Review: Zidoo Z9X

This is the first player to use the Dolby Vision variant of the new Realtek SoC, namely the RTD1619DR. This is the strongest differentiator to the previous launched Dune Pro 4K II, which does not support Dolby Vision.
This implementation goes further than just playing Dolby Vision content. The incorporated Dolby Vision VS10 engine is also able to convert HDR to SDR and vice versa. This is a major improvement compared to Realtek’s SDR/HDR conversion.
The Z9X is also the only media player to support all major HDR format: HDR10 (static meta data), broadcast friendly HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma) plus the dynamic formats HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.

The Hardware:
With the latest SoC comes an increase in power as well as its based upon an ARM Cortex A55 hexa-core CPU with 1.3 GHz which is coupled with 2GB of RAM. The Z9X offers only half the RAM compared to the Dune Pro 4K II, but there is no real speed difference.


The I/O is as follows:
On the back of the device:

Wifi-antennas
Gigabit ethernet
HDMI 2.0 output
HDMI 2.0 input
Optical S/PDIF
A/V out (analog output)
RS232

On the right side:
External SATA connection
2x USB 3.0

On the left side;
2x USB 2.0

The package and what’s inside:




The case:
The case of the Z9X has the same footprint as the Dune Pro 4K II, which can be seen in the pictures below. Due to the lack of chamfered edges around the top the case looks just a tiny bit less premium than the Dune. Furthermore, the WiFi antennas can’t be detached.
If you want all that from a Zidoo device you have plenty of options which offer different sizes, detachable WiFi antennas or internal HDD space.
Having said that, the case is also made from metal and generally has a premium and sturdy feel.
The front panel has just the right size to display the elapsed or remaining time during playback without being distracted. There are also indicators for the resolution like 4K and network connectivity, but these are too small to be visible for a normal viewing distance. Its brightness can be adjusted or it can be disabled altogether.

 

The remote:
Not only does the remote offer backlighting when pressing a key (it can be disabled if you want) but it also has excellent IR range. You are not forced to point the remote directly at the player in order to get the button press recognised. This is a significant difference to the Dune Pro 4K II, which has dreadful IR range.
While the key press for some buttons like play or FWD can be a bit mushy it still offers a meaningful better experience than the remote of the equivalent Dune. The most frequently used buttons on the remote, the D pad, offers excellent key travel and feedback making navigating the player feel swiftly.
Overall the remote is decent but you also have the option to use the remote of your TV for example as CEC functionality works as expected.



The graphical user interface (GUI):
Navigating the overall GUI doesn’t feel differently in terms of speed compared to the Dune, although it uses only half the RAM. Again, the GUI is only displayed at 1080p and not 2160p. Sadly, this holds true for almost all media players and even TVs running Android. This fact makes text and pictures less sharp compared to players like the Apple TV 4K, which offer a GUI in 2160p.
One aspect to consider is that the Zidoo, unless the Dune, uses Android 9 instead of Android TV. This might present some problems for Android Apps as they run the mobile version and not the TV optimised version.

The start screen when booting the device:

File browser. For fast access you can add your shares or external drives as favourites:


Its also directly visible which videos you have already watched or which your are watching:

Poster Wall 4.0:
The Poster Wall is Zidoo’s own media center which pulls all videos from your sources, be it network shares or external hard drives into one library with artwork and meta data like frame rate and codec. Interestingly it resembles infuse on the Apple TV from a layout point of view (at least the start screen). It has no problems with indexing large collections at all. The scanning process is very quick as well.

