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2018 - Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K
(2020-05-28, 06:00)thefrog Wrote:
(2020-05-26, 21:35)Jolltax Wrote: I have put a sample video clip here : www.zen101388.zen.co.uk/Breakfast/Breakfast_20200527_06000900.ts

I also took the liberty of making a brief video recording on my phone of what the issues actually look like : 

www.zen101388.zen.co.uk/Breakfast/KodiShizzle.mp4
  
OK.  I played this file across the CIFS/NAS share.  It played fine for about 2 minutes, then locked up Kodi so hard, that I couldn't stop it.  Upon hitting the 'HOME' button on the remote, I was unable to make YouTube video play.   I tried to play Amazon Prime video, but it showed the kodi screen and then eventually seemed to reset the video to allow an amazon video to play.

I returned to Kodi and played the video again from the beginning.  Hard to tell if the voices and the video are synced due to the broadcaster using internet video and not showing the live hosts faces while they talked (i found this odd).  2:24 video freeze 2:30 audio freeze.   Timer continued past the end of the 3:24 of available video until i stopped it at 4:00 minutes.  Then, it locked up again and I played Amazon Video to reset it.

I suppose i should get a debug log on this this but I recently did a fresh install of 18.6 (because I couldn't force a downgrade to 18.6 from 18.7 with ADB.. donno why).  I'll work on this tomorrow.

Have Processing: Allow hardware accelearation - MediaCodec (Surface) and MediaCodec enabled.  


Maybe a debug log and further analysis tomorrow. 

Many thanks, appreciate your help - based on some limited testing yesterday I can play these files without hardware acceleration on the Firestick 4K and it did not crash but the cpu cores all go to 100% and the playback is very choppy
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(2020-05-26, 21:17)thefrog Wrote:
(2020-05-26, 20:26)Jolltax Wrote: [snip]
I was easily able to install Leia 18.7 using the 'Downloader' app on the Firestick and also easily installed the next-pvr Addon.
Unfortunately whilst live TV seems to stream OK, whenever I try and play TV I have recorded the stream might play a few seconds or buffer and then crash or crash immediately.
[snip]
I concur with the ugreen 1GigE adapter with an OTG cable.  I play 4k UHD content using this adapter.

I'm curious what the content of the TV stream you are attempting.  Anything interlaced (MPEG2, MPEG4) has caused me problems with hardware decoding on the AFTV - i solved my issues with transcoding to remove the interlacing and setting DVD's to software decoding.  I'm not familiar with the PVR stuff at all, but I do have a recollection that a lot of folks had problems with interlaced content from OTA recordings.

Hope this helps.

Hello there,

i am about to buy this ugreen adapter which has the Asix Chip:

https://www.amazon.de/UGREEN-Gigabit-Net...494&sr=8-3

But i can't find a OTG Cable that is Usb 3.0. all of them are 2.0... Will it make a difference streaming high bitrate content?

Thank you
Reply
(2020-05-28, 13:32)MMeirolas1 Wrote:
(2020-05-26, 21:17)thefrog Wrote:
(2020-05-26, 20:26)Jolltax Wrote: [snip]
I was easily able to install Leia 18.7 using the 'Downloader' app on the Firestick and also easily installed the next-pvr Addon.
Unfortunately whilst live TV seems to stream OK, whenever I try and play TV I have recorded the stream might play a few seconds or buffer and then crash or crash immediately.
[snip]
I concur with the ugreen 1GigE adapter with an OTG cable.  I play 4k UHD content using this adapter.

I'm curious what the content of the TV stream you are attempting.  Anything interlaced (MPEG2, MPEG4) has caused me problems with hardware decoding on the AFTV - i solved my issues with transcoding to remove the interlacing and setting DVD's to software decoding.  I'm not familiar with the PVR stuff at all, but I do have a recollection that a lot of folks had problems with interlaced content from OTA recordings.

Hope this helps. 

Hello there,

i am about to buy this ugreen adapter which has the Asix Chip:

https://www.amazon.de/UGREEN-Gigabit-Net...494&sr=8-3

But i can't find a OTG Cable that is Usb 3.0. all of them are 2.0... Will it make a difference streaming high bitrate content?

Thank you 
It won't make any difference.  The port on the Fire TV Stick 4K is USB 2.0 anyway.
TV: Sony XBR-65X950G  A/V Receiver: Denon AVR-X3600H (Atmos 5.2.4)  UHD: Panasonic DP-UB820  BD: Sony BDP-S6200 (Region Free)
Media Players: 2019 Nvidia SHIELD TV Pro, 2015 Nvidia SHIELD TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max, S905X3 CoreELEC Device
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(2020-05-27, 17:20)jubilex Wrote: What is everyone doing about the limited space on the Firestick? I get constant low storage warnings and poor performance as a result.

