Kodi: 3D-ISOs play not smooth and blocking artefacts with FW 1.0.9

[HDMediaplayer]

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

Configuration:
I use LAN and NFS-share with a Gigabit switch and a powerful Synology NAS.
I use a Full-HD Panasonic Plasma, no 4K TV.
H8 is connected via a modern Pioneer AV receiver to the Plasma by HDMI.
I made all tests with Kodi.
5.1 speaker configuration and pass-trough is enabled for all supported audio formats in Kodi.


Problem:
60% of my untouched 3D-ISOs now play not smooth and very rarely show some blocking artefacts with Kodi.
In the old 1.0.7 these videos plays smooth but the audio run away. It seems to me HiMedia "solve" the AV-Synch bug in the 1.0.9 by modifying the video replay speed on-the-fly to coarse or skipping some video frames and this causes the movements in the video not looking smooth if the bitrate is high.

futeko please report this to HiMedia.

[HDMediaplayer]

Additional Info:
For the hardware acceleration I use the Default:
libstagefright:                enabled
MediaCodec:                  enabled
rockchipcodec:               enabled
rockchipcodec23976:     disabled

I have tested also with all 4 enabled; no change.

@futeko, please ask HiMedia for the recommended settings. - Thank you.

[futeko.com]

No answer from Himedia on best settings, but our testing says enable only the bottom two Rockchip decoders.

So:

libstagefright: DISABLED
MediaCodec: DISABLED
rockchipcodec: ENABLED
rockchipcodec23976: ENABLED

[joliverio]

No answer from Himedia on best settings, but our testing says enable only the bottom two Rockchip decoders.

So:

libstagefright: DISABLED
MediaCodec: DISABLED
rockchipcodec: ENABLED
rockchipcodec23976: ENABLED

Additional Info:
For the hardware acceleration I use the Default:
libstagefright:                enabled
MediaCodec:                  enabled
rockchipcodec:               enabled
rockchipcodec23976:     disabled

I have tested also with all 4 enabled; no change.

@futeko, please ask HiMedia for the recommended settings. - Thank you.

I am also using the same hardware acceleration as HDMediaplayer, as I think the codec rockchipcodec23976 it is related with 24fps (because the name itself) and mostly of the movies that I am watching it do not have cinema 24 fps (and I am not sure my TV have 24 fps too) so I only disable rockchipcodec23976 and keep others enabled. I just have (very few) black screens, much better than previous firmware 1.0.7. Now I am in firmware 1.0.9
I hope Himedia will give us a proper reply asap!

[HDMediaplayer]

No answer from Himedia on best settings, but our testing says enable only the bottom two Rockchip decoders.

So:

libstagefright: DISABLED
MediaCodec: DISABLED
rockchipcodec: ENABLED
rockchipcodec23976: ENABLED

futeko,

thank you for your recommendation.
I will use this settings now.

[hdmkv]

No answer from Himedia on best settings, but our testing says enable only the bottom two Rockchip decoders.

So:

libstagefright: DISABLED
MediaCodec: DISABLED
rockchipcodec: ENABLED
rockchipcodec23976: ENABLED

Yep, this is the way to go as you want to rely on Rockchip's h/w decoding & acceleration only. Also, libstagefright is going away from Kodi, and MediaCodec is kind of a catch-all decoder for Android.

[HDMediaplayer]

hdmkv, thank you for the additional information.

[HDMediaplayer]

I have repeated the tests with the recommended settings.
libstagefright: DISABLED
MediaCodec: DISABLED
rockchipcodec: ENABLED
rockchipcodec23976: ENABLED

The playback is smoother than with the Kodi Default settings, but not smooth.
It is not only the 23.976 judder each 42 seconds. The movements are not really smooth in general.
No change for the blocking artefacts with this settings, these still happen sometimes. (My feeling to that; blocking happens at scene changes with very high bitrates (50-60 MBit/s).)

futeko please ask HiMedia to change also their custom Kodi default settings to sensible ones. It does not make sense that such serious key settings have bad defaults.

[pepe]

I have seen the same results as HDMediaplayer.

23.976fps are played with 24fps, therefore there is on dropped frame each 42 sec.
And as HDMediaplayer sais, it is smooth, but not smooth enough compared to my old WD TV Live.

[hdmkv]

If you want perfect 23.976 & 3D & HD audio, then HiMedia Q5/Q10 or Raspberry Pi2.

[HDMediaplayer]

If you want perfect 23.976 & 3D & HD audio, then HiMedia Q5/Q10 or Raspberry Pi2.

I heard and read that Q5 still has the BD-25 AV asynch bug! BD-25 run well in H8.
I read in your Kodi thread that RP2 is not able to pass-through high-quality multichannel audio to AVR!?

[hdmkv]

What the heck is the "BD-25 AV asynch bug"?  Never heard of it. All my BD rips, whether MKV or ISO, have played great on Q5.

Re: RPi2, it can't bitstream, but can decode and pass HD audio losslessly to your AVR. So, Pi2 is doing the decoding vs. your AVR. This is 90% just as good. Only aspects you're losing are some dialnorm metadata, and mainly no ATMOS and no DTS:X.

[HDMediaplayer]

@hdmkv: If you read the first 6 post's of this thread you will understand and you will also find test sources.

The bug is fixed since 1.0.7 for H8 but your Q5 will be AV asynch with the most/all BD-25 3D-ISOs.
Hard to explain in English, BD-25 ISOs are re-encoded BD-50's with (much) higher compression and lower bit rates. People do it to save storage space.

[hdmkv]

Okay, so just a retail BD50 re-encoded to fit a BD25 BD-R; got it. If you don't have issues w/a 1:1 straight rip, then I'd guess the re-encode is probably the issue.

[HDMediaplayer]

No, re-encoding is not the guilty.
Try the BD-25 demo video from here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y056y0qn9f6n28y/AAAy9U_VX8KZpTYU7Uj-iEzoa?dl=0

With Q5quad the BD-25 is asynch.
With H8 with 1.0.6 it is asynch too. I reported it to HiMedia. -> They made a 1.0.7.
With H8 with >=1.0.7 it is synchronous.

The guy who made the BD-50 and BD-25 demo, made it because of the Q5quad AV asynch problem.
He used the same program and settings apart from the compression rate for both.  The BD-50 is synchronous with Q5 the BD-25 not.
Read the thread that I have linked in my last post.