[88keyz]

I've been able to successfully play DV Profile 5 videos on the 2019 Shield TV Pro using Kodi 19.0 beta 2.  Tested with the Profile 5 samples from the Dolby Developer page.

https://developer.dolby.com/tools-media/...n-streams/

[blackreign66]

I've noticed that the Plex app on my Nvidia Shield Pro pretty much plays every dolby vision mkv I throw at it without issue. It's very rare that dv isn't triggered the first time. So how is Plex pulling this off with the buggy Shield firmware?

[sk83]

I've noticed that the Plex app on my Nvidia Shield Pro pretty much plays every dolby vision mkv I throw at it without issue. It's very rare that dv isn't triggered the first time. So how is Plex pulling this off with the buggy Shield firmware?

Maybe some workarounds. There's also the possibility that Dolby Visions playback needs more setup than what is currently implemented in these Kodi builds - ie. it needs more work. I've cloned the Exoplayer source code to see if I can gain some insight. Although I've encountered bugs in exoplayer playback as well, they are not as common as what we're seeing here.

I've thought a bit about the timeout settings, and I think one question to ask is why it times out for DV streams and not for others.

[hoppel118]

Good question. Today I tested the makemkv files with Emby for AndroidTV. I started the files in different order for about 30-40 times without any problem. But Emby for AndroidTV uses Exoplayer instead of FFmpeg.

Plex uses FFmpeg 4.1. If I am right, Kodi uses FFmpeg 4.3.

Can you check what happens when you play the 5 makemkv dv test files with Plex?

https://kodi.wiki/view/Samples#4K_.28UltraHD.29

-> 16. Dolby Vision MKV Test Samples (hosted by MakeMKV)

[hoppel118]

Maybe some workarounds. There's also the possibility that Dolby Visions playback needs more setup than what is currently implemented in these Kodi builds - ie. it needs more work. I've cloned the Exoplayer source code to see if I can gain some insight. Although I've encountered bugs in exoplayer playback as well, they are not as common as what we're seeing here.

Great!

I've thought a bit about the timeout settings, and I think one question to ask is why it times out for DV streams and not for others.

Yes.

• P4, P5, P7 FEL and P7 MEL mkv files time out sometimes
• P81 mkv file or dv mp4 files don’t time out

Can you guys confirm this?

I've been able to successfully play DV Profile 5 videos on the 2019 Shield TV Pro using Kodi 19.0 beta 2.  Tested with the Profile 5 samples from the Dolby Developer page.

https://developer.dolby.com/tools-media/...n-streams/

The mp4 files from here also work as expected:

https://kodi.wiki/view/Samples#4K_.28UltraHD.29

-> 17. Dolby Vision MP4 Test Samples (hosted by Demolandia)

Which profile are these files using?

Regards Hoppel

[sk83]

Plex uses FFmpeg 4.1. If I am right, Kodi uses FFmpeg 4.3.

Plex uses Exoplayer as well.

[siriusbox]

I've noticed that the Plex app on my Nvidia Shield Pro pretty much plays every dolby vision mkv I throw at it without issue. It's very rare that dv isn't triggered the first time. So how is Plex pulling this off with the buggy Shield firmware?

I followed the progress of DV MKV implementation on Plex, and they found similar problems triggering Dolby Vision under some circumstances, it's true it fails less but it does, they said that NVIDIA is aware of that problem (so it IS a Shield problem) and it was supposed to be fixed on the Shield Experience Upgrade 8.2.1, which is not. They mention that here https://forums.plex.tv/t/newest-beta-dol...640693/232

Regards.

[hoppel118]

Plex uses FFmpeg 4.1. If I am right, Kodi uses FFmpeg 4.3.

Plex uses Exoplayer as well.

Ok... Plex for AndroidTV uses Exoplayer? What is FFmpeg used for by Plex?

Regards Hoppel

[fritsch]

That does not matter. All the mkv bits (which check for the profile) are patched in from externally. FFmpeg does not remove certain features from 4.1 to 4.3.
Other than that: Is there as of now any other devices than the Shield, that is doing DV as half-baked (firmware bug in shield) or even better? Or do we currently discuss a Shield-Only feature here?

Does Plex support "Adjust Refreshrate to match video"? Or is it just running with 60 hz fixed? Means: Is the testing that you guys do comparable?

[blackreign66]

That does not matter. All the mkv bits (which check for the profile) are patched in from externally. FFmpeg does not remove certain features from 4.1 to 4.3.
Other than that: Is there as of now any other devices than the Shield, that is doing DV as half-baked (firmware bug in shield) or even better? Or do we currently discuss a Shield-Only feature here?

Does Plex support "Adjust Refreshrate to match video"? Or is it just running with 60 hz fixed? Means: Is the testing that you guys do comparable?

