[jeremy1]

Hey all,

So I have been using Kodi for a very long time - never really had any issues until wanting to watch 4k   I even went and bought a nice new Onkyo 787 to pass 4k.

My issue is only some 4k movies are stuttering quite severely and unwatchable.  My computer is running win 10 and not the fastest system out there but a fairly new HTPC and looking at the specs I think it should be capable of playing 4K just fine.  My setup is follows:

Win10 HTPC - GB-BSi3A-6100 (Intel® Core™ i3-6100U 2.3GHz)  Intel® HD Graphics 520  -  currently the HDMI out on this only support 4k @ 30hz but that should be ok for most movies and I made sure the movies I am testing are at 24fps.  I do have a display port that I have tested which allows 4k@60hz and same issue.  I made sure to keep the Kodi GUI at 1080p.  

Anyway I am not sure how to proceed but the 4K files I have look amazing and I would really like to get it figured out.  Can anyone give me a hand?  I can go back to my old receiver if 4k is not an option but would like to give it a shot since all my equipment should support it.  I have played around with a lot of the settings in Kodi with nothing making a noticeable difference.  

Running Kodi 17.6

Any help much appreciated!

Jeremy

[Warner306]

Intel HD Graphics 520 doesn't support 10-bit HEVC decoding. There may be some hybrid support, but not full support. Your Core i3 CPU is attempting to decode by software and is failing at the bitrate you are feeding it. Also, Kodi is doing an HDR -> SDR conversion at the moment, if this relevant. Need to update the video graphics for full support.

[brazen1]

17.6 doesn't support any HDR or converting HDR to SDR either.  That's why v.18 (in beta) is a pretty big leap forward and modernizing.  4k is one thing.  4k with HDR is another fwiw.  I think just about anything can play 4k.  HDR and auto switching is a heavy task and CPU's struggle with it while GPU's don't even notice.  This is the difference between software decoding and hardware decoding.  Your AVR's are not the culprits but they are part of the 4k chain and overall equation.  As stated by Warner, full support is best using an AMD or nVidia graphic card (a modern one) as opposed to an Intel graphics stacked chip on top of the CPU and asking it to software decode a task as intensive as 4k HDR.

[jeremy1]

Thanks for the feedback guys.  I think I will hold off a little before upgrading my HTPC just for 4K HDR then.  I am considering the Nvidia Shield but dont like the fact ot upconverts all to 4k etc.

Thanks again.

[jools5000]

Easiest way to get 4K HDR would be to add a nVidia GT1030 GPU to your system, which will playback all your 4K/HEVC/HDR content nicely with hardware acceleration

You can use an external player and MadVR to allow you to properly output HDR content (Kodi doesn't do this and may not for some time until Windows implements an API to allow the switching to take place)