[Binnetie]

And fix the problems with DVD navigation. With the Zidoo player, DVD menus don't work. With Kodi internal player the menu works great.

[hdmkv]

@mirror88 had mentioned that DVD nav support for Zidoo player was a low priority, but I'm hoping he pops back in (haven't seen him here in a while) to comment about it, subs and 4K/color space nags users are reporting.

[nc88keyz]

Are we moving .apk files around from Eweat to Zappiti to X9s at this point What are these screenshots all about and what does it do for me. Right now, i definately see some handshaking issues with the Zidoo and G6 Oled, but I am going to reserve my comments further until new 4K AVR arrives, as I believe much of this is related to refresh rate issues, with the X9s and going in with DTS-HD, DTS-X, and Atmos bitstreams and then back from tv out via optical. I have some work to do.

FYI when playing 3D ISO does it show up 3D mkv in the options?? instead of 3D MVC or 3D AVC

Im trying to still figure out some of the things this box is doing?

The shield is much smoother experience thus far, but i got a great deal on the box and wanted a few headaches i suppose thus bringing this on myself!

[DaMacFunkin]

@mirror88 had mentioned that DVD nav support for Zidoo player was a low priority, but I'm hoping he pops back in (haven't seen him here in a while)

Chinese New Year, not much is happening anywhere at the moment.

[jamietre]

Hi - I'm new here, just got a Zidoo X8 after a lot of research, and wanted to share my experience so far and a couple observations that might help other people getting this working.

I chose it entirely on the basis of it's 3D MKV support and from reading this forum. I already have a Fire TV which I used with Plex and Kodi also, which is fine. but I'm about to get an LG E6 and really want to be able to play all my 3D Blu-Rays in full resolution (without using the actual disc naturally).

One thing that's not obvious from everything I have read is that while straight MVC MKV files from MakeMKV work great on this player, frame-packed output from BD3D2MK3D does not. It's not recognized as 3D and just tries to show each alternating frame so it looks jittery. Looking at the file info definitely shows some differences - the MakeMKV file shows something like:

Format profile: [email protected] / [email protected]

whereas the re-encoded version just shows:

Format profile: [email protected]

It seems pretty clear that it's not producing the same MVC frame-packed format that MakeMKV does. BD3D2MK3D also forces a *minimum* of h.264 level 4.2 (and defaults to 5) for frame packed 1080p output - which seems strange since the actual BD rip is only 4.1. I'm not knowledgeable enough about this to understand why, but I couldn't make it work and haven't found any discussion about the specifics of the frame-packed format BD3D2MK3D produces vs. MakeMKV.

However, Full SBS actually seems to work perfectly. So this seems to be the way to go if you want to re-encode blu-ray rips to save space.

Two other observations:

On videos that have right-eye first, Zidoo X8 shows the frames reversed. You can manually swap them in settings during playback. "The Hobbit" is such a case (which is the example I happened to be playing with). Since BD3D2MK3D always outputs left-eye first, though, this gets fixed when you re-encode.

Zidoo doesn't get the aspect ratio right automatically for videos encoded in Full SBS; it shows it squashed. This also can be easily fixed in settings by switching to "full"

It would be nice if these could be detected correctly automatically. But not a big deal. Actual playback and 3D has been flawless otherwise in my playing around over a few hours, which seems like no small miracle after all I've read about this problem in general!

One thing I'm not entirely sure about is the h.264 level I should be using when targeting this device. I can't go above 4.0 for my 1st gen Fire TV without getting in to trouble. The default settings in BD3D2MK3D seem to work OK, but before I start doing a ton of work it would be nice to understand the device's capabilities, and I haven't been able to find any discussion.

Overall it's a pretty neat piece of hardware. Using a straight Android (not Android TV) OS on my TV isn't the greatest experience in the world.. I ordered one of those gyro mouse pointer remotes since trying to get around with arrows is painful. I expect that will make it seem a lot more natural. But at the end of the day it plays 1080P 3D and it's cheap! Everything beyond that is gravy.

[nikos_a]

Since there's silence from Zidoo due to Chinese New Year, what do you think guys about Kodi 17? Will Zidoo bother to follow the IEC61937 audio standard? As it is, Kodi 17 is very limited in x9s with regard to audio playback.

[Skank]

Anyone tested kodi 17 app on zidoo X9S (so without wrapper, so it play movies fluenttly?)

[querty1000]

Anyone tested kodi 17 app on zidoo X9S (so without wrapper, so it play movies fluenttly?)

Why should someone do that as long, as Zidoo's OS isn't yet ready for that? Zidoo hasn't implemented API Rev. 23 calls for passthrouth RAW nor backported from Nougat the passthrough IEC calls like the Xiami Mi Box.
As long as Zidoo does a own thing on sound you have to use ZBMC.

[bongchillog]

hi everyone..

zidoo x9s has openwrt..
Question , how can i access the drives when x9s is powered on ang my drives are connected to it.
i want to virtuallly access the drives connected from a separate laptop..