Start screen:


Movie details:

Trailer are accessible from the details view:

See all the actors:

Get more details of the actor and see which movies with that actor are in your database:

The ability to alter which categories are displayed:

Custom categories can be added:

Filter movies or go to the settings:

Scanning in progress. You can add several sources (network shares, external HDDs) and combine them to a single database:

 

Settings of the movie wall:
Child lock:

Language setting:

Configure the layout to your needs:





Location of the DB:

Backup the DB:
]
Background can be changed:

Identifying is not very good:

The TV episode “Ray.Donovan.S04E01 Girl with a Guitar.mkv” gets recognised as a movie. Unfortunately this happens frequently. It should only use words that are before SXXEXX to identify which TV show it is. Instead it uses the name of the episode and often identifies it as a movie.
Same here:

This is due to the fact that Zidoo’s scraper is confused by the dots in “Ray.Donovan” as these dots are reserved for separating descriptors (codecs etc.). Therefore the name should just be “SeriesName.SxxExx” and nothing else.
Having said that, its very likely that many users are getting their content from the scene which exclusively uses these dots. So this is something that Zidoo should take into account in the future.

 

Different poster sizes:

Different views:

Collections:

TV shows - Seasons:


Overall HT 4.0 has great potential once the matching of TV shows has been improved. One possibility to mitigate this shortcoming would be the integration of Emby/Jelllyfin or Plex. Not only is the matching excellent on these platforms, it would also mean that your watched status is synced across all your devices.
Another aspect of improvement is the resolution. Stepping it up from 1080p to 2160p would make it just that more sharp and beautiful.

Zidoo Controller App:
With Zidoo’s app for Smartphones and Tablets one is able to navigate network shares, alter several settings while playback or simply browse your library and start a movie.
One can also quickly scrub through a video or use it as a complete remote replacement. The only real drawback is that the app only works in portrait mode and not landscape (at least on iPadOS and iOS).

Start screen:

Browsing shares:

Apps can be started directly from the app as well:

Start screen of Home Theater 4.0:

Categories:

One can even start a scan of the database or add a new source directly via the app:

TV show details:

 

Season details:

Movie details. Unlike Home Theater on the player itself it’s not possible to show all videos with a certain actor/actress by clicking on his/her photo in the app.

Playback controls. It’s even possible to display basic media info as well as output format.

Changing audio tracks. Sadly, the names of the audio tracks are not shown but only the language, basic codec, no. of channels and sampling rate

Subtitles can be downloaded conveniently as well:

Search function:

Remote control functions:

Some settings for the app as well as regarding Home Theater 4.0. The blue playback button can be moved around the screen and is only shown while playback. When pressing this one is taking directly to the playback controls.


Most of the settings of the Z9X are accessible:

Links:
iTunes: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zidoo-controller/id1477712512
Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zidoo.control.phone&hl=en_US

 

Playback:
The overall playback is very good and quite similar to what Dune offers so that the appropriate parts were copies from the Dune review.

Let’s start with the good:
Starting, stopping, skipping and time seek are extremely fast most of the time. While this speed could sometimes vary depending on the content on the Dune, the same is true for Zidoo but the gaps seem to a bit narrower. Still, these operations are newer slow (except for DV, see details alter). As with previous models Zidoo supported the forced flag within mkv for subtitles and of course this capability is supported on the Z9X as well. While this should be considered a basic feature, especially on Realtek SoCs it has been problematic for a long time.
In case your display device relies upon HDR10 meta data for tone mapping, the Z9X can send the correct data. You also have the option to disable this in the settings.
In addition, the correct frame rate depending on the content will be send and there are no frame drops. This has been confirmed with an HDFury by @Markswift2003 and also with specific test videos. Its worth mentioning that the almost obsolete VC-1 codec does not produce irregular stutter which plagued some previous Realtek SoCs.
As mentioned in the introduction this player is able to playback Dolby Vision, not only in mp4 container but also inside mkv. However, the mkv implementation is still in the beta stages at this point. The Dolby Vision support includes profiles 5, 8 and 9. These are basically all important profiles except the profile 7, which is used for UHD BDs. That said at least profile 7 MEL (minimal enhancement layer) triggers Dolby Vision but it couldn’t be verified whether it actually uses the DV data or not. Profile 7 with FEL (full enhancement layer) is played back at HDR10 as it only uses that HDR10 layer. Although the important profile 7 is not officially supported by Zidoo there is some progress being made in developing a tool by a user called yusesope over at the makeMKV forums for converting a profile 7 into 8, which can be played by Zidoo.
Very similar to Dune the Z9X offers a source direct function and also the ability to change the chroma upsampling and bit depth for different resolutions and frame rates (see the pictures under the “settings” section to see the available options).
While playback of Dolby Vision is limited to mp4 and mkv so that there is no playback of DV with UHD BDs, the same does not apply do HDR10+ and its triggered for full menu playback as well.
YouTube’s 4K HDR specification (VP 9.2) do work with file playback, not for the YouTube app though.
In 2020 its suffice to say that all major HD audio formats like Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD MA/HR and DTS:X are bit streamed flawlessly.

