[harlekin]

Thank you for the explanations given. Very much appreciated.

[gurabli]

I'm a little confused now regarding the "best" settings. Atm I still use the ION1 board with latest Openelec (not beta), and it is connected to a Panasonic plasma TV. The TV is capable of 24p.

The audio is either sent over hdmi to the tv (stereo), or sent to a 5.1 amp via SPDIF optical (in this case passthrough is enabled for DTS, AC3).

I watch lot of live TV from a VDR backend server (1080i and SD channels) and many 720p series and 720p movies. Basically I don't watch any 1808p at all (except live tv, but as said, that is 1080i).

Should I enable Adjust Display Refresh Rate and Sync Playback to Display?

In case of A/V sync method, which one is the best method and which one should I use?

Thanks!

[cayfordb]

For my setup, Pi2, OpenElec 5.08, Kodi 14.2, Pioneer AVR, Panasonic Plasma TV, whenever there is an HDMI Refresh rate change, it takes about 5-10 seconds, with mostly a black screen. A lot of source material, ripped DVD's and streams, are at 59.94FPS. Kodi (Helix 14.2) wants to be at 60FPS when a video is not playing.

With "Adjust Refresh Always", once a video has started, if I click on the Context Menu button, that triggers a Refresh Change to 60fps. When I escape out of that, Refresh Rate changes back to 59.94. This is very annoying. Changing the setting to "Start/Stop" limits it to just the start and stop of a movie, and the Context Menu does not trigger a Refresh Rate Change. Much nicer, but still annoying at start and stop.

Question is: why does Kodi want to change back to 60fps once the video stops? Why not just remain in the same mode as the last movie? Or is there a setting for that too? That would eliminate all HDMI Refresh rate changes except when a video really demands it.

[FernetMenta]

Question is: why does Kodi want to change back to 60fps once the video stops? Why not just remain in the same mode as the last movie? Or is there a setting for that too? That would eliminate all HDMI Refresh rate changes except when a video really demands it.

Nobody wants to navigate the GUI at 24Hz.

[fritsch]

For my setup, Pi2, OpenElec 5.08, Kodi 14.2, Pioneer AVR, Panasonic Plasma TV, whenever there is an HDMI Refresh rate change, it takes about 5-10 seconds, with mostly a black screen. A lot of source material, ripped DVD's and streams, are at 59.94FPS. Kodi (Helix 14.2) wants to be at 60FPS when a video is not playing.

With "Adjust Refresh Always", once a video has started, if I click on the Context Menu button, that triggers a Refresh Change to 60fps. When I escape out of that, Refresh Rate changes back to 59.94. This is very annoying. Changing the setting to "Start/Stop" limits it to just the start and stop of a movie, and the Context Menu does not trigger a Refresh Rate Change. Much nicer, but still annoying at start and stop.

Question is: why does Kodi want to change back to 60fps once the video stops? Why not just remain in the same mode as the last movie? Or is there a setting for that too? That would eliminate all HDMI Refresh rate changes except when a video really demands it.

If all your content really is 59.94 hz - then force this mode in kodi and no change will happen.

[gurabli]

Guys, can you give me a hint regardind my question few posts before, what are the so called best settings I should use?

[popcornmix]

Nobody wants to navigate the GUI at 24Hz.

I did run with the GUI set to 23.97Hz for a few months, and it does avoid almost all HDMI refresh switches (for my typical content) which does make launching/stopping a video seem much faster/smother/cleaner. With a display that is slow at switching this benefit can be significant.
Okay, I have now gone back to 60Hz GUI for the smoother GUI animations, but I think for some users a lower GUI refresh and no HDMI switching may be preferable.

Obviously if most of your content is 50Hz or 59.94Hz then setting the GUI to match that is a no-brainer.

[fritsch]

Guys, can you give me a hint regardind my question few posts before, what are the so called best settings I should use?

Adjust Refreshrate On Start / Stop

if you _don't_ use passthrough audio:
Sync Playback to Display: on

if you use passthrough audio:
Sync playback to Display: off

Video -> Acceleration: Use HQ scaling when scaling above: 20%

[cayfordb]

Thanks Fernet and Fritsch. I will poke around and see how to set the GUI frame rate in Kodi. I'm guessing adding a line to one of the OpenElec startup files, in /flash or some such. Or just leave it at 60!

I'm wondering now, is there a tool that can probe a given movie file and tell the frame rate? Interesting to see the frame rates of all the video files in the library, and just see what's out there.

The Kodi Log shows Refresh changes when Debug is turned on, with the EGL Debug messages. It shows the change to 59.94 at the start of a movie, and back to 60fps at the end. That's telling me the content is at 59.94, because if it was 60 I would not get a refresh change. I have not seen any changes to 24 or 23.9, but I have not ripped a lot of bluerays. Yet.

I notice in Handbrake that it is willing to transcode to pretty much any desired frame rate, but it does not say the frame rate of the source files. I could make it a point of ripping DVD's at 60, and letting Handbrake fix up that 1000th frame. Just to save that annoying 5 seconds of frame rate change. That might be a bad thing to do on a BlueRay that is set for 24fps.

[Martijn]

Most used
http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

[jznine]

I'm wondering now, is there a tool that can probe a given movie file and tell the frame rate? Interesting to see the frame rates of all the video files in the library, and just see what's out there.

Cayfordb - I do this periodically, and find MediaInfo good for looking at the details for individual files, and MovieScanner good for looking over the whole library.

Edit: Martijn beat me to it

[nickr]

I notice in Handbrake that it is willing to transcode to pretty much any desired frame rate, but it does not say the frame rate of the source files. I could make it a point of ripping DVD's at 60, and letting Handbrake fix up that 1000th frame. Just to save that annoying 5 seconds of frame rate change. That might be a bad thing to do on a BlueRay that is set for 24fps.

Don't, just don't.

[FernetMenta]

I'm wondering now, is there a tool that can probe a given movie file and tell the frame rate? Interesting to see the frame rates of all the video files in the library, and just see what's out there.

Be aware that results are not reliable. h264 was designed for variable frame rates.

[gurabli]

Guys, can you give me a hint regardind my question few posts before, what are the so called best settings I should use?

Adjust Refreshrate On Start / Stop

if you _don't_ use passthrough audio:
Sync Playback to Display: on

if you use passthrough audio:
Sync playback to Display: off

Video -> Acceleration: Use HQ scaling when scaling above: 20%

Thanks fritsch!

In case of A/V sync method, which one is the best method and which one should I use?

At the moment, I'm using my Panasonic 720p plasma since it has far superior image quality then the LCD tv that was 1080p. The quality of the HD-ready plasma is far better then the fullHD 1080p image quality of the LCD screen.
So Kodi is set to 720p display at 50MHz, as I watch lot of livetv that is broadcasted in 1080i50 or 576i50,

Is there any point of Use HQ scaling when scaling above 20% in this case (when the 576 SD content is upscaled to 720p, but the 1080i/p content is downscaled to 720?

[cayfordb]

To my surprise, MediaInfo is showing most of my rips at 23.976fps! I don't have a lot -- 5 or 6 DVD's, 2 BluRays. Reading through kodi.log, I see some Videos cause change the refresh rate of the TV to 23.976 (Love Actually, from BlueRay), while others it converts to 59.94 (Austin Powers International Man of Mystery). I will study this more and try to see what it's doing. There was a log message saying "Checking EDL - Edit Decision List" to figure out what frame rate to use. De-interlacing seems to be a factor, and there seems to be some logic to choose when to play back as is, and when to change it.

Very fun to open the hood on this engine and see what's happening on the inside!