[bmonster]

Im using a RPi3 but still find MMAL keeps pausing the video im playing whenever I moved around the menus.
I have a big movies database, and if I enter it while using MMAL the video im watching can pause for up to 5 secs while kodi enters the movie library, this doesnt happen with OMX, thats the only reason i go with OMX..
I'd prefer to use MMAL as it seems better quality, but the pause bugs me to much...

This is a way of using kodi I've never understood.
If I no longer want to watch the current video and switch to a new video I press stop, I navigate to new video and play it - everything is smooth.
I assume you are putting video into background and then navigating?
Browsing a large movie database does take 100% cpu for small periods of time, and if playing video as well something has to give.
Ideally the browsing would just get more sluggish and the video would continue but kodi doesn't give higher priority to video threads so that isn't guaranteed.

First question - has the behaviour ever been better in past builds?

Hi Popcornmix,

I check back to mmal every few weeks for the last year, and its always been the same.

Regards Bucky