KODI Discussion Thread

[panteragstk]

I installed the GeForce 1030 card last night. Running Kodi 18.0 64-bit w/ Windows 7.

It’s working great with my BenQ W6000 for both 1080p and 4K HDR files.

Hopefully it will work great w/ the JVC NX5 playing back 4K HDR.

Yeah, I think most people into PC have had that expensive PC card experience. Been bitten once too many.

That’s why I was hoping the 1030 card (rated for 8K video) is sufficient since I don’t want to spend another $300 on a card that will be beaten by an $80 card in about 5 years.

I’m exactly 0% into gaming, just pure 100% video playback w/ Kodi.

And yes, I’m sure someone is thinking, “If you’re buying a JVC NX5, why are you bothered by a PC Card that is only $200-300?”

I've always used the lowest end cards for pure video playback. Did it for many years before I ditched HTPCs and went to Andorid TV. My ONLY issue with the Shield is the color reproduction issues when playing an HDR file on a non-HDR display.

FWIW I had a different issue with Kodi 18.1 and Windows. Color wasn't washed out, but it was over-saturated big time. Kodi DS player didn't seem to have that issue. You aren't seeing that on your BenQ?

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I've always used the lowest end cards for pure video playback. Did it for many years before I ditched HTPCs and went to Andorid TV. My ONLY issue with the Shield is the color reproduction issues when playing an HDR file on a non-HDR display.

FWIW I had a different issue with Kodi 18.1 and Windows. Color wasn't washed out, but it was over-saturated big time. Kodi DS player didn't seem to have that issue. You aren't seeing that on your BenQ?

I've always used the lowest end cards for pure video playback. Did it for many years before I ditched HTPCs and went to Andorid TV. My ONLY issue with the Shield is the color reproduction issues when playing an HDR file on a non-HDR display.

FWIW I had a different issue with Kodi 18.1 and Windows. Color wasn't washed out, but it was over-saturated big time. Kodi DS player didn't seem to have that issue. You aren't seeing that on your BenQ?

Seems like a known issue, but there is a possible workaround posted here :
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1035470/shield-tv/hdr-to-sdr/

Have you tried playing from shield using VLC player? It supposedly supports HDR tonemapping

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I've always used the lowest end cards for pure video playback. Did it for many years before I ditched HTPCs and went to Andorid TV. My ONLY issue with the Shield is the color reproduction issues when playing an HDR file on a non-HDR display.

FWIW I had a different issue with Kodi 18.1 and Windows. Color wasn't washed out, but it was over-saturated big time. Kodi DS player didn't seem to have that issue. You aren't seeing that on your BenQ?

I had video issues with Kodi 18.1, but not with 18.0, which seems to be awesome so far.

No telling how certain versions behave with your own PC.

 

[Phase 2]

I tested the GT -130 card with my 4K Sony TV. Looks like 4K works great with the GT-130 card.

Resolution 4096 x 2160.

Everyone at ADTG's this weekend!! That's some really big Chicken's!

 

[panteragstk]

Seems like a known issue, but there is a possible workaround posted here :
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1035470/shield-tv/hdr-to-sdr/

Have you tried playing from shield using VLC player? It supposedly supports HDR tonemapping

Yeah, it's a known issue. Has been for some time. They apparently have it low on the list of bugs. I will try VLC though. Thanks.

 

[panteragstk]

I had video issues with Kodi 18.1, but not with 18.0, which seems to be awesome so far.

No telling how certain versions behave with your own PC.

17.6 DS player is working fantastic for me. No need to update unless something breaks, but I doubt it.

 

[bigkrazy155]

Did anyone have issues migrating from 17 to 18? I could not get it to work with my MySQL distributed installation. I've been scared to try again since 18.0 because I don't have a good area to test.

 

[VonMagnum]

V18 also eventually killed Cinemavision plugin (so cool when set up) and at first there was no Confluence GUI available either. I stuck with V17.6 (had to reinstall on the damn shield; in fact, I'm afraid to upgrade the overall software on the NVidia Shield now as it says "includes KODI 18" ! Screw that. I don't know why the hell they didn't make a simple option to relabel old versions or new versions so that they're separate installs. On a computer, you just put them in a different directory....

 

[bigkrazy155]

That update did not upgrade Kodi on either of my shields. NVidia has introduced some bugs into the core, but that was a few versions back.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

17.6 DS player is working fantastic for me. No need to update unless something breaks, but I doubt it.

I tried the DSPlayer 17.6. It couldn’t playback 4K videos smoothly and audio was only PCM even when Audio was set to WASAPI.

Kodi 18.1 64 and 32-bit could play Atmos and DTSX, but could not play 4K smoothly.

Only Kodi 18.0 64-bit work great for my PC playing back 4K HDR Atmos and DTSX on both 1080p (BenQ) and 4K (Sony) displays.

