Minix Neo U1 + Kodi 18.x = jerky movies

[vuk]

Nowadays I still use the XBMC for MINIX v16.3 with my U1, since I have had the best experience regarding performance and smoothness of playback.
I installed Kodi 18.3 from kodi.tv, since there are some skins and addons, that are not supported / updated for v16.3 (Jarvis) anymore

I found, that the playback of movies with 18.3 is far from being as smooth as with v16.3 (XMBC for MINIX).... It was told, that there is no need for XBMC for MINIX, since nowadays vanilla Kodi supports MINIX players without any issues.
Well, I don't see it this way.

I would like to hear about your experience with U1 + Kodi 18, is it just me, who finds the playback jerky?
Is there any specific option, that should be changed for smoother playback? What might cause the lagging with playback?
Which is the "best" Kodi version for U1 nowadays?

Any help is appreciated!
vuk

 

[CybeRider]

Nowadays I still use the XBMC for MINIX v16.3 with my U1, since I have had the best experience regarding performance and smoothness of playback.
I installed Kodi 18.3 from kodi.tv, since there are some skins and addons, that are not supported / updated for v16.3 (Jarvis) anymore

I found, that the playback of movies with 18.3 is far from being as smooth as with v16.3 (XMBC for MINIX).... It was told, that there is no need for XBMC for MINIX, since nowadays vanilla Kodi supports MINIX players without any issues.
Well, I don't see it this way.

I would like to hear about your experience with U1 + Kodi 18, is it just me, who finds the playback jerky?
Is there any specific option, that should be changed for smoother playback? What might cause the lagging with playback?
Which is the "best" Kodi version for U1 nowadays?

Any help is appreciated!
vuk

Most files will work very well. I also have both installed and they both do very well.

Please make sure you have this settings in Kodi adjusted like this:

Adjust display refresh rate - On start/stop

and "Sync Playback to display" dot greyed out.

It seems to be the cause of stuttering when they are not set as above.

EDIT:
Path to find the above options in Kodi:
Settings icon
Player
Change the level of available options to 'Expert' - icon bottom left
Slide up to 'Video' to find the options there.

 

[ArcticWolf]

If you're not using audio passthrough you can try using the sync playback to display setting as well & see if you get smoother results from 18.3. It shouldn't be used if sending the audio to external equipment, that's all .

If you still find the playback better with your TV using XBMC for MINIX then just stick with it .

 

[vuk]

It does work very well. I also have both installed and they both do very well.

Please make sure you have this settings in Kodi adjusted like this:

Adjust display refresh rate - On start/stop

and "Sync Playback to display" dot greyed out.

It seems to be the cause of stuttering when they are not set as above.

EDIT:
Path to find the above options in Kodi:
Settings icon
Player
Change the level of available options to 'Expert' - icon bottom left
Slide up to 'Video' to find the options there.

Thanks for your input!
Actually this is how display refresh rate adjustment was set, but still better with 16.3, no jerky video there, but it's lagging with 18.3.

 

[ArcticWolf]

Thanks for your input!
Actually this is how display refresh rate adjustment was set, but still better with 16.3, no jerky video there, but it's lagging with 18.3.

How are you streaming your media? (NAS, external USB drive, SD card, etc.).

 

[CybeRider]

Thanks for your input!
Actually this is how display refresh rate adjustment was set, but still better with 16.3, no jerky video there, but it's lagging with 18.3.

I was starting to think about quitting Minix XBMC as the results with Kodi 18.3 have been so good.

Have you got both Media codecs on? Differently from Minix XBMC, in Kodi 18.3 you should.

Another thing to try is bringing "Enable HQ scalers for scalling above" down or up to something else, it really doesn't matter much. (read following comments to find out more)

 

[pusb87]

Another thing to try is bringing "Enable HQ scalers for scalling above" down to 10%

do you actually understand this setting, because i dont and have tried to read up on it but i am still confused...

i always set mine to 80% for no good reason !!

most stuff i stream locally is at a minimum of 720 and mostly 1080p and above ( my TV is 1080 ( waiting to pounce on a good 4K HDR !!)
from the net i try to get 720 minimum

perhaps if you do understand it a laymans explanation would be much appreciated

 

[vuk]

It shouldnt. I was starting to think about quitting Minix XBMC as the results with Kodi 18.3 have been so good.

Have you got both Media codecs on? Differently from Minix XBMC, in Kodi 18.3 you should.

You mean the HW accelaration should be turned ON for Mediacodec and Mediacodec surface?
If yes, then both are on. If it's off, the CPU load spikes (around 100% each core all the time) and video is even more jerky.

