Kodi Community Forum

Problems with video quality

I use the Shark007 codec pack for Windows which IMHO provide the best free codecs around, in a bundle that won't jeopardize your system (unlike other packs like K-Lite). I can throw anything at WIndows Media Player or Media Center, and I don't have any problem in playing any movie file, with great quality and no tearing, even with vertical sync set to off in the Graphics Card driver (an EVGA NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti).

But it looks that I have problems with those codecs bundled with Kodi, which render video files at sub-par quality: tearing the screen while playing HD video files when some movement is involved (even a simple and slow camera pan does this), image quality not as good as other codecs (Kodi doesn't seem to be able to use other codecs than its own, like those provided by Shark007), etc... I tried fiddling with Kodi's System setting Adjust display refresh rate to "Always" or "On start/stop", also by activating Sync playback to display, then all the different possible combinations of both these settings, but it made no difference at all: movies are still tearing the screen (like horizontal lines showing out-of sync frames).

I hope that I'm missing something in regards to Kodi configuration, because Kodi is an amazing software to centralize all multimedia browsing and management (except for games of course). I'd really like to always use it instead of having to revert to Windows Media Player whenever I want to watch movie files. Any clue about what can be done to make things better would be greatly appreciated.

System:
Windows 7 SP1 64bits
Kodi 14.2
i5-4690 on an MSI H97I ac motherboard with 8 GB Gskill DDR3
EVGA NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti

There is no situation in which the hardware you described should have screen tearing in Kodi (also, Kodi doesn't use external codec packs; everything is internal).

If you could post a debug log from a time video is playing (and tearing), we might be able to figure out what's going on.

http://kodi.wiki/view/Log_file/Easy

(2015-04-17, 21:07)natethomas Wrote: [ -> ]There is no situation in which the hardware you described should have screen tearing in Kodi (also, Kodi doesn't use external codec packs; everything is internal).

If you could post a debug log from a time video is playing (and tearing), we might be able to figure out what's going on.

http://kodi.wiki/view/Log_file/Easy

Thanks! Here's the URL:
http://xbmclogs.com/pgelw0dj2

Note 1: after activating debugging and restarting Kodi, less tearing was taking place (but there were still). Could this be related to buffering?
Note 2: the screen resolution was set to 1920x1200p (as is the native res of the monitor). After sending the debug file, I also tried it at 1920x1080p: it was less apparent, maybe for the same reasons as for Note 1 above, but I still get some tearings (and sometimes quite violent ones).
Note 3: yes, as you wrote I guessed that Kodi doesn't use codec packs and has its own internal decoders (although I played dumb in this regard in my OP). Which is why I could compare and see that it was not a hardware problem, since those same movie files play fluently in Windows Media Player, without a hiccup of a screen tearing.

if you want to use external codecs/scalers I suppose the DSplayer version done by the community is what you're looking for. Just a guess though, never used it.

Make sure you have 'Vertical Blank Sync' set to "Always enabled" (System\System\Video Output) and under the same settings disable 'Use a fullscreen window rather than true fullscreen'

(2015-04-17, 23:40)steelman1991 Wrote: [ -> ]Make sure you have 'Vertical Blank Sync' set to "Always enabled" (System\System\Video Output) and under the same settings disable 'Use a fullscreen window rather than true fullscreen'

Wow thanks man that was it! I forgot that I was using a full screen window (that configuration being on another Settings screen).. Now all is well thanks again.