I have nothing installed but unremovable system apps and Kodi.

I've tried moving Kodi to external thumb drive, but then Kodi's performance is just terrible.

The best thing you can do is disable the screensaver, it caches large amounts of data by way of the photographs it shows.

Settings > Screensaver > Start Time > Never

And clear the cache for the Screensaver app.
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(2020-05-27, 09:01)noggin Wrote: One thing that may, or may not, be relevant is that Freeview-HD in the UK on the PSB-3 / BBC-B mux - which carries BBC One HD, BBC Two HD, CBBC HD, ITV HD, C4 HD and C5 HD - uses on-the-fly dynamic progressive / interlaced encoder switching which can confuse some decoders (though why this would work for live TV but not for recorded TV is then a question I guess).

These channels dynamically switch the broadcast encoders between 1080p25 and 1080i25 (i.e. actually switch the encoder from progressive to interlaced) on a GOP-by-GOP basis, rather than just staying permanently in 1080i25 (and using MBAFF to handle static/native progressive content).  This increases the decoder efficiency - but has caused issues in the past for both consumer TVs (Sony TVs used to flash the on-screen banner and/or audio glitch on a format change - and you could have format changes every couple of seconds on some content...)

The interlaced/progressive switching isn't handled on a show-by-show basis (with playout metadata) - it's handled by the encoder itself, with the encoder deciding whether the content should be encoded as interlaced or progressive.

This is hopefully what the much anticipated fix from Amazon is going to address amongst other things.
I sent samples of shows from the channels you mentioned which crashed the firestick, to the Amazon dev who was dealing with it...he says he is able to play them with no problem on the proposed new firmware which should be getting pushed in the Q2 update from Amazon.

This was however all before Covid kicked off, so when thats likely to be is another matter.

I presume theres no workaround to this using a tvheadend server, without re-encoding?
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(2020-05-28, 13:32)MMeirolas1 Wrote: Hello there,

i am about to buy this ugreen adapter which has the Asix Chip:

https://www.amazon.de/UGREEN-Gigabit-Net...494&sr=8-3

But i can't find a OTG Cable that is Usb 3.0. all of them are 2.0... Will it make a difference streaming high bitrate content?

Thank you 

That UGREEN adapter looks like the one I bought (other than the english/german version of the white stencil)

The OTG Cable I purchased is no longer available, but it looked like this one: 
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Galaxy-Am...B07S23NKK7
(however, that doesn't mean that they are electrically the same)

I suggest you run iPerf as soon as you hook it all up and see if you get a decent throughput.

Note: You will not get GigE speeds, but should get USB2 speeds:

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec  41.4 MBytes   347 Mbits/sec    0    540 KBytes
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec  40.5 MBytes   340 Mbits/sec    0    594 KBytes
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec  40.8 MBytes   343 Mbits/sec    0    687 KBytes
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec  40.0 MBytes   336 Mbits/sec    0    687 KBytes
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec  40.0 MBytes   336 Mbits/sec    0    720 KBytes
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec  40.0 MBytes   336 Mbits/sec    0    757 KBytes
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec  41.2 MBytes   346 Mbits/sec    0    881 KBytes
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec  40.0 MBytes   336 Mbits/sec    0    881 KBytes
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec  40.0 MBytes   336 Mbits/sec    0    881 KBytes
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec  40.0 MBytes   336 Mbits/sec    0    939 KBytes
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There's new versions of the fritschfiretv build posted May-27 and May-28 that I haven't seen discussed here. Are there any changes worth mentioning in those? I thought these builds were done with the sync fix and the rebasing to 18.7?
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What more information do you need? 

