[kamby19]

I'm running Kodi 18.4 on my Fire TV Gen 2 over Ethernet LAN, and starting a few days ago, I started seeing pixelation and MPEG artifacts primarily from movement, and it takes 5-10 seconds before the picture clears up again. I also see it in non-motion scenes when the image is largely made up of crossing diagonal lines, even when the objects making up the crosshatching are large.

I've been running Kodi on it for years now, and have never seen this before. I know it's not the source material or the network because the same sources play fine on my second Fire TV Gen 2 (which is running Kodi 16) and on my Windows box.  In terms of mere appearance, it looks like the result of insufficient processing power, but my guess is that a buffering issue is more likely.

I tried adding an advancedsettings.xml file to adjust buffering, but that didn't solve the problem. Here is that file's contents:

<advancedsettings>
<network>
<buffermode> 1 </buffermode>
<readbufferfactor> 2 </readbufferfactor>
<cachemembuffersize> 124857600 </cachemembuffersize>
</network>
</advancedsettings>

What else can I try?  Thank you for your time!

[kamby19]

I'm running Kodi 18.4 on my Fire TV Gen 2 over Ethernet LAN, and starting a few days ago, I started seeing pixelation and MPEG artifacts primarily from movement, and it takes 5-10 seconds before the picture clears up again. I also see it in non-motion scenes when the image is largely made up of crossing diagonal lines, even when the objects making up the crosshatching are large.

I've been running Kodi on it for years now, and have never seen this before. I know it's not the source material or the network because the same sources play fine on my second Fire TV Gen 2 (which is running Kodi 16) and on my Windows box.  In terms of mere appearance, it looks like the result of insufficient processing power, but my guess is that a buffering issue is more likely.

I tried adding an advancedsettings.xml file to adjust buffering, but that didn't solve the problem. Here is that file's contents:

<advancedsettings>
<network>
<buffermode> 1 </buffermode>
<readbufferfactor> 2 </readbufferfactor>
<cachemembuffersize> 124857600 </cachemembuffersize>
</network>
</advancedsettings>

What else can I try?  Thank you for your time! 

Well, since my second Fire TV Gen 2 was running Kodi 16.1 and was working fine, I decided too downgrade the main Fire TV to the same version and restore everything from a backup. Now it's working great. But I find it hard to believe that simply installing and running 16.1 is what made the difference. Rather, I think that some data got cleared or reset when I downgraded.

It wasn't clearing Kodi's cache, but something else. Any ideas?

[kamby19]

I'm running Kodi 18.4 on my Fire TV Gen 2 over Ethernet LAN, and starting a few days ago, I started seeing pixelation and MPEG artifacts primarily from movement, and it takes 5-10 seconds before the picture clears up again. I also see it in non-motion scenes when the image is largely made up of crossing diagonal lines, even when the objects making up the crosshatching are large.

I've been running Kodi on it for years now, and have never seen this before. I know it's not the source material or the network because the same sources play fine on my second Fire TV Gen 2 (which is running Kodi 16) and on my Windows box.  In terms of mere appearance, it looks like the result of insufficient processing power, but my guess is that a buffering issue is more likely.

I tried adding an advancedsettings.xml file to adjust buffering, but that didn't solve the problem. Here is that file's contents:

<advancedsettings>
<network>
<buffermode> 1 </buffermode>
<readbufferfactor> 2 </readbufferfactor>
<cachemembuffersize> 124857600 </cachemembuffersize>
</network>
</advancedsettings>

What else can I try?  Thank you for your time!  

Well, since my second Fire TV Gen 2 was running Kodi 16.1 and was working fine, I decided to downgrade the main Fire TV to the same version and restore everything from a backup. Now it's working great. But I find it hard to believe that simply installing and running 16.1 is what made the difference. Rather, I think that some data got cleared or reset when I downgraded.

It wasn't clearing Kodi's cache, but something else. Any ideas?

[kamby19]

Well, I tried going back to 18.4, but the nasty video pixelation and artifacts returned!  Then I returned to 16.1 and the problems were gone, so it does appear to be a problem with Kodi 18.4 after all.

Should I report this? If so, where?

[chuckm]

Well, I tried going back to 18.4, but the nasty video pixelation and artifacts returned!  Then I returned to 16.1 and the problems were gone, so it does appear to be a problem with Kodi 18.4 after all.

