Recommended Settings and other useful stuff for RTD 1619BPD Players

OK - its a matter of what you intend to use the Zidoo for. If its purely for movies and TV then remember that all the new range have the exact same chip and software for video playback. At the end of the day you do with what you are comfortable with. I have a 2 bay Synology NAS - but that is sufficient for my modest library. However I also use to to run a number of other services on it as well.

 

Is there no quality differences between the 2600 and 5000 if purely playing only mkv files via hdmi? I use the 2600 as a guide only because it popped up as available from Amazon in my region which would take some of the pressure of buying off my shoulders with Amazon's return policy compared to purchasing the 5000 from a private company.
Martin.

 

I started in media boxes nearly 20 years ago and my main reason was to get rid of DVD menus. When I look back they're nothing like as bad as the time vampires we get on BluRay discs these days - so yes, MKV is definitely the way forward.

Yes, you can rip multiple versions - I use MakeMKV - takes a bit of figuring out, but that's half the fun...

HT4 (Home Theatre V4) is the Posterwall application - very flexible, although can be problematic once you get beyond say 1000 movies on one wall.

There used to be some superb videos here created by a @OlivierQC and these would have been perfect for you to understand how it all hangs together. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, he deleted the videos from Youtube which is a massive loss to all of us.

 

No difference between any of the models from the Z9X Pro upwards.

Premium models add bigger cases, internal power supplies, hard disc caddies and DACs for audio (music), but for video over HDMI, they are all identical.

I'm with @blenky on this one - Z9X Pro and network storage.

 

20 years? You were quite ahead of the curve, Mark.
At that time I was still in the UK AV industry convincing punters that high end dvd players were the future.
For movies it will be mostly blu ray and now uhd going forward when possible.
For the tv side of things it will still be overwhelmingly dvd as we do love old British tv shows which are mostly still dvd only.
Will I notice any improvement or degradation going from using a ps3 slim as my main disc spinner since 2007?I
Martin.

 

Can't remember if I started with an old Pixel Magic box or a Sony Media PC (which I still have in the attic!) but yeah, it was around 2005.

I was in the UK AV industry too - used to own one of the biggest AV installation companies in the UK - 250 employees and 750 sub contractors at peak as I remember... Happy days... And some unhappy ones too... But never dull.

The last Playstation I owned was a PS2, so not a clue

But I think the Zidoo will produce a 720x576 image on a 3840x2160 TV as well as anything can...

 

Well, just received my new laptop this afternoon, I really am starting from scratch here, and the first thing I downloaded was makemkv.
My new hobby begins now.
Thank you both for your advice and thanks in advance for any stupid questions I might ask in the future.
Martin.

 

OK, looking into the Z9X Pro as suggested and have a couple of questions..
1. Is the interface the same as on the higher tier models? The black and white pictures of film cans on a black background for the media centre etc.
2. what difference in the real world does the memory included have an effect on? it shows the Z9X Pro as 4gb, the Z2000 as 16gb, the Z2600 as 32gb and the UHD5000 as 64gb.
Martin.

 

1. No, the higher models starting at the Z2000 Pro have the black interface, the Z9X and Z20 Pro have the standard Android one. However, the black interface can be installed on the lower models if you wish. HT4 is the same on all models.

2. All models except the UHD5000 have 4GB memory and 32GB storage. The UHD5000 has 4GB memory and 64GB storage. Since all models use the same memory and same SOC (System On a Chip), video performance is identical in all models.

 

Cheers Mark,
I got those figures from Amazon.es, it is a third party seller so I'm not surprised its wrong.
Thanks for the help, again.
Martin.

 

You can download the apk from this link

https://www.mcbluna.net/wp/zidoo/zidoo-ziuicancer-v2-5-2-mcbluna-net/

Also has instruction on how to install and use. I use it as I think it's better than the standard with the Z9X Pro.

 

Thanks for that Blenky, probably be a while before I get to use that but I have made a note of the link for future reference.
Your suggestions did lead me down a different rabbit hole and after a sleepless night of research has cost me a bloody fortune.
I decided to order a third 16tb ironwolf pro giving me the option of going raid 5 for peace of mind as well as an eight bay nas for future expandability.
Then I thought what the hell and ordered a ups psu as an extra layer of security for the system.
The wife was not impressed, but it's ok, I blamed you!
Martin.

