Homatics Box R 4K Plus

Help & Support Hardware
5293

I don’t believe Kodi on Android is capable of handling DTDL (image formats or mp4/mkv container). I thought that was CoreElec feature only.

Last thing to try. Keep cache size at 256MB, but instead of Adaptive caching, set to 8x instead. Does that make a difference?

If not, I might just upgrade box to Am6b+ and call it a day. We know it works on there. Maybe the reason it doesn’t work on S905X4 SOC is slower processor constraint, maybe it is a bug in Kodi with Adaptive caching mechanism, but whatever it is, easier to just change HW to solve it.

We know that S904 boxes struggle with VC-1 remuxes. This maybe another quirk between S904 and the faster S922 in Am6b+.

5294

I tried on my shield pro 2019 but i couldn’t get Kodi to trigger DV on ISO. Only on MKV.

5295

Right, it is because Android on Kodi is behind CoreElec in terms of image format playback. That functionality does not exist.

Android on MKV or MP4 will trigger DV, but no FEL obviously. Whether container holds STDL or DTDL video, it is playing back with RPU only (MEL/P8).

5296

I tried on 256mb and 7x and 10x (there is no 8x, at least on the build I’m on) and still have the same issue.

I ordered an AM6B+ already so I’ll probably use that for CoreELEC exclusively and the Dune HD for other things.

5297

Not a software optimization issue?

5298

Such sample helps. It’s again a DV dual layer issue.
Not sure what is different in the sample yet.

Such DV dual layer are only supported by CoreELEC, so tests on other devices/platforms are useless.

5299

For DTDL you are correct but that is not what a P7 FEL MKV container uses. That uses STDL where the BL and EL are interleaved into a single track.

The Shield 2019 can process these STDL MKVs, but will only use the RPU data to generate DV output and it will ignore the full enhancement layer.

My test was just meant to rule out any flaws in the core Kodi buffering code, nothing more.

5300

I don’t talk about “single track”. It’s about “dual track”.
The problem is on “single track” the BL+EL merge is already done, like start playback from beginning, so it does match 100%.

When “dual track” the EL and BL are merged how they arrive - and there is the issue. It sometimes does not seek correct and BL+EL result is a mixture of wrong packages.

5301

You are correct. I repeated my test with the STDL MKV of Godzilla Minus One and I noticed that the 8-second buffer also sometimes dips down to 80% even before doing a seek. But it doesn’t affect playback, so that’s not really an issue.

5302

It’s a historical Kodi buffer issue.
I tried to rework it a bit already but it must be reworked much more.
Now video buffer + audio buffer is linked together.
Both must reach a “good” level to work properly.

But like here after seek the video buffer get filled to 100% but the audio packages are so small so the buffer get only filled 1-2%.

But as now the video buffer is 100% there are no more packages read from stream at all. So the audio buffer can also never be filled → reset stream after a timeout. This happens until “enough” data is available again.

This handling is faulty and video and audio buffer must be separate handled to not block each other.

We “fixed” it my revert the buffer levels back to Nexus level again.
40MB for video and 32MB for audio.
But when this video seek a setup like 40MB video and 2MB audio is need.
Then it works again. But next seek does require 40/32MB again…

Such rework will be a long term work as it affect playback for all media on all devices.

3 Likes
5303

Wrong for AM6B+, because it CAN play FEL on Android, and you can check it here

5304

Yeah sorry, I forgot about that, I was thinking of the Shield :smiley:

5305

Thanks for doing the research.

Would this be worth creating an issue for on the Kodi github?

Or maybe contact “fritsch” and “jogal” from Team Kodi at the Kodi forums?

5306

Maybe it’s a good idea to refer to the source code of the Panasonic UHD Blu-ray player
https://docs.connect.panasonic.com/oss/bdplayer/AWBPP18A.html

5307

As TK do not support CE nor DV dual layer, no.

I did something about it in past and will need to check how this works now. I am not sure if this would be upstreamed as they have no need for it because if no media support at all.

5308

Not always, you can create DTDL FEL MKVs as well. Just that ‘best practice’ from remuxing groups always use STDL.

5309

I know. Some release groups did this some years ago when they just started with DV remuxes. I did some testing with them earlier this year when Portisch was working on FEL support and found out that if you feed such a DTDL MKV to MakeMKV, it will “fix” it for you by converting it to STDL.

5310

I’m trying to install CoreElec on my Dune Homatics box but keep getting thrown into the Android Recovery screen. What do I do from there? I tried the reset button method and the boot CoreElec app with the same results.

5311

From AndroidTV, in ADB type reboot update, to boot from USB.

adb shell reboot update

or use this app to issue the adb command for you.

5312

I’ll try the ABD command using the app.

I already tried using Reboot to CoreELEC 5.0 and got that Android Recovery screen.