[Stefanseiner]

Hello,

since yesterday I retired my 7 years old 32" JVC TV and changed it to a new Samsung 4K TV.
But after some testings - Kodi 16.1 seems to not playing movies in 4K.
Sound goes without problems but the video playback is lagging.

System:
- OS: Windows 7 X64
- Kodi 16.1
- AMD Athlon 5350 APU (4x 2,056 GHz with Radeon R3 iGPU with 600 MHz and native DXVA / h.264 support)
- newest driver (ATI Radeon Crimson Edition 16.7.3 from 28.07.2016)

For testing I played the same videofile from NAS (GBit), HDD at Kodi system and from SDD at Kodi system to exclude network bandwith limitations and harddisc limitations.
Then I tried Media Player Classic and it works fine. Taskmanager shows 20 to 25% workload and the cpu between 25 and 45% workload (just with this new driver, with the old original driver the playback also stuttered).

With Kodi the cpu workload is 100% so I guess the cpu/gpu hardware decoding isn't working.
And yes: at the system options hardware DXVA is enabled. For testing I changed in Kodi the render codec from DXVA to automatic but same result.

Here some infos about the video testfile I used:
Format : Matroska
Format-Version : Version 4 / Version 2
size : 23,9 GiB
duration : 2 h 0 min
Bitrate : 28,4 Mb/s
filename : Mad.Max.-.Fury.Road.2015
coding-date : UTC 2016-05-11 12:23:54
coding-tool : mkvmerge v7.3.0 ('Nouages') 64bit built on Oct 23 2014 13:14:01
used encoding bibliothek : x264 core 142, libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.1
Codec-ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
width : 3 840 Pixel
high: 2 160 Pixel
FPS : 23,976 (24000/1001) FPS
ColorSpace : YUV
ChromaSubsampling/String : 4:2:0
BitDepth/String : 8 bits


Does anyone have an idea what's the problem?
It would be a shame if I had to say goodbye to Kodi just to use 4K.

[DJ_Izumi]

This was answered in this thread I started here: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=277724

I think this may relate tot he answers I found in my thread here, though my thread focused on HEVC so don't quote me. But effectively, Kodi for Windows is 32bit and the 32 bit version of FFMPEG inside of Kodi for Windows is painfully inefficient compared to 64bit versions.

[Stefanseiner]

mmh, this is really unsatisfactory that Kodi seems really not be able to play actual video content.

But the good site on this is that now I know where the problem comes from and I will search for a solution including the Media Player Classic X64 into Kodi to play just the .mkv files.

Thanks for this helpfull answer

[nickr]

Or don't use windows perhaps?

[Martijn]

Use kodi v17?

[Stefanseiner]

Or don't use windows perhaps?

I would like to, but my HTPC isn't for Kodi only.

Use kodi v17?

Has v17 better DXVA / h.264 support on Windows? I just can find improvements for this on Rasperry Pi

[Martijn]

Lot's of changes/improvements in videoplayback part. Please download the nightly version http://mirrors.kodi.tv/nightlies/win32/
You can try a portable install to test without affecting your current setup.
See here for some more explanation
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=286493

[Stefanseiner]

Thanks, but no effect.

Kodi 17 didn't work better, neither the stable Alpha 3 nor the last nightly from yesterday. It's buffering all the time (videofile on Samsung EVO 850 SSD).

[nickr]

Debug log (wiki)

[Gilogo]

Hello,

since yesterday I retired my 7 years old 32" JVC TV and changed it to a new Samsung 4K TV.
But after some testings - Kodi 16.1 seems to not playing movies in 4K.
Sound goes without problems but the video playback is lagging.

System:
- OS: Windows 7 X64
- Kodi 16.1
- AMD Athlon 5350 APU (4x 2,056 GHz with Radeon R3 iGPU with 600 MHz and native DXVA / h.264 support)
- newest driver (ATI Radeon Crimson Edition 16.7.3 from 28.07.2016)

For testing I played the same videofile from NAS (GBit), HDD at Kodi system and from SDD at Kodi system to exclude network bandwith limitations and harddisc limitations.
Then I tried Media Player Classic and it works fine. Taskmanager shows 20 to 25% workload and the cpu between 25 and 45% workload (just with this new driver, with the old original driver the playback also stuttered).

With Kodi the cpu workload is 100% so I guess the cpu/gpu hardware decoding isn't working.
And yes: at the system options hardware DXVA is enabled. For testing I changed in Kodi the render codec from DXVA to automatic but same result.

