[OlivierQC]

Hi all,


My return with my X9S (FW 2.0.5)

With the demo Samsung Wonderland UHD HDR

YcBcR 4.4.4 / 10bit / limited
there is banding at the first second in the blue/pink sky then it is more discreet in the next scene, at the 31th second, we see it very well until 50th seconds...after that i stopped the Demo.

YcBcR 4.4.4 / 12bit / limited
I'm close to the TV and no banding, to be sure I moved my head in every way

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I checked with The Revenant UHD HDR (good movie to check the banding)

I can see banding at 1mn30, in the sky to the right of the head of the boys with the Deep color 10Bit and i do not see any banding with 12Bit, and we can see the difference very well.

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My equipement :

Sony 65X930C (HDMI enhanced)
Onkyo 656 (4k/hdcp 2.2/HDR)
Cable Monster Ultra HD Platinum (22.5 Gbps)

My settings with the X9S/10 FW 2.0.5 :

Deep color : 12Bit
color space : 4.4.4
HDMI Range : Limited
HDR : ON

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Thanks for your help wesk05,

[lionne]

I'm still confused with deep color. I thought deep color offered no improvement for HD or UHD/HDR? I was under the impression blu-ray/UHD discs didn't use deep color?

[wesk05]

@OlivierQC: What app are your using to play the movies? Mediacenter/ZDMC/Kodi. I tested using the Mediacenter app. I'm not sure whether the differences that we have are due to using a different app.
 

I'm still confused with deep color. I thought deep color offered no improvement for HD or UHD/HDR? I was under the impression blu-ray/UHD discs didn't use deep color?

  By spec. YCbCr 4:4:4 with >8-bit color depth is Deep Color. You have to use either YCbCr 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 to transmit 1080p and 4K <50Hz. YCbCr 4:2:2 by spec is 12-bit and Deep Color doesn't apply to it. YCbCr 4:2:0 can be used only for 4K 50/60Hz and >8-bit YCbCr 4:2:0 is also Deep Color.

[lionne]

I keep reading in the blu-ray forums that if the player has a deep color option it should be disabled as there is no benefit. Is that incorrect then?

When you mentioned the stutter with 23.976 in 4:4:4, was that using ZDMC or the native home theater player it ships with?

[wesk05]

I keep reading in the blu-ray forums that if the player has a deep color option it should be disabled as there is no benefit. Is that incorrect then?

When you mentioned the stutter with 23.976 in 4:4:4, was that using ZDMC or the native home theater player it ships with?

1080p Blu-rays have only 8-bit color depth. Ultra HD Blu-rays are 10-bit. So for 1080p content, Deep Color doesn't offer any advantage.

All testing that I did yesterday was with the Media Center app. It is on the HDMI analyzer that I noticed the output was 24Hz. X9S is not my daily use device. (It used to be the Shield, but now it is Apple TV 4K). I just have it for testing (like the many other boxes)  . I haven't really sat down and watched something on the X9S to have noticed the stuttering.

[OlivierQC]

Hello wesk05 and lionne,

I use Mediacenter for the tests, and HT V1.0 (and V2.0 now) for my daily use, i did not notice any difference between MediaCenter and HT 1.0/2.0

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I did not notice stuttering in 1080p 23.976, and nobody talks about this problem on forums, usually people see it right away if there is stuttering. 

There is something weird with 3 Sony demos 30P, it looks like there is micro stuterring or something similar. I have comparred with the Egreat and it is perfectly smooth with the Egreat.



We see it very well with this demo or it is me who must buy glasses...
http://4kmedia.org/sony-beautiful-sea-in...d-4k-demo/

See you

[lionne]

I have all of those demos. I will test them on my 1.4.12 firmware.

[wesk05]

I checked this out again with the Samsung Wonderland clip and The Revenant scene @OlivierQC mentioned earlier. I can see horrible banding with 12-bit YCbCr 4:4:4/4:2:2, but not with 10-bit. I tested on firmware 1.5 using the Media Center app and ZDMC 17.6. I didn't find any difference between the two apps.

