A5 playback issues

[Yarc]

Hi, I recently had my Q10 kindly replaced for an A5 by futeko.  I prefer having DVD and BD menus and this little unit is certainly very nice.  However, my experience so far is not perfect.  Maybe I don't have optimum settings, but finding that many of my DVD ISO's have a jitter effect.  That is, the video will pause for tiny fractions of a second, and is very annoying to watch.  I have found this on several of my PAL DVD ISO's all of which play without issue on other equipment.  Sometimes, this jitter effect is not present all the way through the film, it appears that the A5 has issues with certain sections of the video.

One of my DVD ISO images has caused the A5 to lock up which is not a good result.

A couple of my DVD ISO backups that play fine on my ASUS O! Play, cause my A5 a small issue which is at 2 minutes 18 seconds into the main feature, the video seems to pause for about 5 or so seconds, but the audio continues.  Finally, the video will start playing again and everything seems ok.  It is very strange that the same issue occurs on two different ISO images (two different films).  They are both PAL and one has DTS 5.1 audio while the other has AC3 5.1.

I have posted these issues on the Egreat forum, but thought I would mention it here just in case someone is aware of these issues and has a suggestion.

I know there is a pending f/w update and it's probably worth waiting to see if this resolves the issues.

Thanks.

[futeko.com]

What are your HDMI resolution / refresh settings? For PAL DVD 50Hz HDMI output will give better quality.

Do you have Settings - Display - Adjust Display Frequency turned On?

[Yarc]

I have tried setting the HDMI resolution to 2160P and 1080P with 50Hz and 60Hz in each case but neither seems to help.  I initially thought that turning Adjust Display Frequency off gave me better results.  When turned on, the video playback was jittery and turning it off seemed to resolve the issue for some films.  However, since playing another ISO image the jittering varies throughout the film, so not entirely sure what is going on.  I know my Sony TV (KD55DX9305) has settings for adjusting the smoothness of playback and wondered if these were conflicting, but have not wanted to adjust these as the current settings have suited me for some time now, but am open to suggestions.

Playback of BD ISO's seems perfect and very pleased with the results.

[Yarc]

Hmmm, I am finding several of my DVD ISO images that the A5 is unable to play at all and all these play fine on my ASUS O!Play and on my PC with PowerDVD16.  There cannot be an issue with these files.  I'll wait and try the next f/w update, but If it's unable to play many of my ISO images then this is not much use to me.  Most of my video collection is DVD ISO.  I am getting more Blu-ray now and these appear to be playing without issue, but it seems I need to keep my ASUS O!Play for DVD's and the A5 for Blu-ray, but was really hoping that the A5 would play everything.

[futeko.com]

Can you try VidonXBMC for the DVD ISOs that don't play?

[futeko.com]

If it's you posting on this thread then you've tried VidonXBMC and it does work, so that's a workaround in the short term.

http://en.egreatworld.com/comunity/index.php?threads/stuttering-playback-of-dvd-iso-files.523/

Can you point to a sample that we could download to test? DVD ISO plays OK here and there hasn't been any negative feedback so far from other customers (although it is a new product).

[Yarc]

If it's you posting on this thread then you've tried VidonXBMC and it does work, so that's a workaround in the short term.

http://en.egreatworld.com/comunity/index.php?threads/stuttering-playback-of-dvd-iso-files.523/

Can you point to a sample that we could download to test? DVD ISO plays OK here and there hasn't been any negative feedback so far from other customers (although it is a new product).

Yes that is me.  Using VidonXBMC works better for many of my DVD ISO's however, the ones which fail to play with A5's built in player causing it to close down with an error message (words to the effect that an error occurred please report the issue), when played with VidonXBMC cause the A5 to freeze and I have to power cycle it before I can use it again.  So I am getting very mixed results and cannot seem to find a pattern.

I'm not sure how I can make one of the ISO images available for download, if you can tell me I'll upload it for you to test.

Thanks for your help

[futeko.com]

MEGA? https://mega.nz/

[Yarc]

MEGA? https://mega.nz/

Thanks for the link. When I'm at my pc will upload an ISO for you to try.

[Yarc]

I have sent you a PM with a link to the problem ISO file. 

Thanks for your help.

[futeko.com]

I get same results as you for that ISO.

It plays on a HiMedia Q5 Pro, so there is no problem at a hardware level (Q5 Pro has same chipset).

The problem must be Egreat / VidOn media player. I can't indentify why that file doesn't play but others do. I will report it to Egreat and point them to that specific ISO. Hopefully they'll be able to fix it fast.

It plays OK with menus in standard Kodi (17.1 from Play Store), so that's a way around the problem.

[Yarc]

I get same results as you for that ISO.

It plays on a HiMedia Q5 Pro, so there is no problem at a hardware level (Q5 Pro has same chipset).

The problem must be Egreat / VidOn media player. I can't indentify why that file doesn't play but others do. I will report it to Egreat and point them to that specific ISO. Hopefully they'll be able to fix it fast.

It plays OK with menus in standard Kodi (17.1 from Play Store), so that's a way around the problem.

Thank you for confirming the problem and reporting to Egreat. I am happy to wait for a fix on this as I really like the A5. 

Shall I upload one of the ISO images that has the pause glitch?   I first reported on Egreat forum here:

http://en.egreatworld.com/comunity/index.php?threads/stuttering-playback-of-dvd-iso-files.523/

It takes a long time to upload as I'm not on fibre broadband.

[futeko.com]

Thank you for confirming the problem and reporting to Egreat. I am happy to wait for a fix on this as I really like the A5. 

Shall I upload one of the ISO images that has the pause glitch?   I first reported on Egreat forum here:

http://en.egreatworld.com/comunity/index.php?threads/stuttering-playback-of-dvd-iso-files.523/

It takes a long time to upload as I'm not on fibre broadband.

Yes, please do. Samples make diagnosing problems much easier.

[Yarc]

After much more testing specifically with DVD ISO's I have observed the following issues: 

1. Using either the A5's player or VidonXBMC some chapters will have jerky playback.  Sometimes rewinding will cure, but most times not.  I have tried with the auto display frequency adjustment on and off for both apps but cannot say I have noticed any difference.

2. With some titles such as Enter the Dragon, there is a long pause at the start of a new chapter, the audio is still playing and looping from the last few seconds of the previous chapter but the video is stuck until finally it starts to play again.

3. With Enter the Dragon using the A5's player even selecting the language from the DVD menu I still have to manually select the audio track after the film starts as otherwise there is no sound.  I am using audio pass-through.

3. When playing Enter the Dragon from the DVD menu, at the last few seconds of the introduction by Bruce Lee's wife, the audio cuts off before she has finished speaking.

All of these issues can be seen with the images I gave you the link to in the PM I sent.  Let me know if you need me to repost the links.

I hope these issues can be sorted out as this is hampering my enjoyment of film viewing with the A5.

Thank you.

[Nice Monkey]

Will have a go at some DVD using my A10. Thus far did not see problems with DVD playback, but hardly viewed any. Will try "Enter The Dragon" as I have that one too with menu's. watched the DVD without problems, but may be a different version?