2020-12-03, 09:17
Introduction
The following is a guide for the Kodi whitelists feature and some related settings pertaining to Kodi GUI resolution, and how to use them to get the best possible image quality or in simple terms to use your new shiny 4k or 8k TV to its full potential while on Linux and using Kodi.
What is a whitelist?
Whitelists are a list of video modes i.e. resolution and refresh rates to output to your television that Kodi is allowed to switch to automatically when playing a video.
What has the GUI resolution got to do with the whitelist?
The GUI resolution allows you to set the specific resolution of the Kodi user interface, with a couple of exceptions that we will get into later.
Which should i use?
Whitelist and when to use it?
Example: so you have bought a brand new TV 4k or 8k and you want to view your personal content either hard copies (4k/blurays, dvd's, etc) or backed up copies from your personal collection that you have backed up to preserve your hard copies and are now on your server or personal backup drives, in this scenario we will work under the assumption that all your backups have been encoded correctly and have the correct resolution and refresh rate i.e 1920x1080p @ 23.97hz etc, which when whitelisted will output to your TV @ 1080p/24 which will allow your TV to upscale correctly for buttery smooth motion, when used in conjunction with the correct system settings and hardware acceleration settings etc.
Summary
To summarize whitelists work best when your media has the correct resolutions and refresh rates encoded i.e if you incorrectly encoded your media e.g 1916x1076 @ 23.89hz and the only option in your whitelist is [email protected] then Kodi will default to your desktop resolution and not pass the correct info to your TV for upscaling, because the 1916x1076 doesn't match what's in your whitelist, so its important if your going to use whitelists that your end encoded resolution and refresh rates match the correct outputs of your media (hard copies) for the whitelists to work effectively.
GUI Resolution and when to use it?
Example: lets say your media collection has now grown over the years and you have encoded your personal media with different encode settings
for whatever reason and its kinda of a mish mash of different resolutions and refresh rates but you now know better and back up your personal media correctly but some of your earlier encodes are a bit of a mess but you cant be bothered digging up those old DVD or Blu-ray's to re-encode with the correct settings because you now have a new 4k or 8k TV etc, well thankfully there is a workaround
, if you set Kodi to output its GUI resolution to 1080p and remove all whitelisting resolutions and refresh rates Kodi now defaults to its old way of detecting the resolution and refresh rate to the nearest value i.e say your Blu-ray is encoded with 1916x1076 @ 23.89hz non of the whitelist will detect this value properly as its not correct but now when you set the GUI resolution to 1080p Kodi will now detect the nearest value and output to your TV at the correct resolution and refresh rate i.e @ 1080p/24.
Summary
To summarize the GUI method is best used when your personal media collection does not have accurate resolutions or refresh rates but they are close enough
The only downside in using the GUI method is that your movie and TV artwork will look grainy and slightly pixilated as you will be downscaling Kodi's GUI to 1080p on your 4k or 8k TV but this does not effect video output in anyway just Kodi's GUI also it wont effect 4k playback and will also output 4k media correctly when using the GUI method.
So why would i want to use either of the methods?
Whitelists
The biggest and one of the most obvious reason you would want to use a whitelist instead of the GUI method is to keep your (Kodi) GUI resolution at your TV's native resolution i.e 4k or 8k this will keep everything looking 4k or 8k crisp (artwork) another reason would be the ability to set specific resolutions and allow your TV to do the upscaling in case for instance you want to set your video output to certain resolutions and/or refresh rates for your specific TV's ability etc, but the main reason for whitelists is to work in unison (together) with your Kodi motion settings and your computer and TV motion settings for smooth video playback i.e stutter/judder elimination with the correct pull-down cadence.
Kodi GUI method
One of the biggest reasons you would want to use the GUI method is if your having trouble passing the correct resolution or refresh rate to your TV be it from having incorrect values for said videos or that its not a recognised whitelist value i.e its not listed in the whitelists of Kodi, another benefit of using the GUI method is that it acts like a automatic detection for your personal media collection's resolution and refresh rates, which means you set it once and forget about it, again it has the same benefits as the whitelist method without having to know any specific resolutions or refresh rates to set in Kodi.
Conclusion
Both methods will help you achieve excellent motion for 5/5 pull-down on your high refresh rate TV's with excellent 24hz stutter/judder elimination which is naturally inherent on 24hz signals on high refresh rate displays (TV's), this is a small part of the chain when setting up Kodi with Linux on modern hardware (TV's, Av Receivers, Streaming Devices, etc) which needs to be understood, because many Kodi users are not using their new/modern 4k or 8k TV's and hardware to its full potential, Kodi has become a sophisticated software with many nuances that can sometimes confuse and overwhelm new users especially those who choose to use it on Linux.
------------------------------------------
Feel free to post comments below!
Let me know in the comments below if you want a tutorial on how to setup video acceleration whitelists or motion settings etc on Linux.
My other tutorials so far;
v2.How to Setup Dolby Atmos, DTS-X, TrueHD, DTS-HD MA, Passthrough On Kodi 18 & newer
Kind regards
The following is a guide for the Kodi whitelists feature and some related settings pertaining to Kodi GUI resolution, and how to use them to get the best possible image quality or in simple terms to use your new shiny 4k or 8k TV to its full potential while on Linux and using Kodi.
