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RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - brazen1 - 2018-08-09

New LAV Filters released.
https://www.videohelp.com/software/LAV-Filters


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - bsoriano - 2018-08-09

(2018-08-09, 18:27)brazen1 Wrote: I suppose that is pertinent!  Sorry.  I'll update the post so it's clear.

Media Center PC = Microsoft XBMC
Microsoft MCE Keyboard = Keyboard
Microsoft Windows Media Center SE = PC
Thanks! And do you have in your watch Kodi activity that the movie is played by the Microsoft XBMC device or one of the others? I don't think it makes a lot of difference, does it?


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - brazen1 - 2018-08-09

These 'devices' I've listed are virtual remote control commands, nothing more.  Look at them as a few different remotes all combined into one remote since you cherry picked commands from various remotes and assigned them to one master remote.... your Harmony.  It would be wonderful if remote control commands from any remote worked for all players and all GUI's.  Unfortunately, they don't and never will.  So, we find commands that are suitable across all software and players and combine them into our 'super-duper remote' by combining certain key commands from all the remotes and then control EVERYTHING.  Since all 'hard keys' do not match, I use 'soft keys' for the few strays and additional uncommon commands like those madVR offers.  And, you get to label them.  I've never actually counted how many different commands the single Harmony I use is doing but the amount allowed is more than sufficient.

So to answer your question, there is no reason to display which command is assigned to which virtual device during playback.


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - bsoriano - 2018-08-09

Thanks brazen!


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - popy - 2018-08-09

(2018-08-09, 15:58)bsoriano Wrote:
(2018-08-09, 12:50)popy Wrote: @luci5r :
Also set the upscale/downscale options to DXVA.
Can post my complete settings at the evning.

Do you use kodi 18 to launch the external players?
In my case, on kodi 18a3, after pressing stop to exit MPC-HC, it closes, madvr switches back the resolution to 1080p and kodi just stuck/hangs.
How is your PCF experience?

Thank you
pOpY
Hello,

I am using MPC-BE and DVDFab3 as external players, with Kodi Leia latest nightly, Windows 10 Pro 17730, nVidia GTX 1080, nVidia drivers version 385.28.

The only issue I have with PCF is a known one, that once you play a video with an external player, every single video will be played with that external player, regardless of the rules in the PCF, until you restart Kodi.  To me, just like others have pointed out, while this is annoying, it is something I can live with.

I do use Kodi to launch both of those external players, using the "Play using..." option (press "C" on any title while browsing your library).  I don't use the stop function to exit either of the players.  I use a Harmony Ultimate remote and I have it set up like this:

Exit button, long press sends F7.  In MPC-BE, I mapped F7 to the close function.

So, when I long press Stop while watching a movie with MPC-BE, it exits, there is the brief moment when the display shows black as it switches back to not HDR, and Kodi resumes exactly where it was.  As recommended by @brazen1 and others, I have my Kodi resolution at 4K (3,840 x 2,160 pixels), as well as my Windows Desktop (3,840 x 2,160 8-bit RGB Full in the nVidia Control Panel).

For DVDFab3, I have not been able to find a way to change its default keyboard mappings.  However, I found a way to accommodate my usage.  I added in the Harmony app the device Microsoft Media Player SE (thank you @Warner306 !), which comes with some pre-programmed key combinations, like Alt-F4.  So, to exit DVDFab3 and return to Kodi, I mapped Stop, long press, to Alt-F4.  That way DVDFab3 closes, like with MPC-BE and returns to Kodi no problem.

I just found out about this device yesterday, so now I know I can further refine my setup by remapping MPC-HC close to Alt-F4, and using just the Exit button, long press in my remote to exit out of either external player.  I will be testing that today.

The Media Player SE device also has some other key combinations that could be used to start Kodi with one key from the remote, that is also something I will be trying out as well.

Other notes regarding controlling DVDFab3 from the remote:

1. I assigned the FF key to send F, which works in Kodi, and also works in DVDFab3.  In fact, it works the same way, by switching between 2X,4X,8X,16X and 32X (I know Kodi goes up to 32X) each time you press it.  In Kodi, pressing Play gets you back to normal speed, but in DVDFab3 the key is N, so I mapped the long press of Play to N in my remote.
2.  The same works with RW.  I mapped it to R, which works in Kodi and also works in DVDFab3, the same way as FF.
3. I use subtitles a lot, so I mapped the yellow button in my remote (I am not using it for anything else) to V, which is the key in DVDFab3 which cycles through the subtitle options.
4. I mapped the blue button in my remote to F2, which is the Info key in DVDFab3.  I use this to check that it is indeed playing HDR content (it provides a small display with video and audio info on the top right of the screen during playback).  I didn't use the Info button in my remote, since I have that mapped to I for Kodi and long press to show me Remaining Time in MPC-BE.

I hope this info is useful.

Regards,

Bart 
Thanks a lot for the hints.
I have found out the following:
  • Changing the desktop & kodi resolution to 3840x2160 solved an issue which caused kodi sometimes, after exit MPC to show some wiered resolution and it was not controlable again.
  • The second one is a change in latest v18 kodi's which leads to yatse (i am using to control kodi/MPC-HC) was not correctly recognized  that an exxternal player was lauinched.
    So yatse's control bar controlled kodi instead of MPC-HC nativley througth its webinterface.
    When i pressed "Stop" on yatse, MPC-HC exists and kodi stucks/freezes without any usfull info in the debug log (thats the issue i was stating in my previous posts).

