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

Also, how are people playing their files? Wireless streaming? USB thumb drive? That could make a difference. I view my movies directly off a USB 3.0 thumb drive plugged into the USB port on the Zidoo. I don't stream. Streaming could certainly cause random dropped frames in some situations. If it's a true frame rate issue, then it would be happening at regular intervals.

 

On 4K 12bit 4:4:4 it always happens at regular intervals - about every 4mins

 

I can not help you, I am stutter blind!

 

Okay, thanks for the confirmation. It does sound then like there may definitely be a frame rate issue with 23.976 @ 4k 4:4:4 10bit/12bit and also possibly 29.970/59.940. The stutters with 29.970/59.940 will be harder to see due to the faster framerate.

This stutter doesn't happen with 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 @ 4k 10bit/12bit?

 

I don't believe it does but I havn't extensively tested as these modes cause banding.

 

Yes, I have banding bad in YCbCr 422 and RGB 444 regardless of deep color setting. YCbCr 444 and YCbCr 420 give me less banding in 10-bit and much less banding in 12bit, and Deep Color off is as bad as YCbCr 422 and RGB 444. If we could at least figure out if we have the stuttering in YCbCr 420 and 422 and RGB it would help narrow down if this only happens in YCbCr 444.

 

Should you not be putting your screen on 8 bit then as thats what it is .
Your forcing your screen something it does not support .
Forget 12 bit or poss 10 bit it does not support it .

Hence your issues .

 

The same here. Tried with Kodi from Google store and the same problem

 

sorry man, better for you returning the box and ask for a new one
just like @Sarco says, i am truely stutter blind too

what i dont like is when you choose auto switch, it have to do it after the movie is play and causing a black screen flash

 

No, this is incorrect. Firstly, as I stated previously in a post I made specifically addressing banding, I get horrible banding with some UHD/HDR content, unless deep color is enabled. So obviously deep color works on my TV. Second, my TV has an "Ultra Deep Color" setting in the menu - which I can enable for each separate HDMI port. Third, my TV can display a billion colors like all other UHD HDR TVs. It just uses a different method to achieve them. The TV is still advertised as having 10-bit color.

Banding
----------
ZidooPlayer
Switch frame rate and resolution
HDMI mode: AUTO
Color Space: AUTO / YCbCr 444 / YCbCr 420
Deep Color Mode:
- OFF - severe banding
- 10bit - much less banding
- 12bit - minimal/no banding
- AUTO - minimal/no banding

HDMI mode: Auto
Color Space: YCbCr 422 / RGB 444
Deep Color Mode:
- OFF - severe banding
- 10bit - severe banding
- 12bit - severe banding
- AUTO - severe banding

 

I highly doubt there is something wrong with my box itself, and I already returned one unit due to the right ports being misaligned. If I return this one, I'm done for now. My problem is clearly the firmware has some issues that need ironing out.

The fact that I can watch UHD/HDR with 12-bit enabled without the screen freaking out, but the screen freaks out every few boots, shows that there is likely a handshake issue going on between the TV and the player. I'm going to blame the player for now since it clearly has other issues as well. If my TV couldn't handle deep color, A) it wouldn't have a setting for ultra deep color, and B) I wouldn't be able to watch UHD/HDR with deep color. But I can - in fact videos look best on my TV with 12bit enabled. It's the booting that is the issue here. The box freaks out for some reason - I posted video - it's like the boot screen is getting corrupted or something when deep color is enabled.

 

This I agree with 100%. The issues with booting with deep color enabled and the frame rate issues @444 10bit/12bit is only part of the problem with this player. I thought when I bought this player that since it has been out for well over a year, it would be highly polished by now and I wouldn't have any serious issues to deal with. But not only are there still serious issues lingering with this player, the usability of the player itself is sloppily implemented. Even if they do fix the deep color/color space/frame rate bugs, Zidoo needs to consider improving the way the player actually handles file playback, because it's sloppy to the point where it's almost unusable imo:

1) DVD playback is broken in a number of ways as I previously detailed (incorrect aspect ratios, navigation is totally broken, etc).

