HIMEDIA H8 OCTA. 7-JAN-2016. FIRMWARE HMD-1.0.9 FUTEKO-EN (12-JAN-2016 RELEASE)

[kevsfx]

Sadly I think I'm at the stage where in going to have to revert to the old firmware. Although there are some obvious improvements, Kodi is crashing at the end of each tv episode (DVD iso) that my children are watching. For peppa pig (5 min episodes), this is very annoying 

[owlhugin]

Have you tried to disable the hardware acculation:
libstagefright
MediaCodec
rockchipcodec
rockchipcodec23976

?

[kevsfx]

Have you tried to disable the hardware acculation:
libstagefright
MediaCodec
rockchipcodec
rockchipcodec23976

?

I have tried disabling and various combinations; no joy. The error and crash doesn't happen until the end of a video, so with films I guess I could press stop when the credits start to roll. Its tv episodes which are the problem. This is a pretty major backwards step with the firmware!

[hdmkv]

Only enable the two RK h/w codecs; disable rest.

This firmware is a big improvement.

[joliverio]

I update my H8 yesterday with 1.0.9 firmware and now I am using it. So far I can have the following comments:

1. I am a "simple" user, my H8 is connected into a full HD TV through the HDMI cable. Before I was getting the black screen issue in firmware 1.0.7, that means suddenly the image goes black for a few seconds, sound keep on, and image goes back and movie keep playing. Now with 1.0.9 this black screen problem reduced a lot, much better, but still have randomly.
2. I made a firmware upgrade using the reset buttom, all my installed apps were removed (Normal, I know that), but Kodi keep all the previous settings (I tough Kodi will also have a fresh start, but it was not the case, all settings I did before is kept with new firmware)
3. I have sound sync problem, I always need to advance the sound around 300 ms using Kodi in firmware 1.0.7. With firmware 1.0.9 I get the same behavior, nothing change, I still need to adjust sound +300 ms to get in sync with image. Because the audio delay is fixed I still can watch the movies properly, but need to make this adjustment for every movie I watch
4. Playability seems improved, all files I tried so far plays smoothly.
5. I also have a Q5 (dual core), playability is much better in H8 but picture quality is lower,  the image is pale in H8

In overall I am happy with my H8, in my opinion the biggest blame for H8 is related with Rockchip chipset, Rockchip support seems awful and slow, I can say that because do not have any player with RK3368 chipset that is going very well, all of them have issues, Himedia is still my choice for Android boxes but surely rockchip is out of my wishlist forever.

Once I have more comments to do, I will update my post

1 and 3, I will report back to Himedia.

2, you can reset all Kodi settings by (in Android) going Settings - More - Apps - Kodi - CLEAR DATA.

Glad playback has improved. Himedia will continue to work to improve it.

By the way, mostly of my files are MKV sizes from 800 Mb to 9GB, and I am not having any Image problem or crashes under Kodi, but as I said I need to adjust the audio to +300ms to get in sync

[fload]

I update my H8 yesterday with 1.0.9 firmware and now I am using it. So far I can have the following comments:

1. I am a "simple" user, my H8 is connected into a full HD TV through the HDMI cable. Before I was getting the black screen issue in firmware 1.0.7, that means suddenly the image goes black for a few seconds, sound keep on, and image goes back and movie keep playing. Now with 1.0.9 this black screen problem reduced a lot, much better, but still have randomly.
2. I made a firmware upgrade using the reset buttom, all my installed apps were removed (Normal, I know that), but Kodi keep all the previous settings (I tough Kodi will also have a fresh start, but it was not the case, all settings I did before is kept with new firmware)
3. I have sound sync problem, I always need to advance the sound around 300 ms using Kodi in firmware 1.0.7. With firmware 1.0.9 I get the same behavior, nothing change, I still need to adjust sound +300 ms to get in sync with image. Because the audio delay is fixed I still can watch the movies properly, but need to make this adjustment for every movie I watch
4. Playability seems improved, all files I tried so far plays smoothly.
5. I also have a Q5 (dual core), playability is much better in H8 but picture quality is lower,  the image is pale in H8

In overall I am happy with my H8, in my opinion the biggest blame for H8 is related with Rockchip chipset, Rockchip support seems awful and slow, I can say that because do not have any player with RK3368 chipset that is going very well, all of them have issues, Himedia is still my choice for Android boxes but surely rockchip is out of my wishlist forever.

Once I have more comments to do, I will update my post

1 and 3, I will report back to Himedia.

2, you can reset all Kodi settings by (in Android) going Settings - More - Apps - Kodi - CLEAR DATA.

Glad playback has improved. Himedia will continue to work to improve it.

By the way, mostly of my files are MKV sizes from 800 Mb to 9GB, and I am not having any Image problem or crashes under Kodi, but as I said I need to adjust the audio to +300ms to get in sync

@joliverio: About your item 5 (pale picture). Have you tried to reduce the brightness of the picture in the standard android settings? This improved the picture quality for me tremendously.

[futeko.com]

Only enable the two RK h/w codecs; disable rest.

I agree with that.

No answer from Himedia yet but that is the best setup we've found in testing.

