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+--- Thread: Android 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z (/showthread.php?tid=347239)
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - axbmcuser - 2020-10-16
I have to say that i did not use the 4k stick for a while due to time reasons, but:
I mainly wanted to replace the 4k stick because of the weird stutter issues i had with it when playing any untouched 1080p VC1-codec BD mkv. When i remember correctly, the problem was identical on Kodi 17+18 with the 4k stick. (despite cpu load being quite mid-low-ish)
Also i hoped for more performance headroom to not to have to worry anymore about pretty much any performance situation.
First impression:
Everything is faster than ever with no detected issues so far when testing multiple untouched BD 1080p h264/vc1 mkv. I also tested multiple untouched BD 2160p hevc hdr mkv (hdr2sdr by android) - also with no problems. Playing, skipping. Everything feels instant almost like playing local files. (To be fair, it was mostly very good already with the 4k stick)
- All tests were performed in a very stable ac-wifi environment.
- I only tested 2.0 output so far. I don't use surround or passthrough on my android setups.
After some more use i'm happy to report further if anything comes up.
Maybe i get the to do a final test in comparison my "old" 4k stick with 18.8 before factory resetting it.
Side notes:
- Above mentioned untouched BD 2160p hevc hdr mkv material was used while letting android doing it's own (mediaCodec?) thing converting it hdr2sdr outputting on a 1080p screen.
I guess because of that vertical shift is not working correctly for these files. (same on 4k stick, of course)
When trying to use vertical shift values of 1.00+ the image does not move down as expected but gets weirdly stretched while slightly moving down.
I think that this may not be an issue with Kodi itself but because of android handling the hdr2sdr while downscaling 4k to 1080p? Zooming is also defunct in these exact situations which may be the same deal in regards of the reasons?
Getting vertical shift+zoom to function in such exact cases would be a dream, but if it's just not possible, everything else seems already insanely good - so... :-)
Thanks again.
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - axbmcuser - 2020-10-16
Quick addition regarding the vertical-shift+zoom comments:
I haven't been very familiar with what "mediaCodec" and "mediaCodec (Surface)" was due my low android usage.
After some reading and disabling "mediaCodec (Surface)" while leaving "mediaCodec" enabled, vertical-shift+zoom seems to work for as it seems all files. (also while downscaling 4k to 1080p and such)
If i understand correctly there might not be much harm disabling "mediaCodec (Surface)" besides losing drm-stuff for kodi-netflix or such addons? Is that correct?
Edit: Just noticed that disabling "mediaCodec (Surface)" means android doesn't do it's hdr2sdr mapping anymore. Damn. So, back to square one in that regard. :-)
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - funnypanks - 2020-10-17
(2020-10-16, 22:35)fritsch Wrote: What do you see the biggest advantage in comparison to the 4K? Anything that works better or something that got worse?
I just got the cube (coming from 4K stick), and I can say everything is much faster. I’m running your newest build from oct 1. Even pause play audio delay is minimized now. Dd dts works well, HD codecs passthrough as pcm(as expected). Had to set the speakers to 5.1 so ftv doesn’t convert things to DD+ 2ch.
The stick had issues with Netflix Atmos, the cube doesn’t.
Thanks for the great work!
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - axbmcuser - 2020-10-18
Additional feedback after some hours of real-life usage testing of the fritschfiretv build from 01 oct. on the cube:
+++
- All around no crashes, freezes or stuff like that
- UI very snappy, even with large test libraries and displaying many movie posters at once (gui resolution 1080 on 1080p sdr output/display)
- Now also tested with 7.1 LPCM output with zero problems (can't test any passthrough on my setup) while using volume amplification
- All codecs: vc1, h264, hevc (hdr2sdr) up to 2160p 60hz all worked fine (only tested untouched material with high bitrates). seeking, skipping very very fast
- Framerate switching (on start/stop) worked with all tested titles (23, 60) without any problems noticed
- While using stable 5ghz wifi with ~290mbit behind a concrete wall i had zero(!) "re-buffering issues" even with highest bitrate untouched bd 2160p 60hz material (gemini man)
--- (maybe this is not build specific or can't really be changed/fixed because of reasons)
1) Zoom and vertical shift does not work (correctly) when using the (needed) hardware acceleration (MediaCodec enabled, MediaCodec (Surface) enabled).
2) All tests had to be performed with "<buffermode>0</buffermode>". Since i like use a network safety buffer on my other higher end windows setups i also tried using "<buffermode>1</buffermode>" with different config/sizes here on android, but it always ends up not working correctly. Maybe there just is no performance headroom for handling such additional buffering when using more demanding untouched files.
Since the CPU-usage indicator is not working, i couldn't really tell.
But:
since it seems to work flawless with "<buffermode>0</buffermode>" if you have stable wifi with 200-300mbit, it isn't really an issue for me.
