What is the EDID for a Silo SL-42V1 (4K TV)

Question

What is the EDID for a Silo SL-42V1?

The local Fry's has this 4K TV for relatively cheap (probably because it doesn't have all the embedded "smarts" of high-end TVs that really belong in replaceable external boxes) and I'm curious how well it would work as a monitor.

As an example of what information I want, this is the info from a laptop's built-in screen:

 bubastis:514 $ xrandr --verbose | perl -ne 'print if ( (/EDID/...!/^\s*[0-9a-f]+\s*$/i) )'
        EDID: 
                00ffffffffffff0006afed2100000000
                041501049022137802e2b59e59529926
                1e505400000001010101010101010101
                010101010101b03680a2703828403064
                aa0058c21000001ab036805872383441
                3064aa0058c21000001a000000fe0046
                324a3558804231353648573200000000
                000041219e0000000002010a202000b3
        BorderDimensions: 4 
 bubastis:515 $ xrandr --verbose | perl -ne 'if ( (/EDID/...!/^\s*[0-9a-f]+\s*$/i)  && /^\s*[0-9a-f]+\s*$/i ) { s/\s+//g; print pack("H*", $_); } ' | parse-edid
Checksum Correct

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier ""
        ModelName ""
        VendorName "AUO"
        # Monitor Manufactured week 4 of 2011
        # EDID version 1.4
        # Digital Display
        DisplaySize 340 190
        Gamma 2.20
        Option "DPMS" "false"
        Modeline        "Mode 0" +hsync -vsync 
        Modeline        "Mode 1" +hsync -vsync 
EndSection

Answer 1

Here is the output of parse-edid that you requested for a Silo SL-42V1, HDMI ports 1, 2 and 4. HDMI 3 is different (more on that below, after the "EndSection" line, along with additional comments).

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "4K2K TV"
    ModelName "4K2K TV"
    VendorName "XXX"
    # Monitor Manufactured week 1 of 2013
    # EDID version 1.3
    # Digital Display
    # Display Physical Size not given. Normal for projectors.
    Gamma 2.20
    Option "DPMS" "false"
    Horizsync 30-68
    VertRefresh 23-75
    # Maximum pixel clock is 300MHz
    #Not giving standard mode: 1440x900, 60Hz
    #Not giving standard mode: 1680x1050, 60Hz
    #Not giving standard mode: 1600x900, 60Hz

    #Extension block found. Parsing...
    Modeline        "Mode 18" 148.50 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync 
    Modeline        "Mode 0" 297.00 3840 4016 4104 4400 2160 2168 2178 2250 +hsync +vsync 
    Modeline        "Mode 1" 148.50 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync 
    Modeline        "Mode 2" 148.500 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync
    Modeline        "Mode 3" 74.250 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1082 1087 1125 +hsync +vsync interlace
    Modeline        "Mode 4" 74.250 1280 1390 1420 1650 720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync
    Modeline        "Mode 5" 27.027 720 736 798 858 480 489 495 525 -hsync -vsync
    Modeline        "Mode 6" 27.027 720 736 798 858 480 489 495 525 -hsync -vsync
    Modeline        "Mode 7" 27.027 1440 1478 1602 1716 480 484 487 525 -hsync -vsync interlace
    Modeline        "Mode 8" 27.027 1440 1478 1602 1716 480 484 487 525 -hsync -vsync interlace
    Modeline        "Mode 9" 27.000 720 732 796 864 576 581 586 625 -hsync -vsync
    Modeline        "Mode 10" 27.000 720 732 796 864 576 581 586 625 -hsync -vsync
    Modeline        "Mode 11" 74.250 1280 1720 1760 1980 720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync
    Modeline        "Mode 12" 74.250 1920 2448 2492 2640 1080 1082 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync interlace
    Modeline        "Mode 13" 27.000 1440 1464 1590 1728 576 578 581 625 -hsync -vsync interlace
    Modeline        "Mode 14" 27.000 1440 1464 1590 1728 576 578 581 625 -hsync -vsync interlace
    Modeline        "Mode 15" 148.500 1920 2448 2492 2640 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync
    Modeline        "Mode 16" 25.200 640 656 752 800 480 490 492 525 -hsync -vsync
    Modeline        "Mode 17" 74.250 1920 2558 2602 2750 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync
    Modeline        "Mode 19" 74.25 1920 2008 2052 2200 540 542 547 562 +hsync +vsync interlace
    Modeline        "Mode 20" 27.00 720 736 794 858 480 489 495 525 -hsync -vsync 
    Modeline        "Mode 21" 27.00 720 736 798 858 480 489 495 525 -hsync -vsync 
    Option "PreferredMode" "Mode 18"
EndSection

Here is a "diff -u" of the differences between the output of that command between HDMI 1 and HDMI 3 (followed by further comments, after "END OF DIFF").

