HiMedia Q5 Pro vs Oppo vs Amlogic S905

[Standard]

Just got my HiMedia Q5 Pro set up, it came with Nougat. Overall much better than my old Amlogic S905 player, but picture quality is not as good as my Oppo BDP-103.

*** Updated Findings 14th December 2016 ***

23.976 Playback
Oppo plays perfectly.
Kodi + Wrapper SMB, plays perfectly.
Kodi by itself SMB/UPNP, stutters every 40 seconds.
MediaCenter SMB, plays perfectly.
MediaCenter UPNP, plays perfectly.
Amlogic S905 stutters every 40 seconds.

Non-standard framerate i.e. 23.975
Oppo plays perfectly.
Kodi + Wrapper SMB, frequent stuttering.
Kodi by itself SMB/UPNP, frequent stuttering.
MediaCenter SMB, frequent stuttering.
MediaCenter UPNP, plays perfectly.
Amlogic S905 frequent stuttering.

Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Passthrough
Oppo passes through both correctly.
Kodi + Wrapper SMB, passes through both correctly.
Kodi by itself SMB/UPNP, TrueHD as basic Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS-HD as basic DTS 5.1.
MediaCenter SMB, passes through both correctly.
MediaCenter UPNP, passes through both correctly.
Amlogic S905 passes basic Dolby and DTS only and audio also drops out every 2-3 seconds.

AAC 5.1 Transcoding
Oppo plays it perfectly.
Kodi + Wrapper SMB, passes as stereo PCM (ack by HiMedia as bug)
Kodi by itself SMB/UPNP, transcodes into Dolby Digital 5.1.
MediaCenter SMB, passes as stereo PCM (ack by HiMedia as bug)
MediaCenter UPNP, passes as stereo PCM (ack by HiMedia as bug)
Amlogic S905, transcodes into Dolby Digital 5.1 but audio drops out every 2-3 seconds.

3D H-SBS Videos
Oppo plays perfectly.
Kodi + Wrapper SMB, plays smoothly but audio is out of sync.
Kodi by itself SMB/UPNP, has some ghosting, but no audio sync issues.
MediaCenter SMB, plays smoothly but audio is out of sync.
MediaCenter UPNP, has some ghosting and displays in wrong aspect ratio.
Amlogic S905 plays perfectly.

Above test at 60hz with auto framerate switching switched on.

This player is still the best player in its class, though not completely perfect. I got the HiMedia player to replace my Oppo, which is a player costing 5x more than the HiMedia and so far I'm impressed. Oppo still has better playing capabilities and the PQ is superb, as justified by the price, but the Q5 isn't a slouch either coming in a close second and plays more formats than the Oppo.

[Nice Monkey]

Thanks for sharing your results.

Suggest to read the many links from this one http://www.futeko.com/newforum/index.php?topic=711.0

You seem not to be using Wrapper actively as that should provide exactly what you are asking for.  The 24Hz feature is still under development and currently in fact  activates "Auto Frame-rate switching" which for sure does things. The label should be changed and in my vision features be split up once working completely as it should.

[futeko.com]

I have replied to your email with broadly the same answer as below.

I don't think you have wrapper installed correctly. Kodi+wrapper should be exactly the same as mediaplayer app.

In Kodi navigate to a file using remote and press menu key. You should get an option in the resultant menu that says 'play using..' and an option for 'HiMediaXBMCWrapper (Default)'. Do you have this option?

If not go to home screen and select 'My Apps'. Select 'Wrapper' app and then select 'Set to Wrapper Player'. This will reinstall wrapper to Kodi.

For SBS aspect ratio, when playing file press menu button on remote. Then select 'Full screen'. If this makes a difference this setting can be applied globally by, from box main menu: Settings - Playback - Maintain aspect ratio.

[Standard]

Thanks for the responses.

I do have wrapper set up as the default player, but when I try to select it explicitly via "play using", I get the error "wrapper has stopped", and if I keep trying it tells me "wrapper keeps stopping". It's not coming up as himediacbmcwrapper, just "Wrapper".

In the wrapper app, "set to wrapper player" is already selected. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to click the OK button, because it's asking me for a samba password.

Still can't get 3D working correctly in media centre. I guess this is not a big deal as I can live without truehd and dts-hd ma but the video stuttering is quite annoying.

[Standard]

Done a bit more playing around.

I set up my Google account which let me update Kodi, it didn't fix my Kodi issues. I also tried reinstalling Wrapper via the forums (http://www.futeko.com/newforum/index.php?topic=710.0) but it keeps complaining the file is corrupt. So what I did instead was in the Wrapper app, I selected "Set to Kodi Player", exited the app, then went back to "Set to Wrapper Player", but it didn't fix my Kodi issues either.

For my 3D issues in MediaCenter, played with aspect settings and problems still concurring. Tried multiple H-SBS videos and all are playing at wrong ratios, 2D 1080p videos are fine. Appears to be exactly as described here: http://www.futeko.com/newforum/index.php?topic=294.0

Any ideas? Is it worth downgrading to a previous firmware?

[Standard]

More findings...

I got wrapper to work!.. well sort of.

It seems Wrapper will only work when playing off SMB, but crashes when playing off UPNP! Kodi seems to auto-select DVDPlayer as fallback when Wrapper crashes internally.

MediaCenter also looks different when it's playing off SMB vs UPNP.
- When playing UPNP, the menu button brings up the controls on the bottom.
- When playing SMB, the menu button brings up a menu with lots of options on the right.

I've followed these instructions to get my SMB drives mounted: http://www.futeko.com/newforum/index.php?topic=813.0

Another oddity I've found is MediaCenter refuses to mount anything with spaces in the path name. It keeps complaining about incorrect account or password. I have two shares, one with called "TV Shows" and the other called "Movies". "TV Shows" would only mount after I've changed the name to "TVShows".