https://github.com/fritsch/xbmc/commits/fritschfiretv
First decide what functions / features you expect from a system. Then decide for the hardware. Don't waste your money on crap.
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Hi to everybody, I am new on this forum and this is my first post.
Until now I have read tons of messages and I would say tanks to all the contributors.
My situation: home cabled with Ethernet Gigabit, 2 Firestick 2k and 2 Firestick 4k in different rooms.
2 NAS with many 2k e 4k movies in the garage.
The Firestick 2k are connected with the standard ethernet adapter (100 Mbit) and never had any issues during playback.
As a matter of fact i feel that I will never have issues even with the 4k Firestick, because my files, even the largest ones, can be transferred quite easy even with the 100 Mbit limitation.
But, to be on the safe side, I decided to go with the solution of the Gigabit Ethernet adapter and otg cable for my 4k Firestick. Disaster!
I have used almost all the adapters available, the ones with AX88179 chipset.
Some of them are not even seen by the Firestick.
I also used the integrated adapter from Cable Matters, the one that claims 480 Mbit of transfer rate.
With the working ones I have had casual problems during playback, with freezes after variable periods of time, maybe  5 or 10 or even more minutes. Sometimes no freezes at all. Freeze means that nothing more works and I have to restart the Firestick unplugging the power supply.
I have changed the otg cables, the adapters and even one Firestick 4k, substituted by Amazon.
Nothing better, the problem was still there and happened with standard mkv files, small and large, both 2k and 4k.
No problems at all during reproduction of files from Prime Video or Rai Play (streaming).
Frustrated, I decided to put an old Wi-Fi router configured in Access Point mode close to the Firestick and all the problems are gone.
But then, in total casual way, I have found what probably is the cause of all these troubles.
With my laptop, in these days, I use an Inateck Gigabit USB Hub adapter (3 port), for Ethernet connection.
It works quite well, with transfer rate in the range of 950 Mbit. Perfect.
When in use it became warm, at around 45-50 C°.
But, once connected to the Firestick 4k with otg cable I noticed that it remain cold, at ambient temperature…..
Strange: why should have different temperatures if connected to the same 5V supply?
I have made some measurements and found that when connected to the laptop the current drained is about 200 mA, and when connected to the Firestick 4k it is only 90 mA.
I have made the same test with another adapter that I have now available, a simple Gigabit to USB 3 made by Rankie, and the results are similar: 140 mA with the laptop and 70 with the Firestick 4k.
In my opinion these adapters are forced to work in different ways by software, because the 5V is the same (there is nothing active in the otg adapter) and different consumption may be explained only with different behaviour of internal chips.
I belong to the old electronic school: heat means consumption and consumption means that some components are working. If there is no heat there is, at least, a different working behaviour of the components.
And this could explain the crash, because I suppose that the laptop is not so stupid to supply the double of the current if it is not necessary.
If someone can make some test in this direction I would appreciate the comments.
At the end a good news for us Kodi users.
The problem is not related to Kodi, because VLC has the same behaviour. 
Therefore the problem is inside the Firestick or in its firmware.
Greetings from Italy.
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I upgraded the fritschfiretv version. It contains:
- Revert of the scale and crop functionality. This was fixed in firetv version 6.2.7.1 -> make sure you run that if you have aspect ratio issues
- External suspend. If android app is closed, while not playing muted, AE does not come back without being asked to do so -> should fix PT in e.g. plex after kodi has run
- Some 18.7 JNI outtages that were fixed by @peak3d  Resource Usage of decoder (missing release), presentRenderAt fixed a stuttering issue with an API not yet provide by libandroidjni
- Fix transition between short streams. This is especially relevant for inputstream with very short chapters (< 3 seconds)

Have fun.
First decide what functions / features you expect from a system. Then decide for the hardware. Don't waste your money on crap.
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Hi @fritsch 
would be possible to implement an auto update feature for your build (on android) ?

thanks!

BHH
HDConvertToX, AutoMKV, AutoMen author
Reply
Nope. No interest in that. I just share it, cause I use it on my main rig - I am no distribution provider.

While being said: In some hours Android 18.7.1 hotfix will be released, all the fixes in there are _already now_ in the above build ...
First decide what functions / features you expect from a system. Then decide for the hardware. Don't waste your money on crap.
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(2020-05-31, 19:14)fritsch Wrote: Nope. No interest in that. I just share it, cause I use it on my main rig - I am no distribution provider.

While being said: In some hours Android 18.7.1 hotfix will be released, all the fixes in there are _already now_ in the above build ...

Ok. Thanks for your support! Smile

BHH
HDConvertToX, AutoMKV, AutoMen author
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(2020-05-31, 19:10)buzzqw Wrote: Hi @fritsch 
would be possible to implement an auto update feature for your build (on android) ?

thanks!

BHH
Just use the Downloader app from Amazon and put http://mirrors.kodi.tv/test-builds/android/arm/ in your favorites.

That's what I've been doing and it's easy as pie.
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What is the difference between the fritschfiretv -armeabi  dated May 31 and the 3 Leia-armeabi above his also with the same date?
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2018 - Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K3