[jarosujo]

How is the quality ? Is playback smooth ?
I have stutters on my Philips Android TV, both on 1080/60 and 720/60. If I use 720 (don't know fps, guessing 30 or 25) it is OK.
Thanx

[djnice]

I have decided to buy Zidoo beacuse the RTD chipset gives better image quality than the AMLogic 905D for example.

It is not true. Only SD upscaling is better on Realtek. The Zidoo clips luma and chroma channels. Checked with Spears & Munsil HD benchmark.

[sergejskr]

okay! Why is it not ideal to use the Plex addon in Kodi with Zidoo? Then, If I want to play my local videos stored on a NAS with the highest possible quality, I Will use ZDMC with SMB protocol or how? Thank you!!

On the Zidoo X9S you cannot just install Kodi from the Google Playstore and get HD audio, 4K HDR, deinterlacing and everything else working properly, because the Chipset used in the device has no Firmware support for Kodi's hardware acceleration - Mediacodec - to give you such features. I believe there is no IEC61937 audio support in Firmware either for native HD Kodi Audio.

So the external - NATIVE Zidoo player (Realtek player) App has to be called from within Kodi (or ZDMC in the X9S case) to provide such HD audio, 4K HDR & deinterlacing etc support. This is where life starts getting complicated if you get too demanding with this dual ZDMC / Zidoo Player software approach...

Such as trying to use 4K HDR Plex which would need direct play support. So now you have three things in the mix. ZDMC (Kodi), Plex and the NATIVE Zidoo player (Realtek player) App. What could go possibly go wrong ?

Are you sure you know what you are getting into ?
This ZDMC (Kodi), external Ziddoo Player software approach is NOT the ideal way to run Kodi at all - it simply adds an unnecessary layer of extra complication if all you want is a pure Kodi experience. Big TIP - keep it simple.

It is also why 4K HDR, HD Audio boxes like the AMLogic S905X, S912 are popular because they are optimised from the ground up to run Kodi as bug free as possible without extra, un-neccessary complications like external software players or the Android Operating System overheads.   

Agree w/@wrxtasy in that if you want auto refresh/resolution/colorspace switching but don't need 3D MVC support, LibreELEC (or now CoreELEC) may be the better way to go. But, this depends on what 4K display you have. If you have a 4K projector like me w/only 4:2:2 support, then for now, neither LE nor CE are viable options.

Also, if you don't need HD audio, consider Apple TV 4K with MrMC (Kodi fork).

I do not need Kodi or Plex, I asked if they are compatible with Zidoo these Apps (kodi, Plex) for knowing .. Because with the native App of Zidoo "home teather" or ZDMC I can connect to my NAS and see everything the same, right?, benefiting: auto refresh/resolution/colorspace switching.

I have decided to buy Zidoo beacuse the RTD chipset gives better image quality than the AMLogic 905D for example.

And another thing... Ziddoo have issues with 10bit HDR content with Banding? (http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?threads/...8800.8366/)

I thinking buy the new Dune 4K Pro (with auto refresh/resolution/colorspace switching too) and the mark is first level in image also, no?

Once again, thank you both for solving my doubts  

In regards to bandings, you need to be very careful on relying someone feedback about that, from my own experience and being a member of avsforum for 6 years, calibrating many projectors and learning the curve, I can tell you for sure 80% of users don't understand how to setup TV or a projector correctly regarding the colorspace. 
So I've tested Zidoo x9s with my SONY VML-VW760ES/VW885ES and there are no banding issues at all, so far the picture quality is absolutely the same as OPPO UDP-203 throws out, I didn't run specific tests yet like chroma sampling and other test patterns, but if you calibrate your unit correctly you shouldn't see the bandings. I'm pretty sure others people feedback about banding, was related to their PJ or TV settings not being able to provide good HDR along with BT2020 colorspace and HDR Gamma handling, that's why for instance you should use Tone Mapping as at the moment its best viewing experience than using native Gamma Handling of any Projector or a TV. Now there are many ways how you can achieve tone mapping, but I have Lumagen Pro 4444 and it does the job perfectly. Colours are superb, no bandings all details are present and its crispy as hell.

