Video disruption on startup of playback of M2TS files

[Ripstop]

I am a newbie user of the excellent Vero 4k after a long time in the Cloudmedia Popcorn hardware line. So, new to Kodi and limited linux experience. However after setting up with my Denon X3500H and LG C9 its all looking very good. I am using the Aeon Silvo? skin which I love.
For now I have one tiny problem … when I play any M2TS straight copy of a bluray movie, non compressed and not remuxed I get 1 or 2 blank few seconds as the movie starts spaced out by a few seconds. I am playing from my NAS over Samba. Is this just the handshaking taking place or some buffering? The last Vten and A-500 popcorns would start almost immediately and not have these blank moments. Is it just a feature or do I need to tweak something?

[bmillham]

It could be Samba, but a good test would be to remux the movie to mkv. It shouldn’t take long (using a tool like mkvtoolnix).

Also, make sure that you have the GUI set to 1080p, and adjust refresh rate to start/stop.

We recommend people with 4K TV’s set their user interface (UI) to 1080p. Kodi’s UI is not optimized for 4K yet and this can put unnecessary demands on your device and can lead to a suboptimal picture quality, as well as potentially cause other issues.

The settings we recommend are as follows…

Settings>System>Display>Resolution> 1920x1080p
Settings>System>Display>Whitelist> (empty)
Settings>Player>Videos>Adjust display refresh rate> On start/stop

Some televisions may also need, or benefit from, the following being set…

System>Display>Force 4:2:2 colour subsampling> (enable)

With the above settings your UI will be output in Full HD and your 4K content will be output in 4K. If you have any doubt, feel free to upload some logs so we can verify that your settings are indeed correct.

[mtv]

Check this thread

Vero 4k + - All my Atmos Demos are broken after the October update

Hi Guys! I have some hd sound demos in my media library on my Synology NAS - played these demos several times in the past but after the october update all Atmos demos are broken (DTS:X, HDR, THX demos played well) with stutters, no sound or connection lost errors… made a short clip of this… And here are the logs: https://paste.osmc.tv/ijahovexux Tested also two Atmos movies (Alita - Battle Angel and Bumblebee) for some minutes and both played fine without any problems so i have …

[sam_nazarko]

I suspect this is already fixed in staging as linked above.

[darwindesign]

Is this only when you first start the movie, or something that reoccurs? If you have Kodi setup to adjust to optimal video output (like with the settings that bmillham posted above) then having your display (and possibly AVR) blackout while it adjusts resolution/frame rate/bit depth it completely normal. You can set Kodi to pause the video while this happens if you want (settings>system>display>delay after change of refresh rate).

[Ripstop]

Thanks for the replies guys… I have already read quite a bit on optimising the setup and have the gui set to 1080p and played with the the chroma setting and for me it doesnt seem to matter if this is forced to 4:2:2 or not. I also have the start/stop setting enabled. What I will do is look at the delay setting on streaming in Kodi… This only happens at startup so it is probably a handshaking issue I think. I will have a play later today and let you know. Happy New year!

[Ripstop]

Ok here is my first attempt at capturing the screen blackout which appears about 5 secs after the file starts to load. So the order of events is select play, file starts to load (sometimes some buffering is seen on the lower status information bar), the film plays about 4 secs, then about 5 secs of blackout and then audio and film start correctly. I also noticed that the Vero is showing 50Hz before the switch to 24.976. I can supply the whole log for this one example if you tell me how?

