[DEV ONLY][S905/X] 8.0 with "full Nougat" kernel preview builds

  • Sure, what is the process, do I play a critical video and type those commands in putty while it is playing? Or after?

    BTW:
    AVR confirms 10bit at least for 1080p. :)
    It says YCbCr 30bit. :)

  • dmesg:
    aiQM

    log:
    cXJi

    I enabled debug logging on the second attempt because of that message:
    "cat: can't open '/storage/temp/kodi.log': No such file or directory"
    However, it still appeared... But I got a link anyhow, hope that's ok?

    I used this one:

    Quote

    2160p / BT.2020 / 10bit / HDR10 / 23.976fps (Samsung HDR Wonderland demo):
    Signal is lost after a few seconds. Stopping retrieves signal (in menu).


    EDIT:
    Hmm, log link seems empty... What do I do?

  • I'm sorry, I had a typo. It's meant to be

    cat /storage/.kodi/temp/kodi.log | curl -F 'sprunge=<-' http://sprunge.us

    Edit: dmesg is actually good in this case, thank you.

  • OK here it is, I only copied the last bit for you, starting the video...

  • It sometimes starts out like the black screens / signal losses we have had for a while now in Krypton.
    Video plays, than black screen, then it plays again for a while - but at some point, the signal is completely lost.
    Sometimes, it is lost completely right away.

  • It sometimes starts out like the black screens / signal losses we have had for a while now in Krypton.
    Video plays, than black screen, then it plays again for a while - but at some point, the signal is completely lost.
    Sometimes, it is lost completely right away.

    Unfortunately I can't recreate, and I've played that demo clip three times now (looks awesome). I did run into one consistent dropped playback issue on a much higher bitrate 2160p/10bit/bt2020 file that reverting drivers/amlogic/amports/vh265: bump dynamic_buf_margin to 12 · amillogical/linux-amlogic@0022c20 · GitHub fixed however.

    When you first boot, could you try echo '422,10bit' > /sys/class/amhdmitx/amhdmitx0/attrinstead of the 444 command and see if you still get the dropped signal?

    Btw, I found why we can't do manually set 4:2:0 on this kernel and will reenable support. It shouldn't matter for us, but gives us more options for testing). I'm quite confident I can take this 10 bit support to the MM kernel as well if needed.

  • When you first boot, could you try echo '422,10bit' > /sys/class/amhdmitx/amhdmitx0/attrinstead of the 444 command and see if you still get the dropped signal?

    Interesting.
    23.976fps seems to be stable with 4:2:2. :)
    However, 25/50fps still loses the signal right away and 30fps won't play.

    Just to make sure, I also tested 4:4:4 again but same result, signal is dropped quickly in the 23.976fps Samsung demo.

    Quote

    Btw, I found why we can't do manually set 4:2:0 on this kernel and will reenable support. It shouldn't matter for us, but gives us more options for testing).

    I'd like to test that too.
    At least in my mind, 4:2:0 should be ideal? All video is in 4:2:0 and all the converting would be done in the TV? Doesn't that make sense?

    Quote

    I'm quite confident I can take this 10 bit support to the MM kernel as well if needed.

    I don't think there is a reason to go back to MM if everything works well in Nougat...


    Since I saw those flickers in the Krypton MM build I can't unsee them. ;)

  • Interesting.
    23.976fps seems to be stable with 4:2:2. :)
    However, 25/50fps still loses the signal right away and 30fps won't play.

    Just to make sure, I also tested 4:4:4 again but same result, signal is dropped quickly in the 23.976fps Samsung demo.

    I'm thinking this is a bandwidth issue -- either cable, or these boxes really aren't made equal. Within the next day I'll push support for manually specifying 4:2:0 and we can see how it goes.

    RedCat could you try running the following on boot and then seeing if you have video at 4k?

    echo '422,8bit' > /sys/class/amhdmitx/amhdmitx0/attr

  • I'm thinking this is a bandwidth issue -- either cable, or these boxes really aren't made equal. Within the next day I'll push support for manually specifying 4:2:0 and we can see how it goes.

    I thought about that too... I will test another cable tomorrow.
    However, what is the first refresh rate that uses 4:2:0 automatically? Do you know that?

    Just to recap my tests with 4:4:4:

    23.976: fail
    25.000: fail
    29.970: pass
    30.000: complete fail
    50.000: fail
    59.940: pass
    60.000: pass

    Blue were HDR10 / BT.2020 / 10bit videos, so probably a higher bandwidth.