Another thing to try is bringing "Enable HQ scalers for scalling above" down to 10%

I have not changed default, it might worth trying. Actually I have a 4K TV and most of my movies are FullHD and my series collection is just SD.

 

[ArcticWolf]

You mean the HW accelaration should be turned ON for Mediacodec and Mediacodec surface?
If yes, then both are on. If it's off, the CPU load spikes (around 100% each core all the time) and video is even more jerky.



I have not changed default, it might worth trying. Actually I have a 4K TV and most of my movies are FullHD and my series collection is just SD.

CPU loads would spike if you disabled these settings because everything is then being software decoded instead which uses the CPU rather than the GPU. Yes, leave them enabled for the better hardware decoding .


Does your TV have a specific setting itself for enabling or disabling upscaling? If yes, double check it's enabled. (Many are automatically enabled by default & there isn't an option to disable, but still worth checking.)

 

[CybeRider]

do you actually understand this setting, because i dont and have tried to read up on it but i am still confused...

i always set mine to 80% for no good reason !!

most stuff i stream locally is at a minimum of 720 and mostly 1080p and above ( my TV is 1080 ( waiting to pounce on a good 4K HDR !!)
from the net i try to get 720 minimum

perhaps if you do understand it a laymans explanation would be much appreciated

LOL @pusb87 Confused? So am I! But I seem to recall the lower we set it the most help we get from the processing software (or whatever HQ scalers are) and if scalers will scale above the value we set, then 100% will turn the scalers off.

In the explanation bellow the setting it mentions that a value bellow 5 will make the video to be processed with high GPU load and no extra benefits. So I simply presumed that most benefits from this setting will be achieved with a low value set there.

However, for a machine working on low processing load this value should probably not make much difference. I also don't get any difference not even testing with 4k files (I always run testing with several 4k files) either choosing 5 or 70 (theoretically, as increments are by 10 and I have no idea how to select less than 10).

But in this particular case I think @vuk 's machine is probably running some apps in the background stealing some processing capabilities that might be needed for the video process to run smooth, and so maybe lowering the setting would bring the processor to dedicate more breath to the video playing. This might be easier than turning all processes down before executing new try outs with Kodi 18.3 to a smooth play, but this would be my next suggestion.

I also start to doubt myself if there is something wrong with my eyes as my Kodi 18.3 really performs very well. Could it be because I made a total clean install -I had a 17.6 but deleted all bits and bytes of it- and not an upgrade?

 

[pusb87]

@Skynet

this is what one of the team Kodi guys says >>

This setting tells kodi to use a high quality and therefore GPU taxing algorithm to upscale the video to your display resolution if the picture size/resolution difference is above your setting value.
If the difference is below the setting level, it will still upscale, but with an (much) lower quality and therefore much less GPU intensive algorithm.
The reason this setting exists is that many lower end GPUs(e.g. atoms, arm) are too slow to handle upscaling of (full) HD material with high quality(lanczos3, spline36), but the do fine when the source video is just SD, where upscaling quality is of the highest importance.
And it ofc doesn't make sense to upscale 1080p to 1080p..

Now, how do you use this?
Unless you have an pretty old or really low power box, the recommended value for this setting is 20%
This will still upscale anything up to 720p with high quality. If you have stuttering or lots of frame drops or skips, raise this value.

doesnt matter how many times i read it im still confused !!

 

[ArcticWolf]

@Skynet

this is what one of the team Kodi guys says >>

This setting tells kodi to use a high quality and therefore GPU taxing algorithm to upscale the video to your display resolution if the picture size/resolution difference is above your setting value.
If the difference is below the setting level, it will still upscale, but with an (much) lower quality and therefore much less GPU intensive algorithm.
The reason this setting exists is that many lower end GPUs(e.g. atoms, arm) are too slow to handle upscaling of (full) HD material with high quality(lanczos3, spline36), but the do fine when the source video is just SD, where upscaling quality is of the highest importance.
And it ofc doesn't make sense to upscale 1080p to 1080p..

Now, how do you use this?
Unless you have an pretty old or really low power box, the recommended value for this setting is 20%
This will still upscale anything up to 720p with high quality. If you have stuttering or lots of frame drops or skips, raise this value.

doesnt matter how many times i read it im still confused !!

Exactly & agreed lol. For that you need to understand more about the algorithms themselves which are very limited when it comes to Android. PC's for example allow users to choose from a whole host of algorithms.

I've always left it at the 20% default. I tested it at 10% but visually I couldn't notice anything.

I remember reading that post on the Kodi forum too & it doesn't explain anything, does it lol?

Most of the information you can find on the HQ scaler by mooching around is based on using it with PC's. Nothing particularly helpful with using it with Android.