Decoder torture test:
The jellyfish 2160p29.97 AVC test plays butter smooth up until 200 mbit and starts only to stutter with a bitrate of 250 mbit. The same is true for HEVC 2160p files. Please note that this is more of a “peace of mind” aspect than actual real world benefit as there is no commercial content on streaming or physical media that offers such a high bitrate.

The Bad:
While the forced flag is supported, the default flag is not supported for either audio nor subtitles. However, one is able to set a default language under “settings - playback - default language”. In case there are several audio tracks with different audio language present on a video, the Z9X automatically chooses your default language, no matter if it’s the first audio track or the last.
A rather annoying little behaviour is presented when resuming a video:

This notification is always shown when resume function is enabled and displayed for 10 seconds or until you press either of the options. As the resume function is already enabled in the settings and one can effortlessly jump to the beginning by simply pressing the zero on the remote, this options unnecessary.
Although the HDR format HLG is supported under some circumstances it takes a more than 20 seconds until the picture is displayed while the video already plays.
As stated earlier the Dolby Vision implementation for mkv is still in beta and this can be seen in the fact that navigating, skipping, time seek for this content is extremely sluggish.

One of the most critical issues regarding the picture quality are raised black levels which are present in some modes. @Markswift2003 made a great a table which shows the issues depending on the used mode:

Chapter names are not supported:

Names of audio tracks are not supported instead basic codec information, no. of channels and sample rate are displayed (same as Zidoo Controller app):

Audio can be moved in time (plus and minus):

Names of subtitle tracks are not supported. In case there is a subtitle track with a forced flag, a new menu item appears (forced subtitle):

Infos are shown when pressing pause:

Infos when pressing the info button during playback:

Display of complete media info output is possible as well:

PGS subtitles can be shifted up or down. That said, this is the only option for PGS subtitles, nothing else can be changed:

Way more options are available for SRT subtitles. They can even be shifted in time.:

Blu-ray:
In accordance to other brands such as Dune and Zappiti, Zidoo also included a full (UHD) BD menu playback solution, which is capable of displaying Java menus as well as support for HDR10 and HDR10+. Due to the fact that neither of these brand’s solutions is perfect here is an overview of Zidoo’s capabilities:

What works:

• playlist obfuscation
• seamless branching
• While Dune had serious problems for full menu HDR playback when skipping a chapter(it briefly sends and SDR signal, which forces the TV to resync) the Zidoo does not have such problems.

These features work, but not reliably. So depending on how/who authored the discs they might work perfectly and for others they don’t work:

• forced subtitles:

These work for some discs (Ford v Ferrari 2019) and not for others (Bad Boys 2003)

• native BD java resume function:

This produces also mixed results, at least for TV shows. Sometimes it resumes the last episode from the beginning and sometimes it starts the previous episode at the end (at the point where I selected to playback the next episode).

• correct menu language and audio setting

This is basically the same as on Dune. It works most of the time in choosing the correct menu language and audio track according to the UI settings, but sometimes in didn’t work.

While the Dune exhibit some display issues on the X-Files BD, these were not present on the Z9X. Still, it seems one has to trade in one display issue for another as Zidoo’s implementation had difficulties with elapsed and total time on the US BDs of “The 100”:

As with previous generation BD live features do not work and its not clear whether those BD live servers are any longer online anyway.

