[User 309201]

I'm looking for a device that will give me good image quality when playing video from Internet streaming services, particularly Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+. (One or two bonus points if it also handles YouTube and iPlayer well, but I have other devices that can handle them). I also need it to be able to output everything at a refresh rate that matches the video frame-rate; and, wherever possible, everything should be output at native resolution as well.

I need to be able to access 4K streams on Netflix. Dolby Vision is not essential. I don't need HDR10+. I can make do with 1080p on Prime Video if necessary.

It also needs to be able to handle audio in a lossless way: DD+ passthrough is ideal, but decoding to 5.1 or 7.1 PCM is acceptable. (I don't need to preserve Atmos information, and don't need HD audio).

I won't be using it to play locally stored videos - I have other devices for that.

I was using a 2017 Nvidia Shield TV a while back, but the image quality on that was atrocious - the colours were wrong, and the chroma upsampling was ugly as sin. (Lack of 480p/576p output was also a niggle).

I've recently been experimenting with an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and Amazon Fire TV Cube. Both of these also satisfy the native res/refresh requirement, but again, both have image quality problems. On the stick the colours are "off", somehow - I can't quite l put my finger on how, but it just looks wrong; and on the Cube there are some strange image artefacts that look almost like deinterlacing errors (but can't be) - stair-stepping on what should be smooth lines, etc.

I was thinking about a Google TV, but (if I understand correctly - I may not!) that won't do refresh-rate switching.

Something fairly cheap would be ideal.

Does anyone have a suggestion?

[Klojum]

"Good image quality, wrong colors" are still quite generic descriptions to me. One thing you won't have a choice over is the overall (video) bitrate that streams will be at, you're at the mercy of the stream provider.

[User 309201]

One thing you won't have a choice over is the overall (video) bitrate that streams will be at, you're at the mercy of the stream provider.

Since I am not a complete idiot, I'm well aware of that. Do you have anything else you feel the need to patronise me about, or can we have some actual recommendations?

If you really don't understand what I mean by "good image quality", then I'll spell it out: I'm looking for something which will decode the video correctly, and output values in the HDMI signal that actually match the data contained in the video stream; and do that without introducing artefacts. One wouldn't think this would be difficult or rare; but apparently neither of my Amazon devices is capable of it, and my old Nvidia Shield TV couldn't do it either. In the case of the Shield, there weren't just decoding errors, the chroma upsampling was also particularly ugly - I think it was using a nearest-neighbour algorithm where most other devices use a bilinear one. And the Fire TV Cube looks like it's doing some kind of weird post-processing that it shouldn't be - possibly undefeatable DNR.

But I need video that is correctly decoded, and where the output does not contain any artefacts that were not present in the original stream. (Plus my other requirements, like native refresh rate and resolution).

[Klojum]

Since I am not a complete idiot, I'm well aware of that. Do you have anything else you feel the need to patronise me about

If your fuse is that short, I'm beginning to doubt the "not a complete" part. But since you mention patronizing:

FYI, we have no insights beforehand on people's knowledge when they visit this forum. The Kodi application is used by millions of users, so it can be anything between beginner and "htpc specialist". Mentioning a single aspect of video streaming to you that some people overlook, and you immeditately throwing a 5-yr old's trantrum towards the person wanting to help... Was your coffee perhaps not up to your usual standards this morning? Because this type of outburst has no place on this forum. Either take a couple of deep breaths and tone down your attitude next time, or your stay on this forum could end up be shortened quite quickly.

[User 309201]

FYI, we have no insights beforehand on people's knowledge when they visit this forum.

You knew that I first registered for this forum more than five years ago. You knew that I've owned multiple media players and am familiar enough with their operation to be able to make image quality comparisons between them. You knew that I'm familiar enough with the process of video playback to understand the impact on image quality of utilising different chroma upsampling algorithms. But you still felt I needed a lecture on bit-rate?

your stay on this forum could end up be shortened quite quickly.

