Any ideas why my 4k TV won't smoothly play 4k video's from a USB port?

bobert50

bobert50

bobert50

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Hi, I'd be very verrrrry grateful for any help with this. I have a Samsung ue48ju6400k TV, with a 4k panel/native resolution, but when I try to play any sort of 4k/UHD content from anything on a USB (by plugging it into the side of the TV), it just stutters constantly and just isn't watchable.

I just thought I would ask all you knowledgeable chaps in here in case it actually is a simple fix/solution. It's been driving me nuts for ages now!
 
The USB tends to be an actual USB 2.0 hard drive, but it works fine on my friend's 4K TV's, leading me to believe that it is an issue with mine.
 
I'm actually now starting to doubt myself about the usb 2.0 thing! Or whether it was the exact same hard drive with friends. I'll check tonight!
 
bobert50 said:
The USB tends to be an actual USB 2.0 hard drive, but it works fine on my friend's 4K TV's, leading me to believe that it is an issue with mine.
Click to expand...

USB 2 has a bandwidth of a mere 480 Mbps; USB 3 has a bandwidth of 5 Gbps. Uncompressed UHD requires a bandwidtrh of 12 Gbps, so only a relatively modest compression is needed for USB 3 but a severe compression is needed for USB 2.

I wonder if it's a USB 3 drive in a USB 2 port and your friend's TV has a USB 3 port?
 
Thank you very much everybody for the help :) much appreciated. I'm thinking at this point that the ports on the TV appear to be USB3 (blue), but the external being used is actually probably USB 2.0. I'm hoping to try a USB 3.0 drive sometime soon and i'll report back here if it fixes it, but I'm actually presuming that it will at this stage.

Thank you for the explanation of the exact bandwidths required, Quartz, I'm starting to see a possible problem!
 
Unfortunately, I've had the TV quite a while now and have misplaced the manual's and such. Details online seem vague at best for such a specific model.
 
So the issue some times is with the usb2 speed, but also the codec that the tv supports. My old plasma tv would play things that my newer Panasonic 4k tv cannot play, or plays without sound, and some 4k files it struggles.
I also noticed that with a crappy hdd the tv struggled while with a fast usb3 flash drive it played a bit better although it stuttered just a bit less.
 
Thankyou Quartz and everybody else for the help. I've finally got to test this issue and it was indeed me being thick and using a usb 2.0 previously :) It works flawlessly using a usb 3.0 drive, thanks!
 
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