YouTube:
YouTube plays in 4K, but not in HDR:

 

Picture quality evaluation:
As in the previous review this section will compare the picture quality of the Z9X to different players, specifically the internal player of the Philips 804 and Infuse on the Apple TV 4K. The most comprehensive way to evaluate the PQ are the various test patterns provided by Spears and Munsil.

1080p AVC pattern:

Zidoo (native Realtek):


Zidoo (Dolby VS10):


Infuse:


Philips:


Extremely hard to see differences. Appears like all use the simple “nearest neighbour” method.

Zidoo (native Realtek):


Zidoo (Dolby VS10):


Infuse:


Philips:


Philips looks like the cleanest and seems to use either bicubic or bilinear. All the other players use the nearest neighbour and Zidoo shows in both, native Realtek and Dolby’s VS10, some sharpening issues which can be observed on the right side of the blue and red. In addition it’s also visible horizontally directly under the black bar.

Zidoo (native Realtek):


Zidoo (Dolby VS10):


Infuse:


Philips:


The results on the banding part look exactly like previously observed in the Dune Pro 4K II review: No banding on Philips and Infuse but Realtek produces visible banding. However, this picture changes completely once VS10 is activated as the banding is gone entirely.

2160p SDR HEVC:

Zidoo (native Realtek):


Zidoo (Dolby VS10):


Infuse:


Philips:


Zidoo on auto produces the blockiest picture by far, definitely nearest neighbour. Infuse is a little bit better, but still not smooth. Only Philips and Dolby’s VS10 produce a smooth picture, thus indicating the use of either bicubic or bilinear chroma upsampling algorithm.

Zidoo (native Realtek):


Zidoo (Dolby VS10):


Infuse:


Philips:


Note: please disregard the colour differences on the VS10 picture.
Besides that, no clear differences are visible.

 

Zidoo (native Realtek):


Zidoo (Dolby VS10):


Infuse:


Philips:


As previously observed on the 1080p AVC pattern only native Realtek produces visible banding.

2160p HDR HEVC; CLL: 600 nits, FALL: 400 nits

Zidoo (native Realtek):


Zidoo (Dolby VS10):


Infuse:


Philips:


Results are in accordance to the HEVC SDR: Native Realtek the worst, Infuse a bit better and Philips and VS are the smoothest.

Zidoo (native Realtek):


Zidoo (Dolby VS10):


Infuse:


Philips:


All players display some colour alteration around the vertical bars: Very bright green around the red bar and yellow around the blue bar. Philips and Realtek are the worst as they show both colours the clearest. Infuse shows both of them less pronounced and VS10 only barely shows the yellow shadow around the blue bar.

Zidoo (native Realtek):


Zidoo (Dolby VS10):


Infuse:


Philips:


Again, the banding is most pronounced and clearly visible with the native Realtek SoC’s decoding. Infuse shows this as well, albeit the blocks being smaller and thus less visible from a distance. Philips is much better and basically not visible from a normal viewing distance, also hard to see on the picture. Only VS10 displays the image without any banding whatsoever.

It’s clearly visible that the VS10 processing engine by Dolby fixes almost all shortcomings of Realtek’s video decoding/processing. Therefore, enabling VS10 should be the preferred setting. The only downside with having that enabled is that everything gets send to your TV at the highest capabilities of your TV. In case you have a Dolby Vision capable monitor this means that everything (no matter if its SDR or HDR10) gets send as Dolby Vision. In case you have a HDR10 capable display, everything gets send as HDR10. As a purist this is not a desirable option. It can only be hoped for that there will be a future setting that VS10 is only applied for HDR video and not SDR one.

SDR to HDR conversion:
The standard SDR to HDR conversion even in the latest Realtek SoC doesn’t do a decent job as one of its drawbacks are altering colours of the image. It could previously observed that the VS10 engine by Dolby addresses these shortcomings when it comes to chroma upsampling and banding issues. Can Dolby do its magic once more?
In order to answer this the Zidoo was set to output VS10, which in this case sends Dolby Vision to the Philips TV.