2) As you stated above, the sloppy way the player immediately plays the video in the wrong framerate and resolution, before switching over. This is annoying and ruins the first 10 seconds of everything I watch. It should read/sample the video first to determine the file specs, switch resolution and framerate as necessary, then play the film. Precious seconds tick away while the player starts the movie, flashes the screen black while it switches resolution and frame rate, then goes back to the film, which is now 10+ seconds in. It's an awful way to start a film up for guests. It even does this for blu-ray menus - it starts playing the film for a few seconds immediately after selecting play with menu, then goes to the menu. Sloppy. My Mede8er player switches frame rate and resolution immediately after clicking the video, before it even appears on screen. It's a much more elegant way of handling the job of switching fame rates and resolution.

3) If you haven't specifically disabled bookmarking (which is hidden in options, not in the main playback menu where it should be), it asks every time if you want to continue where you left off or start from the beginning - while the film is still playing. Sloppy. It should pop up and ask you that as soon as you click the file to play - before it even plays it. This is how both my Mede8er and WDTV Live player handles it - so you don't have an annoying pop-up box over the film.

4) No way to get the ZidooPlayer to play a folder of video files straight through without stopping after each file, like playing a folder of short clips or trailers. Have they not considered that some people like to sit back and play a folder of short clips straight through, the same way you would play a folder of music tracks? This player desperately needs to add this feature. It's incredibly frustrating to have a folder of short clips and have to be interrupted after each clip ends and goes back to the UI again. ZDMC has an option called "Play Next Video automatically" under player settings. Why doesn't the Zidoo offer that option? My Mede8er plays each video after the one I click to play consecutively, until I hit stop. If it comes to a file it can't play, it skips it and goes to the next file. And if the resolution and frame rate are the same for all the videos, it's virtually seamless - no need to switch frame rates or resolutions between files if the next video is the same as the one you're currently playing. It's great for playing multiple short films, or a trailer show. This is impossible on the Zidoo, even though it should be a basic feature.

5) There is no way to manually tweak or adjust the aspect ratio of a video being played. Sometimes a video is encoded incorrectly in the wrong aspect ratio, or a bit "off" - either horizontally or vertically squished or stretched. We've all seen that happen - somebody encodes the video slightly off - so 4:3 is more like 5:4, for example, or 16:9 is more like 16:10. Currently you are only given 2 aspect ratio choices - "fit" or "full". No custom fit option. My Mede8er player allows you to hit the zoom key and then the arrow keys on the remote (up,down,left,right) to expand or compress the video screen in 1% increments, allowing you to make fine adjustments to correct for aspect ratio issues. As you adjust the fit, the black letterbox bars on the top/bottom or left/right adjust to fit the new aspect ratio. It's invaluable for allowing you to view problem videos correctly without distortion. This player offers no way to do that, so some of the videos in my collection can't be watched unless you don't mind watching them distorted. With my Mede8er player, I can easily size it to look just right while the film is playing in real time. I can even save 2 custom aspect ratios.

6) The music player, as I detailed previously, doesn't use .cue files correctly as a playlist file, which it should be able to do. Also, no gapless audio playback for either split files (flac,wav,ape) or single files with .cue. Lots of other random audio playback glitches/broken navigation in audio playback. The music player is poor.

7) A minor gripe, but I have seen several pop-up box typos, and inconsistencies - one box has a space or comma between two words, another pop-up box has the same words but no space or comma, etc. - looks amateurish.

These are not nit-picky issues. These are issues that added together make this a very unfriendly player.

I will say that I was very impressed with how it handles 3D. Some very nice 3D options (though 3D image support (.mpo) is non-existant, even though my old Mede8er and my TV both supports .mpo playback).

I hope Ziddo considers implementing these features into the player. These are features I have grown used to having on other media players and it's frustrating because even though this player should be more advanced, in many areas I feel like I've taken a big step backwards in usability/functionality. I don't mean to sound so harsh, as this player could be amazing if they put some thought into how people use these players. There are tons of file types out there in all kinds of codecs and aspect ratios, and while this player has mostly very good codec support, it's lack of customization for things like aspect ratios and playback options really limit what this player can do.