    59.94 and 60 fps will definitely be 4:2:0, those would have the highest bandwidth.
    29.97 is confusing in that mix. 23.976 fails even as 2160p / BT.709 / 8bit, whereas 29.97 is fine with the same specs.... :/?(

  • johngalt

    I tired ur command, but no change. 10 times ---> 6-7x black screen (lost signal), 3-4x all ok

    But I make some test, maybe help. I have denon x2300 reciever, it can show hdmi information (your latest build):

    GUI 1080p in settings:

    Resolution: 1080p:60Hz -> 1080p:60Hz

    Color space: YCbCr 4:4:4 -> YCbCr 4:4:4

    Pixel depth: 10 bits -> 10 bits

    4k film (10 bit, bt2020), I wrote, sometimes it starts:

    Resolution: 4k:24Hz -> 4k:24Hz

    Color space: YCbCr 4:4:4 -> YCbCr 4:4:4

    Pixel depth: 8 bits -> 8 bits

    After I ran ur command:

    4k film (10 bit, bt2020):

    Resolution: 4k:24Hz -> 4k:24Hz

    Color space: YCbCr 4:2:2 -> YCbCr 4:2:2

    Pixel depth: ---- -> ----

    Update:

    I downgrade to 8.0.2a

    GUI 1080p in settings:

    Resolution: 1080p:60Hz -> 1080p:60Hz

    Color space: YCbCr 4:4:4 -> YCbCr 4:4:4

    Pixel depth: 8 bits -> 8 bits

    4k film (10 bit, bt2020), it starts always:

    Resolution: 4k:24Hz -> 4k:24Hz

    Color space: YCbCr 4:4:4 -> YCbCr 4:4:4

    Pixel depth: 8 bits -> 8 bits

    This is maybe help?

  • My GUI is set to 2160p @60 and everything I've tested so far worked with johngalt version

    - Smurfs 2 uhd bd structure( Intro is good for me for testing banding)

    bt2020 passed, no banding, refresh rate changed to 23,976 without any issues.

    - planet earth 2 uhd HDR

    I see no banding, refresh rate changed to @50, bt2020 passed.

    Some other HDR demos from lg or Samsung worked well too.

    I play everything from a USB hdd.

  • Cables....
    It all comes down to f*cking cables. :D

    It's sad really, I should have thought about that before...
    Those black screens screamed HDMI cable signal losses.

    I tested all 7 HDMI cables I have, the outcome is unbelievable and sad in my eyes.

    The worst performing cables were the shortest (0.5m) and newest high speed cables.

    The best performing cable by far was the oldest, longest (5m), non high speed HDMI 1.3 (!) cable.

    The short cable that came with the Mini M8S II box is particularily bad and tied for worst with one other short cable...

    It was very obvious how well a cable performed. Some even failed the 60fps videos (4:2:0) while others were perfectly fine.
    The worst ones already showed "white sparkling dots" while the video was loading.

    The most critical framerates seem to be 25fps and 50fps.
    That is the crucial test.
    If everything runs well at YCbCr 4:4:4 without dropouts/losses on a 2160p / BT.2020 / 10bit / HDR10 video with a frame rate of 25fps or 50fps, you have a properly good cable


    I will of course order a few new cables now...
    However, I'd still like to test 4:2:0 if I may. :)

  • Some more digging into 'regular'/SDR content, with KERNEL_VERSION="361e832":

    1. Blu-ray backups and re-encodes seem to work fine; 30s sample (32MiB)
    2. 'web-dl' type of media has tons of frameskips; 30s sample (17MiB)

    Here's the log file for a frameskipping video, after doing 'echo 422,10bit > /sys/class/amhdmitx/amhdmitx0/attr ; systemctl restart kodi'. For future logs, LE has 'pastebinit' builtin:

    Code
    m8s:~ # cat ~/.kodi/temp/kodi.log | pastebinit 
    http://sprunge.us/LgfX

    I still haven't replaced the HDMI cable, so saying that PEII still makes the AVR say 'no signal' is a bit useless.

  • I actually noticed a problem with the [...] MM build (8.0.2a) today.

    A certain range in the lower grayscale flickers.
    It can easily be reproduced by setting the screensaver to 5% dim and pause a [...] video during a scene that covers various brightnesses.
    Some areas in that frame will most likely show that flicker once the dim kicks in.

    I am happy to report that the flicker I see in MM Krypton seems to be gone in this Nougat build as well. :)
    Both with unchanged 8bit output and 4:4:4 10bit output.

    I would like to do some testing for frame drops or skips too, but without IR remote, I don't really know how to trigger PlayerDebug... Any ideas?

  • While hevc worked fine with the latest test version, my 720p h.264 23.976fps encodes were quite jerky and not watchable.

    I can confirm that weirdly, H.264 is extremely buggy, it looks like slow motion.
    However, both x264 and x265 seem fine.

    Also, a/v is severely out of sync, at least for DTS, DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD.
    All tested videos were 23.976fps, but the async goes far beyond the usual 175ms...