UHD 24p broken in 1080 with Feb update

Help and Support Vero 4K / Vero 4K +
44

Of course… Just had time for a short test, will do that asap.

45

So, the logs:

First one with “Also allow resolution switch” enabled: http://paste.osmc.tv/iqahirimul

Second one with “Also allow resolution switch” disabled: http://paste.osmc.tv/iyasagarod

Both times I played a 2160p24 video first (both times played back as 1080p60) and then a 1080p24 video afterwards (which played back correctly as 1080p24).
For resolutions below 1080p, everything worked as expected:

  • “Also allow resolution switch” enabled: e.g. 720p50 → 720p50
  • “Also allow resolution switch” disabled: e.g. 720p50 → 1080p50
46 
====================== Display Cap =================== g0gjk991
480p60hz
576p50hz
720p60hz
1080i60hz
1080p60hz*
720p50hz
1080i50hz
1080p50hz
1080p24hz

Your device is not receiving an EDID that shows support for 4K video modes.
This wouldn’t be affected by any Kodi patches.

Sam

47

Of course, it doesn’t. My setup is a 1080p setup :rofl:

It was working before. The very file I tested with now did playback properly downscaled to 1080p24 before the update (I watched the whole movie before the update on my Vero 4k and my 1080p setup).
And this thread is titled: UHD 24p broken in 1080. My setup is a 1080p setup… What’s the problem then?

And above, some others reported exactly the same issue on a 1080p setup. :wink:

48

Sorry – reading too many posts.

Yes, looks broken.

I’ll kick off a build with this patch reverted and it will be ready in staging in an hour.

49

No problem :+1:t2::wink:

Just give us a small note here, please. Thanks for the effort, Sam!

50

Hi

I’d appreciate it if you could test this and provide feedback before we release this as an update to other users. To test this update:

  1. Login via the command line
  2. Edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list
  3. Add the following line: deb http://apt.osmc.tv stretch-devel main
  4. Run the following commands to update: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade && reboot
  5. Your system should have have received the update.

Please see if the issue is resolved.

I also recommend you edit /etc/apt/sources.list again and remove the line that you added after updating. This will return you to the normal update channel.

51

Fixed! 24p playback of 4K files now works again.

Now if we can get the white-point sorted out in the HDR>SDR conversion, I have several TV’s that are waiting for a Vero 4K.

52

And of course, thank you for the prompt action to work on this.

53

Couple of follow-up observations:

  1. Switching my TV’s picture mode to Dynamic and dialling down the colour a little recovers the lost brightness with 4k mkv’s and overall gives a very watchable picture. And films that have white-on-black credits actually show the credits in white.

  2. Because I’ve been holding back on 4k, waiting for the HDR standards to settle down, I’ve not previously had opportunity to check out the audio side of UHD discs. Now that I have a few titles, I’ve been checking out bit rates vs corresponding blu-rays. On some titles, the bit rate is similar (it may even be the same audio track), but for some, the UHD audio has a massive increase in bit rate compared to the blu-ray (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Blade Runner 2049). Any my goodness, is the difference audible (I only run 4.0, but the difference on the aforementioned titles is quite noticeable).

  3. So far, playback seems to be holding up without stuttering, even on 4k titles with very high bit-rates. I mount via Kodi/nfs so that database paths are consistent across devices, server is a Synology NAS.

54

Working here again as expected! :+1:t2:

This is partly a reason for me to watch UHD rips… The audio → also those Atmos/DTS:X mixes we only get on the 4K release. :slightly_smiling_face:

55

Generally, the UHD and BluRay from the same package have exactly the same 4K source transfer, so it’s pretty easy to re-mux the better audio with the BluRay video. I do the reverse and add commentaries back to the 4K video. Apparently, if you want to watch UHD eye candy, you don’t want to listen to the F/X guys talking about how they created it.

I’m testing UHD video mostly to see how the Vero 4K performs when having to decode that and then doing things with the Titan skin (which is much more performance intensive than the OSMC skin).

56

An intriguing idea. Are you using MKVToolNix to do that? I’ve only used it a couple of times to change a subtitle track default flag when I’d made a mistake in makemkv.

57

Yeah, it’s really easy in most cases…just drag and drop the two files, check or uncheck the tracks you want, and you’re done.