    BUT when i use "ALT-F4" on the keyboard or "Exit" over the MPC webinterface, all is working as expected.
    So this is also what you are doing (ALT-F4) to exit MPC.

    I have contacted yatse dev and a day later he repondes that the issue was fixed an wil be included in the next yatse reöease.
    After that is realeased, i will test controlling/going back to kodi with yatse again and report back.

So the only open issue is, that kodi now always opens any file in external player when once a medium was launched in external player (as a konwn issue).
Is this issue alread known by the kodi devs? Is there a ticket?

Now i can play UHD HDR and have the nice look and feeal of kodi
thx a lot
pOpY


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - popy - 2018-08-09

(2018-08-09, 18:32)brazen1 Wrote: New LAV Filters released.
https://www.videohelp.com/software/LAV-Filters
 Do you find a changelog of the nightly 0.72-3?
I dont find any.

thx


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - brazen1 - 2018-08-10

https://github.com/Nevcairiel/LAVFilters


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - popy - 2018-08-10

Have made a ticket for the PCF issue: https://trac.kodi.tv/ticket/17983#ticket

pOpY


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - popy - 2018-08-11

@luci5r & @brazen1 
Have made a fix and a pull request (so its gets hopefully merged into the the master/nightlys, currently its under review).
Here it is: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/14291

thx
pOpY


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - brazen1 - 2018-08-11

My experience with the PCF.xml using KODI v.18 was a little different.  What ever player is used for first playback is going to be the player that is used for any subsequent playback(s) no matter what rules direct the PCF.xml to use a different one.  I think you tested with just one external player and the default KODI VideoPlayer only and assumed KODI VideoPlayer takes precedence when the external player called should have.  Perhaps it even works correctly when using just one external player?  Testing using 5 different players, I concluded after playback using any of the 5, subsequent playbacks resulted in using the first player called and not incorrectly defaulting to just the KODI VideoPlayer.

In other words, if I originally open a movie with DVDFAB Player (either by default because PCF.xml defined this player be used... or, by manually selecting DVDFAB Player using the 'play using' option) the movie plays with DVDFab Player as it should.  When finished, I want to play a different movie and I want to use MPC-HC as the player.  It doesn't matter if the PCF.xml is defined to use MPC-HC as the player for that matched rule movie or I manually select it.  DVDFab incorrectly opens the new movie instead of MPC-HC which should have.  Therein is the bug using KODI v.18 that is not present in any previous versions of KODI. 

So there is actually a couple of problems:  PCF.xml rules are not being honored for subsequent playbacks nor is manual selection via the 'Play using' menu which lists any and all players.  This bug is not caused by any of the players or any combination of what order they are used.  Closing KODI and reopening again to 'erase last player used from memory cache' is not the answer imo.  Correctly functioning 'play using' menu and obeying defined rules via PCF.xml is.

Fwiw, this bug has been brought up quite a few times in the past year or so in different forums including this one by me when v.18 nightlies first hit the scene in anticipation of the new v.18 release.  I don't think they went unnoticed but maybe they did.  Your ticket for the issue might help.  I hope so.  And thanks for submitting it regardless....


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - popy - 2018-08-11

@brazen1 Thats exactly what my pull request fixes  Big Grin

pOpY


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - Warner306 - 2018-08-11

I don't know if his code sorts out the issue of which external player should be called, but it seems to address the issue of the last player being called incorrectly for subsequent playback.

popy didn't just create a ticket, he provided code for a fix. He is a talented guy.

It is one more issue that is probably holding back v18 in Alpha status, so they should be thankful if it works. The lead video player developer has to test and approve the code. They always care more about the lead platform and the internal video player over features like this, so these things can be put on the backburner.


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - brazen1 - 2018-08-11

Hmmm?  Didn't see any reference to the 'Play using' menu at all?  In any event, I think afedchin is the only Windows dev now but I could be mistaken.  Perhaps he can make some sense out of all of it if he chooses to tackle it?  Also, if I'm not mistaken, most Windows efforts for the past years have been focused on Intel and its integrated GPU - Intel Graphics with little to no interest in dedicated video cards, their API's, or external players.  From a developers point of view, it makes sense and I'd have to sort of agree with the logic no matter how limited the results will be.  We should also remember external player adaption to KODI is a side benefit and not part of its core and problems and discussions are tolerated but not expected.  If any attention is donated to improving our usage, consider it a favor and not necessarily a responsibility.  That said, many rely on the PCF.xml and 'play using' menu for continued enhancement options Intel CPU software decoding simply doesn't offer.  In these rapidly changing times, new offerings require more than a modern CPU is even capable of beyond poor to mediocre results.  For these reasons, I believe some focus should be given to bugs such as the present PCF.xml and 'play using' menu for users that invested in GPU's rather than CPU's providing satisfaction for each and not introduce a decline in user base, extra expenditure, introduce a lower standard of acceptance, or force usage of older software prior to v.18.  Before a release candidate is slated, now is the time to address it before it becomes too late.  All this hinged on if a developer(s) has the ability or the enthusiasm to donate their time to it.  Fingers crossed.....


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - brazen1 - 2018-08-11

Ahhh, you submitted code waiting for acceptance.  Now my dress is blown up!  I'll be looking forward to installing a nightly again when you give us the thumbs up.   Gracious of you and thanks immensely.


RE: HOW TO - Kodi 2D - 3D - UHD (4k) HDR Guide Internal & External Players - tehax - 2018-08-11

I can't wait to use external player again in v18 for playing my 3D iso files but can't even more wait that Kodi will play native 3D frame packing (MVC) files.