New firmware v2.0.5 version(beta) for ZIDOO X9S release

Why you are not setting the UI of Zidoo to 1080p 60hz 444 12bit and use the automatic framerate and resolution. Start a 4K HDR and forget about what is sent and look at picture. When starting your Zidoo the EDID from your TV with all information will be pass and ZIDOO should output the max your TV can when changing resolution and framerate.

 

Because I'm still learning how this thing works with my setup and from other posts in here and other threads it seems the Zidoo is not correctly sending things out in all cases. I just pointed out that setting everything to Auto causes the boot issue. If the player was acting correctly, it shouldn't be sending my screen into a fit during boot.

The Ziddo shouldn't be sending out the maximum a TV reports it can display if those settings exceed HDMI 2.0 spec. My boot issue shows why it should be sending out the max signal possible while still remaining in spec. They can't expect every user to know the full HDMI spec chart. It seems to me the Zidoo is more than happy to exceed it, which is causing some of the confusion here.

I also have banding to think about, and frame rate stutters. This still doesn't address why 10bit has banding but 12bit doesn't.

To be clear, I'm still trying to figure out how the HDMI settings work with "Switch frame rate and resolution". If I set HDMI to 1080p@60Hz (which should apply to the UI and boot, correct?), and enable "Switch frame rate and resolution" (which I have enabled currently), then what should we be setting deep color and color space to? Because I watch a variety of programming, from DVD to 1080p blu-ray files to 4k/UHD. And with banding being an issue, I have no idea how deep color and color space mode settings work together in this player. Should those always just remain on AUTO too?

 

For 4K in you TV you must choose HDMI ULTRA deep color, in general settings. May this will help with the auto behavior.

 

I've done that already. It doesn't help. I can enable HDMI Ultra Deep Color for each HDMI input separately. The Zidoo is plugged into HDMI port 1, and Ultra Deep Color is enabled for HDMI port 1 in the TV settings.

But as I said, that TV setting doesn't specify if Ultra Deep Color is for 10bit or also for 12bit. All I know is 12bit looks better for banding than 10bit with the Zidoo, but 12bit causes boot issues for me, and caused lots of flashing for me before I upgraded the HDMI able to HDMI 2.0 certified. Now the screen no longer flashes when playing video with 12bit enabled, but I have the boot issue, which I didn't have with the HDMI 1.4 cable.

 

- ZDMC does not play any of my HDR demo clips (over a dozen in various frame rates). HDR does not engage, and videos start freezing up immediately and lock up. They play okay on the ZidooPlayer. I have not tried Kodi as I haven't installed it yet. I mention this because in another thread I was asked to try playing an HDR demo clip in ZDMC or Kodi to see how it compares to playback with the ZidooPlayer.

 

Also, because litlegi74 said this on the previous page:

"Another disappointment... 1080p suffers from the wrong color space and framerate.
Auto Deep Color and Color Space default to the wrong values of 444 @ 12 bit... Which in turn gets the framerate wrong as well. 23.973 instead if the actual 23.976.
One dropped frame every 5min 33sec."

So as I said, I have no idea at this point what modes actually send out what it should be sending out.

At least if I could trust that the Zidoo would output what it's supposed to, I wouldn't mind switching resolutions for some things, like forcing 2160p when viewing high-res slideshows, or when wanting to force 1080p or 480p output to let my TV upscale, but when factoring in that reports show the Zidoo isn't even outputting correctly, that leaves me and others feeling lost.

 

Is your screen actualy 12 bit ?
What screen do you have ?

And does going 10 bit resolve your issue ?

And are there actual 12 bit screens out now or 12 bit content ?

 

why on earth you have to do that man?? booting several times in a row

maybe something wrong with your box, returning is the best option i think

 

Because of media players... I haven't owned a optical Blu-ray player for many years. But I wanted to check the frame rate of an actual Blu-ray player vs media player.

To my surprise... Even the Sony Blu-ray I purchased today does not output the "correct" frame rate of 23.976... but rather 23.973.



I guess the guys over at HDFury have got it right when they say:

Actually very few devices will report the correct frame rate.
It is all about the clock frequency, the theory is 24/1.001 = 23.976023976
BUT there is no PLL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-locked_loop) at the source that actually gives a corresponding clock which would yield that.
So once a signal leaves the source, the clock is always off and usually ebbs and flows, means changes all the time.
We just decided to show what it really is from the particular source rather than approximating what it should be as many are doing since they cannot
report exact frame rate like we are doing with Vertex

 

OK very interesting, so it seems the only mode with wrong framerate is 23.976 4k 12bit 4:4:4

 

Probably h264 encode at 23,973 (old encode from DVD) and h265 at 23,976.... You can not have media info with the right framerate since it use 24 or 24000/1001... It could even came from TV at 23,973. I watch a lot of my old and new movie without having framedrop... I mean I haven't notice it.

