Best video card for 4K videos and photos?

[fbures]

I just gave myself a gift for my birthday - LG OLED65B7P.
Unfortunately my oldish NVIDIA card cannot drive it in 4K.
Being financially exhausted I am looking for a new reasonably priced video card capable of 4k via HDMI 2.0 that would work with STV. No money left for GFX1080

I would appreciate any recommendations in this regard. My rig is 8-core AMD FX @ 3.8 GHz with 16 GB memory.

Frank

[SHS]

What do you have now?.
Bare min is going to be
GeForce GTX 970/980 on up
RX 480/Fury on up

I recommend starting
GeForce GTX 10?0
RX 5?0

[wayner]

What content will you be watching in 4K from your computer?

Can SageTV playback 4K content if you have such video files? As far as I know there aren't any capture devices which capture 4K content, assuming that you have a 4K box from your cable or satellite company. And there isn't any 4K OTA broadcasting yet as far as I know.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by wayner

What content will you be watching in 4K from your computer?

Can SageTV playback 4K content if you have such video files? As far as I know there aren't any capture devices which capture 4K content, assuming that you have a 4K box from your cable or satellite company. And there isn't any 4K OTA broadcasting yet as far as I know.

It may surprise to know there but there a number 4k capture card out there but real problem is there petty much all of them are Software Encoding there usually listed as Native UVC (Uncompressed Video Capture) and UAC (Uncompressed Audio Capture) and range from $300 to $500 dollars, rumor that Elgato has one in the work but at this time I do know if it going to be real-time encoding, but for now we need work get H.265/HEVC support, Far I know of Hauppauge has nothing in the works.

[fbures]

Originally Posted by wayner

What content will you be watching in 4K from your computer?

Can SageTV playback 4K content if you have such video files? As far as I know there aren't any capture devices which capture 4K content, assuming that you have a 4K box from your cable or satellite company.

I would like to display my photo library (45k+ photos) via STV and maybe watch some 4k content from Netflix and possibly Amazon directly (no STV), if available. No gaming.

I found that THE card for this purpose is GTX 1080 - rather pricy though.

I was wondering how low on the totem pole of cards can I go to lower the price and still have 4k and HDMI 2.0 capability with no gaming. Internet sources are quite contradictory in this regard.

My current card is NVIDIA 550.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by fbures

I would like to display my photo library (45k+ photos) via STV and maybe watch some 4k content from Netflix and possibly Amazon directly (no STV), if available. No gaming.

I found that THE card for this purpose is GTX 1080 - rather pricy though.

I was wondering how low on the totem pole of cards can I go to lower the price and still have 4k and HDMI 2.0 capability with no gaming. Internet sources are quite contradictory in this regard.

My current card is NVIDIA 550.

You will probably have to research as it seems like getting streaming 4K video on a PC is still kind of hit and miss.

Here is an article from a few months ago https://www.pcworld.com/article/3193...ics-cards.html

What about 4k BluRay rips - will you be watching those - assuming they are available.

Are you sure that SageTV will output at 4K for the photos?

[SWKerr]

Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti
This card should be able to do what you want for video playback but gaming would be limited at 4k.

The price of 4k class video cards is over the top due to crypto miners buying them all up. The GTX 1060 3gb would be a step up but unless you want to do gaming probably not worth it. The list price of the GTX 1060 6GB or AMD 570/580 would be perfect if you could actually find one at that price.

The Xbox One S is actually a great deal for 4K. Can stream and play 4K disks in the $250-300 price range.

My FireTV also supports 4k but without HDR. The new version should be out soon that better supports 4k and has integrated Alexa voice controls and IR blaster.

Roku and newest Chromcast also support 4k.

But note not a lot of 4k content right now anyway.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by fbures

I would like to display my photo library (45k+ photos) via STV and maybe watch some 4k content from Netflix and possibly Amazon directly (no STV), if available. No gaming.

I found that THE card for this purpose is GTX 1080 - rather pricy though.