I think I'm having the same problem. Very noticeable blocky artifacts when playing back a DVD over Ethernet in Kodi on FireTV box. Problem is present in Kodi 18.5 and 18.6, but not 16 or 17.5.1.
Kodi system info says FireTV Android 5.1.1 API level 22 kernel 3.10.61+.
Kodi 17.5.1 looks noticably better than 18.x.
In Kodi 18.6 deinterlacing was forced to none but in 17.5.1 it was enabled by default.

[fritsch]

Please disable mediacodec and mediacodec (surface) for a moment and test the same file. Better?

[kamby19]

Please disable mediacodec and mediacodec (surface) for a moment and test the same file. Better?

I found how to do that, and it works! Wonderful!

May I ask you to forward this info to the developers, or should I try to do that myself?

Thanks enormously!

[mo123]

Please disable mediacodec and mediacodec (surface) for a moment and test the same file. Better?

I found how to do that, and it works! Wonderful!

May I ask you to forward this info to the developers, or should I try to do that myself?

Thanks enormously! 

That's a workaround, not a fix.
Most other Android devices work fine with MediaCodec and MediaCodec(Sufrace) enabled.
So disabling it for all Android devices will break video playback for the other Android devices.
You will just have to manually disable it yourself or hope Amazon upgrades the Android OS base they use to a newer version in future.

[fritsch]

In your userdata is a file called decoderfilter.xml, search each line that has MPEG2 in it and set allowed to false.
You can use adb or a file editor on android to change the file.

    <filter>
        <name>OMX.MTK.VIDEO.DECODER.MPEG2</name>
        <allowed>false</allowed>
        <stills-allowed>false</stills-allowed>
        <dvd-allowed>true</dvd-allowed>
        <min-height>0</min-height>
    </filter>

Then you can turn on mediacodec surface and mediacodec again.

[fritsch]

I already disabled mpeg4 and mpeg2 as default up to 720 height in v19 release. Those that demand it enabled can edit this file and reenable it. Opt-In is always better than Opt-out.

[chuckm]

In your userdata is a file called decoderfilter.xml, search each line that has MPEG2 in it and set allowed to false.
You can use adb or a file editor on android to change the file.

Then you can turn on mediacodec surface and mediacodec again.

Thank you so much for the detailed information.
This weekend I tried Kodi 18.6 on FireTV with SD content using both mediacodec on and off. I tested MPEG2 DVD/IFO and AVC/h.264 content. The only combination that was corrupted was MPEG2 with mediacodec on (either of the two settings). AVC with mediacodec looked good and so did all files with mediacodec disabled.

[chuckm]

https://developer.amazon.com/docs/fire-t...-xray.html

I also used info at this link to enable on screen text info to confirm when hardware decoding was enabled.

[dolmar]

In your userdata is a file called decoderfilter.xml, search each line that has MPEG2 in it and set allowed to false.
You can use adb or a file editor on android to change the file.

    <filter>
        <name>OMX.MTK.VIDEO.DECODER.MPEG2</name>
        <allowed>false</allowed>
        <stills-allowed>false</stills-allowed>
        <dvd-allowed>true</dvd-allowed>
        <min-height>0</min-height>
    </filter>

Then you can turn on mediacodec surface and mediacodec again.

Is this only possible on fire tv stick? I am using Vero 4K+ with osmc and older films that don’t have super good quality look bad. Especially in dark scenes it is very noticeable.

Running Kodi 18.9

[kamby19]

In your userdata is a file called decoderfilter.xml, search each line that has MPEG2 in it and set allowed to false.
You can use adb or a file editor on android to change the file.

    <filter>
        <name>OMX.MTK.VIDEO.DECODER.MPEG2</name>
        <allowed>false</allowed>
        <stills-allowed>false</stills-allowed>
        <dvd-allowed>true</dvd-allowed>
        <min-height>0</min-height>
    </filter>

Then you can turn on mediacodec surface and mediacodec again.

For the record, I can enable all hardware decoding with no problems using v18.9.  However, you may want to set the "Threshold for Pitch Correction" to zero, since on my FireTV Gen 2, v18.9 caused "wow and flutter"-like sounds in the audio output. YMMW