Manager was maxed out. Even my main PC stutters at trying to play 4 instances of my video and that is with an RTX 2080 TI. My video file is a 38 minute, video only (no audio), mostly static images, besides a few scrolling pages, animations or screen transitions. I am hoping to find a Plug & Play, external media player capable of handling high quality 4k video output for each display for less than $200 each.

What is the size for that video?

 

Sounds like it was simply exported at a massive bitrate which will cause that issue

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, techyjunkie said:

I didnt make the video, the media team did. I was just told to figure out how to make it work...

Yeah reconvert that to like 7/8MB/s at most and all will play with ease

 

Hell probably 4 is way plenty for a slideshow

 

You are basically pushing above 4k bluray stuff here for no reason.

 

Media team probably used the extreme quality preset which is meant for like movie theather stuff.

 

As a bit of context netflix streams to you between 1-16MB/s bitrate stuff. Most of the time staying at 5 or lower.

[techyjunkie]

I purchased a media player that is capable of playing .h265 files so I am currently trying to simply import the original file and export to an .h265 format at 30fps that provides the same quality look as the original. Using adobe premiere pro for import/export.

[saintlouisbagels]

I don't know if you can call it the "same quality" if you're removing half the frames lol

[techyjunkie]

For mostly static content, it appears to be the same quality. Once it starts to scroll yes, there is a noticeable difference in overall quality. I have another media player on the way that claims to play up to 4k/60hz/fps... Hoping it will solve the quality issues I am experiencing with the current unit that only plays up to 4k/30hz/fps. 

 

Thanks for all the input so far, keep it coming! 

[dalekphalm]

7 hours ago, techyjunkie said:

I purchased a media player that is capable of playing .h265 files so I am currently trying to simply import the original file and export to an .h265 format at 30fps that provides the same quality look as the original. Using adobe premiere pro for import/export.

Is there a reason your "media team" isn't doing that?

 

You should simply request they export a new version of the files with the specs you want (framerate and bitrate).

 

As noted, your video file is 37 minutes long, 35 Mbps bitrate, and 60 FPS. That file is probably huge - I'd guess around 10 GB, give or take.

 

Your media team needs to optimize this video - using an appropriate framerate and bitrate for the content. Without knowing exactly what the content is, you can probably reduce the bitrate down to something like 2 Mbps, and depending on whether the video features high speed motion content or not, you probably don't need 30 FPS either. Have them reencode the file at a lower bitrate and framerate and compare it to the larger "master" file, and see if there's any major noticeable difference.

[techyjunkie]

So... just incase someone else reads through this at some point and wants to know what I ended up using...  https://a.co/d/789eiNw It will play 4k@60fps so long as its in the .h265 format. I am currently using three of them with three different displays to play 3 separate videos on loop 24/7. Plus they each have enough onboard storage that I dont have to have a USB stick hanging out of it at all times. When I do have to turn them off/on, they autoplay the files I have pre selected. Pretty solid for $89. I haven't even tapped into the network functionality of the units yet...