Kodi + working wrapper now passes through lossless correctly but video now stutters even more! (like every few seconds) 3D now also works without the massive black bars, but ghosting is still visible during action scenes. Also I have found AAC 5.1 outputs as stereo in both MediaCenter and Kodi, while if internal DVD Player is used, it is transcoded into Dolby Digital.

I still prefer UPNP though, I find SMB sometimes buggy and doesn't perform as well as UPNP.

[Nice Monkey]

I still prefer UPNP though, I find SMB sometimes buggy and doesn't perform as well as UPNP.

I can't use UPNP as it does not support ISO nor Folder formats for DVD and BD used by me primarily. SMB is universal for any file size and type.

SMB in fact works better under 7.0 than before, that is it reports now a fixed value for Disc-Size and Free-Space which all programs (SMB clients) now accept. My perception is that it is stable, only write speed is limited (probably on purpose). See evaluation for detailed measurements. Still valid.

FTP was blazing fast but did not get it to work under 7.0 yet (for uploading content).

[futeko.com]

More findings...

I got wrapper to work!.. well sort of.

It seems Wrapper will only work when playing off SMB, but crashes when playing off UPNP! Kodi seems to auto-select DVDPlayer as fallback when Wrapper crashes internally.

MediaCenter also looks different when it's playing off SMB vs UPNP.
- When playing UPNP, the menu button brings up the controls on the bottom.
- When playing SMB, the menu button brings up a menu with lots of options on the right.

I've followed these instructions to get my SMB drives mounted: http://www.futeko.com/newforum/index.php?topic=813.0

Another oddity I've found is MediaCenter refuses to mount anything with spaces in the path name. It keeps complaining about incorrect account or password. I have two shares, one with called "TV Shows" and the other called "Movies". "TV Shows" would only mount after I've changed the name to "TVShows".

Kodi + working wrapper now passes through lossless correctly but video now stutters even more! (like every few seconds) 3D now also works without the massive black bars, but ghosting is still visible during action scenes. Also I have found AAC 5.1 outputs as stereo in both MediaCenter and Kodi, while if internal DVD Player is used, it is transcoded into Dolby Digital.

I still prefer UPNP though, I find SMB sometimes buggy and doesn't perform as well as UPNP.

UPnP is not supported for wrapper. It is a relatively heavy protocol and not as commonly used as with SMB or NFS. UPnP also has problems with Kodi scraping and ISO. SMB is the best option IMHO for storing media on a local network. The Himediaplayer interface is intentionally different for UPnP.

Presuming your SMB shares don't have passwords there is no need to follow the instructions in that thread. They should work just by adding them through the regular Kodi 'Browse Windows Network' Files - Add Files interface.

I don't get the 3D black bars problem with the sample 3D SBS files I have here (not many). Can you point me to a sample?

AAC 5.1 will pass as stereo PCM but not as 5.1. This is a bug and is known by HiMedia.

You shouldn't get any stuttering with video. What's the file type? Can you post a sample?

[Standard]

UPnP is not supported for wrapper. It is a relatively heavy protocol and not as commonly used as with SMB or NFS. UPnP also has problems with Kodi scraping and ISO. SMB is the best option IMHO for storing media on a local network. The Himediaplayer interface is intentionally different for UPnP.

Thanks for confirming this.

Presuming your SMB shares don't have passwords there is no need to follow the instructions in that thread. They should work just by adding them through the regular Kodi 'Browse Windows Network' Files - Add Files interface.

It turned out to be a bug on my QNAP NAS firmware, I've updated the firmware and it fixed an issue of SMB authentication bug from some devices.

I don't get the 3D black bars problem with the sample 3D SBS files I have here (not many). Can you point me to a sample?

You shouldn't get any stuttering with video. What's the file type? Can you post a sample?

Sure, I can get you a video. But as I have stated, the 3D SBS black bars issue only occurs when not using Wrapper and only occurs in MediaCenter so it's not as much of a big deal for me anymore.

As for video stuttering with the Wrapper, I think I have found a solution to this and know what is causing this issue.

The issue is output resolution.

I have the HiMedia plugged into my receiver, and my receiver to my TV.
My receiver is set to Auto-detect resolution.
My TV is 4K.
My HiMedia is set to 4K24.

If I turn on my receiver first, then the HiMedia and my TV last, HiMedia will reset output settings to 1080i50.
If I turn on the HiMedia first, then my TV and my receiver last, then the HiMedia will remember to use my manual setting 4K24.
I believe it's because my receiver is set to Auto-detect, so when my TV isn't turned on, my receiver will return the default resolution (1080i50) and HiMedia will use the output settings given to it by my receiver than what I manually configured.

It'd be nice to have the output resolution stick. I'm going to do more testing over the weekend to confirm.

AAC 5.1 will pass as stereo PCM but not as 5.1. This is a bug and is known by HiMedia.

Thanks, I'll keep a look out for a patch. It's good there's a workaround for AAC 5.1 (DVDPlayer) albeit it not playing perfectly at 23.976.

[futeko.com]

All HiMedia vs XXX threads have been moved to 'Other Media Boxes'.

[Standard]

Did some testing over the weekend, found a solution that works for me, hope it does for you too.

It's very simple:

When turning stuff on, start with your TV.
When turning stuff off, start with your HiMedia player.
If you never switch off your HiMedia, then always turn your receiver off first.

Stuttering still an issue and it's caused by something entirely different. I'll post a separate message in the main forums. I understand you don't want this thread in the main forum as it may give people reason to buy the Oppo instead. There's really no reason to be concerned since the Oppo is a $1k player, it's in a totally different segment to HiMedia.

Overall very happy with the Q5 Pro, just some small quirks.