I don't know quite what I was expecting when I started this thread, but it certainly didn't include a Kodi team member flying into a blind rage and issuing actual death threats. If this is considered acceptable behaviour around here nowadays, I guess I will delete my account and take my question somewhere else....

[noggin]

I'm looking for a device that will give me good image quality when playing video from Internet streaming services, particularly Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+. (One or two bonus points if it also handles YouTube and iPlayer well, but I have other devices that can handle them). I also need it to be able to output everything at a refresh rate that matches the video frame-rate; and, wherever possible, everything should be output at native resolution as well.

I need to be able to access 4K streams on Netflix. Dolby Vision is not essential. I don't need HDR10+. I can make do with 1080p on Prime Video if necessary.

It also needs to be able to handle audio in a lossless way: DD+ passthrough is ideal, but decoding to 5.1 or 7.1 PCM is acceptable. (I don't need to preserve Atmos information, and don't need HD audio).

I won't be using it to play locally stored videos - I have other devices for that.

I was using a 2017 Nvidia Shield TV a while back, but the image quality on that was atrocious - the colours were wrong, and the chroma upsampling was ugly as sin. (Lack of 480p/576p output was also a niggle).

I've recently been experimenting with an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and Amazon Fire TV Cube. Both of these also satisfy the native res/refresh requirement, but again, both have image quality problems. On the stick the colours are "off", somehow - I can't quite l put my finger on how, but it just looks wrong; and on the Cube there are some strange image artefacts that look almost like deinterlacing errors (but can't be) - stair-stepping on what should be smooth lines, etc.

I was thinking about a Google TV, but (if I understand correctly - I may not!) that won't do refresh-rate switching.

Something fairly cheap would be ideal.

Does anyone have a suggestion?

Apple TV 4K is by far the best solution for DRM-ed streaming services with proper frame rate switching for most mainstream apps, SDR/HDR dynamic range switching.

It has PCM 5.1/7.1 decoded output for most audio formats (and although not relevant for your use case it will output DD+ Atmos stuff with Atmos)

For Kodi purposes you will need to use the forked MrMC (which is in the tvOS App Store) which is a fork of Kodi without Python add-on support. (But you do get PVR add-ons)

NB there is an HD SDR-only version of iplayer (no HDR UHD yet) in the App Store, but last time I checked it was one of the few apps that didn't dynamically switch frame rate. For this reason I run my ATV 4K with 2160p50 as its default system resolution - so iPlayer runs at 50fps properly.

I've yet to find any other platform that properly supports Netflix with proper dynamic frame rate switching.  (Fire TV devices support frame rate switching in Prime Video - but most other streaming apps don't support the Fire OS frame rate switching API.  nVidia's Shield TV has a kludged 'go to this menu option to get it to check the playing video frame rate and then switch' - but it's a kludge, even if you set up a remote short cut. I'm also not a fan of the AI upscaling in nVidia's OS - it often just looks like a nasty sharpening has been applied). Roku used to do frame rate switching - but the auto-play trailers caused a lot of frame rate switching so they disabled it, and there's no Kodi...

[Klojum]

You knew that I first registered for this forum more than five years ago. You knew that I've owned multiple media players and am familiar enough with their operation to be able to make image quality comparisons between them. You knew that I'm familiar enough with the process of video playback to understand the impact on image quality of utilising different chroma upsampling algorithms. But you still felt I needed a lecture on bit-rate?

Although you already chickened out by unregistering, here is a fun fact: we don't keep a full resume of every forum user's life choices as far as multimedia hard- and software goes. Our forum currently holds 391,500 members. I'm surely not gonna revisit every single post of a forum user before replying his latest post.

but it certainly didn't include a Kodi team member flying into a blind rage and issuing actual death threats.

Ending your Kodi forum subscription equals a death threat to you?!? Gee... How many Hollywood B and C action movies have you watched lately?
Running away from a discussion really doesn't make your case any stronger. It's more like the opposite. But hey, whatever.

[Klojum]

Since OP has closed his account, this topic is better closed.