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Full Version: Zidoo X9S (X-series) 4K HDR / 3D / HD Audio / ZDMC (Kodi fork): Review & Use
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So after some further testing I found some very strange behavior. I tried USB drive and that worked without any issues. However, and this one is very strange. So I have all my media shared in through a Windows Server 2012 R2. Both SMB share and UPNP with Serviio. When I play a regular mkv file with external player enabled the file wont play using SMB. External player just closes. But if I choose the same file using the Serviio share the file opens, but with internal player. Very strange is uses internal player just because it is a UPNP source. When trying ISO files external player IS working with SMB. ISO is not supported via UPNP as you all know. I saw in a post something about external player crashes after update. Could it be related?
And I still have strange choppy playback using network. Especially in large 35-40 GB mkv files.
I have the same choppy playback with larger mkv files!!
If you want to play files with SMB you need to make sure that the name/link of the share uses the IP adress and not the network name of your server. You also can replace the name with the IP adress in the Kodi wrapper.
I have another issue now with ZDMC and the external Ziddo player (wrapper). When I stop the movie it goes back to ZDMC. When I press OK or exit the video starts to play again. I can't get out of this loop. Any ideas?
Hi guys,

I read this in the first thread:

Picture quality: A (w/native/external player) | B+ (w/ZDMC)

What is the native player? what is the externa player?


I have to install a official Kodi 16.1 to the playstore? whith native o external player?


sorry for this basic questions!
No, you use the pre-installed ZDMC... which is Zidoo's custom fork of Kodi 16.1. To get 3D MVC to work properly, you need to enable the "external player" option in ZDMC. This pushes playback of most videos to the external (a.k.a. native) player (vs. ZDMC/Kodi). PQ w/external is also significantly better than ZDMC/Kodi.

See video in post #1 as to how ZDMC and external player work together.
Have another problem. When I use a minix neo a2 remote all audio either via hdmi or optical cuts out. When I unplug it turns on again.

Sent from my SM-G925F
good morning,

lors de l'essai sur Kodi sur un simple épisode de serie en 720p, blocage, saut d'image, perte de signal sur le videoprojecteur et fermeture de l'application. J'ai continué ce même épisode sur la Shield est RAS.

Blockage, image skipping, loss of signal and the app closing with tv shows in 720p

the same video with the shield TV work perfectly.

Anybody experiencing the same issues ?
(2016-11-04, 09:02)DaMacFunkin Wrote: [ -> ]
(2016-11-04, 03:54)wesk05 Wrote: [ -> ]
(2016-11-03, 23:18)DaMacFunkin Wrote: [ -> ]P.s. I'm absolutely sure the Denon has 4K 24hz YCBCr 4:2:2 12 bit in its list, it is what Panasonic and Philips UHD blu ray players output at and I've never seen or heard anybody in their forums or Denon forums mention it.
I guess you haven't then seen these posts on AVS forum: 1, 2, 3, 4

You can see similar posts in the Roku Ultra thread also.

Blush
Your right, i had not seen those posts, i will ask in the denon forum, jdsmoothie usually knows about these things and is possibly on Denon's Christmas Card List so maybe he has an answer.
I wish there was another way to check the 10/12bit 4:2:2 output.

You mean somthing like this Tongue
http://imgur.com/a/Ix6Xk

on Intel Apollo lake works
on after disable OSD from AVR was full 12bit from PC to 12bit on TV Smile
(2016-11-04, 09:02)DaMacFunkin Wrote: [ -> ]Your right, i had not seen those posts, i will ask in the denon forum, jdsmoothie usually knows about these things and is possibly on Denon's Christmas Card List so maybe he has an answer.
I wish there was another way to check the 10/12bit 4:2:2 output.
Denon support has commented on a similar issue: "AVR is not a video analyzer". They are not going to change anything. According to HDMI 1.4 and 2.0 specifications, YCbCr 4:2:2 is in 36-bit mode (same as saying 12-bit) and doesn't require further use of Deep Color modes. Pixel depth is read from the CD fields required for Deep Color mode. Since 4:2:2 mode doesn't have to define Deep Color, CD fields in GCP are not updated and this is likely the reason why we don't see the pixel depth. With that said, I am not 100% sure that the X9S always output 12-bit for YCbCr 4:2:2. When I take readings of the pixels, they are only 8-bit. I will have to further investigate whether this is an issue with my analyzers or not.

