NovaStar ET4S-G (A4) Media Server

What is the NovaStar ET4S-G (A4)?

If you have a real 8K master at 60 frames, or anything on the job that has to stay frame-locked, the NovaStar ET4S-G (A4) is the build that carries it. It is the ET4S-G chassis with one HPGA4000 graphics card, running Kompass FX3 and mixing twelve layers over four DP 1.4 outputs.

You end up here for one of two reasons. Either your master really is 8K at 60, or your installation has to stay locked to something else: a second server, a camera, a broadcast reference.

Both of those are hardware decisions you make at the order. The card sets your decoding rate and your mosaic ceiling, and it is also the reason you can fit a sync card at all.

Downstream nothing changes for you. The picture leaves on DisplayPort and a sending card or video processor turns it into the runs your cabinets take.

What the HPGA4000 is documented for

One 8K×4K film at 60 frames, decoded in hardware, on a card with a 256-bit GDDR6 memory bus. That single line is what you are paying for over the P2000 version, which NovaStar rates for 8K at 30 frames.

Thirty frames against sixty is not a subtlety on a wall this size. Camera moves and particle work judder at 30 in a way a still gallery piece never shows, which is why your 8K sizzle reel and your 8K architectural flythrough are not the same order.

The mosaic ceiling moves with the card as well. NovaStar lists the HPGA4000 at 16,384 pixels of mosaic width or height, twice the figure it gives the P2000, so a long concourse ribbon becomes possible for you on this build and not on the other.

The datasheet quotes two different memory sizes for this card in two different tables. Neither figure changes the decoding line or the mosaic figure, which are stated consistently, and those are what your design actually rests on.

Frame lock, BNC sync and the second server

The sync card only pairs with the HPGA cards, so you can fit one here and you cannot on the P2000 build. NovaStar specifies it as two RJ45 ports that accept and pass on a frame-lock signal, one BNC connector for an external sync source, and indicators for the state of each link.

Frame lock is what stops your seam from crawling. Two servers each rendering half of a 20-metre wall drift apart by a frame now and then, and the join shows it as a tear that moves; locking them to one timing removes the tear rather than hiding it.

The BNC input is the broadcast half of the same idea. An external reference from your camera chain or house sync generator keeps the wall on the same cadence as the cameras pointed at it, which is the difference between a usable LED backdrop and one that bands on air.

Kompass FX3 carries the software half in three frame-sync modes, and the one for multiple devices runs continuous calibration rather than a fixed number of passes after a program change.

Plan your content brief around it. NovaStar recommends 110 to 135 Mbps for 8K at 60 on a single server, but where several servers have to stay frame-synchronized it recommends 30 Mbps for the same 8K material in H.265. A synchronized job gets re-encoded, not just re-cabled.

ET4S-G (A4) key features

Surround audio outputs

An attraction with a soundtrack usually leaves you with the audio on a separate machine and a sync problem to go with it. This one carries balanced XLR left and right outputs. The 3.5 mm connectors beside them add center and subwoofer, a rear channel, line in and out, and a microphone input, so your room’s sound leaves the same box as the picture.

Multi-screen management

One server often has to serve rooms that have nothing to do with each other. You arrange and play programs per screen, so a lobby loop, a gallery piece and a meeting-room source run from one machine on separate schedules.

Large stills and image sequences

Panoramic artwork and render-farm output reach you as enormous files rather than video. Kompass FX3 handles image sequences as a media type and documents a maximum image resolution of 50000×3000, which covers a stitched panorama no video codec would survive.

PowerPoint at 4K

Your briefing deck on a fine-pitch wall looks soft the moment it is upscaled from 1080p. Kompass FX3 decodes PowerPoint files up to 4K and holds up to fifteen of them in the media library, which the FX1 and FX2 servers do not.

NovaStar ET4S-G (A4) specifications

These are the values that settle your rack drawing, your content brief and your sync design.

The 40°C ceiling is tighter than it looks once you close a rack around 500 W of server. Budget the airflow, not just the outlet.

Four DP 1.4 outputs and a 16,384-pixel mosaic

You get four connectors, each good for 5120×2880@60Hz, joined into a mosaic up to 16,384 pixels along its long edge. Every connector also takes a custom timing from 480 to 8192 pixels wide and 300 to 8192 high, which is how your portrait columns and letterbox strips share one server.

The mosaic figure is the one worth taking to your screen drawing. A 14,000-pixel concourse run and a 12,000-pixel stage surround both sit inside it, and both are outside what the P2000 build allows.

Layers and partitions do the rest of your shaping. Twelve mixing layers sit on the canvas, and each output divides into as many as 64 sub-outputs you can split, reassemble and rotate to match a wall built in steps or at angles.

Decoding is the ceiling that catches designs out. One 8K×4K film at 60 frames is what the card is documented to decode in hardware, so if your program is built from several simultaneous 8K films you are asking for more than the datasheet promises.

Match your screen drawing to the mosaic row and your edit to the decoding row. Those two rule out more designs than everything else on the page.

ET4S-G (A4) or ET4S-G (P2): which configuration do you order?

Order the A4 build if you have an 8K master at 60 frames, a mosaic past 8192 pixels or anything that has to be frame-locked; order the P2 build when your content is cut as 4K films and nothing needs genlock.

The A4 build costs about a thousand dollars more and moves three limits. Your decoding goes from 30 frames to 60 at 8K, your mosaic ceiling doubles, and the sync card becomes an option instead of an impossibility.

The P2 build is not a lesser machine for the right brief. NovaStar documents its card for three 4K×2K films at 60 frames, which is more simultaneous 4K playback than the A4 entry names, so a centre-and-wings design built from 4K files is well served by it.

The configurable ET4S-G is your route to everything else, including the HPGA4500 Ada card, extra storage drives and a sync card specified with the order rather than added later.

The $1,073 between the two builds buys you 8K at full frame rate and a sync path. Neither can be retrofitted by changing software.

ET4S-G (A4) datasheet, manual and Kompass FX3 licensing

One datasheet covers all three ET4S-G builds. Read its product-selection table first, because that is where the suffix, the card and the decoding rate line up for you; the optional-items table underneath is where the sync-card pairing rule sits.

The Kompass FX3 manual is the software document, shared with the ET16S-G servers. It holds the frame-sync modes, the media-format list and the bitrate tables your synchronized installation has to be encoded against.

Kompass FX3 ships with its licensing dongle on this machine. Pull that dongle out of a running server and your software drops back to trial, which puts the words Kompass FX3 across the wall about five seconds afterwards. Rack it behind a locked door.

NovaStar ET4S-G (A4) FAQ