(2015-01-02, 21:22)Stereodude Wrote: [ -> ]I didn't say RGB 16-235 wasn't a standard. I said it wasn't used by Consumer Electronics (CE) equipment. CE devices send out YCrCb (16-235) for HDMI video. If they support anything else it's not the default and you have to go tinkering around in menus to change it.
My experience is very different from yours. All the HDTV's I've used treat RGB 0-255 as the normal case, and RGB 16-235 as the odd case (if they even support RGB 16-235). This is because CE devices send out YCrCb and when the TVs see a RGB signal they assume they are being fed by a computer which sends out 0-255. Further, digital displays natively are almost all RGB. Internally, after all their processing, they send RGB 0-255 to the DACs/TCONs/drivers (unless they're >8bit displays). Expanding RGB 16-235 to RGB 0-255 somewhere downstream of the color space conversion is a great way to get banding/posterization. Converting YCrCb (16-235) directly to RGB 0-255 gives better visual results than converting YCrCb (16-235) to RGB 16-235 and having your display turn it into RGB 0-255 due to the floating point math used in the color space conversion and the way the floating point values can be mapped to any target level range or bit depth. You get no such luxury converting RGB 16-235 to RGB 0-255.
Since the Chromebox is a computer and OpenELEC does not default to YCrCb playing back videos in their native color space and chroma format I stand by my contention that it should output RGB 0-255 by default for the best video quality, not RGB 16-235.
Sorry - I'm afraid my experience doesn't tally with that. My Sony HDTV and my Panasonic HDTV both default to 16-235 RGB levelspace.
This is the expected behaviour for HDMI as per the HDMI 1.3 spec :
http://www.microprocessor.org/HDMISpecification13a.pdf
Section 6.6 of this is :
"6.6 Video Quantization Ranges
Black and white levels for video components shall be either “Full Range” or “Limited Range.” YCBCR components shall always be Limited Range while RGB components may be either Full Range or Limited Range. While using RGB, Limited Range shall be used for all video formats defined in CEA-861-D, with the exception of VGA (640x480) format, which requires Full Range."
CEA-861-D defines the standard TV and HDTV HDMI specs used for TV (480i/p, 576i/p, 720p, 1080i/p, and now 2160p at standard HDTV rates) so the HDMI spec states that 16-235 RGB Limited values should be used for TV resolutions. Full 0-255 levels should be the default for non-TV resolutions and the not-quite-TV 640x480p square pixel 4:3 res.
TV black levels, whether in SD or HD or 4K, and whether YCrCb or RGB are 16-235 (or 10 bit equivalents) HDMI follows broadcast specs for broadcast resolutions. It follows the PC/DVI RGB specs for PC resolutions. Whether all consumer gear follows the HDMI spec is another matter of course. YMMV.
(2014-12-24, 22:42)Matt Devo Wrote: [ -> ] (2014-12-24, 20:27)waterskier1018 Wrote: [ -> ]Bump. Does mapping as a network drive on winPC count at validation for your request above, or do I need to mount the share differently?
as long as you mapped it via SMB - in windows explorer, type '\\diskstation' into address bar, then rt-click and map folder
All set now, someone pointed me to enabling the following:
- Enable SMB2 and Large MTU
- Enable Local Master Browser
May have been assumed to be common sense, but I am not into this stuff too much anymore.
I also reset the chromebox and reinstalled everything as well. So until I recheck the boxes above, I won't know the true issue....
More questions:
1. Any reasons not to have items above enabled?
2. Can anything be deleted in the Kodi interface (do I need to worry about family deleting files by accident)?
3. How do I set time on Kodi - I looked around and can't find in the interface? Do I need to do in the DOS-looking interface?
4. Plex. I know nothing, other than I would install it on my Synology NAS. It seems if I do this, I can install an app on my smart TV's and have better luck than I am now. If I do this, will it affect Kodi performance in any way?
Thanks. I am very happy with the Kodi interface and I have accomplished my goal of being able to see my files easily... Programmer fuel fund donation coming...
(2015-01-03, 00:19)waterskier1018 Wrote: [ -> ]All set now, someone pointed me to enabling the following:
- Enable SMB2 and Large MTU
- Enable Local Master Browser
May have been assumed to be common sense, but I am not into this stuff too much anymore.
I also reset the chromebox and reinstalled everything as well. So until I recheck the boxes above, I won't know the true issue....
More questions:
1. Any reasons not to have items above enabled?
2. Can anything be deleted in the Kodi interface (do I need to worry about family deleting files by accident)?
3. How do I set time on Kodi - I looked around and can't find in the interface? Do I need to do in the DOS-looking interface?
4. Plex. I know nothing, other than I would install it on my Synology NAS. It seems if I do this, I can install an app on my smart TV's and have better luck than I am now. If I do this, will it affect Kodi performance in any way?
Thanks. I am very happy with the Kodi interface and I have accomplished my goal of being able to see my files easily... Programmer fuel fund donation coming...
