Kodi 17 on Sony XBR-65A1E OLED
#1
Sad 
I recently purchased a 65" Sony OLED (XBR-65A1E) that has native Android TV as the UI. I loaded the latest version of Kodi from the Play Store. I attempted to playback a Moana Blu-Ray 1:1 rip from my LAN using NFS Share over CAT6 cable. The TV chokes on this media with constant buffering and stutter. It is extremely frustrating and I attribute it to the chip internal to the display. I have a 2015 NVidia Shield Pro that handles this use case without incident with both Kodi and SPMC forks.

Does anyone have any recommendations regarding a resolution to this issue?
Reply
#2
Debug log (wiki)
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
Reply
#3
Have you tried going back to Kodi 16.1 Jarvis?  Worked for me.

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...pid2515912
Reply
#4
Hello everybody,
Can KODI team member can confirm that internal apps work only at 60 Hz as KODI on SONY A1 (only 60Hz available on KODI interface) ?
Thanks
Reply
#5
(2019-02-04, 15:18)Ogreen Wrote: Hello everybody,
Can KODI team member can confirm that internal apps work only at 60 Hz as KODI on SONY A1 (only 60Hz available on KODI interface) ?
Thanks
 I have a Sony XF9005 (aka X900F) HDR LCD with LED FALD, not an OLED, running Android TV.  I'm pretty certain most apps (Netflix/Amazon) are stuck at 60Hz (which is why I use an Apple TV 4K) - however the internal BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport apps definitely switches to 50Hz, as the 720p50 HD SDR (and 2160p50 UHD HDR in iPlayer) streams properly switch to 50Hz and are displayed with no 50->60 judder (easy to check on the BBC News channel ticker on the live feed).  This suggests, to me, that there IS a way of changing frame rate, but it may not be universally used, or may be a bespoke system?
Reply
#6
This is what I think too Wink
Thanks
Reply
#7
From my review:
Quote:Sony lacks support for the public Android API for switching the refresh rate/display mode, presenting at a permanent 60 frames per second which results in micro-judder for a lot of content here in Europe when being played back within the 3rd party app context. The only exception to this limitation seems to be the integrated DTV player where Sony has access to some private API, switching to 50Hz for smooth PAL playback.

Sony’s  Motionflow is supposed to make up for it, being capable of upconverting everything to the native panel refresh rate. Using Custom mode and somewhat raising the Smoothness slider results in decent frame rate conversion of PAL content without introducing a too visible soap opera effect (SOE). The more you crank up that Smoothness, the more visible it gets and the more artifacting Sony’s implementation exhibits in scenes with lots of fast movement and panning. Don’t forget to also lift the Film mode (or CineMotion for U.S. models) option as otherwise no frame interpolation is applied at all. Setting it to High results in proper cadence detection for most video and film based content. So keep in mind that the Film mode option only determines for which content to apply frame interpolation, but not its magnitude (which is controlled by Motionflow Smoothness).

As for 24p film content via apps, Sony’s image processor is capable of detecting the 3:2 pattern, reverse it and perform a 5:5 which only works for 120Hz panels though. For this to happen, one has to set Motionflow to True Cinema (or Custom with Smoothness=Min) and Film mode to High. In order to smoothen out the 3:2 pulldown judder on 60Hz panels or the inherent 24p stutter due to the low frame rate, one can play around with Smoothness and Clearness in Motionflow Custom mode. Motion processing is one of Sony’s sweet spots. Optimal settings depend on the actual model and personal preferences. There is no right or wrong when it comes to satisfying your eyes.
Reply
#8
Thank you CINcH  Wink
Reply
#9
(2019-02-06, 12:46)CiNcH Wrote: From my review:
Quote:Sony lacks support for the public Android API for switching the refresh rate/display mode, presenting at a permanent 60 frames per second which results in micro-judder for a lot of content here in Europe when being played back within the 3rd party app context. The only exception to this limitation seems to be the integrated DTV player where Sony has access to some private API, switching to 50Hz for smooth PAL playback.

Sony’s  Motionflow is supposed to make up for it, being capable of upconverting everything to the native panel refresh rate. Using Custom mode and somewhat raising the Smoothness slider results in decent frame rate conversion of PAL content without introducing a too visible soap opera effect (SOE). The more you crank up that Smoothness, the more visible it gets and the more artifacting Sony’s implementation exhibits in scenes with lots of fast movement and panning. Don’t forget to also lift the Film mode (or CineMotion for U.S. models) option as otherwise no frame interpolation is applied at all. Setting it to High results in proper cadence detection for most video and film based content. So keep in mind that the Film mode option only determines for which content to apply frame interpolation, but not its magnitude (which is controlled by Motionflow Smoothness).

