[Vlaves]

MrMC purged away AMCodec a long time ago.

Sadly...

[noggin]

Deinterlacing: the Fire TV seems to do good hardware deinterlacing on 1080i h264 channels using Mediacodec (Surface). How to find out what deinterlacing is beeing used by Amazon here? Can someone help to get the info. By just watching I would asume its using Amlogics motion adaptive deinterlacing like other 905 boxes do in Libreelec, but that’s just from my eyes, so...

Hmm - I tried a brand new Fire TV 3 with MrMC on a TV Headend backend (running from an HD Homerun DVB-T2 tuner) playing 1080i H264 content - and I couldn't get anything close to decent deinterlacing on 1080i native content with 50Hz motion.  The BBC News Channel ticker (which should be lovely and fluid) was a jerky, juddery mess.  Native 25p stuff looked OK (like drama and documentary) - but then in that case no real deinterlacing is needed - you can just detect the lack of motion between field-pairs and weave.

I tried all options in the video playback acceleration options and had adjust refresh rate enabled. 

Am I missing something?  Do I need to manually select a specific deinterlacer in the video playback options like the old days with Intel GPUs ?

[davilla]

enable mediacodec (surface), disable deinterlacer for it
enable mediacodec non-surface), enable deinterlacer for it.

Then use bob-invert. That's the best that can be done for firetv devices. They just don't have the ponies for anything higher.

EDIT: But seriously, MrMC questions should really be asked in the MrMC forums and not here in the Kodi forums.

[noggin]

enable mediacodec (surface), disable deinterlacer for it
enable mediacodec non-surface), enable deinterlacer for it.

Then use bob-invert. That's the best that can be done for firetv devices. They just don't have the ponies for anything higher.

EDIT: But seriously, MrMC questions should really be asked in the MrMC forums and not here in the Kodi forums.

Yep - MrMC point understood.  It's a pity that the hardware deinterlacing on the SoC in the FireTV3 (which is an S905-something isn't it?) isn't accessible within the FireTV environment.

[Vlaves]

I guess It was more like wish-seeing that there is proper hardware deinterlacing. Watched now a Soccer game nd it is really nowhere near as it is on a 905 Libreelec box.

Too bad...especially as the 905s have a very good hardware deinterlacing I don’t get why Amazon isn’t able to utilize it.

Guess will have to return the box to Amazon. As now a Amazon Prime App for Android TV is officially released in the google playstore, other boxes like the WetekPlay 2 with the ATV ROM might be the right solution...hopefully the Amazon Prime Video App will work when sideloaded.

[wrxtasy]

Amazon Video = NVIDIA Shield, Apple TV's (v3+), likely a Windows 10 App & naturally the Fire TV's.
The Android TV - Amazon Video App does not work properly, if at all on any other platforms.

If I were to pick a platform for smooth video playback, due to tvOS frame rate matching with Amazon Video it would be the Apple TV 4K. Which also has excellent full motion (YADIF2x) TV deinterlacing when using the MrMC App.

[Vlaves]

If I were to pick a platform for smooth video playback, due to tvOS frame rate matching with Amazon Video it would be the Apple TV 4K. Which also has excellent full motion (YADIF2x) TV deinterlacing when using the MrMC App.

I know, I tested it for about 2 weeks, just that there is no good snappy bluetooth remote alternative and the Siri Remote was a k.o. for my wife nd child.

And I must say that once on Apple TV, my expectations raise somehow, I was disappointed with the Amazon App interface not fitting to rest of the Apps at all, same for MrMC

Seems like there is no way around the Shield TV if you want halfly consistant UI with all the Video capabilities, but THEN there is the Shield TV remote...

[wrxtasy]

Get a simple, ergonomic IR remote and use the Apple TV's IR learning functionality would be the suggestion for WAF and Kids.
MrMC is fine for solid A/V playback. Just change the default Skin.

Yep the Amazon Video App sucks universally across media players. The new YouTube App is not getting much love either !

[ozkhan1]

Apart from Kodi, how’s is this devices performance for apps like Netflix, sling, YouTube, etc?

[noggin]

Too bad...especially as the 905s have a very good hardware deinterlacing I don’t get why Amazon isn’t able to utilize it.

Amazon don't have any interest in supporting interlaced media. They don't supply any interlaced OTT services, and interlaced content makes them no money. It's the same reason Apple TV's tvOS doesn't support hardware deinterlacing (and instead apps that do have to do it in software - using YADIF 2x or similar. Luckily the ATV4K's CPU is powerful enough to do this)

[wrxtasy]

Apart from Kodi, how’s is this devices performance for apps like Netflix, sling, YouTube, etc?

For the ongoing war between Amazon and Google regarding YouTube you should consult this website:

http://www.aftvnews.com/tag/youtube/

[ozkhan1]

Apart from Kodi, how’s is this devices performance for apps like Netflix, sling, YouTube, etc?

For the ongoing war between Amazon and Google regarding YouTube you should consult this website:

http://www.aftvnews.com/tag/youtube/

Ok.. how about Netflix and prime videos? Does it do the forced hdr which makes hd videos look bad ala Shield?

[wrxtasy]

The 2017 FireTV gen3 uses a AMLogic S905Z SoC running Android Nougat 7.1

AMLogic have bypassed existing Google Android Nougat auto colorspace switching/conversion issues like you would see on the Shield.
They handle such auto colorspace switching/conversion at the underlying Linux Kernel level, independent of the Operating System used.

I've not seen widespread reports of problematic auto color output issues with SDR / HDR for Netflix and Prime use on the FireTV gen3, but I've not done much detailed reading either. Click HERE for HDR streaming feedback.

If it's anything like the AML S912 MINIX U9, you likely just set and forget in Android settings and then throw varied SDR and HDR content at it.

[davilla]

If I were to pick a platform for smooth video playback, due to tvOS frame rate matching with Amazon Video it would be the Apple TV 4K. Which also has excellent full motion (YADIF2x) TV deinterlacing when using the MrMC App.

I know, I tested it for about 2 weeks, just that there is no good snappy bluetooth remote alternative and the Siri Remote was a k.o. for my wife nd child.

And I must say that once on Apple TV, my expectations raise somehow, I was disappointed with the Amazon App interface not fitting to rest of the Apps at all, same for MrMC

Seems like there is no way around the Shield TV if you want halfly consistant UI with all the Video capabilities, but THEN there is the Shield TV remote... 

 You should join testflight for 3.5.0, much, much improved sire remote handling. Feels like a natural tvOS app now.

[noggin]

The 2017 FireTV gen3 uses a AMLogic S905Z SoC running Android Nougat 7.1

AMLogic have bypassed existing Google Android Nougat auto colorspace switching/conversion issues like you would see on the Shield.
They handle such auto colorspace switching/conversion at the underlying Linux Kernel level, independent of the Operating System used.

It's interesting whether longer term that makes sense as an approach in colour-gamut terms. There is an argument for sticking with fixed Rec 2020 gamut output and converting 601 and 709 content to that space, so you only have an SDR/HDR10/HLG switch to signal over HDMI, not a gamut change too.   The gamut change has to happen somewhere - your TV has fixed primaries after all...

(This is ignoring any HDR->SDR conversion that is also required.  Automatic HDR->SDR conversion with no user input into the tone mapping route is probably not a good route to go down, even with metadata assisting?  HDR->SDR conversion is likely to need some assistance - as HDR grading choices are so varied, a single fixed HDR->SDR conversion is unlikely to be great.  And obviously not an issue for HLG as it is already SDR-backwards compatible)