[quetzal]

Hi,

I know this has been discussed in other threads, but as far as I know no clear answer was given.

When I try to play a 4k movie on my brand new Sony Bravia A80J kodi, for whatever reason downscales it to 1080p, then the TV upscales it back to 4k. Obviously this is not an ideal situation due to the loss of detail in the process.

I know, I know,... it doesn't matter what the Settings section of kodi says, that only refers to the GUI rendering. I fully understand that and that's not a problem for me.

How I test it: I play any 4k movie, then while playing I modify the video settings, and change the View Mode setting from "Normal" to "Original", and voila: I only can see a crop of my 4k movie (a 1920x1080p crop to be precise).

Also, on the white list of resolutions, I only see the 1920x1080p60 option, nothing else.

I have read about people saying that there's some sort of "white list" of applications for Sony that identifies which can access the full list of the TV possible resolutions. Amazon Prime, YouTube, or Netflix are among those. 
So, is there any way to include Kodi in that list? If so, how? 

Thanks and regards

[juanmacar]

Hi,

I know this has been discussed in other threads, but as far as I know no clear answer was given.

When I try to play a 4k movie on my brand new Sony Bravia A80J kodi, for whatever reason downscales it to 1080p, then the TV upscales it back to 4k. Obviously this is not an ideal situation due to the loss of detail in the process.

I know, I know,... it doesn't matter what the Settings section of kodi says, that only refers to the GUI rendering. I fully understand that and that's not a problem for me.

How I test it: I play any 4k movie, then while playing I modify the video settings, and change the View Mode setting from "Normal" to "Original", and voila: I only can see a crop of my 4k movie (a 1920x1080p crop to be precise).

Also, on the white list of resolutions, I only see the 1920x1080p60 option, nothing else.

I have read about people saying that there's some sort of "white list" of applications for Sony that identifies which can access the full list of the TV possible resolutions. Amazon Prime, YouTube, or Netflix are among those. 
So, is there any way to include Kodi in that list? If so, how? 

Thanks and regards

Good catch! I have you same TV and I did't find the video setting setup. Where did you change that? I only see the "wide mode" but is disbled for Kodi.

BTW as you have my same TV, I'm also having troubles reproducing Atmos and TrueHD audio using passthrough via eARC. Getting Atmos in Netflix and ATV+ but I'm not getting on Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.

[Koder123]

Hi,

I know this has been discussed in other threads, but as far as I know no clear answer was given.

When I try to play a 4k movie on my brand new Sony Bravia A80J kodi, for whatever reason downscales it to 1080p, then the TV upscales it back to 4k. Obviously this is not an ideal situation due to the loss of detail in the process.

I know, I know,... it doesn't matter what the Settings section of kodi says, that only refers to the GUI rendering. I fully understand that and that's not a problem for me.

How I test it: I play any 4k movie, then while playing I modify the video settings, and change the View Mode setting from "Normal" to "Original", and voila: I only can see a crop of my 4k movie (a 1920x1080p crop to be precise).

Also, on the white list of resolutions, I only see the 1920x1080p60 option, nothing else.

I have read about people saying that there's some sort of "white list" of applications for Sony that identifies which can access the full list of the TV possible resolutions. Amazon Prime, YouTube, or Netflix are among those. 
So, is there any way to include Kodi in that list? If so, how? 

Thanks and regards

I think it has been said quite many times here that Kodi as an app passes video as is to TV and it is displayed as 4K. However I can confirm "Original" behavior you mentioned on my XH95 but not sure what it actually means.

Here you can find test pattern video download (rename .bin to .mkv) and compare it with different players, Sony installed vs. Kodi, also you can compare Youtube. For chess pattern I cannot spot diffence. For vertical/horizontal lines I can spot some difference but not sure if its HDR related which Sony player is using and Kodi not. I personally don't have an external player to test using HDMI.

Download link to test video post 5 https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/android-...-p/3770848

[quetzal]

 

Good catch! I have you same TV and I did't find the video setting setup. Where did you change that? I only see the "wide mode" but is disbled for Kodi.

BTW as you have my same TV, I'm also having troubles reproducing Atmos and TrueHD audio using passthrough via eARC. Getting Atmos in Netflix and ATV+ but I'm not getting on Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.

While playing any video, if you show the OSD menu on screen (the one with the progress bar, with pause button, and so on) you will notice that on the right it was a small settings wheel that will bring up a menu to modify Audio, subititels and video settings for the current file you're playing. Choose video settings and you'll find the option I mention.


About eARC I can't really tell as my AVR doesn't had eARC (just ARC). However please note that as far as I know none of the streaming services is transmiting TrueHD nor "real" Dolby Atmos. The use Dolby Atmos encapsulated inside Dolby Digital Plus. Maybe that's why you're not seeing it in your receiver?

[quetzal]

Hi,

I know this has been discussed in other threads, but as far as I know no clear answer was given.

When I try to play a 4k movie on my brand new Sony Bravia A80J kodi, for whatever reason downscales it to 1080p, then the TV upscales it back to 4k. Obviously this is not an ideal situation due to the loss of detail in the process.