I was wondering how low on the totem pole of cards can I go to lower the price and still have 4k and HDMI 2.0 capability with no gaming. Internet sources are quite contradictory in this regard.

My current card is NVIDIA 550.

GTX 1050 has 2x more performance or 1050 Ti has 3x performance more even the low end GTX 1060 3GB has 4x the performance over that GTX 550 Ti and 10?0-series have support for DP 1.43, HDMI 2.0b, Dual Link-DVI

HDMI Version: 2.0b
Max Resolution: 4K
Max 4K Frame rate: 60Hz
HDCP 2.2: Yes
HDR: Yes
WCG: Yes
Hybrid Log Gamma: Yes
Dynamic Metadata: No

As for Dynamic Metadata you have wait for HDMI 2.1 support

Same with AMD RX 5?0-series

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by fbures

I would like to display my photo library (45k+ photos) via STV and maybe watch some 4k content from Netflix and possibly Amazon directly (no STV), if available. No gaming.

I found that THE card for this purpose is GTX 1080 - rather pricy though.

I was wondering how low on the totem pole of cards can I go to lower the price and still have 4k and HDMI 2.0 capability with no gaming.

All you need is a GT 1030. It has the full Pascal feature set for multimedia, which means it handles h265, VP9, and h264 60 hz 4K via HDMI. You can get one of these cards for about $70. It is characterized as being capable of "moderate-level" gaming, but for video and photo work it is more than adequate.

I currently have a GT 1030 in a small-form-factor (Shuttle) case with a quad-core AMD processor and it plays hardware-decoded 4K content smoothly ...

[wayner]

Can you confirm that the 1030 supports Netflix streamed 4K content? Is that through the Netflix Win10 app, or through Edge or Chrome?

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by wayner

Can you confirm that the 1030 supports Netflix streamed 4K content? Is that through the Netflix Win10 app, or through Edge or Chrome?

I don't have a Netflix account, and I don't know what standard they use for their 4K content, but the card can decode 4K 60fps YouTube content. This system has 32-bit Win 7 installed ...

[wayner]

Originally Posted by jchiso

I don't have a Netflix account, and I don't know what standard they use for their 4K content, but the card can decode 4K 60fps YouTube content. This system has 32-bit Win 7 installed ...

This is from that PC World article that I linked to above. It is from May so it is somewhat obsolete by now...

The hardware and software needs for Nvidia’s version of 4K Netflix are a little more complicated than Intel’s for now, though you don’t need a cutting-edge processor to get it to work. The CPU doesn’t matter since the 4K decoding is happening on the discrete graphics card. Nvidia requires a GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card or higher with at least 3GB of RAM to stream 4K Netflix videos.

That effectively means you need the GTX 1050 Ti or greater since, there’s only a 2GB version of the GTX 1050—unless Nvidia just inadvertently tipped its hand for a future product release. As this is an early preview, perhaps the 3GB requirement will change, because frankly that limitation really sucks for anyone who bought the GTX 1050 as an ideal discrete graphics card for a home theater PC.

Beyond the graphics card, you need an HDCP 2.2 capable monitor or television set, and an Internet connection around 25Mbps or faster.

As for the software, 4K Netflix needs a Windows Insider preview version of Windows 10—presumably the more recent post-Creators Update releases. The reason being is that the required GeForce driver for 4K Netflix—381.74—is only available for Windows Insiders right now. As with Kaby Lake's 4K Netflix support, you’ll need to stream the content via Microsoft Edge or the Netflix app in the Windows Store. Other browsers will stream at lower resolutions.

Nvidia is also adding two very important caveats. 4K Netflix will only work if all your active monitors support HDCP 2.2. Anyone with a multi-monitor set-up will have to deactivate monitors with HDCP 1.x when streaming. SLI fans are also going to have problems. Currently, 4K streaming doesn’t work on PCs with multiple graphics cards, meaning you’ll have to unlink your GPUs before booting up Netflix.

