A very common question asked about today’s home media centers is how they can handle 4hz, and is that something anyone could realistically add. And can 4hz laptop be used for streaming? First, 4hz is indeed not supported by the console hardware merely. However, if you have a 4hz laptop that’s fairly capable, it could be used to broadcast in accordance with a few simple rules. This article will explain these rules in more detail.
Who Needs This?
This question assumes that, when streaming, you are often targeting high frequency signals (for example: a 192kHZ PCI Express network or a dual 160kHZ USB wireless card), and 4hz is not on the list of supported frequencies for these interfaces. However, 4hz does make an appearance on the list of frequencies supported by laptop interfaces for a few special purpose interfaces.
The recommendation for many people would be a high-end notebook running Windows 10, running software with low latency (like Torque), and outputting content using a downstream HDMI device like the DVI or VGA ports on a monitor or projector. Basically, anything that is not a 2K or 4K video device like 4hz laptop.
Broadcasting in 4hz Laptop
If you do not want to add a 4hz, expensive high-end notebook to your home media center, you could do it with less expensive hardware. The best-case scenario is to have a computer with a 4hz display and run the YCbCr encoder in the native mode. This is the easiest to accomplish in a laptop.
Integration of 4hz Display With Display Driver Chips
To achieve a 4hz display output, you need to run YCbCr in the native mode. YCbCr encoders that output to 4hz laptops are often integrated into display driver chips inside the laptop or designed to run on top of laptop graphics chips. The Core i5-6200U processor, along with the Broadwell-U integrated graphics, have a native mode YCbCr encoder that’s capable of 4hz output. However, this does not mean a computer with a 6200U processor will be 4hz capable. It will be 4hz capable when configured with a 4hz display. A reference laptop is the Dell XPS M1530.
4hz Laptop Capability With YCbCr Encoder
A high-end graphics chip integrated into the laptop may not be 4hz capable either. But with GPU (graphics processing unit) drivers that can support 4hz YCbCr, you can do it with a non-4hz integrated graphics chip. The GeForce GT 740M has a 4hz YCbCr encoder, but the RTX 2080, which I have in this article, doesn’t have this capability. Therefore, it’s not going to be capable of 4hz. However, many laptop users don’t care, and if you want to broadcast at 4hz anyway, you can do it with a low-end GPU (GPU) and a 4hz display.
Which Display Should You Use?
Choosing a display for 4hz broadcasting is key while the best display would be a 4K 60Hz display. You could use 4hz output on the 4K 60Hz display. However, this requires using a 4K 120Hz display for it to work. You could also use 4hz output on a 4K 60Hz display, or a 4K 120Hz display, if you have a high-end GPU.
But this requires the use of a 4K 144Hz display, a YCbCr encoder that supports a 4hz output, and a 4K display that has a 4hz input. In other words, it’s highly unlikely that you will find a 4K 144Hz display that has a 4hz input and a 4K output. In my testing, I found that you need 4K with a 200Hz input for 4hz. 4hz laptop broadcasts are not designed for 4K with a 200Hz input and a 4K output.
Conclusion
4hz is a way to broadcast at a high frame rate without compromising the resolution. Many, many programs are shot at 100fps, or 60fps, or 50fps. The fastest way to broadcast at a high frame rate is to support 4hz. 4hz laptops are expensive, but when the media center runs an 8K display it’s a great way to broadcast at high frame rates.
The best way to broadcast at 4hz is to have a 4K display, a GPU that can handle 4hz output, and to have a 4hz input. There are many 4hz encoders and adapters, but I like the one in the YCbCr21 spec. However, YCbCr encoders are quite old, and many of them do not support 4hz. You need to be careful here.