For UHD movies where the included BluRay didn’t have commentary (because it was exclusive to an older BluRay release), then it can be trickier, as the movies don’t always sync up, due to different logos on the front end. I just match up identical chapter stops of the two movies, figure out the difference in time, and then enter the delay for the track into the MKV tools GUI.

I don’t use any “smart” tools like makemkv. I extract from discs with eac3to (AnyDVD HD decrypts), re-encode video using x264, sometimes re-encode audio if the bitrate is too high (and always convert to FLAC for 5.1 or less, because it’s much smaller), then put everything together using MKV tools GUI.

58

Just tried audio replacement on a title with just 16-bit audio on the blu ray, and the 24-bit UHD audio matched perfectly. I would never have considered that, so thanks! Clearly the masters have to be identical for this to work with primary audio though.

In terms of workflow, I have no need to re-encode and love makemkv as a one-stop shop. Once I became familiar with the different types of forced subtitle implementation that are used, I tend to spot how to manage those and can get everything done in a single pass 99% of the time.

59

I have problems with forced subs and am never sure if I am selecting the right options. For example I have all the blu rays of game of thrones. I thought although this will take me ages and ages to do I’ll rip them all and store them as MKV. When I watch them I don’t get subtitles for the foreign language bits. I just selected forced subs and English subs. Is that correct? Should it be working?

60

You’ve not stated what package you used to create the mkv files. I am familiar with makemkv, and it is excellent with forced subtitles, but it’s a tricky area, as some discs have forced subtitles embedded in the full subtitle track, and other titles have dedicated separate subtitle streams for the forced subtitles (the Marvel Avengers films use this method a lot, also several X-Men blu rays). So if there are multiple English-language subtitle tracks, extra care may be needed.

A nice feature of mkv files + Kodi is that a subtitle track can have a default flag set for it to tell Kodi when to enable a forced track. In Kodi, I have the subtitle option set to “Original stream’s language” in Player Settings > Language, and with a properly prepared mkv file, behaviour is identical to blu ray discs. Here are some examples:

  1. Single main language subtitle track. In makemkv if you check the options for both the full subtitle and the forced subtitles, makemkv will figure out if there are any embedded subtitles, and if there are, it will write two subtitle tracks to the mkv file, with the forced track flagged as default, and Kodi will spot that and show them. If there are no forced subtitles, you get a track with the main subtitles, but importantly, makemkv will not set the mkv default flag - so Kodi will not show the subtitles by default even though they are in the file. This is very nice. I think GoT uses the forced approach embedded in the main track. If these have been extracted but the wrong mkv flag is set, you could remux the file and change the flag.

  2. Dedicated separate track for forced subtitles. You’ll need to do some pre-work in this case to figure out the track. Just popping your disc into a blu ray player is an easy way to do that, you will usually find the player has switched to that subtitle track even if it’s not showing subtitles as enabled. Enabling advanced options in makemkv is helpful here as you can manually set the mkv default flag for the target track even if you are also importing other subtitles. This can also be necessary if the entire track is forced, rather than specific subtitles within it, and makemkv does not find any “forced” subtitles, as the blu ray is configured to push the subtitles via the language menu option.

  3. DVD subtitles. Not the same thing as forced, but for completeness, I like my subtitles to be available if required. So for DVDs, it’s possible to check the option for the subtitle track in makemkv and then de-select the default status for the mkv flag in the makemkv advanced settings. That way the subtitles are in the mkv file but Kodi will not show them unless you ask it to.

Hope this helps. This is an area where a little experience goes a long way. I’ve not come across a blu ray player that handles mkv subtitle flags as seamlessly as Kodi, but if anyone is aware of one I’d be interested to know. My brother can’t get his Oppo 203 to do this seamlessly, he has to activate the subtitles even though the default flag is set in the mkv file.

1 Like
61

Thanks very much for the detailed reply I’m going to go through this a few times to try and understand it. Do a few tests and stuff.

62

Absolutely, experimenting will help a lot here. Not all episodes of GoT have forced subtitles, but in series 1 you might want to look at episodes 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. If that’s helpful feel free to PM me for further info.

Once you are comfortable with those you might move on to some of the Marvel titles if you have them, some of those are a little trickier.