[Skank]

Anyone that dares to put this firmware onto zidoo...

[Kilroy]

Oh what a difference one firmware update seems to make!

HiMedia's latest HMD-1.0.7 2015-11-10.142431 (download link) has the following improvements over Zidoo's to surpass it (for now) by a small margin (but I hesitate to say B- level):

• 2D overall playing quite well (tad better than Zidoo), but 23.976 at 24.00, with some microstutters noticeable
  
• Both 3D MVC MKV's and 3D ISO's play via Kodi in full, frame-packed glory, with HD audio (yay!)
  
• Excellent depth, and less ghosting than X6 (for example, 'Mickey Mouse: Get a Horse!' 3D MVC MKV had terrific depth & pop-outs) (yay!)
  
• Improved wired network speed, but still not as good as Zidoo's
  
• VC-1 1080i (29.970) now plays perfectly w/o lip-synch issues (unless you skip ahead, then slight lip-synch crops up)
  
• Several 3D ISO's I tested ('Avatar', 'Avengers: Age of Ultron') all played with audio, but 'Avatar' playback froze at 0:02:41 (with audio continuing)
  
• Macroblocking is present in many 3D ISO's, but less severe than X6
  - 'Avatar' 3D ISO did have pretty bad macroblocking
  - 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' 3D ISO played very well, with zero macroblocking. But, skipping ahead caused slight lip-synch to crop up
  
• '3:10 to Yuma' full BD rip VC-1 (2D) MKV played excellent, and w/o lip-synch even after several skip-aheads. LPCM 7.1 is still passing as 2.0
  
• 'Constantine' full BD rip VC-1 (2D) MKV also played well, but minor lip-synch cropped up after skip-aheads
  

Encouraged by this firmware that HiMedia (& Zidoo) may just (eventually) deliver with their RK3368-based players!

Wow with this firmware the H8 could end up like a usefull player.

Can you see a rise in the piture quality after this firmware ?

Do you have the posibility to check if music lossless (24 bit/96 kHz or better) still is getting downscaled to 44kHz when bitstreaming.

Can you remember the normal bitrate on a full BD 2D and 3D, just to veryfi if the 70 the H8 is plenty of bandwith and what about a full 4K (movies begin to arrive now) :-)

Cheers and thanks for your amazing job you do just for the rest of us. :-)

[hdmkv]

So himedia should deliver code, so zidoo can profit

They already have: https://github.com/himedia-kodi/himedia-kodi-15.2

Can you see a rise in the piture quality after this firmware ?

Do you have the posibility to check if music lossless (24 bit/96 kHz or better) still is getting downscaled to 44kHz when bitstreaming.

Can you remember the normal bitrate on a full BD 2D and 3D, just to veryfi if the 70 the H8 is plenty of bandwith and what about a full 4K (movies begin to arrive now) :-)

PQ is very good to excellent; it's just that the macroblocking & stutters/microstutters rear their ugly heads in both players. This is worse in Zidoo, but HiMedia has issue with playback just freezing after a certain point with some 3D ISO's (which Zidoo suffered from in its previous firmware).

Re: music lossless (24 bit/96 kHz or better), can you name a couple of concert BD's I can try? I assume I'd need to check my AVR's display info. to see what it's receiving.

Re: 4K, I assume H8 has necessary bandwidth, but who knows if/when 4K BD's will be rip-able, but there are YouTube 4K clips I can download & try via my NAS (but displayed at 1080p as I don't have a 4K display). Re: regular BD rips, according to this at least, max is 54Mbps.

[mirror88]

Perfect copy
This branch is same of zidoo custom kodi,nothing to change.

BTW: Zidoo has released v1.0.23 support 3D MKV,support HFS+






-------------------------------------------------------

[Skank]

Mirror where is version 23?
No beta test anymore?
Is 3d mvc mkv only new thing? No other fixes?