[riddle]

Zidoo x9s HDMI in OPPO 203
Zidoo x9s

[riddle]

With OPPO pictures looks little bether...

[sergejskr]

Zidoo x9s HDMI in OPPO 203Zidoo x9s

 What image size you were feeding as source? 1080p or 2160p?
Zidoo x9s doesn't do very good upscaling against OPPO scaling. 
Try feeding both 1080p pictures and compare, also set default any image processing on oppo and zidoo x9s, as chained via Lumagen PRO 4444 I couldn't tell any difference at all.

[3DBuff]

I have a question regarding setting up network shares to work with Zidoo and Raspberry Pi. Perhaps someone run into this case.

I have a hard drive connected to my Raspberry Pi running Kodi LibreElec. The drive is shared on the home network. Share is not restricted in any way (no password). I can see the share browse and access all files with my Windows computers and another Raspberry Pi.

I can't access the share on Zidoo. ZDMC gives me error "Connection Timeout" when I try to access server RaspberryPi and not even shares. The same if I enter IP address of Rasbperry Pi. Media browser from Zidoo finds RaspberryPi and it will display first level of directories and shares on the device. When I try to enter any of the shares / directories even public like pictures etc. I get pup up window asking for username / password. I didn't set up username password and anonymous check box brings back username / password window.

Zidoo works fine with all other shares on my network from WD "MyBookLive" and "WDMyCloud" NAS. All of them have passwords set up.
I didn't bother with passwords on Raspberry Pi since it is not on most of the time and I only start it on occasion as needed.

What is Zidoo looking for? Is this related to some SMB server version set up on Raspberry Pi? Or perhaps SMB client on Zidoo needs username / password to access network shares?

[OlivierQC]

On the Zidoo X9S you cannot just install Kodi from the Google Playstore and get HD audio, 4K HDR, deinterlacing and everything else working properly, because the Chipset used in the device has no Firmware support for Kodi's hardware acceleration - Mediacodec - to give you such features. I believe there is no IEC61937 audio support in Firmware either for native HD Kodi Audio.

So the external - NATIVE Zidoo player (Realtek player) App has to be called from within Kodi (or ZDMC in the X9S case) to provide such HD audio, 4K HDR & deinterlacing etc support. This is where life starts getting complicated if you get too demanding with this dual ZDMC / Zidoo Player software approach...

Such as trying to use 4K HDR Plex which would need direct play support. So now you have three things in the mix. ZDMC (Kodi), Plex and the NATIVE Zidoo player (Realtek player) App. What could go possibly go wrong ?

Are you sure you know what you are getting into ?
This ZDMC (Kodi), external Ziddoo Player software approach is NOT the ideal way to run Kodi at all - it simply adds an unnecessary layer of extra complication if all you want is a pure Kodi experience. Big TIP - keep it simple.

It is also why 4K HDR, HD Audio boxes like the AMLogic S905X, S912 are popular because they are optimised from the ground up to run Kodi as bug free as possible without extra, un-neccessary complications like external software players or the Android Operating System overheads.   

Agree w/@wrxtasy in that if you want auto refresh/resolution/colorspace switching but don't need 3D MVC support, LibreELEC (or now CoreELEC) may be the better way to go. But, this depends on what 4K display you have. If you have a 4K projector like me w/only 4:2:2 support, then for now, neither LE nor CE are viable options.

Also, if you don't need HD audio, consider Apple TV 4K with MrMC (Kodi fork).

I do not need Kodi or Plex, I asked if they are compatible with Zidoo these Apps (kodi, Plex) for knowing .. Because with the native App of Zidoo "home teather" or ZDMC I can connect to my NAS and see everything the same, right?, benefiting: auto refresh/resolution/colorspace switching.