1) SMB2 and large MTU were enabled by default for me; I do not have local master browser enabled.
2) only if you enable that option in Kodi settings
3) Settings/Appearance/time zone and related settings
4) It's possible that having the Plex server running on the NAS could hurt Kodi streaming performance if it were transcoding while trying to stream, but I suspect not. Plex, which forked from XBMC years ago, is completely separate and anything related to it should be handled on their forums. Personally, I've always found Plex's client apps (smart TV, Roku, Android, PC) to be complete garbage when compared to xbmc/Kodi.
(2015-01-03, 00:15)noggin Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry - I'm afraid my experience doesn't tally with that. My Sony HDTV and my Panasonic HDTV both default to 16-235 RGB levelspace.
My two Samsung TVs my Hitachi TV don't. In the Samsung menu the proper setting for RGB 0-255 is labeled "normal" the setting for RGB 16-235 is "low". The Hitachi TV doesn't have a menu option to deal with RGB 16-235.
Quote:This is the expected behaviour for HDMI as per the HDMI 1.3 spec : http://www.microprocessor.org/HDMISpecification13a.pdf
Section 6.6 of this is :
"6.6 Video Quantization Ranges
Black and white levels for video components shall be either “Full Range” or “Limited Range.” YCBCR components shall always be Limited Range while RGB components may be either Full Range or Limited Range. While using RGB, Limited Range shall be used for all video formats defined in CEA-861-D, with the exception of VGA (640x480) format, which requires Full Range."
CEA-861-D defines the standard TV and HDTV HDMI specs used for TV (480i/p, 576i/p, 720p, 1080i/p, and now 2160p at standard HDTV rates) so the HDMI spec states that 16-235 RGB Limited values should be used for TV resolutions. Full 0-255 levels should be the default for non-TV resolutions and the not-quite-TV 640x480p square pixel 4:3 res.
TV black levels, whether in SD or HD or 4K, and whether YCrCb or RGB are 16-235 (or 10 bit equivalents) HDMI follows broadcast specs for broadcast resolutions. It follows the PC/DVI RGB specs for PC resolutions. Whether all consumer gear follows the HDMI spec is another matter of course. YMMV.
That's all well and good, but you get better image quality converting YCrCb video to RGB 0-255 or leaving it alone and sending it out as YCrCb. Your talking about theory and specs. I'm talking about practical application. One of the supported options shown in that spec has inferior image quality for playback of YCbCr video (which is effectively all video) vs. the other two. It just happens to be that's the one the Chromebox w/ OpenELEC defaults to (RGB 16-235). Since the Chromebox w/ OpenELEC doesn't do YCrCb over HDMI like CE devices such as DVD & Blu-Ray players do it should output RGB 0-255 since it has better image quality than RGB 16-235 and is allowable per the HDMI specifications.
By the way, Windows (7 & 8.1 at least) output RGB 0-255 from a Haswell iGPU over HDMI. You can control the output levels (for video playback only) in the control panel but the desktop and all other GUI elements are RGB 0-255.
(2015-01-02, 01:32)Matt Devo Wrote: [ -> ] (2015-01-02, 01:24)Stereodude Wrote: [ -> ]So no one else has noticed that the Chromebox doesn't output the proper RGB video levels for video playback with OpenELEC? I had never really checked it before since I only use my Chromebox for audio. Today i gave it a shot with OpenELEC 5.0 it outputs 16-235 and enabling the 16-235 option in the menus just further compresses the video levels to something even more narrow.
I'm going to wager you haven't read the wiki / applied the full-range output setting as noted?
(2015-01-02, 01:32)leo5111 Wrote: [ -> ]i bought this 1 because with keyboard and mouse was pretty good deal http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LB11...UTF8&psc=1 now logicly the keyboard&mouse they sell it with "SHOULD" work in bios, but we will see 
that's not a logical conclusion at all, since in a stock configuration there is no need for it to work in developer mode or on the legacy boot menu. I suspect they never even tested it in those scenarios
may not have been a logical conclusion, but the keyboard does work in bios
(2015-01-03, 01:00)Stereodude Wrote: [ -> ]That's all well and good, but you get better image quality converting YCrCb video to RGB 0-255 or leaving it alone and sending it out as YCrCb. Your talking about theory and specs. I'm talking about practical application. One of the supported options shown in that spec has inferior image quality for playback of YCbCr video (which is effectively all video) vs. the other two. It just happens to be that's the one the Chromebox w/ OpenELEC defaults to (RGB 16-235). Since the Chromebox w/ OpenELEC doesn't do YCrCb over HDMI like CE devices such as DVD & Blu-Ray players do it should output RGB 0-255 since it has better image quality than RGB 16-235 and is allowable per the HDMI specifications.
By the way, Windows (7 & 8.1 at least) output RGB 0-255 from a Haswell iGPU over HDMI. You can control the output levels (for video playback only) in the control panel but the desktop and all other GUI elements are RGB 0-255.