The following comparison will show a native SDR and HDR picture compared to the Dolby VS10 SDR to HDR conversion as well as Philips SDR to HDR conversion (Perfect Natural Reality set to maximum).
Please also note that these pictures do not necessarily represent the image in real life due to the limited range of the camera being used (Canon EOS 700D) and the fact that these pictures are in SDR.

native SDR:


Zidoo:


Philips:


native HDR:


Philips does a vastly decent job in creating an HDR effect. However, the colours appear to be pushed a little bit too much (especially the green) and the bright part directly above the animal’s back is too bright. Having said that, Philips algorithm can be altered in its intensity.
The VS10 processing almost looks exactly like the native HDR picture.

 

native SDR:


Zidoo:


Philips:


native HDR:


The colours of the Philips image look like the SDR version while the VS10 conversion makes them look a little dull.

native SDR:


Zidoo:


Philips:


native HDR:


Philips tends to brighten the image a little bit too much (for example the house on the lower left). The same applies for the VS although it brightens it just a little bit less aggressively.

native SDR:


Zidoo:


Philips:


native HDR:


Same as before: Both brighten the overall image a bit too much, but VS10 to a lesser extend.

native SDR:


Zidoo:


Philips:


native HDR:


Philips makes the picture look a little bit warmer and brightens the overall image. However, the sun is not as bright as it should be.
With VS10 the overall image is brighter as well, but only very little change in colour.

native SDR:


Zidoo:


Philips:


native HDR:


Philips changes the colours compared to the HDR master, they are closer in line with the SDR master. VS10 on the other hand is pretty close to the HDR master.

 

native SDR:


Zidoo:


Philips:


native HDR:


It can be seen that the VS10 processing does an excellent job in converting SDR to HDR (Dolby Vision) without altering the colours too much. It seems that VS10 also converts BT.709 to BT.2020 while Philips does not. The only aspect missing is an increased peak luminance of highlights such as the sun which the HDR master offers. Overall Dolby’s proprietary VS10 processing is the clear winner of the two.

Upscaling:

As this is not directly affected by Dolby VS10 a direct comparison with the Z9X hasn’t been made. Instead, please have a look at the Review of the Dune Pro 4K II for the SoC’s upscaling capabilities:
https://www.avsforum.com/threads/review-dune-pro-4k-ii.3164510/#post-60013141

Settings:

You have the ability to sync the frame rate of the video to the display and there is also a “pure direct” mode in which the Zidoo sends the native resolution and frame rate to the display. This is especially useful in case you have a high end video processor, which does a better job than the Realtek SoC.


In case you have one of the above options enabled you can set a fixed pause time before the video starts. This is practical in case you are a projector owner due to the extremely long HDMI sync times.


The player remembers when you stopped a video:


Default language setting for audio and subtitles:


3D to 2D conversion as the latest displays no longer support 3D:


For fast navigation while playback you can map several buttons to your specific needs. For example the number keys can be set to jump to 10% (press 1) or fast forward/rewind 15s:







Repeat mode. Mostly useful for music playback:


Settings for forced subtitles (auto is usually the correct setting in case the forced subtitles are marked as “forced”):


GUI resolution (note: set it to 23hz in case you have long HDMI sync times):

 

Similar to Dune you are able to set specific chroma subsampling for specific resolutions/frame rates:




Screen scale. Best to let it untouched at 100%:


Basic picture parameters and a preview of the changes. Its best to let this untouched as well as these settings should be set inside your display for calibration purposes only:



For HDR to SDR conversion the gamma can be changed in order to get the best picture for your specific display. However, this applies only for Realtek HDR to SDR conversion and not to VS10.


HDR settings. This allows you to specify how HDR is processed and sent to your display.