I have decided to buy Zidoo beacuse the RTD chipset gives better image quality than the AMLogic 905D for example.

And another thing... Ziddoo have issues with 10bit HDR content with Banding? (http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?threads/...8800.8366/)

I thinking buy the new Dune 4K Pro (with auto refresh/resolution/colorspace switching too) and the mark is first level in image also, no?

Once again, thank you both for solving my doubts   

In regards to bandings, you need to be very careful on relying someone feedback about that, from my own experience and being a member of avsforum for 6 years, calibrating many projectors and learning the curve, I can tell you for sure 80% of users don't understand how to setup TV or a projector correctly regarding the colorspace. 
So I've tested Zidoo x9s with my SONY VML-VW760ES/VW885ES and there are no banding issues at all, so far the picture quality is absolutely the same as OPPO UDP-203 throws out, I didn't run specific tests yet like chroma sampling and other test patterns, but if you calibrate your unit correctly you shouldn't see the bandings. I'm pretty sure others people feedback about banding, was related to their PJ or TV settings not being able to provide good HDR along with BT2020 colorspace and HDR Gamma handling, that's why for instance you should use Tone Mapping as at the moment its best viewing experience than using native Gamma Handling of any Projector or a TV. Now there are many ways how you can achieve tone mapping, but I have Lumagen Pro 4444 and it does the job perfectly. Colours are superb, no bandings all details are present and its crispy as hell. 

 Hi all,

thanks sergejskr,  this will explain why some people see banding and no other people...

[3DBuff]

I found the issue with Zidoo not reading Raspberry Pi attached drive (share). I'm going to write it here if anybody else runs into it.

What did it for my was changing on Raspberry Pi > System > LibreELEC > Services > Minimum supported protocol to "SMB1". Default was SMB2.
Now I can browse and scan media located on hard drive USB attached to Raspberry Pi and play media directly off it. Very convenient. I keep some older movies this way. The drive is powered down all the time. Movies are in Kodi database. I only power it up if I'm trying to see something again or show it to somebody else.

[riddle]

Its was some UHD mkv rip..

[sergejskr]

Its more likely you have override picture settings in OPPO
as it doesn't make sense you are comparing via feeding ZIDOO into OPPO HDMI IN, the results are slightly better because of more correct brightness and contrast adjustments.
To make them 100% comparable, you should calibrate your display for OPPO source and calibrate your source for ZIDOO source, then do a comparison by playing content from OPPO and from ZIDOO separately, not via feeding ZIDOO into OPPO HDMI IN.

[sergejskr]

Its was some UHD mkv rip..

Its more likely you have override picture settings in OPPO
as it doesn't make sense you are comparing via feeding ZIDOO into OPPO HDMI IN, the results are slightly better because of more correct brightness and contrast adjustments.
To make them 100% comparable, you should calibrate your display for OPPO source and calibrate your source for ZIDOO source, then do a comparison by playing content from OPPO and from ZIDOO separately, not via feeding ZIDOO into OPPO HDMI IN.

[lionne]

On the Zidoo X9S you cannot just install Kodi from the Google Playstore and get HD audio, 4K HDR, deinterlacing and everything else working properly, because the Chipset used in the device has no Firmware support for Kodi's hardware acceleration - Mediacodec - to give you such features. I believe there is no IEC61937 audio support in Firmware either for native HD Kodi Audio.

So the external - NATIVE Zidoo player (Realtek player) App has to be called from within Kodi (or ZDMC in the X9S case) to provide such HD audio, 4K HDR & deinterlacing etc support. This is where life starts getting complicated if you get too demanding with this dual ZDMC / Zidoo Player software approach...

Such as trying to use 4K HDR Plex which would need direct play support. So now you have three things in the mix. ZDMC (Kodi), Plex and the NATIVE Zidoo player (Realtek player) App. What could go possibly go wrong ?