 

[OldFriend]

I have a feeling this is related to the amlogic code that Minix added to the boot.img, I removed this in my ROM which gave stutter free playback. If you don't have anything important on your device I would suggest trying my ROM, if it solves your problem then you can flash back the official ROM and I can give you instructions on how to install just the boot.img without this code, let me know:
https://theminixforum.com/index.php?threads/custom-rom-marty-u1-fw013-spmc-rom.179/post-796

 

[Skynet]

Unless you have an pretty old or really low power box, the recommended value for this setting is 20%
This will still upscale anything up to 720p with high quality. If you have stuttering or lots of frame drops or skips, raise this value.

That's what i understood.
However i found a better way if you have a good and new TV with a good hardware upscaler : Lower the Minix resolution to send to TV the untouched video and it will be upscaled using a better hardware engine

 

[CybeRider]

That's what i understood.
However i found a better way if you have a good and new TV with a good hardware upscaler : Lower the Minix resolution to send to TV the untouched video and it will be upscaled using a better hardware engine

Minix XBMC had only three levels: High, Low, Never

Life was eventually easier those days...

 

[CybeRider]

For a real challenge in the world of acceleration, here it goes:

This file
http://4ksamples.com/honey-bees-96fps-in-4k-ultra-hd/

EDIT: Link fixed

Plays great in the U1 Minix XBMC with only amcodec turned on.
In the U1, Kodi 17.6, Mediacodec (surface) would have to be turned off.
In the U1, Kodi 18.3 both Mediacodecs ON, it plays great.

To play it in the U9-H with Minix XBMC amcodec must be OFF and both mediacodecs must be ON, or it won't even show a picture (only sound).

So what is true for a certain model, or even for an app software version, or a certain file in a different environment, can be totally wrong for another.

I am adding back my Minix XBMC as a decent player to my U9-H, after these findings... And in the meantime will leave the HQ scalers at 20% in Kodi 18.3, which so far seems to be taking everything I throw at it quite easily in the U9-H without the need to touch the settings.

 

[vuk]

I am still trying to find the best settings. It looks like setting HQ scaler to 20% made it better, but 1080p is still more jerky than with 16.3
I am going to try to change the buffering, since I "stream" my videos from local NAS.

 

[CybeRider]

I am still trying to find the best settings. It looks like setting HQ scaler to 20% made it better, but 1080p is still more jerky than with 16.3
I am going to try to change the buffering, since I "stream" my videos from local NAS.

I would rather start testing with a file from inside the U1 hardrive.
Followed by testing with a file in an USB drive attached to the box.
If all these would test well, streaming from the NAS would be my last choice.

1080p shouldn't be an issue for the U1. I just tested streaming from an old winXP computer with an Intel Celeron 1.0 GHz (how slower than that can you get?) and it does stream 1080p quite well to Kodi 18.3 over wifi. Tested many files, no problem whatsoever. Even the 4k testing files passed smoothly.

Only broke it when conneced a USB drive to the old computer USB1 Port to access a 4k file to the box through wifi. (No wonder!)

Make sure you added your NAS correctly as a source in Kodi and select the files directly from Kodi (not from ES explorer or something like it - I tried and didn't go well especially because since I hadn't included the computer as a source in Kodi it couldn't find the nearby subtitles and got kind of sluggish and died on me twice).

Also make sure the U1 is not running any heavy processes in the background or updating any apps from the Playstore simultaneously to the file playing.

I wouldn't be insisting if I would not be sure you should achieve excellent results with any of the players!

 

[CybeRider]

ALL I SAID ABOVE IS QUITE QUESTIONABLE

I just got these several nice fresh from today X264 1080p Dolby Digital Plus files, which tremendously stutter in Kodi 18.3 while played from a 1TB HDD connected to the U1 to a USB port. Minix XBMC plays them nice and smoothly.

Sorry folks, this will take me some time to swallow... I will be back when I recover from the schock.

EDIT: U9-H is not affected

 

[CybeRider]

Conclusion about some files I got that stutter in Kodi 18.3 in a Minix U1 box (sincere apologies to @vuk for my previous overconfidence)

File info from MX Player (plays nice as long as started from within the player, not from ES File Explorer):

File info from Minix XBMC (plays nice and smooth as long as amcodec is on):

File info from Kodi 18.3 (stutters under all circumstances I tried so far):

(click pictures to enlarge)

VLC for Android also failed the test after trying all possible acceleration settings.

EDITED1: Kodi Leia nightly from 5 July tested better than expected, worth the try I'd say.
EDITED2: An AVI simple file, that plays well with Minix XBMC, had to have both Mediacodec settings turned off in order to show in Kodi Leia.