 

Well, where do I begin?
Had everything for about a week now and it is not going well.
Set it all up last Saturday and everything seemed straightforward, started to rip my discs and marvel at the results, excellent.
Then I started feeling that the images were a little on the dull and soft side and couldn't help feeling a little buyers remorse, never mind, probably my unit, right?
So as I love the interface and the trailers on the individual titles pages I decide to double down, Ordered the UHD5000.
Set it up at the weekend and WOW, the image was the polar opposite of what I had been seeing for the past week, patted myself on the back and continued to rip.
Get up early Sunday morning for another ripping session and... Oh, what is going on? The picture is dull and lifeless again, then I noticed the trailers had stopped working.
Next was the real kick in the nuts, certain movies became a complete juddery mess, The Searchers, Rio Bravo and Gone with the Wind to name a few, all ripped from Blu-Ray play up constantly.
Also the menu interface became sluggish and also seemed soft and dull.
All the Discs are meticulously cleaned before ripping and play back fine on windows media player using the laptop I am ripping with.
I now do not know my next step.
I am the first to admit I am a complete novice with this stuff and it could all be down to my own incompetence but I keep re treading my steps from setting up the NAS, using TMDB and TVDB to make sure I'm naming the files correctly and following the setup parameters for these units as laid out by Mark in his recommended settings thread.
I updated the UHD5000 to the latest firmware 1.0.75 but no luck there, the Z9X Pro was still on 1.0.65 I believe.
Now I am staring at both units boxed up and contemplating if I should send them back.
Any feedback here would be greatly appreciated.
Martin.

 

I don't rip blurays I get hold of them pre ripped! These are mostly .MKV and all play without issue. Seems odd that they play fine and then suddenly not.

It would help to explain how you ripped the disks?

Are these 1080p or UHD? SDR, HDR10 or DV?

Provide a mediainfo report on the files to see if that shows up anything obvious

Provide a few samples by using MKVToolNix to create 1 to 5 minute samples of your rips and post on a sharing site like Mega.

 

Hi Blenky,
I have ripped them all using Make MKV, for the Blu-Rays they are full straight rips of what is on the disc into MKV files, not ISO's.
4K rips and DVD rips are no problem, they work fine. Its just the full HD Blu-Ray rips, not all, only seems to be Warner Bros titles and then only of older films, modern stuff seems to work.
As for the media info thing and the toolnix stuff, I will need first to find out what they are, as I stated I am very green on all this, its still my first week of digital media school.
Martin.

 

Get MediaInfo from https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo. Install and then you can right click a media file in Windows Explorer and you should see an option to use MediaInfo.

Download MKVToolNix from here https://mkvtoolnix.download/downloads.html

Its simple to use. Load it up and add a problematic MKV. You can simply drag and drop the file into the 'Input' section. See first screen shot below

Go to the 'Output' tab on the left. There is a section on the left called 'Splitting'. Here change 'Do not split' to 'After output duration'. In the 'Duration' box add '300s' for five minutes. See second screen shot below.

Then click 'Start multiplexing' button at the bottom. MKVToolNix will now start to split the movie into 5 minute segments. Watch the output folder and when the second 5 minute clip is being created you can abort the process by click 'Job Output' on the left side and then 'Abort Job' at the bottom. See third screen shot below.

To upload you can create a free account at mega - https://mega.nz/. After upload you can generate a link that people on here can use to download and test.

 

Hello Mark. It looks like you have a similar setup to myself with a JVC eshift (I have the RS540U), Vertex2 and Zidoo Z9x PRO. Once the Vertex2 is setup for LLDV which settings do you choose for LLDV output from the Zidoo?

Would it be this one?
Dolby Vision VS10 Engine (Output DV)
Uses VS10 to output GUI and all content as Dolby Vision (as long as EDID allows).

or this one?
Dolby Vision Low Latency (LLDV, YUV422/444/RGB, 10/12-bit)
Uses VS10 to output GUI and all content as LLDV (as long as EDID allows).
Available colour sub-sampling levels and bit depth options for LLDV are dependent on EDID.

Would that change if I throw a MadVR/VideoProcessor PC after the Vertex? It doesn't support 12-bit.

Would the HDMI input of the 5000 strip off HDCP and allow the connected device to use LLDV through the Zidoo?

 

Thanks for that Blenky, I will try to make good use of it all though it might take me a little while.
I have a feeling my problems may turn out to be me making a pigs ear of the communication between the NAS and the player, as I mentioned earlier the Zidoo's GUI seemed to slow down considerably but if I unplugged the ethernet cable from the player it became responsive again.
Martin.

 

I use LLDV 12-bit 4:2:2.

I thought MadVR supports 12-bit - certainly 12-bit 4:2:2?

You'd have experiment with MadVR - probably ideally HDR Auto but that will cause resyncs on the PJ and you want to avoid that as much as possible.

Vs10 (Ouput HDR) would be a good place to start.