What is interesting is, I found almost no difference between 12 & 10 bit outputs in the captured HDMI bitstreams. This to me suggests that the banding that we are seeing is a display specific problem. Displays seem to be processing the 10 and 12 bit signals differently. What I can't explain now is why 12-bit 4:2:2 output from nVIDIA Shield doesn't produce banding, but 12-bit 4:2:2 output from X9S shows banding on my Samsung TV.

Here are some still frame exports. On a computer monitor, you may not notice any difference, but there is some subtle difference. However, they do not show any difference in banding.

Samsung Wonderland Original
Samsung Wonderland 12-bit YCbCr 4:4:4
Samsung Wonderland 10-bit YCbCr 4:4:4

The Revenant Original
The Revenant 12-bit YCbCr 4:4:4
The Revenant 10-bit YCbCr 4:4:4

The frames are slightly different for the Revenant.

[lionne]

I tried out the Beautiful Sea in Okinawa clip and it indeed stutters. I have resolution set to 1080p@60Hz.

[OlivierQC]

Thanks wesk05,
you are not interested to use the fw2.0.5 


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@lionne,

i'm not an expert but the demo is in 2160p 29,940, why do you use 1080p 60?

thanks

[lionne]

@lionne,

i'm not an expert but the demo is in 2160p 29,940, why do you use 1080p 60?

thanks

 What am I supposed to use? It's a 60Hz TV. My default is 1080p@60Hz. What should it be outputting? I tried it on HDMI Auto with "Auto29.97/59.94HZ" enabled in playback options, and it still stuttered.

The file is 29.970fps. Shouldn't 29.970 (NTSC) play smoothly when output as 60Hz anyways?

[OlivierQC]

With my HD and UHD movies, i use this option (see below) and the box switches to the right mode (resolution and frequency)



or before that, i used UHD30/YcBcR4.4.4/10Bitor12Bit with video file under 30Hz (because all the movies are in 23.976, to my knowledge there is just Billy Lynn who is in 59.940 and HD/UHD demo too)


or if I watch demos above 30hz I use the following parameters : UHD60/YcBcR4.2.0/10Bit

see you

[lionne]

Well I tried HDMI on Auto for that file (29.970) and it still stuttered. And I still don't see any reason why a 29.970fps UHD file would stutter when output is set to 2160p/60Hz. Every blu-ray player I've ever had outputs 60Hz for DVDs and NTSC DVDs (29.970) play on my blu-ray players without any stutter. My old Mede8er plays NTSC DVD files fine at 60Hz.

That demo file also plays perfectly smoothly when played directly off my USB thumb drive plugged directly into my LG TV through it's built-in media player. Clearly the Zidoo is the problem here.

[lionne]

Here's what I was greeted with earlier in the Ziddo forum by one member after discussing stuttering on this file and DVD issues:

"1.4.12 was release last august, nearly six month... Zidoo team work nearly all this time on rtk1295 and produce three firmwares. Now you didn't try 2.0.5, in some of your intervention you said that problem report where unacceptable but you dismiss other user saying it was fine. For my part I do not have any stutter in every frame rate, all switch resolution and frame rate are OK and following my TV capabilitie. 3D working flawlessly... But of course in Home Theater 2.0 witch you didn't give a try because you only think of Kodi, but that box is more than a Kodi Box it play prefect with Home Theater... Ok scraper is little bugy for now but I did register all my 300+ movies 3D, 4K, HD and avi file and no problem in playing and enjoying the picture quality. I am done with you! "

Like I said, support on the Zidoo forum is pathetic. They get defensive quick. I was nothing but respectful with this guy. I have no idea what I said to get a response like that. All I said was I was hesitant to update to 2.0.5 since it's a beta and there are problems reported like the framerate issue with 4:4:4 mode wesk05 reported for 1.5.0.

[lionne]

I also get heavy banding on images viewed using the media center player. I've tried every possible combination of settings I could think of (various HDMI modes up to 2160p, all Deep Color settings, RGB 4:4:4, YCbCr 4:4:4, YCbCr 4:2:0. If I view them with ZDMC (I finally got it installed) they have much less banding. The Zidoo image player seems to display awful banding regardless of settings. My Mede8er also displays them with much less banding.