Plex does have Refreshrate capability but it doesn't seem to work, so it's running at 60 hz fixed. Knowing this now, I decided to switch Kodi into 23.98 refreshrate fixed and remove the advancedsettings.xml. Doing this has allowed the dolby vision mkv movies to play immediately without issue 95% of the time. If I revert back to allowing Kodi to change refreshrate, it fails pretty much 95% of the time.

[hoppel118]

That does not matter. All the mkv bits (which check for the profile) are patched in from externally. FFmpeg does not remove certain features from 4.1 to 4.3.

Sorry, maybe I understand you completely wrong. In my understanding Plex never contributed their mkv Dolby Vision code back to the official FFmpeg code. The work of some developers here is not ported to FFmpeg. There is nothing FFmpeg could remove. It’s not there...

Can you please clarify your answer a bit? Thanks.

Other than that: Is there as of now any other devices than the Shield, that is doing DV as half-baked (firmware bug in shield) or even better? Or do we currently discuss a Shield-Only feature here?

At the moment here are mainly Shield 2019 Pro users.

But what about the following platforms? Maybe these are also candidates:

• Amazon FireTV Stick 4K
• Windows 10 App „Dolby Vision Extensions“
• Amlogic S905X2 and S905Y2 ( https://androidpctv.com/comparative-amlo...x2-s905y2/ )

quietvoid is working on FireTV 4K Stick compatibility.

Regards Hoppel

[sk83]

Plex uses FFmpeg 4.1. If I am right, Kodi uses FFmpeg 4.3.

Plex uses Exoplayer as well.

Ok... Plex for AndroidTV uses Exoplayer? What is FFmpeg used for by Plex?

Regards Hoppel

Plex for android have two players, new and old, which can be chosen in settings. The new player, enabled by default, is exoplayer. The old player I assume is the one that uses ffmpeg.
At least that is what I have come to understand.

I haven't got a plex server atm., but does it play DV with the old player as well?

[fritsch]

That does not matter. All the mkv bits (which check for the profile) are patched in from externally. FFmpeg does not remove certain features from 4.1 to 4.3.
Other than that: Is there as of now any other devices than the Shield, that is doing DV as half-baked (firmware bug in shield) or even better? Or do we currently discuss a Shield-Only feature here?

Does Plex support "Adjust Refreshrate to match video"? Or is it just running with 60 hz fixed? Means: Is the testing that you guys do comparable?

Plex does have Refreshrate capability but it doesn't seem to work, so it's running at 60 hz fixed. Knowing this now, I decided to switch Kodi into 23.98 refreshrate fixed and remove the advancedsettings.xml. Doing this has allowed the dolby vision mkv movies to play immediately without issue 95% of the time. If I revert back to allowing Kodi to change refreshrate, it fails pretty much 95% of the time.

Thanks. So that means if we compare Plex experience while using exoplayer with kodis experience without refresh rate switching as it does not work in plex, we have exact the same: 1 of 20 does not work.

So, then: let's see if nvidia fixes their firmware and refresh rate switching with it.

Wondering why plex does not properly do refresh rate switching I always thought everything would magically work if kodi just would use exoplayer as well :-)

[fritsch]

That does not matter. All the mkv bits (which check for the profile) are patched in from externally. FFmpeg does not remove certain features from 4.1 to 4.3.

Sorry, maybe I understand you completely wrong. In my understanding Plex never contributed their mkv Dolby Vision code back to the official FFmpeg code. The work of some developers here is not ported to FFmpeg. There is nothing FFmpeg could remove. It’s not there...

Can you please clarify your answer a bit? Thanks.

Other than that: Is there as of now any other devices than the Shield, that is doing DV as half-baked (firmware bug in shield) or even better? Or do we currently discuss a Shield-Only feature here?

At the moment here are mainly Shield 2019 Pro users.

But what about the following platforms? Maybe these are also candidates:

• Amazon FireTV Stick 4K
• Windows 10 App „Dolby Vision Extensions“
• Amlogic S905X2 and S905Y2 ( https://androidpctv.com/comparative-amlo...x2-s905y2/ )

quietvoid is working on FireTV 4K Stick compatibility.

Regards Hoppel

In those testbuilds for kodi the plex bits of their ffmpeg was extracted and included in these builds here.

For now the kodi part of DV is exactly three lines of code: if we have DV found, tell the decoder to use the DV version. That's all. Kodi side for now is no rocket science at all. The fancy stuff happens in the ffmpeg bits.

[blackreign66]

Plex uses Exoplayer as well.

Ok... Plex for AndroidTV uses Exoplayer? What is FFmpeg used for by Plex?

Regards Hoppel

Plex for android have two players, new and old, which can be chosen in settings. The new player, enabled by default, is exoplayer. The old player I assume is the one that uses ffmpeg.
At least that is what I have come to understand.

I haven't got a plex server atm., but does it play DV with the old player as well?

I stand corrected because it would seem that Plex's refreshrate capability does infact work, although for some reason it didn't work earlier. Now movies are being played in 24hz. DV mkv are played on both the old and new player in Plex, with much more success on the older player