These damn ghosts in the machines have minds of their own.

 

[VonMagnum]

EMILIO! EMILIO! Sorry, I just watched Score! (I mean Night at the Roxbury). KODI knows how to get down and get funky with its bad self! Time to watch SILVER STREAK (This baby's pure...um..never mind. ) Jill Clayburgh was hot in the 1970s. I liked the way she cooled down Ned Beatty, but watching Willy Wonka get it on with her screwed my childhood up! WTF is Willy Wonka doing!!?!?

Now my KODI related question to make this NOT off-topic (heaven forbid) is how do I keep that thing from crashing every few songs in the music section? Am I running out of memory on my old FireTV 4K or something? My Shield doesn't do that with KODI so I figure it must be a memory thing.... Does anyone else get occasional skips in music when playing music off a SMB or NFS server? It does that on the Shield and FireTV, but I suspect it might be Macintosh related somehow?

 

[panteragstk]

I tried the DSPlayer 17.6. It couldn’t playback 4K videos smoothly and audio was only PCM even when Audio was set to WASAPI.

Kodi 18.1 64 and 32-bit could play Atmos and DTSX, but could not play 4K smoothly.

Only Kodi 18.0 64-bit work great for my PC playing back 4K HDR Atmos and DTSX on both 1080p (BenQ) and 4K (Sony) displays.

These damn ghosts in the machines have minds of their own.

Weird. I followed this guide and everything plays perfectly. I bet some lav filter stuff was set to default which would cause the pcm and video issues.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Weird. I followed this guide and everything plays perfectly. I bet some lav filter stuff was set to default which would cause the pcm and video issues.

Probably. But now that I have everything working great, I probably won’t be changing to anything else.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Does anyone else get occasional skips in music when playing music off a SMB or NFS server? It does that on the Shield and FireTV, but I suspect it might be Macintosh related somehow?

I have played music from my Windows 7 network many times on Kodi. I have not seen any skips or anything.

 

[panteragstk]

Probably. But now that I have everything working great, I probably won’t be changing to anything else.

I wouldn't either.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I wouldn't either.

Have you played 4K videos yet on Kodi to see how it handles the playback (even though the system is 1080p)?

 

[VonMagnum]

I have played music from my Windows 7 network many times on Kodi. I have not seen any skips or anything.

The weird thing is it only happens with music. Movies/videos are fine. I don't think KODI buffers music much so any momentary disturbance could cause a glitch /skip, especially over WiFi.

 

[Blue Dude]

I thought DTS CDs were encoded in plain PCM (hence the WAV files). KODI won't even play DTS Wavs wrapped in ALAC, though (you just get noise). My 1st gen ATV would play them without even knowing it as it just played them without touching the unwrapped signal. It also played at the correct sampling rates. Amazing how a box from 2007 does it right, but on you buy in 2019 screws it up....

If KODI can recognize a DTS signal in a WAV file and and send it out in untouched, I don't know why it cannot do the same for all PCM audio. This probably explains why I cannot play a dump of my Auro-3D movie Red Tails, however as it encodes the Auro -3D signal in plain PCM. No passthrough setting will allow it to play correctly. Yet it IS 48kHz already so clearly the NVIDIA mixer is modifying the signal (or KODI is). Yet my other Auro-3D movies that wrap the encoded PCM signal in DTS-HD Master Audio decode just fine from KODI.

A DTS CD uses the PCM audio format as a bitstream container. The renderer needs to recognize the container so it can pass through the DTS bitstream. Kodi does this check with some file formats but apparently not with ALAC.

Kodi isn't sending out PCM untouched from DTS CDs, it's sending out the DTS bitstream. It appears that the Nvidia Shield audio mixer passes through bitstreams untouched but upsamples PCM, probably so that it can mix in its own audio, or from more than one source. I wish there was a setting so that certain apps could take exclusive control of the audio output and bypass the mixer entirely but it's not there now, and maybe never will be.

 

[VonMagnum]

So KODI would basically need to recognize the Auro-3D signal encoded in the PCM one and send it bitstream to get Red Tails working from KODI?

i tried to re-encode the soundtrack as TrueHD (couldn't find any DTS Master HD encoder outside buying an expensive license and software from DTS which isn't worth it for one movie. I just play it off the BD directly which works fine.

I do wonder if my older version of KODI for FireTV which had a straight raw passthrough option ( branded later as "unsafe" since it can play loud undecoded signals if not recognized by the AVR or TV) would work. I'm thinking there's a fair chance there, at least. I could try it with my old FireTV 4K I used on my theater system until I got a Shield so it could pass Atmos/X.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

The weird thing is it only happens with music. Movies/videos are fine. I don't think KODI buffers music much so any momentary disturbance could cause a glitch /skip, especially over WiFi.

Oh, WiFi. I use Ethernet.

I could see WiFi having skips.