Best settings for 4K HDR playback?

  • What the title says.

    Just got myself a S905X box (M96X) and after getting LibreELEC installed on it, I have tried to toy around a bit with multiple themes etc to make 4K HDR playback via SMB from my PC as smooth as possible but I still get the occasional judder and audio cutouts.

    Anyone got any experience on how to make it work any better? Or do I need to stick to crappy Media Server and just run it on my TV straight instead of using the Kodi for it? Am I just dreaming that it could play 4K HDR today?

    I currently run the 8.0 Beta on it.

    Edited once, last by Stige (January 31, 2017 at 3:19 PM).


  • What the title says.

    Just got myself a S905X box (M96X) and after getting LibreELEC installed on it, I have tried to toy around a bit with multiple themes etc to make 4K HDR playback via SMB from my PC as smooth as possible but I still get the occasional judder and audio cutouts.

    Anyone got any experience on how to make it work any better? Or do I need to stick to crappy Media Server and just run it on my TV straight instead of using the Kodi for it? Am I just dreaming that it could play 4K HDR today?

    I currently run the 8.0 Beta on it.

    The problem I think is that the 905x is only 100mb instead of 1000mb ethernet. So if the video you are watching exceeds that it will stutter. Network overhead, etc and you are getting less than 100


  • If that was the case then it would also stutter on my TV cause that is wired 100Mbps aswell.

    try copying the file to a usb stick/hard drive & plug it straight into the pc/tv/libreelec box

    If it plays alright it's your network that is the problem.

    Not sure if you still have android on the box, if so install SPMC it might play hdr better

    Recommended video settings for SPMC, NVIDIA Shield TV and UHD (4K) TVs with 4K GUI · koying/SPMC Wiki · GitHub

    Edited once, last by bubblegum57 (January 31, 2017 at 7:23 PM).

  • Naah Android is completely gone, I completely trashed the box straight away lol

    Tried to install LibreElec from ZIP via TWRP and that did not go well.

    Had to make my own male to male USB cable to connect it to PC, then took some time to figure out how to short circuit it cause this doesn't have the button for it either...
    Then had to find a firmware that actually works for it to restore it to working order, managed to install A95X firmware on it and actually boot Android, then used the Update & Backup to get it to install LE properly finally, what a hassle!

    The whole Android felt like it does on those Chinese tablets too, awful and everything constantly throwing errors, crashing etc and everyone praised LE over Android so I switched over immediatly.

    Can't I just put the SPMC on the SD card like I can with LE to test it out, see how it runs and plays?
    EDIT: Oh it's an APK you install on the Android, I did try the Kodi on the Android but it felt really sluggish compared to LE atleast.
    Maybe I'll try putting Android on the SD card if I can and then try that SPMC out?

    And like I said, it shouldn't be a network issue cause my TV plays them just fine over the network but I hate the lack of proper library there.
    And I don't have a USB HDD right now to actually try it out, I can maybe fit one movie on the 64GB USB Stick I have to try it out later just incase.

    Edited once, last by Stige (January 31, 2017 at 8:19 PM).

  • I can play sample files just fine but it's the massive movies that have this problem.

    Gonna get my USB stick from friend later today and see if it still lags from that but somehow I doubt it will fix anything.

  • my 'big' sample file :) on my external HDD
    impossible via network(cable) from NAS


  • my 'big' sample file :) on my external HDD
    impossible via network(cable) from NAS

    Why would that be impossible over network? It's only like 67Mbps overall bitrate.

    Edited once, last by Stige (February 2, 2017 at 1:05 PM).


  • Why would that be impossible over network? It's only like 67Mbps overall bitrate.

    67mbps plus overhead, plus the fact that samba is incredibly inefficient, plus the fact that that ethernet tops out at around 60mbps on most budget arm boxes (more than half of those tested by CNX with smb over ethernet barely got 50mbps):

    Edited once, last by her (February 2, 2017 at 1:36 PM).

  • her:
    What about NFS?
    Do you know what kind of network performance is common with the NFS protocol?

    Is the chart on SMB performance?
    And what is the actual scale? 10.000 = 100Mbit?

    I have a Mini M8S II 2/16 and I use the NFS protocol.

  • So maybe if I add the movies from the Media Server instead of over SMB it might work better? If SMB is so inefficient but I don't understand that chart at all, doesn't make any sense with those numbers like jd17 said.

  • Well I just tried to play them on my box through DLNA/UPNP and they work flawlessly. So it has to be Samba being a bottleneck for me, apparently it is that bad then.

    Now I got the problem of how to add UPNP source to my library...


  • her:
    What about NFS?
    Do you know what kind of network performance is common with the NFS protocol?

    Is the chart on SMB performance?
    And what is the actual scale? 10.000 = 100Mbit?

    I have a Mini M8S II 2/16 and I use the NFS protocol.

    Some people are adamant NFS is faster, but for large video files it's roughly the same speed as SMB in my experience.

    The chart is SMB performance over ethernet and the numbers are megabyte/sec, so multiply by 8 for mbit - 10MB per sec is 80mbit.

    upnp/dlna gives me fastest speeds, but it's not a protocol I particularly like.



    Well I just tried to play them on my box through DLNA/UPNP and they work flawlessly. So it has to be Samba being a bottleneck for me, apparently it is that bad then.

    Now I got the problem of how to add UPNP source to my library...

    Same as adding smb or nfs - Add source > uPNP devices > Select your server

    Edited once, last by her (February 2, 2017 at 6:42 PM).

  • Some people are adamant NFS is faster, but for large video files it's roughly the same speed as SMB in my experience.

    The chart is SMB performance over ethernet and the numbers are megabyte/sec, so multiply by 8 for mbit - 10MB per sec is 80mbit.

    upnp/dlna gives me fastest speeds, but it's not a protocol I particularly like.


    Same as adding smb or nfs - Add source > uPNP devices > Select your server

    Yes but you cannot see them on your Library, you can watch them through there but they don't show up on your library which sucks :(