Mapping HDR10: all content (SDR/HDR) will be sent as HDR10 unless its HDR10+ in case it will sent HDR10+.
SDR Rec.709 Limited will use Realtek’s conversion and sent everything (SDR/HDR) as SDR
SDR Rec.2020 Limited similar to above, just uses rec.2020 instead
Dolby Vision VS10 Engine will process everything (SDR/HDR) to the best capabilities of your display. In case you have a HDR10 display it will process everything via the Dolby’s proprietary processing (different from Realtek’s) to HDR10. In case you have a Dolby Vision display it will output everything as “true” (TV led) Dolby Vision inside BT.2020 (that is of course if your display supports that).
In case you have a display that does both, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision (Panasonic and Philips offer those) it will output Dolby Vision as the VS10 is not able to process and/or output HDR10+.
The LLDV modes (low Latency Dolby Vision or player led Dolby Vision) can be set up to either sent an RGB or a YCbCr signal for Dolby Vision. The LLDV mode is generally the only supported DV mode used by Sony TVs. In addition, some LG and Panasonic TVs support LLDV modes as well. The important aspect of this is that no matter how you TV supports Dolby Vision, the Zidoo is able to send a DV signal to it.
Note: This depends on the EDID your TV sends so that you might not see all modes listed above.
Auto sends everything at its native dynamic range. This means that SDR gets outputted as SDR and HDR will be sent in its native format: HDR10 as HDR10, HDR10+ as HDR10+ (if you have a compatible display otherwise HDR10 will be sent) and DV as DV. This basically is the “pure direct” option for HDR and should be used in case you want the least processed picture. One noticeable downside of this auto option is that the Dolby VS10 engine will not be engaged and one is presented with the inferior Realtek processing.

This graphic gives a brief overview of the output of the different HDR modes:



The Zidoo transmits the correct HDR10 meta data to your display in case it relies on those values for its tone mapping (for example the 2020 generation of Philips OLEDs like the 805 can be set to use those values):


The HDCP version can be changed:


Screensaver (google daydream):


Customisable background:


Audio settings, RAW means bitstream:


S/PDIF audio settings:

 

In case your TV/AVR doesn’t support HD audio you can down mix it:


Change the sample rate of audio:


USB audio support:


Network settings:


Although openWRT is no longer present an SMB server is available:


Interface language:


Change behaviour when the Zidoo is connected to power:


Define the timer after HDD goes into standby:


Change behaviour of power button:


The brightness and what the front display shows can be altered:



Conclusion:

The Z9X with its Dolby Vision and VS10 support is definitely the player to get. Even if you don’t have a compatible Dolby Vision or HDR TV you can improve the picture quality due to the excellent Dolby VS10 processing. In case you do have a compatible TV you have the ability to use the excellent SDR to HDR conversion by VS10 or just use VS10 to send the HDR10 or Dolby Vision to your TV and address the shortcomings of Realtek’s video processing. While the (UHD) BD menu implementation isn’t perfect, neither is Dune’s. In fact there is little reason to buy the latter just because its considerable more expensive and lacks key features like Dolby Vision and VS10.
While Dolby Vision playback in general is still in beta, Zidoo has already published steady firmware updates to improve upon the performance.
Home Theater 4.0 provides a great future set, customisability and updates the database very fast. The only downside is that the identifying is very specific about naming the videos.

My appreciation goes to Mark and Derek for helping me with testing and proof reading/fact checking this review!

 

Reserved for later.

The Review will change with future FW updates.​

I experimented with larger pictures. Only the some information/settings pictures are small but the rest is big so that you don't need to click on it to see what the picture shows. There is a maximum of 20 pictures per post so that I had to made a little bit more posts than on other forums.
Let me know if you want that changed.

 

i have previously complained abt visible banding on Z9S in certain challenging scenes but often they were ignored or pushed aside. thx for your review highlighting it so at least i know its not a problem on my TV.

 

Thanks for the indepth review Sledgehamma

 

Great review! Thanks a lot!

 

Great!!!
Tnx alot

 

Nice review. I agree the scraping could be better.

 

Great review, as always.

What is the best option for HDR->SDR conversion?
Projector owners will appreciate this a lot.

 

Brilliant review!!

Just to reiterate what I said on AVS, I know the vast amount of time and work you've put into this and it's certainly paid off - very nice review, and you've provided an invaluable resource as always... and things will no doubt get better as development continues.