(2016-11-04, 18:53)piotrasd Wrote: [ -> ]You mean somthing like this Tongue
on Intel Apollo lake works
on after disable OSD from AVR was full 12bit from PC to 12bit on TV Smile
NO. It is not YCbCr 4:2:2. On the X9S, when the output is YCbCr 4:4:4, Denon will show the pixel depth as 12-bit.
thanks for the URL

and i received my zidoo X8 Smile
(2016-11-05, 00:08)hdmkv Wrote: [ -> ]Nice review (a 9/10 grade) by Mark over @ AVForums.com.

Not bad score for a box that dont support Netflix HD/4K or any certifications for streaming services, and still receives a Nine(9) for Networking, Internet, Streaming quality. Huh

Looking for the words of the same reviewer SHIELD Android TV is undoubtedly more powerful but lacks the number of blockbuster streaming apps some of those do/will offer. makes me think if Ziddo X9S & Himedia Q10 pro dispute the same market has the SATV...
(2016-11-05, 00:08)hdmkv Wrote: [ -> ]Nice review (a 9/10 grade) by Mark over @ AVForums.com.

You know, I am surprised at how so many people have so few problems with video playback on this machine. Especially when it seems that the vocal minority have continuous video stutter and halting issues beyond the initial start of the video on simple 1080p 24Hz 3D and 2D full lossless Blu-ray movie playback. In my case I have tried streaming lossless Blu-ray from my MacPro via SMB (using an Mac SMB substitute SMBup that is not compatible with MacOs Sierra unfortunately), NFS (directly through the built in Media Player or via mounted shares with pointers in the mnt/nfs folder), and a DLNA server. SMB streams from my MacPro had the least stutter (the built in media player better than using the ZidooPlayer with Kodi), followed by worsening performance with NFS, then the worse performance with a DLNA server. The Zidoo X9S has particular problems playing back movies with Dolby Atmos soundtracks (a lot more playback stutter) since that requires the player to access two soundtracks at the same time! In fact some have already commented that removing extraneous soundtracks from the MKV file will improve performance. 3D iso's play back with less frequent stutters, but 3D MKV's hang up every time! My Kodi setup is 1080p at 60 Hz, which is what I set the Zidoo Player screen output.

So what am I missing here? Not to mention it, but I have much less problems with video playback on a Q10 Pro (except for 3D ISO issue with 23.976Hz syncing) or an Intel NUC (except for MVC 3D chapter skipping problem with Dolby Atmos containing material). I have only tested the performance of the Zidoo player, but cannot continuously use the player due to major video playback issues. And I certainly cannot recommend any one buy this box with the current firmware release because ALL lossless Blu-ray movie playback is flawed with continuous video stuttering.

I am using the latest Zidoo firmware (1.2.6). I have not tried any 4K material or set my screen resolution to 4K. I hope that a future firmware release will fix playback issues, but so far no release has done so. So what am I doing wrong, or rather how has others been able to stream lossless Blu-ray movies over ethernet on a local network without any video stutter constantly occurring?
How many hard drives can the Zidoo X9S mount at once? I currently have 4 hard drives full of movies using a Mediasonic 4 bay enclosure. Would all 4 drives work like this on the Zidoo X9S?
@ppoulos,

I've never found adding SMB Shares, served from a Mac when using any Android Kodi platform to be that reliable to be honest.
Zeroconf is very spotty when adding File shares.
I'm still on El Capitan and this solution works all the time for me with any Android Kodi / Mac > SMB File sharing

1) Setup a Guest User in OSX > Settings & User Groups
2) Make Sure when you add folders for File Sharing in OSX > Settings > Click "Options" and Enable > Share Files & folders using SMB
3) I also make sure the "Everyone" user Group is set to > "Read Only" for any Folder I'm sharing
4) In Kodi when adding those shares use > Add Network Location > SMB > Fill in only the IP Address of the Mac, leave the rest blank.

W.