Are you sure you know what you are getting into ?
This ZDMC (Kodi), external Ziddoo Player software approach is NOT the ideal way to run Kodi at all - it simply adds an unnecessary layer of extra complication if all you want is a pure Kodi experience. Big TIP - keep it simple.

It is also why 4K HDR, HD Audio boxes like the AMLogic S905X, S912 are popular because they are optimised from the ground up to run Kodi as bug free as possible without extra, un-neccessary complications like external software players or the Android Operating System overheads.   

Agree w/@wrxtasy in that if you want auto refresh/resolution/colorspace switching but don't need 3D MVC support, LibreELEC (or now CoreELEC) may be the better way to go. But, this depends on what 4K display you have. If you have a 4K projector like me w/only 4:2:2 support, then for now, neither LE nor CE are viable options.

Also, if you don't need HD audio, consider Apple TV 4K with MrMC (Kodi fork).

I do not need Kodi or Plex, I asked if they are compatible with Zidoo these Apps (kodi, Plex) for knowing .. Because with the native App of Zidoo "home teather" or ZDMC I can connect to my NAS and see everything the same, right?, benefiting: auto refresh/resolution/colorspace switching.

I have decided to buy Zidoo beacuse the RTD chipset gives better image quality than the AMLogic 905D for example.

And another thing... Ziddoo have issues with 10bit HDR content with Banding? (http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?threads/...8800.8366/)

I thinking buy the new Dune 4K Pro (with auto refresh/resolution/colorspace switching too) and the mark is first level in image also, no?

Once again, thank you both for solving my doubts       

In regards to bandings, you need to be very careful on relying someone feedback about that, from my own experience and being a member of avsforum for 6 years, calibrating many projectors and learning the curve, I can tell you for sure 80% of users don't understand how to setup TV or a projector correctly regarding the colorspace. 
So I've tested Zidoo x9s with my SONY VML-VW760ES/VW885ES and there are no banding issues at all, so far the picture quality is absolutely the same as OPPO UDP-203 throws out, I didn't run specific tests yet like chroma sampling and other test patterns, but if you calibrate your unit correctly you shouldn't see the bandings. I'm pretty sure others people feedback about banding, was related to their PJ or TV settings not being able to provide good HDR along with BT2020 colorspace and HDR Gamma handling, that's why for instance you should use Tone Mapping as at the moment its best viewing experience than using native Gamma Handling of any Projector or a TV. Now there are many ways how you can achieve tone mapping, but I have Lumagen Pro 4444 and it does the job perfectly. Colours are superb, no bandings all details are present and its crispy as hell.     

 I reported my findings with banding in-depth on the Zidoo forum as well as in here previously. As I described in my banding tests here a while back, the test file I have been using:

The World In HDR 4K Demo.mkv
http://4kmedia.org/the-world-in-hdr-uhd-4k-demo/

produced minimal banding when played directly though my TV using the TV's USB 3 input port. I use this file because it has serious banding issues and makes a great test file for banding. On the Zidoo, it suffers from severe banding in some modes, but some modes show minimal banding, exactly as my TV looks when playing it directly using its own media player. So it's not my TV - the Zidoo has banding issues in some modes.

Banding on the Zidoo:

HDMI mode: AUTO
Color Space: AUTO / YCbCr 444 / YCbCr 420
Deep Color Mode:
- OFF - severe banding
- 10bit - much less banding
- 12bit - minimal/no banding
- AUTO - minimal/no banding

HDMI mode: Auto
Color Space: YCbCr 422 / RGB 444
Deep Color Mode:
- OFF - severe banding
- 10bit - severe banding
- 12bit - severe banding
- AUTO - severe banding

This also applies to the HDR 4k movies I have watched, including The Peanuts CGI film, which is also a good test for banding. As you can see, the modes that have the least banding is YCbCr 444 12bit / YCbCr 420 12bit. If it was my TV, then all modes would have severe banding, as well as playing back the content directly in my TV. As you can see, some modes show minimal/no banding, so my TV is certainly capable of displaying even problematic files with minimal banding, if sent the right signal.