[joliverio]

I update my H8 yesterday with 1.0.9 firmware and now I am using it. So far I can have the following comments:

1. I am a "simple" user, my H8 is connected into a full HD TV through the HDMI cable. Before I was getting the black screen issue in firmware 1.0.7, that means suddenly the image goes black for a few seconds, sound keep on, and image goes back and movie keep playing. Now with 1.0.9 this black screen problem reduced a lot, much better, but still have randomly.
2. I made a firmware upgrade using the reset buttom, all my installed apps were removed (Normal, I know that), but Kodi keep all the previous settings (I tough Kodi will also have a fresh start, but it was not the case, all settings I did before is kept with new firmware)
3. I have sound sync problem, I always need to advance the sound around 300 ms using Kodi in firmware 1.0.7. With firmware 1.0.9 I get the same behavior, nothing change, I still need to adjust sound +300 ms to get in sync with image. Because the audio delay is fixed I still can watch the movies properly, but need to make this adjustment for every movie I watch
4. Playability seems improved, all files I tried so far plays smoothly.
5. I also have a Q5 (dual core), playability is much better in H8 but picture quality is lower,  the image is pale in H8

In overall I am happy with my H8, in my opinion the biggest blame for H8 is related with Rockchip chipset, Rockchip support seems awful and slow, I can say that because do not have any player with RK3368 chipset that is going very well, all of them have issues, Himedia is still my choice for Android boxes but surely rockchip is out of my wishlist forever.

Once I have more comments to do, I will update my post

1 and 3, I will report back to Himedia.

2, you can reset all Kodi settings by (in Android) going Settings - More - Apps - Kodi - CLEAR DATA.

Glad playback has improved. Himedia will continue to work to improve it.

By the way, mostly of my files are MKV sizes from 800 Mb to 9GB, and I am not having any Image problem or crashes under Kodi, but as I said I need to adjust the audio to +300ms to get in sync

@joliverio: About your item 5 (pale picture). Have you tried to reduce the brightness of the picture in the standard android settings? This improved the picture quality for me tremendously.

Hi fload;

Thanks for your advice, I decrease the brightness (2 levels down) as you said and I agree with you, picture looks much better now! Cheers 

[HDMediaplayer]

Only enable the two RK h/w codecs; disable rest.

hdmkv, thank you for your recommendation.

This firmware is a big improvement.

I feel the same and I hope HiMedia further improve the FW (3D-ISO smoothness and artefacts, 23.976, Fast-Forward/Backward, time jumps, etc.).

[kevsfx]

Only enable the two RK h/w codecs; disable rest.

hdmkv, thank you for your recommendation.

This firmware is a big improvement.

I feel the same and I hope HiMedia further improve the FW (3D-ISO smoothness and artefacts, 23.976, Fast-Forward/Backward, time jumps, etc.).

I seem to be the only one unhappy with the new firmware. Can I just check, is anyone else having an issue with sd (ie DVD) ISOs?  If not, perhaps I'll try reinstalling the firmware. All my mkvs are ok, so it's definitely an ISO issue.

Thanks

[HDMediaplayer]

I seem to be the only one unhappy with the new firmware. Can I just check, is anyone else having an issue with sd (ie DVD) ISOs?  If not, perhaps I'll try reinstalling the firmware. All my mkvs are ok, so it's definitely an ISO issue.

@kevsfx: I never tried SD (DVD) ISOs (I do not have one of them) with 1.0.9. So it is possible that there is an issue with that.
I tried a few DVDs in Folder-Structures with 1.0.7 and only 50% of them was playable, but this is a different story. (Not re-tested in 1.0.9 because DVD-Folder-Play has no priority for me.)

If the people say the FW is an improvement it does not mean it is bug free or every feature exist and work satisfactory.
It only mean the "special" way the people use it and the "special" files they play are OK and personally I screw down my expectations in this early FW phase.
Also the 1.0.9 has bugs and has a lot of missing/not working media-player features which will hopefully fixed/enhanced by HiMedia in the future.
But for this it is necessary that every user who notice a problem report it like you did it, with the things which are important for you.
Can be in some month it is also important for others and they can be happy if you already mentioned it and it is fixed. (That is how community works:-)
Personally I prefer to open a new thread per problem with an expressive title instead of posting it into one huge common thread which will become confusing if it is growing and growing. This brings an easier overview also for others and most important for futeko who report it to HiMedia.

[HDMediaplayer]

[futeko.com]

Thanks and greets to Kilroy, you leave a gap in this forum.

I miss him dearly.

Bugs noted.

[hdmkv]

Maybe I missed if this was mentioned, but how can the bottom nav/controls (meant for tablets) be permanently disabled in the Android launcher/UI? Seems this firmware introduced it.

[futeko.com]

Maybe I missed if this was mentioned, but how can the bottom nav/controls (meant for tablets) be permanently disabled in the Android launcher/UI? Seems this firmware introduced it.

It can't be permanently disabled.

Behaviour at the moment is that it can be manually hidden by clicking the bar, and for some apps (notably Kodi and Youtube when playing video) it hides automatically.

I've discussed my preference for having an option in settings to control behaviour and my preference for auto-hide or disabled with Himedia and I will continue to try and push them in that direction.