I know, I know,... it doesn't matter what the Settings section of kodi says, that only refers to the GUI rendering. I fully understand that and that's not a problem for me.

How I test it: I play any 4k movie, then while playing I modify the video settings, and change the View Mode setting from "Normal" to "Original", and voila: I only can see a crop of my 4k movie (a 1920x1080p crop to be precise).

Also, on the white list of resolutions, I only see the 1920x1080p60 option, nothing else.

I have read about people saying that there's some sort of "white list" of applications for Sony that identifies which can access the full list of the TV possible resolutions. Amazon Prime, YouTube, or Netflix are among those. 
So, is there any way to include Kodi in that list? If so, how? 

Thanks and regards

I think it has been said quite many times here that Kodi as an app passes video as is to TV and it is displayed as 4K. However I can confirm "Original" behavior you mentioned on my XH95 but not sure what it actually means.

Here you can find test pattern video download (rename .bin to .mkv) and compare it with different players, Sony installed vs. Kodi, also you can compare Youtube. For chess pattern I cannot spot diffence. For vertical/horizontal lines I can spot some difference but not sure if its HDR related which Sony player is using and Kodi not. I personally don't have an external player to test using HDMI.

Download link to test video post 5 https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/android-...-p/3770848

Hi!

Thank you for your message. To me there's a huge difference between the video quality between the native Sony app, and Kodi internal. Also with hdmi Kodi app on a Android TV box. And kodi is the only app where I've noticed this problem so far: amazon prime, netflix, bravia core, youtube... all of them work as expected.  

About my testing that you can reproduce to me it clearly means our 4k vídeo is being downscaled to 1080p as it is the only resolution available to Kodi at the moment. I don't know if the problem is at Kodi's side or at Sony's side but obviously something is going there. 

BTW, kodi player should play HDR just fine, I don't understand why you say it is not.

[Koder123]

How do you spot "huge difference"? Only way for me is to compare pixels in test video pattern and I can't spot anything, only with Sony app its brighter.

Also if you are using HDMI with Android box there should be no problem because all discussion revolves around "internal apps problem" only. Do you mean that with Android box you also have this "Original" scaling issue?

Kodi plays HDR fine for my videos, and TV picture settings say HDR, but not for that test pattern video, perhaps because its VP9 like suspected in the Sony forum discussion I linked.

EDIT: for Sony video player test video does not show HDR in TV picture settings either so I guess its not HDR at all

[quetzal]

How do you spot "huge difference"? Only way for me is to compare pixels in test video pattern and I can't spot anything, only with Sony app its brighter.

Also if you are using HDMI with Android box there should be no problem because all discussion revolves around "internal apps problem" only. Do you mean that with Android box you also have this "Original" scaling issue?

Kodi plays HDR fine for my videos, and TV picture settings say HDR, but not for that test pattern video, perhaps because its VP9 like suspected in the Sony forum discussion I linked.

EDIT: for Sony video player test video does not show HDR in TV picture settings either so I guess its not HDR at all

Hi Koder123,

The fact that I can use an external hdmi Android Tv box, is a workaround, not a fix. I would prefer not to use it if I could!

About the picture quality when playing a video, its noticeable. The loss of details compared to the Sony media player is very clear. Take for instance any Marvel movie in 4K HDR... Play it first with the Sony media player, and then play the same movie in kodi... I'm sure you will notice too.

BTW, the mentioned test video is not HDR.

More tests: Using the Kodi video player debug info (https://kodi.wiki/view/Player_process_info) while playing a 4k movie it says: 
View mode: Normal
Sizing: (3840,2160)-> (1920,1080) (Zoom x1.00) AR: 1.78:1 (Pixels 1.00:1) (Vshift: 0.00)
Screen resolution: [email protected] -Full screen

So, ignoring the "Screen resolution" which I guess is related to the GUI, the Sizing is telling that kodi is downscaling the video to 1080p. 



Regards

[quetzal]

How do you spot "huge difference"? Only way for me is to compare pixels in test video pattern and I can't spot anything, only with Sony app its brighter.

Also if you are using HDMI with Android box there should be no problem because all discussion revolves around "internal apps problem" only. Do you mean that with Android box you also have this "Original" scaling issue?

Kodi plays HDR fine for my videos, and TV picture settings say HDR, but not for that test pattern video, perhaps because its VP9 like suspected in the Sony forum discussion I linked.

EDIT: for Sony video player test video does not show HDR in TV picture settings either so I guess its not HDR at all

Hi Koder123,

The fact that I can use an external hdmi Android Tv box, is a workaround, not a fix. I would prefer not to use it if I could!

About the picture quality when playing a video, its noticeable. The loss of details compared to the Sony media player is very clear. Take for instance any Marvel movie in 4K HDR... Play it first with the Sony media player, and then play the same movie in kodi... I'm sure you will notice too.

BTW, the mentioned test video is not HDR.