[hdmkv]

Thanks mirror88, I had suspected HiMedia was using your custom Kodi (as noted in my review), maybe exactly as is. Downloading X6 firmware v1.0.23 now; do you recommend a clean install via reset, or doesn't matter if we do it via UI?

[Nellgrove]

This is a fantastic comparidon of these players. It looks like proper 24p may now be the only thing missing. Woukd you recommend either of these players yet? How does the picture quality compare to an rpi2?

[hdmkv]

Not just proper 24p, but getting rid of artifacts like macroblocking, playback freezing, microstutters & lip-synch. PQ (when artifacts aren't there) is comparable to Pi2.

[hdmkv]

BTW: Zidoo has released v1.0.23 support 3D MKV,support HFS+

Just briefly tested. Yes, 3D MVC plays framepacked, but so it did too with v1.0.22... but, no audio with several MVC MKV titles (also in 3D ISO container). Tried 'Avatar' 3D ISO & 'Avengers Ultron' 3D ISO; neither output audio. Also, macroblocking, pixellation and stutters/skips still present in 'Avatar'. Same plays fine in RPi2 and HiMedia Q5, just not well in Zidoo X6 nor HiMedia H8.

[Kilroy]

So himedia should deliver code, so zidoo can profit

They already have: https://github.com/himedia-kodi/himedia-kodi-15.2

Can you see a rise in the piture quality after this firmware ?

Do you have the posibility to check if music lossless (24 bit/96 kHz or better) still is getting downscaled to 44kHz when bitstreaming.

Can you remember the normal bitrate on a full BD 2D and 3D, just to veryfi if the 70 the H8 is plenty of bandwith and what about a full 4K (movies begin to arrive now) :-)

PQ is very good to excellent; it's just that the macroblocking & stutters/microstutters rear their ugly heads in both players. This is worse in Zidoo, but HiMedia has issue with playback just freezing after a certain point with some 3D ISO's (which Zidoo suffered from in its previous firmware).

Re: music lossless (24 bit/96 kHz or better), can you name a couple of concert BD's I can try? I assume I'd need to check my AVR's display info. to see what it's receiving.

Re: 4K, I assume H8 has necessary bandwidth, but who knows if/when 4K BD's will be rip-able, but there are YouTube 4K clips I can download & try via my NAS (but displayed at 1080p as I don't have a 4K display). Re: regular BD rips, according to this at least, max is 54Mbps.

Thanks for answer HDMKV

I can make a link in pm where you can get an album with 24/96 numbers on, it´s arround 1.15GB big or I can mail you one number just to make it easy, the file/s is in Flac.

Just name your prefered way and I will make it happen

Cheers

[Siewarner]

I have just killed my M8 trying to install openelec as I was trying to see if it handled 24p any better.

Is the himedia h8 worth buying as it is? Is it a big improvment over the s802 m8 2gb? I can't work out whats best for just kodi. A chromebox or rpi2 with openelec or an h8.

[wrxtasy]

Chromebox, RPi2, Shield and any AMLogic SoC box with a correct Frame Rate Automation Kernel will be the best for smooth 24p sync.

[Siewarner]

So is the H8 a worthy purchase? Or would a chromebox be a much better buy even though more expensive/ The rpi seems underpowered compared to other devices even though I see it runs well on openelec.

[MortUK74]

So is the H8 a worthy purchase? Or would a chromebox be a much better buy even though more expensive/ The rpi seems underpowered compared to other devices even though I see it runs well on openelec.

I've actually just switched from using a Raspberry Pi2 to using the Himedia H8 with the latest firmware update.

There are still a few issues with the H8 but i find it a better experience than using my Pi. The UI is more responsive and there is the added benefit of proper HD audio (not PCM), 3D iso etc... PVR works a lot better for me on the H8 than the Pi.. The main issues (for me) on the H8 is audio sync with standard DTS and Dolby audio. I have to adjust it with the Kodi UI.... I'm hoping it's fixed on the next update...

Mort.

[Siewarner]

Good to know. I am even looking at the beebox which seems good for the price.