As for 24p film content via apps, Sony’s image processor is capable of detecting the 3:2 pattern, reverse it and perform a 5:5 which only works for 120Hz panels though. For this to happen, one has to set Motionflow to True Cinema (or Custom with Smoothness=Min) and Film mode to High. In order to smoothen out the 3:2 pulldown judder on 60Hz panels or the inherent 24p stutter due to the low frame rate, one can play around with Smoothness and Clearness in Motionflow Custom mode. Motion processing is one of Sony’s sweet spots. Optimal settings depend on the actual model and personal preferences. There is no right or wrong when it comes to satisfying your eyes.
 I wonder why the iPlayer (BBC catchup app) runs at 50Hz?  I have no Motion Flow enabled and the 720p50 SDR and 2160p50/2160p25 HDR content is displayed at 50Hz.

Could there be 'Sony specific' extensions  that iPlayer uses on the Sony version of the app?
Reply
#10
Quote: Could there be 'Sony specific' extensions  that iPlayer uses on the Sony version of the app?

Very probably, yes. As I have written, they also use a private API for switching refresh rate for the integrated tuners. Do you actually recognize that a switch happens? Short screen blanking...
Reply
#11
(2019-02-08, 07:58)CiNcH Wrote:
Quote: Could there be 'Sony specific' extensions  that iPlayer uses on the Sony version of the app?

Very probably, yes. As I have written, they also use a private API for switching refresh rate for the integrated tuners. Do you actually recognize that a switch happens? Short screen blanking...   

When I go from DVB-T2 (50Hz) to HOME (app screen overlaid over DVB-T2 in the background ) there is no change to refresh rate and no screen blank - so the display is running at 50Hz at that point still.

When I select the iPlayer app there is a cut to black, that could be a switch to 60Hz (and back again to 50Hz) with a lower third grey bar saying 'Loading Please Wait'.  There are no screen blanks within iPlayer when playing SDR 720p50 content.  There is a screen blank when you start playing UHD HDR HLG EOTF content, as the TV switches to that EOTF (may also be triggered by a switch from rendering iPlayer at <2160p and then outputting 2160p stuff?) 

BTW - I've always wondered how lower level video like DVB-T2/DVB-S2 stuff is handled.  

The digital tuning menus are very non-Android TV (and look just like non-Android TV Sony TVs) - so I've never been sure whether some of the basic TV functionality still happens outside 'Android TV' and is then fed into the Android TV system?  (You are within an Android TV UI to select between Digital or Analogue tuning - but then get presented with a much more 'Sony' UI for the various digital or analogue tuning options)

The same is true for the DVB on-screen programme information overlay that you get when you press the 'i+' button or that pops up when there is a screen format change.  This all looks pretty close to identical to the UI of a non-Android TV Sony TV. (I have disabled YouView on my TV so get the basic Sony UI)
Reply
#12
Quote:BTW - I've always wondered how lower level video like DVB-T2/DVB-S2 stuff is handled.

If you check logcat, you will also realize that no HW decoder in the MediaTek SoC (Android TV part) is triggered, also not consuming any CPU time. I think it is a system in the system implemented in their big FPGA.
Reply
#13
(2019-02-08, 11:55)CiNcH Wrote:
Quote:BTW - I've always wondered how lower level video like DVB-T2/DVB-S2 stuff is handled.

If you check logcat, you will also realize that no HW decoder in the MediaTek SoC (Android TV part) is triggered, also not consuming any CPU time. I think it is a system in the system implemented in their big FPGA. 

Yep - so either baseband video is fed from the DVB tuner/demodulator/decoder infrastructure into the Mediatek SoC for Android TV overlay/blending etc., or the output of the Mediatek has an alpha channel to let this blending happen downstream? (I suspect the former?)

This presumably also means there are two separate MPEG2/h.264/h.265 decoders in the TV - one in the Mediatek, one elsewhere?  Live TV handled outside the Mediatek, but Android TV streaming app stuff via the Mediatek (and also DVB recordings?)
Reply
#14
Quote:Yep - so either baseband video is fed from the DVB tuner/demodulator/decoder infrastructure into the Mediatek SoC for Android TV overlay/blending etc., or the output of the Mediatek has an alpha channel to let this blending happen downstream? (I suspect the former?)
I have no real idea about the architecture and data flow on BRAVIA. I would have thought that raw image data only flows from the MTK to the FPGA/image processor. The Android PiP functionality breaks a bit with this theory though. So probably the former.
 
Quote:This presumably also means there are two separate MPEG2/h.264/h.265 decoders in the TV - one in the Mediatek, one elsewhere?
Suppose so. I assume the whole Dolby Vision thing to also be implemented in the FPGA (X1 image processor) which includes a full-fledged HEVC decoder. A logcat would reveal whether MTK is used for decoding HEVC in case of DV.
 
Quote:and also DVB recordings?
Another mistery where one can only speculate Wink . USB3 port is provided by the MTK and accessible through Android. But there could also be some switch which routes it elsewhere...
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
Kodi 17 on Sony XBR-65A1E OLED0