Are there any plans to introduce a version that supports higher resolutions, perhaps UHD (3840×2160)?

Lack of minimum 2k resolution is preventing me from jumping on this product.

I really want to control and have access to my work laptop that is bound to company VPN.

I work as an IT consultant and I often have 3 machines bound to VPN from clients.

This tool would allow me to centrally control the machines. However I can't do 1080p, my current setup is 4 2k monitors, no kvm just Logitech mouse and keyboard that can connect to 3 devices at once requiring a button press.

Far too many time have typed on the wrong machine!! 😆

M

Thanks for your feedback, @Chensley!

Could I confirm exactly what resolution you're looking for so I can note it down? Are you looking for 2560x1440 support?

2560x1440 is perfect for office work and expanding this tool beyond just a niche "emergency remote" access to diagnosis problems.

4k has some serious diminishing returns, almost everyone I seen that has 4k monitor will scale and on average that scale is equal to 2k resolution.

So, you're asking for 2K resolution support? That's pretty much already there, but that's all it can do.

Is it 4K/UHD you want? That's what I asked for, but something between 2K and 4K would also be nice.

While UHD is 3840×2160, and 4K is technically 4096×2160, most TV marketing campaigns refer to the UHD resolution of 3840×2160 as "4K". Half of that, HD, or 1920×1080, a.k.a. 1080p, is "2K", and the TinyPilot supports that resolution.

Thanks for that, @Chensley - I've made a note in our internal ticket that you're interested in 2560x1440 support.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

I have the exact same work flow in mind. I'm an IT consultant and have multiple laptops that are tied to the company VPN. They would never open up RDP for my use case.

I work off a single G95NC monitor which is essentially 2x 27" 4k monitors. 7680x2160 resolution.

Ideally, the resolution would be something we can set. The existing 1080p resolution and up to full 4k resolution. Plus everything in between including ultra wide resolutions.

This would be ideal, because I can work around the encoder's limitations and/or office bandwidth issues, if I'm accessing the TinyPilot remotely. If this is asking too much, I'd suggest something like 1440p.

Also, since I'm on the soap box: Would this be something that existing customers can upgrade to? By purchasing a new HDMI capture board?

I 100% agree with JR_pilot. I would love a solution that was better than 1080p, even if just slightly. I have 3 TinyPilot devices I bought (at full price) that I would to be able to use for this solution, so I would prefer a software solution even if I need to upgrade the HDMI capture card inside the device and replace it myself, but I don't want to have to buy new devices. Plus, the software on the full version is nicer than the OSS version (I forget the difference, but they're subtle, yet it matters 🙂).

I love these devices, and have evangelized them to several other co-workers who have shelled over their hard earned dollars to you, too... Let's make this awesome productivity device even better!! 🙂

Thanks for your feedback, @JR_pilot, @spongymike! Learning how you use your devices and how different resolutions can improve your workflow is really helpful!

Ideally, the resolution would be something we can set.

You should be able to set TinyPilot's resolution by selecting your desired resolution / framerate in your target machine's settings menu - so if a future device supports higher resolutions, it would be the same process. Having said that, some less-common resolutions (some wide screen display settings for example) may be more difficult to support (though we would test them to make sure).

Would this be something that existing customers can upgrade to? By purchasing a new HDMI capture board?

I think I've briefly mentioned this elsewhere on the forum, but one of the bottlenecks here is the bandwidth that the TinyPilot's physical CSI-2 interface can handle. So even if it was possible retroactively fit a capture chip capable of 4K, the TinyPilot device still wouldn't be able to support any additional resolutions/framerates, unfortunately.

Please let me know if you have any questions or any other feedback!

Capture and encode with HEVC (a.k.a. h.265). UHD resolution video encoded with HEVC uses less bandwidth than HD with h.264 (which is the most efficient compression algorithm you currently support).

I'm not sure if the RPi can do this in software... even the RPi5. Not sure. But maybe... with a hardware helper, or a capture device that does the encoding for you?

