[noggin]

Hi Darkscythe

Have you played any 50 or 60fps progressive or interlaced content? I have no real issues with 24p or 25p stuff - it's the 50/60p or 50/60i native stuff that is causing me issues.

I've done some more testing and I'm getting heavy CPU throttling when I playback 720/50p or 1080/50i stuff - with the CPU dropping to 0.5GHz or less. I suspect the CPU cooling is insufficient.

In MPC-HC I'm getting 40fps on 720/50p stuff (Kodi similarly) and around 11fps on 1080/50i.

Which drivers have you installed - could you link to them?

[Darkscythe]

I haven't as most of my stuff that I test is 24-30fps. I'll get some 60fps test files and add it to my testing procedure for all my reviews

I'm guessing that the Intel chip's hardware decoder is either not capable to 60fps videos or the files you're using are just out of the spec. But I can't find much on the Intel HD decoders apart from general codecs supported. Hoping someone can chime in here.

The drivers I'm using are here: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchR...word=z3700

[noggin]

720/50p stuff is off-air recordings of DVB broadcasts - absolutely standard H264 Level 4.0 stuff. 1080/50i is Adobe Encore mastered H264 Blu-ray content which will be H264 Level 4.1. I would be very surprised if they were out of spec at all. They are both mainstream sources (and play fine on other Kodi, and non-Kodi, solutions)

AIUI the Intel HD Graphics VPU should be fine with these, they play fine on Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge and Haswell Intel Celeron and Pentium CPUs. The 720/50p files were recorded on a Sandy Bridge Pentium Windows 7 system and play with no problem at all on that machine.

On further testing the 720/50p stuff will play pretty well initially, but then you get occasional skipped frames, then hundreds. Looking at Core Temp it appears that the cores quickly reach close to Tj Max and start throttling back. Feels like a cooling issue to me.

Will have a look at the drivers you suggest.

[Darkscythe]

Definitely interested in how you go. I'll be testing some samples over the next few days

[noggin]

Installed the drivers you linked to. No real apparent change.

720/50p, 1080/50i and 1080/24p are all in the same H264 level groupings - so I'm kind of surprised that 5.8Mbs Netflix 1080p streams don't cause the box to massively break sweat, yet 720/50p stuff does. (I can get that de-interlacing is quite taxing - but 720p won't need it)

Wonder if it is just a bitrate thing ?

[Darkscythe]

Is it decoding on the GPU or CPU?

[noggin]

Is it decoding on the GPU or CPU?

Kodi OSD says it is using ff-h264-dxva2 so that suggests it is using hardware decoding. For the 1080/50i clips I get the option of Auto, DXVA Bob and DXVA Best for de-interlacing.

MPC-HD reports [H/W] which again suggests hardware decoding.

No idea what Netflix app is doing - but I'd expect hardware decoding.

I haven't tried software decoding in Kodi or MPC-HC.

[wrxtasy]

I haven't as most of my stuff that I test is 24-30fps. I'll get some 60fps test files and add it to my testing procedure for all my reviews

Very good idea, make a list of the minimum video files that need to playback for a media streaming device to even be considered capable. Don't be USA centric either. Kodi is used globally, so you should address that in reviews if you want to stand out.

Suggestion:
You want 1080i/50fps and 720i/25fps (DBV-T) as well if you want to differentiate your website from all the other dross and lightweight reviews available. Perfect playback of the aforementioned and then 23.976fps, refresh rate switching and quality de-interlacing will shine a light on those media devices that should be considered for those living in PAL TV standard territories. To even make a review legitimate for global consumption, any device should be compared against the very capable Raspberry Pi as this can virtually play any type of video without problems at a cheap price point.

[Darkscythe]

Thanks for the feedback - I really appreciate it. I'll source a few more samples to cover more use cases. I can assure you it won't be USA-centric as I'm in a PAL zone :p

[noggin]

Suggestion:
You want 1080i/50fps and 720i/25fps (DBV-T) as well if you want to differentiate your website from all the other dross and lightweight reviews available.

I think you mean 720p/50fps... aka 720/50p or 720p50 (*) 720i doesn't exist in the real world.

I'd suggest the following as a minimum for a decent, exhaustive, review of any media player :

480/59.94i (aka 480i29.97) H264 and MPEG2
576/50i (aka 576i25) H264 and MPEG2
720/50p (aka 720p50) H264 and MPEG2
720/59.94p(aka 720p59.94) H264 and MPEG2
1080/50i (aka 1080i25) H264, VC-1 and MPEG2 (Interlaced VC-1 is a known issue)
1080/59.94i (aka 1080i29.97) H264, VC-1 and MPEG2 (Interlaced VC-1 is a known issue)
1080/23.976p (aka 1080p23.976p) H264, VC-1 and MPEG2

You might want to add H265/HEVC to these, and possibly some H264 with more than a standard value of reference frames (for some reason people encode non-standard content). Also some Hi10p H264. And possibly some 1080/24.000p and 1080/29.97p content?

For a UK audience a Freeview HD recording would be REALLY useful. It uses dynamic 1080i/p switching on the fly so can constantly be flicking between 1080/50i and 1080/25p in the same stream.

If you're feeling really fancy you could also test the de-interlacing by having 59.94i content that is native interlace, 29.97p in a 59.94i wrapper and 23.976p in a 59.94i wrapper using 3:2 pulldown.

(*) Annoyingly there are two dominant standards for describing video systems. If the letter comes at the end of the whole thing - like 576/50i or 720/50p - then the second number is the frame rate for progressive but the field rate for interlaced. If the letter comes in the middle - like 576i25 or 720p50 - then the second number is always the frame rate (so for 2:1 interlaced systems it will be half the field rate or picture rate) For progressive system the number is the frame rate for both. The first number is always the vertical active resolution.

[Darkscythe]

I'm relieved I already cover many of these including HEVC and Hi10p. Will be seeking out a couple more samples though. Thanks for the list!

[noggin]

I'm relieved I already cover many of these including HEVC and Hi10p. Will be seeking out a couple more samples though. Thanks for the list!

For the 1080p or 1080i stuff it might be worth looking at a couple of different groups of bitrates. H264 Level 4.0 and Level 4.1 differ in the max bitrates they handle for example. Most DVB H264 I've seen has been 4.0 but Blu-ray is 4.1

And if you want to get SUPER clever then finding H264 1080i stuff that is PAFF and MBAFF would be amazingly detailed (some H264 decoders didn't like MBAFF encoding) But I realise there are limits ;-)

[wrxtasy]

Suggestion:
You want 1080i/50fps and 720i/25fps (DBV-T) as well if you want to differentiate your website from all the other dross and lightweight reviews available.

I think you mean 720p/50fps... aka 720/50p or 720p50 (*) 720i doesn't exist in the real world.

Yes just re-checked and you right its 576/50i (aka 576i25) MPEG2, not 720i on the ABC down under.

[stammie]

Where are you guys ordering this from?
I've been trying to order one from aliexpress but it seems they don't want to take my money and keep cancelling my order for security reasons despite my bank confirming the payment has been authorised.
There's no way I'm sending them pictures of my ID and bank statements to get the sale cleared so need an alternative supplier

[fisherman55]

Gearbest, no problem!