--- decoded.hdmi1       2015-09-02 03:09:17.203373963 -0700
+++ decoded.hdmi3       2015-09-02 03:20:03.719364530 -0700
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Section "Monitor"
-       Identifier "4K2K TV"
-       ModelName "4K2K TV"
+       Identifier "FullHD TV"
+       ModelName "FullHD TV"
        VendorName "XXX"
        # Monitor Manufactured week 1 of 2013
        # EDID version 1.3
@@ -8,17 +8,17 @@
        # Display Physical Size not given. Normal for projectors.
        Gamma 2.20
        Option "DPMS" "false"
-       Horizsync 30-68
-       VertRefresh 23-75
-       # Maximum pixel clock is 300MHz
+       Horizsync 30-80
+       VertRefresh 56-75
+       # Maximum pixel clock is 160MHz
        #Not giving standard mode: 1440x900, 60Hz
        #Not giving standard mode: 1680x1050, 60Hz
        #Not giving standard mode: 1600x900, 60Hz

        #Extension block found. Parsing...
        Modeline        "Mode 18" 148.50 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync 
-       Modeline        "Mode 0" 297.00 3840 4016 4104 4400 2160 2168 2178 2250 +hsync +vsync 
-       Modeline        "Mode 1" 148.50 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync 
+       Modeline        "Mode 0" 148.50 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync 
+       Modeline        "Mode 1" 85.50 1360 1424 1536 1792 768 771 777 795 +hsync +vsync 
        Modeline        "Mode 2" 148.500 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync
        Modeline        "Mode 3" 74.250 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1082 1087 1125 +hsync +vsync interlace
        Modeline        "Mode 4" 74.250 1280 1390 1420 1650 720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync

-------------------------END OF DIFF--------------------------------

HDMI 3 appears not to advertise 4k support, and, indeed, when I plug my HDMI cable into HDMI 3, the monitor displays a message claiming that the video is 1920x1080, and I see what appears to be the upper left quadrant of my 3840x2160 frame buffer. When I do this, this pixels are blurry and I see horizontal line flashes, perhaps one pixel tall now and then. My guess is that HDMI3 is the HDMI 2.0 port and it somehow does not play well with HDMI 1 (1.4, I think) trying to output 3840x2160 at 30 frames per second.

I suspect that if you plugged in a HDMI 2.0 source, which I think is currently only available for general purpose computers from some nVidia cards, that HDMI #3 might notice and advertise a different EDID.

Fry's has made the offer you describe again for those who subscribe to their online discount codes, and I think it is valid this time through September 5th. I bought mine tonight, but I'm contemplating taking it back. The rest of this message explains why.

I already have the 39" Seiki 4k, and I believe I've read on hardforum.com that both televisions or parts of them are made by the same company (ChangHong?). I've already read there that the 60Hz 4k modes that people have gotten the Silo SL-42v1 to accept do not appear to allow separate colors for each pixel ("4:4:4"), but instead may be using transmission modes where the color information is for a 2x1 or 2x2 pixel area. Brightness, of course, is 1x1, so this should not be a problem for black and white text. I wasn't planning on using 4k @ 60Hz (and can deal with the lack of 4k @ 30Hz on HDMI #3 by using that port for my blu-ray player).

Here are some quick notes on what to expect, with some comparisons to the Seiki.

Pros (at least versus Seiki):

1. At ~20 pounds, the 42" Silo is much lighter than the ~30 pound 39" Seiki.

2. The back light occasionally changes in intensity suddenly. I am pretty sure that I saw at least one horizonal line flash in the ~5 hours that I have been using it. However, this may be an improvement of the Seiki's habbit blanking the screen and losing audio for ~0.25-0.5 seconds, enough to need to backtrack when watching a movie.

3. Colors seem washed out, but that is better than the often painfully oversaturated colors on the Seiki. On BOTH the Siki and Silo, with some content, it seems as if low order bits of color information are being dropped, as I see a lot of artificial transitions in brightness across what should be smooth gradients. One thing that fixes this problem on the 39" Seiki is to flash in the firmware from the 55" Seiki 4K, although this has the side effect of introducing a bug where plugging in the headphones does not turn off the built-in speakers. I experimented endlessly with the 39" Seiki (running its native firmware) with various color settings and numerous suggestions from the internet. The color on the 39" Seiki was always horrible. However, when watching a movie on the Seiki, I usually didn't mind so much, perhaps because from perceiving colors as largely relative to adjacent images. Since I use these display primarily for text manipulation, such as writing software, manipulating spreadsheets, and reading content on the web, I have sadly grown accustomed to the bad color and 30 Hz refresh rate. I had hoped that this Silo display would fix these problems, but, instead the results have been trade-offs that so far constitute just a small improvement.

