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 5 inch touchscreen for the Pi.
But this?
This is the NEC Multisync 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 at the store.
Why?
Because it's running Linux!
Heck, there's a Pi 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.
Then 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 Saint Louis and almost every other store had at
least one or two of these displays.
I found a video wall at Bath & 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 foot court had video menus, which lets them change their menu without
having to re-print 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 touchscreen display on the Zoomaroo
kid cart rental.
These signs are everywhere!
And a lot of 'em have an embedded computer like a Pi running some software that plays
back video.
And that computer 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 MediaPlayer, and that's what they shipped
with this TV.
MediaPlayer's a basic display OS that lets you play videos from USB, internal storage,
or over the network, or even run a browser window fullscreen so you could have your website
display some animations 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, MediaPlayer worked great, though I did notice a couple quirks.
Because of the Pi's processor, you can only playback HD footage, not 4K.
The Pi's just not fast enough to play back in 4K without some highly specialized formats,
so MediaPlayer 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 from there.
MediaPlayer 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 MediaPlayer 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 MediaPlayer 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 MediaPlayer.
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
Pis, and look at that!
RetroPie built straight into this thing!
One thing to note is their carrier card only supports eMMC versions of the Compute Module
4.
Most boards have a separate microSD card slot so you can use 'lite' Compute Modules like
this one, but this board doesn't work with those.
But if retro gaming isn't your thing, and MediaPlayer's display-oriented features aren't
what you're looking for, what about a media player like LibreELEC?
I flashed that to another Compute Module, and replaced the MediaPlayer 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 Kodi 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 Kodi, so I could watch any of my movies or TV episodes on my NAS,
straight through the Pi.
But wait.
The Pi's a computer, can it just... boot Linux?
Well, yeah, of course!
I flashed Pi OS on here, and it boots up right into the desktop you know and love.
And what's cool about running Pi OS is I can plug a keyboard and mouse into this thing,
and manage the display's settings right from the Pi, through it's built-in serial connection!
And I can do that over SSH, too.
So the display's running it's own OS and network, and the Pi's on it's 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 serial bus 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 and a cheaper consumer display?
It's 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 wanna plug your Raspberry Pi into a TV, you can do that.
Heck, there are even industrial Pi manufacturers who make VESA-mount-compatible carrier boards
like this one from Lincoln-Binns.
I'll be talking about industrial Pis like this in a future video, so subscribe!
But this display isn't meant for a home user's 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 gonna 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 Geerling.