 

You're misunderstanding me. I don't have to boot several times in a row. I'm testing. That's the point I'm trying to make. As soon as I bought the new cable, I noticed two things:

1) the cable fixed my screen flashing black with deep color enabled
2) the screen freaked out during boot

So obviously I did further testing. Upon the next few boots, the screen didn't freak out. Which led to more testing. So what I was saying was that every few boots, the screen freaks out.

 

- my panel is technically 8-bit, according to the best info I can find on AVS forums. LG claims 10-bit, but there's evidence that points to it being 8-bit , with LG using dithering to achieve the billion colors it claims.

- I don't know if there are 12-bit panels. I doubt it. Dolby Vision supports 12bit, when 12bit panels eventually hit the market. But that's why I have been questioning why the Zidoo improves banding with 12bit over 10bit. If my panel is 8bit or 10bit, why does the 12bit setting have less banding? It doesn't make sense, since whether the Zidoo is set to 10bit or 12bit the video should look the same from what I understand.

- the 10-bit setting on the Zidoo eliminates the screen freaking out during boot, but then there is more banding on some 4k/HDR material. 12bit brings the boot issue, but the banding is improved.

 

Wesk05 over on the Kodi forums said this about this player:

"As for the refresh rate issue, it is present only for 2160p 4:4:4 mode. The output refresh rate is different for 10-bit and 12-bit. It is 23.982 for 12-bit and 23.988 for 10-bit. These offsets will theoretically cause stutter every 166.67 and 83.33 seconds resp. This is probably the reason why it has gone unnoticed.

23.982 and 23.988 are the actual refresh rates for 2160p 23.976fps content when the output is set to 12 or 10-bit YCbCr 4:4:4 resp. Other frame rates are not affected.

24.000/25.000/30.000/50.000/60.000 are perfect. 29.970/59.940 have minor offsets but I wouldn't worry about it."

So it sounds like 23.976 @ 4k 4:4:4 10bit/12bit - with the refresh rate being different between 10bit and 12bit. And he also mentions 29.970/59.940 being off.

But - since litlegi74 just verified that the frame rates previously being reported by his testing device are not accurately representing what the devices are putting out, the question I have now is:

- Are the 23.976 @ 4k 4:4:4 10bit/12bit and 29.970/59.940 frame rates actually a problem, or were those readings also flawed? Wesk05 said in the Kodi forum that he was using his HDMI analyzer to measure the frame rates, so do we run into the same issue with those findings that litlegi74 discovered today with his testing? Is there really an issue with these frame rates, or is it just being falsely reported?

 

Actually the Vertex is accurately displaying the devices frame rate... rather than showing the approximation of what it should be as many devices are doing since they cannot report the exact frame rate.

Wouldn't it be nice if Zidoo commented on all of this? Maybe when they come back from holiday?

 

Thanks very much for going out of your way to run these tests. So then does this mean that no device, not even blu-ray players, actually puts out exactly 23.976? Do I understand that correctly? If that's the case, that's interesting because of course none of us ever have any stutters with blu-ray players. This leaves me wondering if we have any 23.976 frame rate issues at all? Or is it just some confusion over what is being reported?

Yes, it would be great if we could hear from Zidoo on this matter.

 

I havnt noticed frame drops with 1080p 23.976 so I think we can say that is outputting OK, its only 4K where I think theres a problem.

 

I only use mkv 4K from 20mbps to 70mbps and I haven't encounter any problem, maybe with iso.

 

Yes I'm the same - only mkv remuxes of UHD discs and the stutter is definitely there about every 4 mins.

 

Several years ago I bought a media player that used the 1186 chipset. I immediately noticed a stutter every 42 seconds with 23.976 material. It turns out that chipset by default output 23.976 as 24.000, causing that stutter. Some people in the AVS forum insisted that there was no stutter because they couldn't see it, even though I said I saw it both in real movies and motion bar tests. After several weeks of people insisting I was flat out wrong, somebody finally reported on the 1186 bug, and suddenly more people came forward to report the stutter. Finally some players like the Mede8er fixed the issue. Some didn't. But some people insisted that they couldn't see the stutter.

My point is just that not everyone is sensitive to this kind of micro stutter, and just because a couple people report not seeing a stutter, doesn't necessarily mean there is no stutter. I mean no offense. I'm just pointing out that some people just don't see this kind of stutter. It's hard to notice in movies. For some it's very annoying while others don't even see it.

At this point I don't know if this player is having frame rate issues or not. I just think we shouldn't dismiss any possibilities until we know for fact whether its correctly or incorrectly outputting what it should. We shouldn't drop the issue just because somebody says they don't see a stutter.