Smarter than a Smart TV! (Raspberry Pi Inside)

this is not a tv hey that's my line anyways it's actually a display powered by a raspberry pi usually when someone says raspberry pi display you probably think about something like this it's a five inch touch screen for the pi but this this is the nec multi-sync ma551 but it's not a tv it's a display and it's a lot smarter than any of the terrible smart tvs you'll find in a store why because it's running linux heck there's a pie in here so i could run kodi or retropie right on the display for the ultimate living room tv just you know without the tv part the funny thing is even though this isn't considered a tv it's probably the best tv i've ever used and that's because nec makes this display for the commercial market oh i'm sorry sharp nec display solutions of america i'll just call them sharp nec for the rest of this video instead of installing spyware or tons of buggy apps on their tv they build these displays to run all day every day and they also make versions for outdoor use they even include cool features like automatic failover to different inputs if one fails power schedules and complete remote control either over the network through the pi or even this built-in rs-232 serial port now a display like this one costs a lot more than the typical tv you'll find at the electronics store but why well take a closer look next time you visit a mall i walked around one of the malls in st louis and almost every other store had at least one or two of these displays i found a video wall at bath and body works then across the way another one at sunglass hut then i found another sunglass hut i guess it was two stores for one at the galleria but that one only had a couple displays and they weren't synchronized some restaurants in the food court had video menus which lets them change their menu without having to reprint menu signs and of course an eyeglass store has to have a display just to show a picture of a lady in prada glasses and lush was using a display for some inspirational quotes heck even our favorite fruity store gets in on the action with four synced displays at the genius bar i don't think those are studio displays back there when i was walking out i noticed they even had a giant touch screen display on the zumeru kidkart rental these signs are everywhere and a lot of them have an embedded computer like a pi running some software that plays back video and that software allows them to be managed over a network not all these displays run on a pi but nowadays with how tiny and powerful the compute module 4 is integrating it into a public display or even a full display wall is easier and cheaper than ever and to show that i put this display together last week you know what the easiest part was sliding in the compute module 4. all i had to do was unscrew this cover slide in the pi board and screw it back in that's it now this slot is special it looks similar to intel's sdm standard or smart display module but it's not you can actually run it alongside certain intel sdms for redundant media sources in case one breaks but a compute module is what really makes this display smarter than a smart tv smart tvs usually run a slow embedded processor running a proprietary operating system the compute module is literally a raspberry pi you can install whatever you want on it but sharp nec maintains a custom os called media player and that's what they shipped with this tv media player is a basic display os that lets you play videos from usb internal storage or over the network or even run a browser window full screen so you can have your website display some animation if you want the os is meant as a simple interface for mom and pop shops or smaller installations where you might have a few displays on a local network you can even manage the display over the network by enabling the browser client setting though it looks like the browser client is meant to be run on a browser window a bit larger than the one i was using to record this anyways media player worked great though i did notice a couple quirks because of the pi's processor you can only play back hd footage not 4k the pi's just not fast enough to play back in 4k without some highly specialized formats so media player doesn't allow it also the manual stated i could use a keyboard for navigation and usb flash drives but i found out i actually had to restart the compute module to get the keyboard to work and usb flash drives currently have to use fat32 or i think ntfs the exfat formatted one i tried wasn't recognized but playback worked great and i'll give you a little demo of how the speakers sound too i also copied some files to internal storage and they play back fine there too media player remembers what you played last time and if there's a power outage or you restart the tv it'll pick right back up playing those clips again and updating media player was painless though the process did result in a bunch of restarts i just had to make sure the pi was connected to the internet and it downloaded and installed the latest version but media player is just a lightweight way to get the display up and running if you're running hundreds or thousands of these things in multiple locations you'd probably spring for a cloud signage service like one of the many vendors listed in the apps section of media player but like i said earlier you can run anything on the pi i flashed retropie to this compute module and i just pulled out the carrier board swapped pi's and look at that retropie built straight into this thing one thing to note is their carrier board only supports emmc versions of the compute module 4. most boards have a separate microsd card slot so you can use light compute modules like this one but this board doesn't work with those and if retro gaming isn't your thing and media players display oriented features aren't what you're looking for what about a media player like libra elec i flash that to another compute module and replace the media player module with it and it worked right away too the coolest part is it looks like the team at sharp nec put everything on the default gpio pins and usb internally meaning the display's remote worked with cody out of the box i didn't have to configure anything you could probably also use osmc or even plex if you want but i was able to connect my jellyfin library to cody so i could watch any of my movies or tv episodes from my nas straight through the pie but wait the pi is a computer can it just boot linux well yeah of course i flashed pios on here and it boots right up into the desktop you know and love and what's cool about running pios is i can plug a keyboard and mouse into this thing and manage the display settings right from the pi through its built-in serial connection and i can do that over ssh too so the display is running on its own os and network and the pi's on its own os and can connect to another network but wait what if something locks up well that's another reason displays like these cost more this display has features like failover settings so you can have multiple inputs and if one dies it'll switch to another it can be managed either by sirobus or ethernet it can be rotated 90 degrees and be used in portrait orientation like some of those signs at the mall but the biggest difference between a commercial display like this one and a cheaper consumer display this one is built to run forever well at least for years 24 7 365. the lcd is more robust it has fans and temperature sensors to prevent overheating and it has scheduling so you can have it off for times like when your business is closed you can even daisy chain multiple displays together which is how i could record some of the display's output for this video to my little external recorder the thing also has giant carrying handles to make moving it easier and there are even little details like a set of ada compliant mounting brackets for the speakers so they're in the proper position but this is not the best display money can buy there are consumer oleds with more color saturation and brightness just for fun i plugged in my gaming pc and played some halo infinite it looks great certainly usable for me since i'm not a pro or anything but there are gaming panels with faster refresh and response times this display maxes out at 60 hertz with an 8 millisecond response time but this display isn't built to be the best gaming or living room tv it's built to render colors in places where color matters a lot provide helpful information like departure schedules menus and more and do it all day every day and the compute module 4 isn't all rainbows and butterflies either the silicon inside can't handle 4k streams cleanly so even though the pi 4 can output 4k resolution natively it can't do much at that resolution so sharp nec decided to keep it running at 1080p in media player not that it makes much of a difference if you're more than like 2 feet away now if you want to plug your raspberry pi into a tv you can do that heck there are even industrial pie manufacturers who make vesa mount compatible carrier boards like this one from lincoln bins i'll be talking about industrial pies like this in a future video so subscribe but this display isn't meant for a home users media center it's a workhorse it can be used in a variety of situations and with its built-in redundancy scheduling and rugged design it should last a long time doing it there are also other built-in computer options like this intel atom model but the pi option costs a little less and uses a little less energy which is great for a device that's going to be running pretty much all day every day next time you go to a museum or a shopping mall take a look around i bet you'll find at least one display running a raspberry pi until next time i'm jeff gearling

Channel: Jeff Geerling

Views: 2,041,439

Keywords: raspberry pi, compute module, cm4, nec, sharp, display, monitor, tv, television, hd, hdr, uhd, 4k, business, commercial, industrial, signboard, os, pi, computer, sdm, smart display module, module, board, modular, signwall, wall, stand, mall, shopping, airport, status, signage, control, remote, mediaplayer, solution, kodi, libreelec, retropie, halo, infinite, pc, gaming, oled, refresh, response, time, rate, color, saturation, review, test

Id: -epPf7D8oMk

Length: 9min 10sec (550 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 08 2022