What is a whitelist?
Whitelists are a list of video modes i.e. resolution and refresh rates to output to your television that Kodi is allowed to switch to automatically when playing a video.
What has the GUI resolution got to do with the whitelist?
The GUI resolution allows you to set the specific resolution of the Kodi user interface, with a couple of exceptions that we will get into later.
Which should i use?
Whitelist and when to use it?
Example: so you have bought a brand new TV 4k or 8k and you want to view your personal content either hard copies (4k/blurays, dvd's, etc) or backed up copies from your personal collection that you have backed up to preserve your hard copies and are now on your server or personal backup drives, in this scenario we will work under the assumption that all your backups have been encoded correctly and have the correct resolution and refresh rate i.e 1920x1080p @ 23.97hz etc, which when whitelisted will output to your TV @ 1080p/24 which will allow your TV to upscale correctly for buttery smooth motion, when used in conjunction with the correct system settings and hardware acceleration settings etc.
Summary
To summarize whitelists work best when your media has the correct resolutions and refresh rates encoded i.e if you incorrectly encoded your media e.g 1916x1076 @ 23.89hz and the only option in your whitelist is [email protected] then Kodi will default to your desktop resolution and not pass the correct info to your TV for upscaling, because the 1916x1076 doesn't match what's in your whitelist, so its important if your going to use whitelists that your end encoded resolution and refresh rates match the correct outputs of your media (hard copies) for the whitelists to work effectively.
GUI Resolution and when to use it?
Quote:"Adjust Display refresh rate" needs to be activated first making sure to choose on start/stop in the options before changing the Kodi GUI resolution, this is needed for the GUI method to work correctly.
Example: lets say your media collection has now grown over the years and you have encoded your personal media with different encode settings
for whatever reason and its kinda of a mish mash of different resolutions and refresh rates but you now know better and back up your personal media correctly but some of your earlier encodes are a bit of a mess but you cant be bothered digging up those old DVD or Blu-ray's to re-encode with the correct settings because you now have a new 4k or 8k TV etc, well thankfully there is a workaround
, if you set Kodi to output its GUI resolution to 1080p and remove all whitelisting resolutions and refresh rates Kodi now defaults to its old way of detecting the resolution and refresh rate to the nearest value i.e say your Blu-ray is encoded with 1916x1076 @ 23.89hz non of the whitelist will detect this value properly as its not correct but now when you set the GUI resolution to 1080p Kodi will now detect the nearest value and output to your TV at the correct resolution and refresh rate i.e @ 1080p/24.Summary
To summarize the GUI method is best used when your personal media collection does not have accurate resolutions or refresh rates but they are close enough
The only downside in using the GUI method is that your movie and TV artwork will look grainy and slightly pixilated as you will be downscaling Kodi's GUI to 1080p on your 4k or 8k TV but this does not effect video output in anyway just Kodi's GUI also it wont effect 4k playback and will also output 4k media correctly when using the GUI method.
So why would i want to use either of the methods?
Whitelists
The biggest and one of the most obvious reason you would want to use a whitelist instead of the GUI method is to keep your (Kodi) GUI resolution at your TV's native resolution i.e 4k or 8k this will keep everything looking 4k or 8k crisp (artwork) another reason would be the ability to set specific resolutions and allow your TV to do the upscaling in case for instance you want to set your video output to certain resolutions and/or refresh rates for your specific TV's ability etc, but the main reason for whitelists is to work in unison (together) with your Kodi motion settings and your computer and TV motion settings for smooth video playback i.e stutter/judder elimination with the correct pull-down cadence.
Kodi GUI method
One of the biggest reasons you would want to use the GUI method is if your having trouble passing the correct resolution or refresh rate to your TV be it from having incorrect values for said videos or that its not a recognised whitelist value i.e its not listed in the whitelists of Kodi, another benefit of using the GUI method is that it acts like a automatic detection for your personal media collection's resolution and refresh rates, which means you set it once and forget about it, again it has the same benefits as the whitelist method without having to know any specific resolutions or refresh rates to set in Kodi.
Conclusion
Both methods will help you achieve excellent motion for 5/5 pull-down on your high refresh rate TV's with excellent 24hz stutter/judder elimination which is naturally inherent on 24hz signals on high refresh rate displays (TV's), this is a small part of the chain when setting up Kodi with Linux on modern hardware (TV's, Av Receivers, Streaming Devices, etc) which needs to be understood, because many Kodi users are not using their new/modern 4k or 8k TV's and hardware to its full potential, Kodi has become a sophisticated software with many nuances that can sometimes confuse and overwhelm new users especially those who choose to use it on Linux.
------------------------------------------
Feel free to post comments below!
Let me know in the comments below if you want a tutorial on how to setup video acceleration whitelists or motion settings etc on Linux.
My other tutorials so far;
v2.How to Setup Dolby Atmos, DTS-X, TrueHD, DTS-HD MA, Passthrough On Kodi 18 & newer
Kind regards