So - all around it worked very stable and fast today
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - wrxtasy - 2020-10-19
(2020-10-18, 23:16)axbmcuser Wrote: - All codecs: vc1, h264, hevc (hdr2sdr) up to 2160p 60hz all worked fine (only tested untouched material with high bitrates). seeking, skipping very very fast
Correct VC-1 playback is quite surprising on a AMLogic Android based device.
I wonder if such content is being Software decoded ?
Because the AML S922Z certainly has the CPU SW decode capability to do so ?
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - axbmcuser - 2020-10-19
(2020-10-19, 06:17)wrxtasy Wrote: Correct VC-1 playback is quite surprising on a AMLogic Android based device.Yes, Kodi shows it's using sw-decoding for VC1 on the cube.
I wonder if such content is being Software decoded ?
But it showed that also with the 4K stick which then still stuttered extremely despite only using 20-50% cpu load. (Just tested it again with my "old" 4k stick using same fritschfiretv build)
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - wrxtasy - 2020-10-20
(2020-10-19, 12:04)axbmcuser Wrote:(2020-10-19, 06:17)wrxtasy Wrote: Correct VC-1 playback is quite surprising on a AMLogic Android based device.Yes, Kodi shows it's using sw-decoding for VC1 on the cube.
I wonder if such content is being Software decoded ?
But it showed that also with the 4K stick which then still stuttered extremely despite only using 20-50% cpu load. (Just tested it again with my "old" 4k stick using same fritschfiretv build)
@fritsch has done the smart thing and disabled problem video codecs
Great move for Android devices like this Cube with powerful CPU packages.
!
Beats stuffing around with that complicated (for newbies) Android Kodi decodefilter.xml
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - axbmcuser - 2020-10-21
Does anyone know if vertical shift works on the Vero 4K+? I saw that it seems to have worked end of 2018, but could not verify.
If it works:
Anything from Vero's OSMC which could be adapted so vertical shift (and zoom?) would also work in the fritschfiretv build?
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - mfmfmf - 2020-10-25
I'm also seeing the vertical shift problem where the trailing edge shifts faster than the leading edge, which results in a video frame that shrinks vertically as the shifting progresses.
This problem occurs for values less than -1.00 (when shifting the video upward), and for values greater than +1.00 (when shifting the video downward)
I see the problem with all of:
- kodi-20201001-5c717b66-fritschfiretv-armeabi-v7a.apk
- kodi-20201024-08ee377c-fritschfiretv-armeabi-v7a.apk
- kodi-20201008-7a0563a7-media_import_19.0a2-Matrix-armeabi-v7a.apk
No problem on the Fire TV Stick 4K.
This is a bit off topic: whenever possible, I like to shift the video up to allow subtitles to be shown below the video as much as possible. It always baffles why some videos don't shift up until I've reached < -1.00 whereas others would shift immediately at less than zero. What is the reason for this?
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - fritsch - 2020-10-25
Firmware Bug of the internal AMLogic implementation. That's also the reason why FireTV 4K works with the 100% same code ...
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - mfmfmf - 2020-10-26
(2020-10-25, 10:38)fritsch Wrote: Firmware Bug of the internal AMLogic implementation. That's also the reason why FireTV 4K works with the 100% same code ...
Thanks for the reply. So does it mean this vertical shift problem will affect all S922X boxes, even if you install CoreELEC on them?
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - fritsch - 2020-10-26
No. The one is an android firmware with a bug. The other a pimped vendor Linux from 2018. The latter works.
Edit: I always forget which one is based on the EOL 3.14 kernel and which one has at least the 4.9 option. Though as for a Mediacenter most users seem security totally irrelevant, the one that works is the better.
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - wrxtasy - 2020-10-26
(2020-10-26, 07:56)fritsch Wrote: No. The one is an android firmware with a bug. The other a pimped vendor Linux from 2018. The latter works.
Edit: I always forget which one is based on the EOL 3.14 kernel and which one has at least the 4.9 option. Though as for a Mediacenter most users seem security totally irrelevant, the one that works is the better.
The "-ng" aka Next Generation versions of CoreELEC are all based on the AMLogic Android v4.9 Linux Kernel - that you find in all recent AML chipset Android devices as well.
Those are the ones that do HDR10+ and correct MaxCLL/FALL HDR metadata output as well vs the old v3.14
I believe Google made it mandatory to have a v4.9 Linux Kernel if you wanted to use an Android Pie v9.0 OS or greater.
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - fritsch - 2020-10-26
Nice. Sounds great. That was one of my biggest critics and concerns there for a long time.
RE: 2019 - Amazon Fire TV Cube - AMLogic S922Z - jarod71 - 2020-10-31
(2019-09-15, 06:53)lightsout Wrote: Too bad you can't flash these with a different rom. Or even a different launcher would be sweet. The UI is bad. Hardware sounds great, at least in the video department. Audio seems to be lacking. Strange that they went for a more expensive box type but still left out HD audio. I get it on a cheap stick. But these should have it.you can enable wolf launcher on a non rooted firetv stick or cube and also block firmware updates from amazon. to go back to enable launcher is a few clicks to enable/disable. works great for me and info is on xda if you are interested.