The story behind the story: It’s not clear when Nvidia’s 4K Netflix streaming will go mainstream. AnandTech reports that the Creators Update added several new API calls for PlayReady, suggesting that the operating system may have been the hold-up in getting 4K Netflix on Pascal GPUs.

If anyone has a more recent update it would be interesting to see what the latest requirements are.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by wayner

Can you confirm that the 1030 supports Netflix streamed 4K content? Is that through the Netflix Win10 app, or through Edge or Chrome?

Sorry doesn't
Just make sure you get 1050 with 4GB ram the min 3GB but only 1060 can be pick with 3GB

[wayner]

Exactly - the 1050 can theoretically support it as long as it has 3GB but it appears that you can't get a 1050s with more than 2GB of RAM.

[jchiso]

Man, those are some crazy requirements. As I mentioned, I don't have Netflix, but it makes it appear as though they do not want any PC-based streaming ...

[wayner]

I don't know if it is Netflix's fault or the hardware makers or Hollywood.

But if you want 4K content Netflix has been an early adopter. I believe they have more 4K content than what you get from other sources, although 4K TV channels are starting to appear as are 4K BluRays. I think most (or all?) of their Netflix produced content has been in 4K for a couple of years now.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by wayner

Exactly - the 1050 can theoretically support it as long as it has 3GB but it appears that you can't get a 1050s with more than 2GB of RAM.

Oh carp your right I guest have pony up for GTX 1050 Ti then or get AMD RX 550

Originally Posted by wayner

I don't know if it is Netflix's fault or the hardware makers or Hollywood.

But if you want 4K content Netflix has been an early adopter. I believe they have more 4K content than what you get from other sources, although 4K TV channels are starting to appear as are 4K BluRays. I think most (or all?) of their Netflix produced content has been in 4K for a couple of years now.

The market is still petty small but help lee they get in to full swing and updating TV station hardware and make full use Of ATSC 3.0

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by wayner

... But if you want 4K content Netflix has been an early adopter. I believe they have more 4K content than what you get from other sources .,.

I don't really watch episodic television or movies much, but DirecTV does offer 4K on most of big-budget blockbusters. They've also broadcast MLB Network Games of the Week, some NBA (Nuggets, Bulls) games, and multiple channels of golf majors. Inasmuch as most of what I watch is sports I'm hoping that MSG and SNY begin offering 4K feeds before too long. I'm sure ESPN will get there eventually, but I'd rather have (NY) Rangers and Mets games than generic ESPN ...

[wayner]

Here in Canada Rogers cable has been an early adopter of 4K. For the 2016 and 2017 season all Toronto Blue Jays home games have been shown in 4K. They also have some NHL games and a few Raptors NBA games in 4K. But the problem is that they only have a non-DVR 4K cable box and who wants to watch live TV? The other problem is that there doesn't seem to be a way to get this content into SageTV which we discuss in posts 3&4 of this thread.

Does DirecTV have 4K satellite boxes with DVR?

It seems like we are moving to a world where streaming is the way to watch most content but they are sure making it difficult to watch on a P.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by SHS

The market is still petty small but help lee they get in to full swing and updating TV station hardware and make full use Of ATSC 3.0

It seems like South Korea is far ahead of North America on this. And it isn't clear where the bandwidth for ATSC 3.0 stations will come from, at least not from this Wikipedia article:

Unlike the transition from NTSC analog broadcast to ATSC 1.0 digital transmission, the FCC will not allocate a second channel to each broadcaster to enable a gradual consumer transition. Instead, it has been suggested that multiple broadcasters in each market cooperate by locating multiple degraded ATSC 1.0 services on a single "lighthouse" transmitter. At the same time, the broadcasters would share the remaining transmitters for ATSC 3.0 transmissions. After sufficient consumer adoption, ATSC 1.0 transmissions would be abandoned, allowing stations to return to operation on their owned transmitters. It is unclear how the complications of this approach would be overcome, especially in light of the pending spectrum auction which will reduce the amount of available spectrum in heavily populated markets.