4. The base legs are small and so short that I cannot squeeze a blu-ray play under the screen without propping them up. The whole base that attaches to the Silo display is just two little plastic legs, which is fine, is a great engineering improvement in comparison to the 7(?) pound base of the Seiki (although, without the bases, the Silo still weighs a lot less than the Seiki, according to specifications that I've read). Although it's annoying for now, I count this is a pro for the Silo because the more common use case is probably putting the monitor on a glass table and having more confidence that it will not crack the glass, and the lighter total weight of the Silo display seems to me to be a safety advantage. It also occurs to me that the Silo's legs are so small that they could be taped to the back of the monitor if one were to wall mount it, considering that the middle of the Silo's back panel sticks out about an inch, so there is plenty of space available for taping down the unused legs.

Cons (against the Silo, relatively in favor of the Seiki):

1. The Silo remote control receiver is at the lower right corner of the screen, and I find I have to aim the remote control.

2. Some nice reverse engineering has been done on the kind of Seiki 4k display that I have. It is known to run Linux on a RISC processor. It is possible to dump flash update images that Seiki provides. At least one person has successfully made it run other programs, and many others have done simpler hacks like changing the splash screen image and EDID information.

3. The Seiki does not provide EDID information when it is powered off, and perhaps not on the inputs that it is not currently displaying, although I have not tested this and have not yet tested the Silo for this problem. Most computer monitors allow the HDMI cable to power the hardware that provides the EDID information, so a computer can tell what displays are connected even when they are turned off. However, I do not believe that failing to do so violates any standard. Perhaps it is more common for televisions.

4. I have read that the Seiki has the less common blue-green-red subpixel order. On GNU/Linux platforms, you can tell various libraries and programs to adjust (for example, see https://askubuntu.com/questions/98531/how-can-i-change-font-rendering-to-sub-pixel-bgr-ordering ), but I suspect that there may be some RGB subpixel ordering assumptions built into some of picture images on web pages, for example, although I am not sure of this. It is possible that Silo has this quirk too, in which case this would not be a "con" for the Silo relative to the Seiki, but I would regard it as possibly a "con" relative to other products.

Anyhow, I hope this informative is helpful.

Answer 2

In case anyone is using the Silo SL42v1 display with Linux and Intel Graphics video hardware built into the mainboard (i915.ko Linux kernel module, xf86-video-intel X windows driver), I want to mention a workaround for an important problem.

After the X Windows server activates the idle hardware screen blanker, and I then use the mouse or keyboard to cause X to reactivate the screen, the video becomes jittery and the screen often goes blank for a second about once a minute. I assume that something in the HDMI connection has not be renegotiated properly. Any of the following three workarounds seems to work:

1. My favorite is to do the shell command "xrandr --output HDMI2 --off ; xrandr --output HDMI2 --mode 3840x2160" (replace "HDMI2" with whatever display name your configuration uses, which you should be able to figure out from the output of just doing the "xrandr" command with no arguments)

2. Switch to another virtual console and back (in my case, by doing ctrl-alt-F1 and then ctrl-alt-F5, but the second key sequence will vary depending on which virtual console your X server uses). This does not always works and requires that your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/* do not set the option "DontVTSwitch" (do "man xorg.conf" for information about this option).

3. Kill and restart the X server, with a command like "killall Xorg" or "killall X", depending on your configuration. This works, but will kill most of your applications unless they are specially written to do something else when their X server connections are lost. If you are running a "greeter" program on your local computer, as is the case with most GNU/Linux distributions, it should automatically restart the X server, and the new X server should initialize with a stable video connection.

I do not know what is special about the Silo SL-42v1 that triggers this problem. I have not observed it with a couple of other 4k displays that I have access to and with which I have used the same or similar platforms.

Answer 3

I have just gotten the my Silo SL-42v1 to claim to be displaying 3840x2160 @ 60Hz (when I use the remote control to check). I did this by connecting a Roku 4 (which claims to support HDMI 2.0 4k @ 60Hz) to HDMI port 4 on my display, using an HDMI cable that is only about 1 meter long.

Using HDMI ports 2 and 3 resulted in the Roku offering 1920x1080 when it auto-detected the resolution, and then refusing to transmit 4k to an HDMI port that did not support HDCP 2.2 when I attempted to manually select 4k video. I have not yet tried HDMI port 1.

I think I may have gotten a similar failure when using a long video cable with HDMI port 4, but I am not sure, and I do not want to disturb my 4k @ 60Hz configuration tonight now that I finally have it working. Perhaps I will update this answer when I have more time for further research.