More tests: Using the Kodi video player debug info (https://kodi.wiki/view/Player_process_info) while playing a 4k movie it says: 
View mode: Normal
Sizing: (3840,2160)-> (1920,1080) (Zoom x1.00) AR: 1.78:1 (Pixels 1.00:1) (Vshift: 0.00)
Screen resolution: [email protected] -Full screen

So, ignoring the "Screen resolution" which I guess is related to the GUI, the Sizing is telling that kodi is downscaling the video to 1080p. 



Regards

If you visit https://kodi.wiki/view/Player_process_info  and you scroll down to "5 Display Info". You will see the following explanation:

Sizing
Information about the output display of the video stream
(720,576)->(1920,1080) = (Resolution of video)->(Output resolution) Reveals any upscaling or downscaling. The example shows upscaling by Kodi and your TV may further upscale. eg in this example a 4K TV will upscale from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160.
(Zoom x1.00) Reveals if any zoom has been applied
AR:1.78:1 Aspect Ratio of video
(Pixels: 1.00:1) Pixel ratio in use
(VShift: 0.00) Amount of Vertical Shift applied

So, there's no doubt, kodi is downscaling all the 4k videos...

[Koder123]

You are correct, also it is strange that using z button to change to "Original" mode it shows (3840,2160)-> (3840,2160) but then TV is displaying it wrong e.g. zoomed

Exact same behavior with MX player "Fit" vs. "100%" mode

[Zuikkis]

So, ignoring the "Screen resolution" which I guess is related to the GUI, the Sizing is telling that kodi is downscaling the video to 1080p. 



Regards

But the image you attached clearly shows the 1px stripes, both horizontal and vertical? Doesn't look scaled to me.

[Koder123]

Also I'm still unsure if Kodi is actually doing downscale because I can't see it in debug logs. Maybe view mode related information is displayed wrong because Kodi does not understand that GUI resolution differs from actual video passed to TV

Edit: @CiNcH sorry for pinging but I think you have some insight about this issue, so any ideas why we see this behavior with scaling / video modes Normal and Original?

[quetzal]

So, ignoring the "Screen resolution" which I guess is related to the GUI, the Sizing is telling that kodi is downscaling the video to 1080p. 



Regards

But the image you attached clearly shows the 1px stripes, both horizontal and vertical? Doesn't look scaled to me.

Yeah, it doesn't look bad, but to be honest, we got to a point that the XR processor of the TV does an amazing job upscaling and I don't trust my eyes anymore haha 

That's why I came here for support and someone to clearly explain me the reason why view mode "original" just shows a crop of my 4k movie, and why when I use the debug info, it shows that it is downscaling. 

Kodi has been my preferred video player for years, and I love it, don't want to change it, I just want to make sure it works correctly and that it takes all the advantages of  my new tv

[Koder123]

I guess here's some info from Google's side

https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/issu...-504982714 and the actual documentation 

Some Android TV devices run their UI layer at a resolution that’s lower than the full resolution of the display, upscaling it for presentation to the user. For example, the UI layer may be run at 1080p on an Android TV that has a 4K display. On such devices, SurfaceView must be used to render content at the full resolution of the display. The full resolution of the display (in its current display mode) can be queried using Util.getCurrentDisplayModeSize. The UI layer resolution can be queried using Android’s Display.getSize API.
 

which still makes me think that video is played 4K fine but Kodi video mode settings or info somehow doesn't understand GUI 1080p / 4K video diference

[quetzal]

I guess here's some info from Google's side

https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/issu...-504982714 and the actual documentation 

Some Android TV devices run their UI layer at a resolution that’s lower than the full resolution of the display, upscaling it for presentation to the user. For example, the UI layer may be run at 1080p on an Android TV that has a 4K display. On such devices, SurfaceView must be used to render content at the full resolution of the display. The full resolution of the display (in its current display mode) can be queried using Util.getCurrentDisplayModeSize. The UI layer resolution can be queried using Android’s Display.getSize API.

which still makes me think that video is played 4K fine but Kodi video mode settings or info somehow doesn't understand GUI 1080p / 4K video diference

Thanks Koder123,

[quetzal]

I guess here's some info from Google's side

https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/issu...-504982714 and the actual documentation 

Some Android TV devices run their UI layer at a resolution that’s lower than the full resolution of the display, upscaling it for presentation to the user. For example, the UI layer may be run at 1080p on an Android TV that has a 4K display. On such devices, SurfaceView must be used to render content at the full resolution of the display. The full resolution of the display (in its current display mode) can be queried using Util.getCurrentDisplayModeSize. The UI layer resolution can be queried using Android’s Display.getSize API.

which still makes me think that video is played 4K fine but Kodi video mode settings or info somehow doesn't understand GUI 1080p / 4K video diference

Thanks Koder123,

Yeah, it could be that this is what it's actually happening. However, that document talks about ExoPlayer, which is used by PLEX, is kodi using the same on AndroidTV? 

Plez is working fine, maybe there's a way to use explayer in Kodi as well... is this documentation valid for AndroidTV versions? https://kodi.wiki/view/External_players