Win New Kodi user - some questions
#1
Hi,

I have just installed Kodi on my NUC mini PC which is connected to my 50" plasma full HD tv through HDMI, very excited to make this my new mediaplayer as I watch a lot of local material as mkv movies etc,
This new NUC/Kodi setup is suppose to replace my old Boxee box,

Two concerns I have that I hope someone could help me with is;

1) Picture quality; I have not touched the standard settings but the picture quality is really bad, the movies looks like the resolution is very low and I can see pixels abd the screening is korny in general, if I turn Kodi off and watch the same files on VLC the screening is excellent, any idea how to fix this?

2) When I shut Kodi off, there dosnt seem to be any history of last screened movie or any movie history, but this must be somewhere in Kodi right and I just cant find it?

Very greatfull for some help with this as I really had been looking forward to run this software,
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#2
1) Turn off hardware acceleration, should play like VLC at that point.

2) See if the watch toggle works... with a movie in focus, hit the W key and see if you get a watched status.
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#3
1) I turned of HW acceleration, the image is still rather grainy, not comparable to Boxee box quality but now as you said similar to VLC, could this be because of the NUC graphic card is not better than this?

2) It seems to work, thanks.,
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#4
Is there a "History" list in Kodi with all the last seen files?
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#5
I still don't get as good picture quality as I had hoped, my several years old Boxee box kicks Kodis ass especially on SD materials, is there really nothing I can do to get it up to pair?

It is really strange that a old Boxee box can be so much better than a 500€ new NUC mini pc?
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#6
You're welcome to try DSPlayer.

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2251808
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#7
(2016-02-21, 14:16)Dr nick Wrote: I still don't get as good picture quality as I had hoped, my several years old Boxee box kicks Kodis ass especially on SD materials, is there really nothing I can do to get it up to pair?

It is really strange that a old Boxee box can be so much better than a 500€ new NUC mini pc?
Sounds like some kind of upscaling was happening from your previous hardware. Have a dig around in your TV options and see what it is set to. KODI is likely to be playing the video back in "as is" quality. And the NUC then playing that pixel for pixel. Maybe your TV can then do some form of upscaling on this like is generally done when playing back old DVDs.

I find MediaInfo is very handy for checking what a video file actually is.

If you are starting from low quality sources, anything you then do will just be a bodge.
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#8
I installed the DS player and I believe it improved the situation, its better ,Thank you for the tip!

I tried to follow the instruction video how to set up all the DS settings but it did go to fast for me,
The picture is still grainy but a lot better, if anyone has some additionally advice how to set the settings, please let me know or point me to an easy to follow guide,
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#9
As 'BatterPudding' mentioned, it's all on the TV side for the most part. Look for a 1:1 pixel setting in aspect like 'just scan' and turn off any overscan stuff that could cause the picture to be interpolated by some software on chip (turn off any or all enhancements in both the gfx card and TV). The quality of the image, is digital so in the wire there is no degradation, and the output of your NUC is digital too, so unless you've some enhancement the signal quality should be maintained although as you've discovered the player assembly routines can be optimized, and at that point it's just a preference (try the limited colour range in settings) there was a recent message about this that was quite comprehensive left by one of the devs, but I've been unable to dig it up (google might work for you).

Out of the box link
Quote:Is there a "History" list in Kodi with all the last seen files?
not sure what skin you're running, but there's a 'recently played videos playlist', with some skins.

Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<smartplaylist type="movies">
<name>Recently Played Videos</name>
<match>all</match>
<rule field="lastplayed" operator="inthelast">2 weeks</rule>
<limit>50</limit>
<order direction="descending">lastplayed</order>
</smartplaylist>

Throw this into notepad and call it 'Recently Played Videos' with the .xsp extension and it should be available in your smartplaylists,( C:\Users\PatK\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\playlists\video) then save it as a favourite, and link it to your homepage. Watch notepad doesn't append the .txt extension.
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#10
On my Panasonic 50" TV the setting for the TV to not mess with the image is "GAME" (in a list along with DYNAMIC, STANDARD, CINEMA, TRUE CINEMA). Sometimes it is labelled "PC"

What are the source files you are looking at? Are these 1080p videos to start with that you feel are loosing quality? Or are they older 540 videos that now looking different due to different methods being used to "fill in the gaps"?


Oh - and a little tip. If the video on messing with the DS Settings goes past to quick.... try the magic PAUSE button. Wink
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#11
Thanks guys, appreciate all the help!!

I am running the standard skin, haven't tried anything else,
I am using a 50" plasma tv,
Yees I know there is a pause button but it is a lot anyway for an amateur to take inWink

I will try and get back to this thread,
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#12
(2016-02-21, 18:59)Dr nick Wrote: Yees I know there is a pause button but it is a lot anyway for an amateur to take inWink
Hehehe... yeah, I am being cheeky Big Grin But I do find it really handy to knock KODI into a Window (press \) as then KODI and YouTube can sit happily side by side.

(2016-02-21, 18:59)Dr nick Wrote: I am using a 50" plasma tv,
Which TV set? Make\model?


And I will poke back at the same point. What are you testing with? You should only be testing with high quality 1080p or as good as your TV can handle. Otherwise in attempting to tweak the TV setup to look good on an old low res video you may end up totally messing up your normal playback. If you are having to change dozens of settings to get playback to look good, there could well be something else gong on here.

Looking at the specs of a NUC I would have thought they should play hi-res video fine even in a default KODI setup.
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#13
Thanks! Didn't know that trivk with them both side by side, will check it out!

The TV is a Pannasonic TX-P50ST32Y (Have had it for 3 years and I am very happy with it)

I am testing with an episode of Farscape in really bad SD format, really low quality but still very watchable on my old Boxee Box but not watchable at all on Kody before installing the DS player,
I am not that picky but it really was unwatchable before ,really grainy,
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#14
My TV is a TX-P50ST50B so not too far different to yours Big Grin

Hit the MENU button to find the PICTURE settings. In here I set the VIEWING MODE to GAME. This then kills off all the picture fiddling tweaks the screen will do.

Crud quality sources are crud quality sources. This is why you want to get a copy of MediaInfo so you can learn to check what your video sources actually are. If that is an over compressed low resolution video then the reason you are now seeing something grainy looking is because it *IS* grainy looking. If your source is 320x200 and you are trying to stretch it to fit a 1920x1080 screen then *something* has to guess and fill in the missing dots for that image.

The better the resolution of the screen and player, the rougher your old video will look. I remember when VHS used to look pretty good - but get an old VHS tape out now and it shows how far we have come!


BUT maybe it was the TV's VIEWING MODE that you used to have set differently with the Boxee? With rubbish sources it will mess with the image to make it look less rubbish. Guessing some of the colours to fill in the missing areas. Blurring around the edges.

Hit the MENU button to find the PICTURE settings. In here I set the VIEWING MODE to something else and experiment. Maybe you want some of the more artificial fiddling with the image? Maybe this is what was happening to the Boxee? Could that have been running in that (awfully artifical) DYNAMIC mode? (That mode is there for the shop really as it over blows all the colours). Or maybe NORMAL was messing with the image in another way that helped these low resolution videos?


Trouble is, if you turn all these kind of compensations on to handle some old 320x200 videos then you need to remember to turn them off again when you want to run high quality video. When you rips are of a decent quality, you don't want *anything* to then mess with them. Not KODI, not the Screen, nothing. A decent 1080p rip should be displayed totally untouched in GAME mode on this kind of TV screen.
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#15
I'd guess a TV setting too if i had to place money but i never win if i ever gamble, seriously tho PatK is excellent at weeding out problems so he's your man.
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