Here some infos about the video testfile I used:
Format : Matroska
Format-Version : Version 4 / Version 2
size : 23,9 GiB
duration : 2 h 0 min
Bitrate : 28,4 Mb/s
filename : Mad.Max.-.Fury.Road.2015
coding-date : UTC 2016-05-11 12:23:54
coding-tool : mkvmerge v7.3.0 ('Nouages') 64bit built on Oct 23 2014 13:14:01
used encoding bibliothek : x264 core 142, libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.1
Codec-ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
width : 3 840 Pixel
high: 2 160 Pixel
FPS : 23,976 (24000/1001) FPS
ColorSpace : YUV
ChromaSubsampling/String : 4:2:0
BitDepth/String : 8 bits


Does anyone have an idea what's the problem?
It would be a shame if I had to say goodbye to Kodi just to use 4K.

Hi there,
I just tested a bunch of 4k videos on our system and all of them played beautifully on our Sharp 80" UHDTV
I believe your problem lays on your hardware, here are my settings if you want to compare:

Sharp 80" UHDTV
HTPC running Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit.
6th generation Intel® Core™ i7 processor
16 Gigs of Kingston RAM
Pro Samsung 1 TB SSD
ASRock MB
Nvidia GTX Ti discrete video card
Denon AVR-X7200WA
AEON MQ7 skin

The files are stored in a Synology NAS, the network is on a standard Gigabit Ethernet over copper wiring. (1000BASE-T)
I also copied some files in the local hard drive and this made no difference in the playback.

My suggestions are:
Turn off all "enhancements" on the ati settings (amd radeon or whatever is called now a days), such a noise reduction, smooth playback, color vibrance and all of the rest of the stuff that I cannot remember right now, switch to advanced in the ati driver settings.
on kodi enable Wasapi sound, hardware acceleration and make sure you enable HQ scalers about 20%, render method dxva, vertical blank sync always enabled.

Are you using and amplifier? if so, make sure your amp natively supports 4K/video pass-through, if not, use the ARC channel for audio, that way you eliminate any upscale/downscale and or video converting managing issues.
I also had some issues initially when I put our HTPC together, specially with the radeon cards, that is why I switched to nvidia.

These are merely suggestions only based on my personal experience, take what works.

Disclaimer: I am an Electronics and Communications Engineer with a second major in Computer Science and throughout my professional life I have only used Microsoft Operating Systems both home and server/enterprise and I believe there is nothing out there that compares to Windows Operating System so I can tell you that you made good choice on your OS, just make sure you keep it fully updated and make an exemption on your antivirus for Kodi and its respective folders (x86 programs and roaming).

Last but not least you are free to say good bye to Kodi, but I assure you, just like Windows, there is nothing out there that even compares to Kodi.
Best of luck and please pardon my English since it is not my mother tongue.

[Stefanseiner]

now I'm knowing a little bit more about this problem.

Kodi is able to use hardware acceleration of the GPU to play h.264 codec AVC files and this works very good.
The CPU load is about 27% (just Windows background things).

The problem are HEVC files which are in h.265 coded, and Kodi seems to not be able to use the GPU hardware acceleration. So the decoding process only works with software -> the little CPU has to do all the work, and with 2 GHz it's to slow (cpu load is 100%).

@ Gilogo:
tried to play some HEVC files? How is your CPU load? I guess your system can play HEVC because of the faster i7 cpu.

Now I'm trying to get DSPlayer working because of it's external LAV decoder which works fine in Media Player Classic at the DSPlayer Thread -> Kodi DSPlayer – DirectShow Player for Windows

[Gracus]

The problem are HEVC files which are in h.265 coded, and Kodi seems to not be able to use the GPU hardware acceleration. So the decoding process only works with software -> the little CPU has to do all the work, and with 2 GHz it's to slow (cpu load is 100%).

Maybe because your APU does not have h265 hardware acceleration...

It would be hard for Kodi to use something that is not even here...

[nickr]

The file is encoded with h.264, not HEVC. Read post 1.

[Gracus]

The file is encoded with h.264, not HEVC. Read post 1.

So maybe you should read the part of Stefanseiner's post I quoted and not just what I wrote...

[nickr]

Your answer is a correct response to what Stefanseiner said and which you quote. However the thread has gone right off topic then because Stefanseiner's problem has nothing to do with HEVC.