Cast 4K video from 1080p PC to 4K smart TV?

Question

My PC has a 1080p screen resolution. My graphic card is a GTX 1070 (which I suppose should handle 4K video). I have a 4K smart TV (Hitachi 49f566w654). In my Nvidia config panel (right click on desktop), I can't go above a 1080p resolution.

I'd like to cast a 4K video file from my computer (Windows 10 Family) to my TV. I tried using an HDMI cable, but I feel like the output on the TV wasn't 4K (I don't know how to check though). I haven't tried playing the file while connected by Bluetooth, but when connected by Bluetooth it seems that my screen is also extended: I can choose duplicate screen and so on.

Alternately, is there a way to cast a 4K video in 4K from my laptop (HP OMEN 17 w101nf running Windows 10 Family) to my TV ?

Otherwise, do you know how I could play my files on the TV ? (I tried using an external drive but it wasn't formatted the correct way for my TV and was declined).

Answer 1

Different 4K TVs have different capabilities. I couldn't find any specs for yours, so I'll keep this general.

Video Direct Connection

• Your PC graphics card and HDMI port (GTX 1070) handles 4K @60Hz (make sure the cable is high speed and you're using the card's own HDMI port). 4K output isn't common on general purpose laptops, but yours appears to have a 4K display and an HDMI 2.0 port, so it should output 4K video and the setup should be even simpler than on the PC.

• On the laptop, you should get 4K output regardless of the multi-monitor settings because that's what it is supplying to the internal monitor.

  On the PC, it appears that your main monitor is 1080p. Make sure you've selected a multi-monitor option that sends different content to the TV (extends rather than duplicates, otherwise, what you send will be limited to the resolution of the main monitor). If it sees the TV as an independent display rather than a duplicate of the main monitor, the config panel should show options higher than 1080p for it.

• If the config panel shows a maximum of 1080p, that's the maximum that will be sent. The TV will scale it internally to 4K, which will look better than 1080p, but not as good as true 4K.
• Of course the content needs to be 4K to get true 4K. Content less than 4K will get upscaled.

USB Drive

• Some TVs will work with only flash drives, some will also work with hard drives formatted FAT32 and a single partition. Some will handle images but not videos on a USB drive. Try using a flash drive formatted FAT32 if what failed was a USB hard drive.

Casting

• If you are having trouble getting a direct video connection to work, it may be easier to cast, and you can do it from either machine (the laptop or PC's video hardware doesn't come into play). There have been a number of casting apps and dongles for awhile, but Google Chromecast has simplified it to an easy setup and a mouse-click to cast.

  If the TV has Chromecast built-in, you don't even need the Chromecast dongle (if you do need the dongle, get the newer Chromecast Ultra, which handles 4K; the non-Ultra version goes up to only 1080p).

• For online content, you just need an extension for your browser. I understand it may even be built into current versions of Google Chrome. If you prefer not to use Chrome, there is a free open-source version of the extension in the Chrome Store that will work with Chromium (the open source code base for Chrome that doesn't include Google data mining), and Chromium-based browsers like Vivaldi. From Add Extensions, search the store for Cast With MkChromecast.

  After the extension is installed, you will get a Cast icon in your browser, and typically on the toolbar of the viewer. You use the viewer settings button to select the highest resolution format of the content and then click the cast button.

• For video files stored on your computer that you want to stream directly, you need to install a streaming application that can output the Chromecast format. The free VLC version 3.0 contains that, and runs on all of the common OSes. There are also other apps. If you don't like VLC, do a Google search for other free apps and experiment.