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Can you try making the following change:
Settings - > Audio -> Passthrough Output Device (under the "Audio Passthrough" heading -> Select AudioTrack (RAW), Android IEC Packer
This change resolved the issue for me (but is imperfect - see below). Alas, this still suggests a bug in Omega or changes that were made to the default AudioTrack (IEC) packer.
The default device (& "Recommended" choice) has always been "AudioTrack (IEC), Kodi IEC Packer" and switching this output driver device does not seem to be without other consequences. It appears that AudioTrack (RAW) does not pass through DTS so this is really just a stop-gap solution until what is happening with AudioTrack (IEC) is further investigated.
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OK, it occurred to me to turn off Dolby Vision as a Display option within the new menu option in Kodi Settings -> Player -> Videos -> Processing>Allowed HDR dynamic metadata formats> to see if I can get some stability/use back and it WORKED.
So I went a little deeper into it...
Dolby Vision compatibility mode doesn't matter what that setting is set to. Allowed HDR metadata formats I have Dolby Vision and HDR10+ as selected options. Remove Dolby Vision as a capability and it's like Kodi v20 is back on. Files revert to SDR or HDR and play smoothly. So put Dolby Vision back in and started examining some titles more in depth. Testing several Dolby Vision files I have found several old titles off hand that play fine. They trigger full Dolby Vision mode on the Sony, play smoothly with no judder or buffer issues. Newer files seem to be the issue. With the help of MediaInfo I looked into codec differences. Seems that Profile 5 is OK, which was common a few years ago. The mainstay these days is "Dolby Vision Profile 8.1 HDR10 compatible" files. Those are the original issue. Buffering, Judders, just glitchy as hell. And.... Profile 8.1 stuff is what everything is done in these days it seems, so that's not good.
Plays fine:
Format Profile: HEVC, Main 10@L5@High
HDR Format: Dolby Vision, Version 1.0, Profile 5
Fails:
Format Profile: HEVC, Main 10@L5@High
HDR Format: Dolby Vision, Version 1.0, Profile 8.1
File size is not an issue. I tried files in Profile 5 that were larger (28GB) than Profile 8.1 (19GB) Profile 5, regardless of file size is OK.
The issue seems to be Profile compatibility. Now is that an Android Issue v9 vs v10, the 3 yr old chipset in my Sony A8F or in Kodi itself? Could someone with a Sony like the current A90J or A80L OLED chime in? It's a newer chipset in those as well as newer Android (v10). I have a buddy that has one but his won't update as the limited 4GB of ram in his is limiting future updates, unless he does a complete clean install as well.
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jjd-uk
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I'm not an expert on Dolby Vision, but my understanding is people are misusing Profile 8 to produce hybrid movie files containing a HDR10 base layer with a DV RPU.
For disk formats being ripped unmodified from disk they will be Profile 5.
Internet streams from the likes of Netflix are Profile 7.
So there is no consumer media service that legimately uses Profile 8 as far as I'm aware, as it was meant for use with cameras from what I've read. So when it comes to movies, what people are doing is taking the RPU from Profile 5 disks and adding it to a HDR10 version to produce a bastardised Profile 8.1 file, however as the RPU was not made with the HDR10 base layer in mind there's no guarantee that colours will be correct.
So perhaps you're unlucky and your TV does not like these bastardised Profile 8.1 files.
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jjd-uk
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Must have swapped Profiles 5 & 7 around in my mind then.
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I ran the CPU usage. I don't think it's very accurate, it thinks there are 2CPU's "CPU: N/A (CPU-KODI:xxx%)" N/A I assume is the TV's chip, and the other is simply how hard Kodi is working. I see that with Profile 5 stuff it starts anywhere from 160-230% and settles down to around 60-120% depending on what content's displaying on the screen. With Profile 8/8.1 and mixed in HDR it's pushing 300% to start (give or take) and never settles down below 250%. Maybe I just don't have enough HP. Maybe the decoder in Kodi needs to function better decoding the stream properly and it's "hunting" too much. It'll be interesting to eventually test on one of the current latest greatest Sony sets with Android 10 but it'll have to wait until my buddys set gets the update pushed to it for me to see.
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OK, so finally was able to test on the current 2023 Sony top of the line 4K model. My friend was forced reload and update when the forced update to Omega tanked his Kodi install. (yeah, that's 4 hours spent)... anyway... It's the hardware. The older 2020'ish top of the line 4K OLED 65A8F just DOES NOT have the grunt to do DolbyVision above Profile 5.
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hmmmmm..........I have 2019 XG line and don't have any issues with DV formats. I do have occasional audio drops or frame skip but that is something that is happening with any format since kodi v19. If I recall correctly, v18 was the last one where it wasn't happening. Things did improve and I didn't update to the latest version, so might improve even further. It is what it is, can't switch my wife to another external box so....... But anyway, regardless of all that, judder is not that severe that it would make things unwatchable. Was never paying attention for profiles, not even sure what tool to use to check them out.
But those TVs do run a lot of shit in the background and if you do use your TV for a lot of services then it might be that something else is also part of the problem, try force stopping some apps/services before running kodi and see if that helps.