[TESTING][S905(X)] 10bit/HDR/Dithering Test Builds & Discussion

    I have founda mistake which unfortunately can not be reproduced. When looking at a longer film, it comes to jerks. The image then seems to move more slowly. Fixes the whole thing when you stop the movie, and then continues to play. Pause does not correct the error.

    Edited once, last by sunnyfunny (June 27, 2017 at 2:28 PM).

    Quote from sunnyfunny

    I have founda mistake which unfortunately can not be reproduced. When looking at a longer film, it comes to jerks. The image then seems to move more slowly. Fixes the whole thing when you stop the movie, and then continues to play. Pause does not correct the error.

    If you haven't turned the box off since, or you get it again, could you get logs? I'm also interested in details on the media. Unfortunately this might be very rare.

    Hey everyone I have a slight issue when I play youtube videos one after another KODI doesn't always change my TV's refresh rate aka HZ if it doesn't I get a black screen and the video doesn't play is there something I can do to fix this?

    The following command (oddly) mostly fixes "blurred/studdering" frames when using SW decoding using the WWE (paid sub) add-on on Testing6. Its h264 video - but doesn't show any buffering and if using a high latency DNS, it will cause it to buffer like crazy, so I think its some kinda TS stream.

    This was the command:

    echo 4 > /sys/module/amvdec_h264/parameters/dec_control

    It doesn't totally fix it 100%, but now it happens 75% less. Whwn it does happen, a single keypress to skip forward or backwards will fix it. Before the command, nothing would help fix it. I see you included it with the testing7 release. :D

    Also would like to report that your nougat builds work great for me, and I don't get my box banned anymore when using the WWE add-on. The Franken kernel builds resulted in the box being banned until I signed in on a fresh/new non Franken Kernel build.

    Anyways, thanks for all your hard work! You're doing a really great job.


    EDIT: I upgraded to Testing7 and see that the blurring has returned.

    EDIT EDIT: Upon reading a few posts back, it was indicated that 'dec_control' was still set to 0. I changed it back to 4, and it's working great again. All good! :)

    Just a heads up for people interested in HDR content, but not owning an HDR TV:

    It's probably better to stick to SDR content, since there is no defined standard conversion from HDR to SDR. All existing solutions are more or less hacks that need individual tweaks to get acceptable output. Color accuracy is impossible to achieve.

    Quote from jd17

    I asked a friend to lend me his UBD-K8500 for a day, that should help to see if the issue comes from player or TV.

    However, I'm still glad for any suggestions / help. :)

    I have the K8500 here now and I just tested the HDR Wonderland demo on it.
    As expected, there is no flicker or macroblocking visible in the skies whatsoever, everything looks great - just as with the TV's internal player.
    That rules out my TV (and it's HDMI inputs) as root cause.

    I know I am being annoying with this but I am still struggling to believe that my S905X box behaves differently from others.

    Does anyone of you guys by any chance have a Mini M8S II as well?

    Even if not, those who have not looked for it yet, could you do me the favor and look if you see those artifacts too?

    The demo in question can be downloaded here:
    Uploadfiles.io - 9.-samsung_hdr_wonderland_2160p_hevc_10bit_23.976hz_bt.2020_hdr10.ts

    I see blockiness + flicker easily here:
    - The sky above the Saddledome stadium (~1:20 min in)
    - The sky between moving clouds above river + mountain range (~1:42 min in)


    Any help is greatly appreciated!

    I own a Mini M8S II and Beelink MXIII II, both based on Amilogic S905X processor. However, I don't have a 4K HDR TV. I followed this thread and tested every johngalt's build on my 1080p TV. Today, I gave my Mini M8S II, with johngalt's testing7 on SD card, as well as several 4K HDR test files (including the one your mentioned) to a buddy who own a Samsung Series 8 UHD HDR TV. I will relay your post to him. Hopefully I could get a result from him this Friday.

    Quote from wrxtasy

    Further experimental AML S912 updates using John's amlogic-3.14-y-Nougat Kernel and Kodi Leia Alpha1:

    The 3GB S912 modded device trees are now included in the following directory:

    Index of /LE-9.x-S912-Nougat-WIP/

    GitHub - wrxtasy/LibreELEC.tv: Just enough OS for KODI

    Pls, add following commits to support internal dvb tuner.

    projects/S905: export symbols needed to build DVB driver out of kerne…

    dvb_tv-aml: bump to a995089

    media_build: add building Amlogic DVB driver

    dvb_tv-aml: add DVB driver from afl1

    Quote from jd17

    Does anyone of you guys by any chance have a Mini M8S II as well?

    Even if not, those who have not looked for it yet, could you do me the favor and look if you see those artifacts too?

    I have the Mini M8S II. I have not seen vertical lines or other artifacts. I have compared it with nVIDIA Shield and the only thing I have noticed is the ringing associated with Amlogic's aggressive edge enhancement (look at the mountain edges). I also have the Samsung UBD-K8500 Ultra HD Blu-ray player, but haven't yet compared this particular video on it.

    Quote from wesk05

    I have the Mini M8S II. I have not seen vertical lines or other artifacts. I have compared it with nVIDIA Shield and the only thing I have noticed is the ringing associated with Amlogic's aggressive edge enhancement (look at the mountain edges).

    Thanks for your input.
    Edge enhancement might be there too, but I doubt it's the root cause for what I am seeing.
    The affected areas in my case are mainly smooth gradations in skies, where edge enhancement should not have a big impact.

    Quote

    I also have the Samsung UBD-K8500 Ultra HD Blu-ray player, but haven't yet compared this particular video on it.

    Would you be so kind as to do that for me?
    It's only a matter of 5 minutes.

    This video is particularly severe regarding the flicker and macroblocking in the skies. This is minor in other videos I tested.
    I think the reason is the fact that it's mainly stills with very smooth gradations at a low framerate. Normally, these artifacts seem to be hidden by moving pictures or more obvious content/color changes.

    The vertical lines are not very present in that demo, I'd have to look what other video is suited to see those.

    Quote from jd17

    Thanks for your input.
    Edge enhancement might be there too, but I doubt it's the root cause for what I am seeing.
    The affected areas in my case are mainly smooth gradations in skies, where edge enhancement should not have a big impact.

    Would you be so kind as to do that for me?
    It's only a matter of 5 minutes.

    This video is particularly severe regarding the flicker and macroblocking in the skies. This is minor in other videos I tested.
    I think the reason is the fact that it's mainly stills with very smooth gradations at a low framerate. Normally, these artifacts seem to be hidden by moving pictures or more obvious content/color changes.

    The vertical lines are not very present in that demo, I'd have to look what other video is suited to see those.

    I compared the clip on Samsung KS8500, nVIDIA Shield, Minix U9-H, Mecool M8S Pro and internal players on Samsung KS8000/JS8500 TVs. I didn't see any obvious flicker or macroblocking in the skies in any of the scenes. However, I did notice fine chevron like almost transparent vertical lines in some of the sky scenes. I am not positive on this, but I think the colors (esp. red) also looked a little different.