Checked out the digital art wall at the Denver airport and the file sizes blew my mind

I was stuck with a long layover last week and found this huge digital art wall near gate B50. It's like a giant screen showing these moving paintings. I got talking to the guy who helps run it, and he said each piece is a 4K video file that's over 50GB. He said they have to use a special server just to play them without lag. I mean, I work on a tablet, so seeing art that big and that detailed was wild. Makes you think about how we share our own work online, right? What's the biggest file you've ever had to send for a project?

4 comments

4 Comments

anna4912mo ago

My 8GB PSD file crashed three computers.

ben_lewis2mo ago

Actually, 50GB for a 4K video file is pretty normal, not that crazy. That's about right for a long, high-bitrate master file. The real trick is the server setup to stream it to a giant screen without a hitch. Cool find though.

mary_nelson712mo ago

That server setup Ben mentioned must be a beast to handle 50GB smoothly.

nguyen.morgan5d ago

Yeah that setup is no joke! @ben_lewis is right that 50GB for video is pretty standard but streaming it without stutter takes some actual thought. I've dealt with this before and the key is usually NVMe storage and a good GPU for decoding, not just raw CPU power. Also make sure the server has enough RAM to cache parts of the file, otherwise you'll hit buffer issues on big screens. Took me three tries to get mine running smooth with 4K files.