Please help me. thanks in advance

[nikos_a]

Anyone tested kodi 17 app on zidoo X9S (so without wrapper, so it play movies fluenttly?)

Kodi 17 is horrible in x9s when it is in a 5.1+ setup. Passthrough doesn't work (as querty1000 pointed out the android is heavily patched and not following standards). Even without passthrough, multi-channels AC3 doesn't work, DTS doesn't work and they play in stereo. AAC also stereo regardless of the channels.

My recommendation, do not bother. Zidoo should follow Xiaomi's example and follow standards. Maybe upgrade the box to Android 7.0 and start with vanilla OS. All they have to do is to to adjust their media player to the default passthrough in Android and stop messing with a fork. Such machine will be future proof because Kodi will never stopped to be developed.

[jamietre]

As long as Zidoo does a own thing on sound you have to use ZBMC.

Is there a reason that one can't use playercorefactory.xml with kodi 17 and configure it to launch the Zidoo media player? Preloaded apps other than ZBMC already use it (e.g. Home Theater, but really anything that launches a media player).

I just got this thing a couple days ago and was playing around a little last night - and I am definitely a tinkerer, so I have no idea if there's some obvious reason this is a dead end. But I set up kodi 17 to use com.zidoo.zbmc (iirc -- not in front of the box right now) with playercorefactory.xml and technically it works, though it displays the whole ZMBC/Kodi 16 front end for a few seconds before finally playing the video. It's almost bearable though because Kodi 17 is so much better than 16. But if I could figure out the name of the actual media player package it seems like you should be able to just use it directly as an external player, like Home Theater does.

[Skank]

Anyone tested kodi 17 app on zidoo X9S (so without wrapper, so it play movies fluenttly?)

Kodi 17 is horrible in x9s when it is in a 5.1+ setup. Passthrough doesn't work (as querty1000 pointed out the android is heavily patched and not following standards). Even without passthrough, multi-channels AC3 doesn't work, DTS doesn't work and they play in stereo. AAC also stereo regardless of the channels.

My recommendation, do not bother. Zidoo should follow Xiaomi's example and follow standards. Maybe upgrade the box to Android 7.0 and start with vanilla OS. All they have to do is to to adjust their media player to the default passthrough in Android and stop messing with a fork. Such machine will be future proof because Kodi will never stopped to be developed.

But how is it in a non 5.1 setup where no 3d is rquired?

[querty1000]

Anyone tested kodi 17 app on zidoo X9S (so without wrapper, so it play movies fluenttly?)

Kodi 17 is horrible in x9s when it is in a 5.1+ setup. Passthrough doesn't work (as querty1000 pointed out the android is heavily patched and not following standards). Even without passthrough, multi-channels AC3 doesn't work, DTS doesn't work and they play in stereo. AAC also stereo regardless of the channels.

My recommendation, do not bother. Zidoo should follow Xiaomi's example and follow standards. Maybe upgrade the box to Android 7.0 and start with vanilla OS. All they have to do is to to adjust their media player to the default passthrough in Android and stop messing with a fork. Such machine will be future proof because Kodi will never stopped to be developed.

But how is it in a non 5.1 setup where no 3d is rquired?

Then you can sell your Zidoo and buy a family pack of players that are better, a car and a house from the money you get back :-).
Zidoo is one of the rare players that do 4k *and* full frame 3D, if you don't need 3D you can use a Xiamo MI box or an Odroid C2 for cheaper money.

[Skank]

Kodi 17 is horrible in x9s when it is in a 5.1+ setup. Passthrough doesn't work (as querty1000 pointed out the android is heavily patched and not following standards). Even without passthrough, multi-channels AC3 doesn't work, DTS doesn't work and they play in stereo. AAC also stereo regardless of the channels.

My recommendation, do not bother. Zidoo should follow Xiaomi's example and follow standards. Maybe upgrade the box to Android 7.0 and start with vanilla OS. All they have to do is to to adjust their media player to the default passthrough in Android and stop messing with a fork. Such machine will be future proof because Kodi will never stopped to be developed.

But how is it in a non 5.1 setup where no 3d is rquired?

Then you can sell your Zidoo and buy a family pack of players that are better, a car and a house from the money you get back :-).
Zidoo is one of the rare players that do 4k *and* full frame 3D, if you don't need 3D you can use a Xiamo MI box or an Odroid C2 for cheaper money.

Not an answer to my question..

[LauraS]

@mirror88 had mentioned that DVD nav support for Zidoo player was a low priority, but I'm hoping he pops back in (haven't seen him here in a while) to comment about it, subs and 4K/color space nags users are reporting.

Hi hdmkv,
First of all thank you for your excellent analysis and apologize for the inconvenience of this message and my level of English.
I am new to the world of Kodi and I look for a device for it and seeing your analysis I doubt between:
• Minix Neo U1
• Zidoo x9s
The main use will be for streaming in Kodi (online plugins) and I do not know which of these two is best adapted to this use.
The difference is that Zidoo does not support LibreElec and I do not know if that can be a very important factor for compatibility.
Could you tell me your opinion?
Thank you very much

Regards and apologize once again.