I think the crucial part of the log is this and its the 5-6 second delay at 21:21:55 to 21:22:01:-

2020-01-01 21:21:55.611 T:4064161792 DEBUG: Activating window ID: 12005
2020-01-01 21:21:55.613 T:4064161792 DEBUG: ------ Window Deinit (MyVideoNav.xml) ------
2020-01-01 21:21:55.618 T:4064161792 DEBUG: FreeVisualisation() done
2020-01-01 21:21:55.625 T:4064161792 DEBUG: ------ Window Init (VideoFullScreen.xml) ------
2020-01-01 21:21:55.631 T:3236950752 DEBUG: OnAVChange: CApplication::OnAVChange
2020-01-01 21:21:55.632 T:4064161792 DEBUG: ------ Window Deinit (DialogBusy.xml) ------
2020-01-01 21:21:55.705 T:4022334176 DEBUG: ActiveAE::SyncStream - average error of 19.319291, start adjusting
2020-01-01 21:21:55.705 T:4022334176 DEBUG: ActiveAE::SyncStream - average error 0.319291 below threshold of 30.000000
2020-01-01 21:21:55.769 T:4053791456 DEBUG: CEGLNativeTypeAmlogic: Detected HDMI switch
2020-01-01 21:21:56.710 T:3267474144 DEBUG: CDVDClock::ErrorAdjust - CVideoPlayerAudio::OutputPacket - error:-12708.497197, adjusted:-12708.497197
2020-01-01 21:22:00.619 T:3259081440 DEBUG: CPtsTracker: detected pattern of length 1: 41708.33, frameduration: 41708.333333
2020-01-01 21:22:01.571 T:3259081440 DEBUG: CalcFrameRate framerate was:25.000000 calculated:23.976024
2020-01-01 21:22:01.618 T:3259081440 DEBUG: CRenderManager::Configure - change configuration. 1920x1080. display: 1920x1080. framerate: 23.98.
2020-01-01 21:22:01.656 T:4064161792 DEBUG: DeleteRenderer - deleting renderer
2020-01-01 21:22:01.656 T:4064161792 INFO: Constructing CRendererAML
2020-01-01 21:22:01.656 T:4064161792 DEBUG: CRenderManager::Configure - 8
2020-01-01 21:22:01.662 T:3296178912 DEBUG: OnAVChange: CApplication::OnAVChange
2020-01-01 21:22:01.673 T:4064161792 NOTICE: Whitelist search for: width: 1920, height: 1080, fps: 23.976, 3D: false
2020-01-01 21:22:01.673 T:4064161792 DEBUG: Whitelist is empty using default one
2020-01-01 21:22:01.674 T:4064161792 DEBUG: Trying to find exact refresh rate
2020-01-01 21:22:01.674 T:4064161792 DEBUG: Matched exact whitelisted Resolution 1920x1080 @ 23.98 - Full Screen (23)
2020-01-01 21:22:01.674 T:4064161792 NOTICE: Display resolution ADJUST : 1920x1080 @ 23.98 - Full Screen (23) (weight: -0.000)
2020-01-01 21:22:01.872 T:4064161792 NOTICE: VideoPlayer: OnLostDisplay received
2020-01-01 21:22:01.872 T:4064161792 DEBUG: Flush - flushing renderer

[ActionA]

@Ripstop

I can supply the whole log for this one example if you tell me how?

There is a detailed link posted by @bmillham in the very first reply to your OP.

[angry.sardine]

@Ripstop

screen blackout which appears about 5 secs after the file starts to load

This sounds like an issue I’ve seen. In my case what’s causing it is that the Vero, for some reason, doesn’t switch resolution and refresh rate when playback starts.

So if the Kodi UI runs at 1080p/60 and the video is 1080p/23.976, it starts playing at 1080p/60; then, a few seconds in, it suddenly seems to realise and changes to the correct res and refresh rate for the video. The screen goes dark until the TV resyncs.

This only affects m2ts playback, not MKV.

[sam_nazarko]

There’s been some discussion in the Kodi slack about the M2TS parser and there will likely be a fix for this shortly.

[Ripstop]

And I can confirm it doesn’t happen on an MKV 1:1 conversion for the same film. With M2TS its does the handshake shimmy at the start. With the same size MKV (No compression) it works fine from a USB although you could argue its a networky thing but I think its almost conclusively the frame rate/screen refresh handshake that’s causing the problem.
Now just waiting for the fix as I don’t really want to convert all my films

[Simonski1997]

Hello all.
Could I ask what fixed in staging means, does it mean it will be fixed on the next update?
Regards

[sam_nazarko]

I have replied to your other post.