Yes, we can change the resolution, but it will only allow resolutions that the monitor (i.e., TinyPilot's HDMI capture card) reports that it supports. Also, even if I use a lower resolution (like 1600×900), the web page still shows the rendered screen in HD (1900×1080), scaling the image up (which looks blurry and bad). It would also be nice to fix this. We can always change the browser's zoom if we want to make it bigger. 🙂

Oh, and also... even with h.264, you can fiddle with the encoding params to make it do a better job with mostly-static screens (which is what I think we'll use the most). If the whole screen changes and it takes a few seconds for every pixel to get updates, that's okay... as long as eventually it settles down to a pixel-perfect image of the static screen. You may need to use more conservative encoder params for UHD than for HD, but it would probably get you to something that works. 🙂

Thanks for all of those details, @spongeymike!

TinyPilot's current capture chip already encodes the video signal, so we don't have any control there. TinyPilot performs the H.264 encoding on-device after it receives the video signal from the capture chip.

To clarify why current TinyPilot devices cannot support resolutions over 1920x1080:

• TinyPilot's capture chip only supports display settings up to 1920x1080p at 60Hz (a hardware limit).
• TinyPilot's CSI-2 interface (the physical bus that the capture chip connects to) does not have the bandwidth (i.e., the number of physical lanes) to support display settings over 1920x1080 at 50Hz using the signal from the current capture chip.

When we explore higher resolution capabilities, we'll look into hardware capture chips, the physical interfaces TinyPilot's hardware has available, and encoding throughout the pipeline.

Yes, we can change the resolution, but it will only allow resolutions that the monitor (i.e., TinyPilot's HDMI capture card) reports that it supports.

This is expected behavior. If TinyPilot allowed users to select resolutions it didn't support, you'd simply see the "No Signal" image, so I don't think this would be useful.

even if I use a lower resolution (like 1600×900), the web page still shows the rendered screen in HD (1900×1080), scaling the image up (which looks blurry and bad).

Thanks for this feedback! We've had similar requests for different scaling behavior, so I've added a note that you're also interested in fixing the display's size to the actual output resolution, rather than scaling. This isn't part of our short-term roadmap yet, but we’re always working to improve TinyPilot’s software and hardware. We prioritize features based on user demand, so we’ll definitely consider your feedback in our planning.

Thanks, David. You guys rock.

If you use an HDMI capture device than can encode in HEVC (h.265), then you could do QHD (2560×1440) using less bandwidth than h.264 in HD (1920×1080) with bandwidth to spare, because HEVC can encode using about half the bandwidth of h.264, and QHD is only 82% more pixels than HD. It's possible... but maybe not easy. Don't give up... how can I help? Can I assist on the coding side? (I'm a principal software engineer at Microsoft going on 30 years).

Thanks for those thoughts on encoding! I've added a couple of notes to our internal ticket on this.

Can I assist on the coding side?

TinyPilot's core is still an open-source project, so you're welcome to contribute however you'd like - whether that's on existing open issues or your own ideas. I don't think there are any current public GitHub issues relating to high resolution support though. Feel free to take a look through any issues - we're always happy to have community contributions! And I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any.

Well, here's something I did locally... not sure anyone else would actually care about this: Under Actions/Keyboard Shortcuts, I added a couple of new ones for:

=>
=>

I find them useful, and I can't do them from the keyboard, because the remote machine captures them on the host OS and doesn't send them to the browser (much like ). Sure, I could use the on-screen keyboard, but I find that more of a hassle.

Under Actions/Keyboard Shortcuts, I added a couple of new ones

Awesome!

One of the things I really like about TinyPilot's software is that you can make local changes like this for your own workflows. I don't think anyone else has requested that particular keypress sequence before, so I'm not sure it's particularly valuable to add as a shortcut for everyone.

In our upcoming release, we're introducing a few extra keyboard shortcuts that people have requested (like the Mac equivalent of Windows' ctrl + alt + del). It would be cool to add the ability to easily add custom keyboard shortcuts to better support use cases like yours.