[lionne]

Thank you for explaining this. I wasn't aware the refresh rate issue only affects 2160p in 4:4:4 mode, or that it was different depending on deep color settings. I don't have any native 2160p motion bars for testing, but I guess I can just upscale my 1080p motion bars. I'll check tonight and see if I can spot the stutter.

So then the pop-up says it is correctly switching to 2160p/23.976 or 2160p/24.000, but in reality it's actually outputting 23.982/23.988? Yikes, if that's the case, are we sure it's sending the proper framerates for all the other framerates at different resolutions? How, for example, would I know it's correctly sending out 59.940 or 60.000, for example, or that it's converting 25.000/50.000 to 60.000 properly with various settings selected? Doesn't this call into question all other refresh rates too? What could cause it to have an issue specifically with 23.976 but only at 2160p with deep color enabled?

It sounds like this is an issue that they definitely need to fix ASAP. 

Until I checked for it specifically, I wasn't also aware that it affected only 2160p. You should be OK to use your 1080p test pattern and output it at 2160p. You will have to disable the adjust resolution option in settings.

23.982 and 23.988 are the actual refresh rates for 2160p 23.976fps content when the output is set to 12 or 10-bit YCbCr 4:4:4 resp. Other frame rates are not affected. 24.000/25.000/30.000/50.000/60.000 are perfect. 29.970/59.940 have minor offsets but I wouldn't worry about it.

It is likely to be some minor error (? typo) in the HDMI transmitter code that is causing this. Zidoo should be able to fix it quickly.     

Thanks for your feedback. We solved 23.976 refresh rate offsets issue
It will be include the next firmware.   

 Very good to hear you have been working on the 23.976 issues. Is this solved for both 10bit and 12bit outputs, under all color space modes (YCbCr 444, 420, 422)? And is this now outputting 23.976 correctly for both 2160p and 1080p output?

Also, I noticed in the Dune thread people have reported other frame rates are outputting incorrectly (29.97, 30.00,  59.94). Are these outputting correctly in the Zidoo (At various output settings)?

Also, is this fix for the built-in "Media Center" Zidoo player, or ZDMC? Because I mainly use the "Media Center" Zidoo player.

[wesk05]

As I described in my banding tests here a while back, the test file I have been using:
The World In HDR 4K Demo.mkvhttp://4kmedia.org/the-world-in-hdr-uhd-4k-demo/produced minimal banding when played directly though my TV using the TV's USB 3 input port. I use this file because it has serious banding issues and makes a great test file for banding. On the Zidoo, it suffers from severe banding in some modes, but some modes show minimal banding, exactly as my TV looks when playing it directly using its own media player. So it's not my TV - the Zidoo has banding issues in some modes.

As you can see, some modes show minimal/no banding, so my TV is certainly capable of displaying even problematic files with minimal banding, if sent the right signal. 

If you combine the two statements in bold, you have the answer to this problem. Your TV seems to process YCbCr 4:4:4 and YCbCr 4:2:2 differently. From the many user reports, the consensus is that LG and Sony TVs produce banding with YCbCr 4:2:2 input, whereas, Samsung TVs perform better with YCbCr 4:2:2 input.

Also, the valid output modes for this clip are YCbCr 4:2:0 or 4:2:2. I don't think Zidoo actually outputs 4K 60Hz YCbCr 4:2:2, it falls back to 4:2:0.  If you select YCbCr 4:4:4 or RGB, the bitdepth can only be 8-bit at 4K 60Hz which is expected to produce banding from a 10-bit source (if not properly dithered).

This problem is not limited to Zidoo or Realtek. I have seen this with all Amlogic SoCs.