Did you enable the "Limited Range" Option in XBMC? In my case (Panasonic TXP50GT30) only with Limited Range Option enabled the Output is not clipped...
(2015-01-03, 01:49)john.cord Wrote: [ -> ]Did you enable the "Limited Range" Option in XBMC? In my case (Panasonic TXP50GT30) only with Limited Range Option enabled the Output is not clipped...
No, that makes it even worse. The workaround was to put
xrandr --output HDMI1 --set "Broadcast RGB" "Full"
in the autostart.sh script. Now it outputs RGB 0-255 for the GUI and video and there's less banding / posterization in gradients.
I think john.cord and Stereodude are looking at different usage cases.
I think Stereodude wants 0-255 levelspace output (with 16-236 YCrCb matrixed to 0-255 RGB) as his TV is configured to accept 0-255 RGB over HDMI. By default the Intel drivers in Linux (certainly in OpenElec) output 16-235 levels in RGB when running HDTV resolutions, so he's using the xrandr output option to force Full 0-255 levels instead.
I think john.cord has a Panasonic HDTV that expects 16-235 RGB levels but his GPU drivers are outputting 0-255 Full RGB levels, so by default dark grey/black content will be clipped as well bright content (potentially). Enabling the Limited Range option in XBMC will get XBMC to "fix" this problem by outputting 16-235 video in the knowledge that the GPU won't be rescaling it itself to 16-235. (Normally XBMC scales 16-235 YCrCb to 0-255 RGB internally, with the GPU re-scaling back to 16-235 RGB or YCrCb, or leaving it as 0-255 RGB depending on the driver and/or its config)
PCs handle 16-235 video very badly... Though it isn't helped by there being (at least) two YCrCb colour standards (601 and 709 - with different YCrCb<->RGB coefficients) so there isn't a totally straightforward way of handling things. And PCs have to drive VGA RGB, DVI RGB, internal monitors etc. not just HDMI. It's far from simple.
(2015-01-02, 02:52)pglover19 Wrote: [ -> ] (2015-01-02, 02:39)pglover19 Wrote: [ -> ] (2015-01-02, 02:24)Matt Devo Wrote: [ -> ]just follow the standalone setup instructions. If you're running OE, you can back up your config using the OE backup function (Settings/OpenELEC/General), copy the backup file to another PC, and restore after completing the standalone setup,
I don't have a need to save the old OpenELEC configuration file. I want to start fresh with the standalone option.
Do I need to execute these steps again for the standalone option? Please advise...
•Put the ChromeBox in developer mode
•Open the ChromeBox and remove the write-protect screw
Matt,
I am having so problems installing the standalone OpenElec program. I was running the Dual setup and want to start fresh and install the standalone setup. I followed your Standalone steps to install OpenElec. I downloaded and ran the EZ setup script. Run option 5 and then option 6. Now I want to run the OpenElec installer on the USB drive. So I rebooted the device and pressed ESC but it is running the old version of OpenElec on the hard drive. I am trying to get the boot menu to run the OpenElec installer on the USB drive but it is booting from the hard drive. Please help...
(2015-01-03, 04:03)Matt Devo Wrote: [ -> ] (2015-01-03, 03:56)pglover19 Wrote: [ -> ]Matt,
I am having so problems installing the standalone OpenElec program. I was running the Dual setup and want to start fresh and install the standalone setup. I followed your Standalone steps to install OpenElec. I downloaded and ran the EZ setup script. Run option 5 and then option 6. Now I want to run the OpenElec installer on the USB drive. So I rebooted the device and pressed ESC but it is running the old version of OpenElec on the hard drive. I am trying to get the boot menu to run the OpenElec installer on the USB drive but it is booting from the hard drive. Please help...
http://kodi.wiki/view/Chromebox#Known_is...orkarounds
The device is not recognizing my USB stick, so I had to get a SanDisk USB drive. How do I manually install the OpenElec installer program on the new USB stick from my Windows PC?
(2015-01-03, 04:31)Matt Devo Wrote: [ -> ] (2015-01-03, 04:28)pglover19 Wrote: [ -> ]The device is not recognizing my USB stick, so I had to get a SanDisk USB drive. How do I manually install the OpenElec installer program on the new USB stick from my Windows PC?
http://kodi.wiki/view/Chromebox#Install_Media_Creation
Perfect... Thank you so much for your patience...
Has anyone been able to get Ctrl-D to work with a Flirc and Harmony remote to boot to Chrome (OE is my default, dual boot)? I was hoping to program that to a button with Flirc and press it on power on to go to Chrome.
(2015-01-03, 04:39)giant25 Wrote: [ -> ]Has anyone been able to get Ctrl-D to work with a Flirc and Harmony remote to boot to Chrome (OE is my default, dual boot)? I was hoping to program that to a button with Flirc and press it on power on to go to Chrome.
would be nice if it worked, but unfortunately it does not.