Hi. Hoping you can help me figure out if this is a Kodi issue or a problem with my .mkv file.
The Green Mile UHD disc plays fine on my bluray player, but the resulting .mkv file briefly stutters at two points in the film - 1:27:42 (mouse pushing spool) & 2:02:50 (Tom Hanks sits on desk) - before continuing to play fine.
After some experimenting, I can get these parts of the film to play correctly by changing Vero’s whitelist settings…
Those two clips play fine, in HDR mode, on my set up with the following settings -
no white lists
adjust display refresh rate, set to either “On Start/Stop” or “Off”
What is your setup ? How does the Vero-V access the MKV files ? What about network bandwidth ?
Do the clips play OK without stutter or white listing, or is the stuttering just limited to the ripped MKV file ?
My setup is Vero V plugged directly into tv’s hdmi socket (Sony A95L). Audio via optical cable to amp.
Autofs nfs mount is set up on Vero to access media on a WD Red Plus drive connected to a raspberry pi 5 hosting nfs server.
Tried playing these clips (as opposed to the ripped mkv file) from WD Red drive with whitelist off and adjust display refresh rate set to ‘on start/stop’. I see stutter for a split second.
Also played clips from a Kingston ssd attached to Vero via powered usb hub. Same stutter evident. Guess that rules out network bandwidth.
I ripped this using latest version of Makemkv.
Initially thinking the issue was with the mkv file, I’ve tried cleaning the disc to remove factory residue, ripping with two different disc drives (on both Mac and windows), including using makemkv’s backup function first before creating mkv, and even borrowed a friend’s copy to rip, with exactly the same results (stutter in same places).
Clips/ ripped mkv play perfectly on my Mac using VLC or Kodi.
Also just tried streaming from wd red to an Ugoos plugged into an old 1080p tv in my bedroom. Plays fine.
Took Ugoos and plugged it into Sony tv (with different hdmi cable). Same stutter.
Wonder if it’s an issue with my tv? Strange, as I’ve never noticed this issue with any other 4K/HDR films in my library. They all play perfectly.
Further test…setting adjust display refresh rate to off, and kodi resolution to either 1920x1080 or 4096x2160 - file plays fine. Setting to 3840x2160 results in stutter.
Thanks. Tried all other hdmi ports but didn’t make any difference.
Is there any other info I could provide that may tell us more about how the tv is interacting with Vero? I take it none of the logs I provided give any clues?
I’ve played several other 4k hdr10 titles since with no issues, which makes me think the issue is with the file. Having said that, the file plays fine for you at 3840x2160, and me at 4096x2160, so have no idea what’s going on here.
Interestingly, I tried the tv’s VLC app which plays the parts in question without issue at 3840x2160p, streaming over network from my wd drive.
If you’re out of ideas, that’s fine. May just have to leave this one.
At a glance I cannot see any unusual in the logs so far.
The clips have 3 audio tracks where the first is inTrueHD Atmos format. Such bandwidth you cannot passthrough via an optical cable/Toslink, means your TV has to decode and convert something.
Have you tried the both other audio tracks while playback? One is a 5.1 AC3 and the other a Stereo AC3 which could be passed directly to the toslink.
Does this make any difference?
Thanks both for your input. Should have mentioned that I’d already tried playing the other audio tracks with same results
However, thinking about your suggestions regarding audio or possible Vero/ tv combination issues, I rewired a few things and connected Vero directly to the amp’s hdmi - bypassing the tv - and the problem has gone!
It’s a really old Yamaha amp, which doesn’t do HDR, so checking the tv’s signal information, I can see the file is playing in SDR, the colourspace has changed from BT2020 to BT.709, and chroma format from 4:4:4 to 4:2:2.
I have no idea if the removal of HDR related stuff is responsible for the fix (as the files already played ok with only 1080p whitelisted, or when streamed to a different 1080p tv - although it did also play ok at 4096x2160 thinking about it), or if the Vero going straight into the amp is responsible, given that it’s now playing at 3840x2160 (minus HDR) without issue?
Didn’t know this option existed within Kodi - just changed settings>player>video>HDR processing to Force SDR and the file plays fine at 3840x2160 with vero connected directly to tv.
Couple additional tests..
Vero plays file correctly in HDR if I switch tv to game mode.
usb drive plugged directly into tv also play fine.
So this has got to be an issue with the Vero (and Ugoos)/ tv combination then, right? So strange that this glitch only happens in two small places in the film - which otherwise plays perfectly - as does all my other media which includes plenty of films with the same hdr and audio profiles.
Tempted to upgrade my amp and run Vero through it (it’s been on the cards for a while anyway) but would appreciate any thoughts on the above.
I don’t know about your specific TV, but it is common on modern TV’s for different display modes to have certain settings specific for their respective modes. The enabling of HDR mode may be one of those settings on your particular display. You might check your manual to see if it has a deep color setting (naming probably varies by manufacturer) that can be turned on in your prefered display mode. Game mode likely changes settings that reduces the quality of video playback.
I tried your clips and don’t see any glitches. I, too, have a really old Yamaha which I normally use by setting Settings->Display->Manually set a display’s HDR support to HDR10, HLG and HDR10+. You might like to try that although it looks like the lack of glitches is because Vero is outputting SDR, not because the signal is going through an AVR.
But at the moment I’m using a custom EDID which achieves the same result (and also allows me to play Dolby Vision through that RX-V373 ). This is my setup https://paste.osmc.tv/ujisucomik.
Mysteriously, my TV is reporting 1920x1080 60Hz. Maybe the clips are not long enough for it to update - Vero is definitely sending 3840x2160 23.9Hz.
Thanks both. Your comments led me to check system>display>use limited colour range (16-235).
I had this enabled by default - which I believe is suggested for regular hdmi tvs. Disabling this has fixed the issue and I don’t see any obvious raising of black levels as a result. Picture looks fine on live tv and HDR films.
My TV’s hdmi video range is set to auto, but did try playing with ‘full’ and ‘limited’, with ‘use limited colour range’ re-enabled, but made no difference to the video glitch. Disabling this setting is only way to have the file play correctly at 3840x2160 with HDR10 enabled.
Really stumped as to why no other HDR film in my library has ever shown a glitch like this with limited colour range enabled, so who knows, but unless you see an issue with this setting changed, I’m happy to mark this as solved. Thanks.
Well, it’s odd but it’s not the ‘right’ answer. There’s no obvious reason why the quantization range should affect timing but there it is.
In theory, outputting full-range and playing it at limited range will crush shadows and highlights. Many TVs don’t support full-range when receiving YUV video but it looks like yours does.
). This is my setup