 

i see...
i think you and I, using a same entry class 2016 series LG TV
i know its not a 10bit panel they using, but it have dithering technic to achieve the same result with 10bit panel, so i think its ok
i have to set the HDMI Deep Color in HDMI port in TV when it got the HDR signal, but with the HEVC 10bit source its ok if not turn On the HDMi Deep Color
maybe you are right about the box, i just using it since nov2017
first when i use it, i like to set the color range to full range but the problem with this setting is, first time you boot i got black screen, no signal from HDMi, even i have to power it off with the switch in the back
i have to unplugged the HDMI cable and plugged it in again, so the display appear, for that i used the HDMi cable from the box, then i changed it with i used before and the problem is gone
zidoo teams have a lot work to do after chinese new year to fix the problem you got and others user about the framerate issue
lucky me i dont have to suffer like you do or maybe ii`m not too sensitive about the frame rate

all i hate is just to use auto switch frame rate and got the black screen flashing, like i said before
and its very unconvenience for me

 

1. i`m not using dvd format anymore in my list so its not an issue for me
2.agree with you, its not gonna bother me if they have black screen a few second to adjust the resolution or frame rate before the film is start, no after the film is start like what Q10pro did or maybe Dune and Zappiti (for the higher competitive price) handle it and after finish watch my movie, it have to flash again when you go back to gui, very annoying
3.agree again with you, it should do so or it should play from where we left without a flash of beginning and pop up the question about play it from the beginning
now i rather like to disable the bookmark coz i usually watch my movie till it finish but its great if they can do like other device usually handle that
4.yeah this feature i like they add in their home theater app, coz i like to watch my tv show continuely
5.for this one i have no issue so far
6.i dont use my box for music player
7.lucky me again, i dont have issue with typos
and for 3D, i dont have any 3D TV

for me with issue no.2&3 why other users never have complaint about it?make me wonder why?
and for zidoo teams, i`m not grumpy, i love this box, really love it, but if you can fix the issues above, it would be great
and many thanks for your effort about HT2.0, really appreciate that

 

I haven't even tried Home Theatre 2.0 yet - I don't bother with that because I just copy a few things at a time to my USB 3 thumb drive to watch with ZidooPlayer - a couple movies or a folder of clips, etc., so I don't know how Home Theatre 2.0 works in terms of being able to play clips in succession without interruption, but I hope they add this to the next firmware for the base ZidooPlayer. If I click a file to play, it should play the next one, next one, etc. until I hit stop or it plays the last file (or at least give us that option in the player settings screen). And if the resolution and frame rate are the same for the next clip, it shouldn't even have to switch over - just immediately start playing the next file. Even better would be if it didn't pop up any annoying boxes or info about playing the next file - if the next file doesn't require switching frame rates/resolution, just play the next file without even any annoying pop-ups. That would make playing groups of clips a nice experience.

 

i`m just using my box for movie player, nothing else, so the HT2.0 is mean to me

but now i have strange situation, afer i tried several color depth and now YCbCr420 is disappear from the color space mode

tried to reboot and power off, nothing change
then i set it all like before, color depth OFF and color space is Auto, and power off
after 10minutes, booting and YCbCr420 is appear again

now i set Color Depth to 10bit and Color Space Auto with HDMI mode 1080p@24Hz
maybe its not stable yet, hope after chinese new year they force to make the stable one very soon
of course with all improvement that you talking about

 

Heard some early LG oled suffered from banding which was resolved in newer models .
12 bit you should forget about
Blu rays are in 8bit
And ultra Blu is mostly in 10 bit

If your screen an 8 bit panel ?
And most blank screen / audio issue are you need a certified Quality hdmi 2.0 spec cable

 

Sigh. I've answered these questions already. I feel like I'm going in circles.

My TV is not OLED. It is an LG LCD 2016 model UHD with HDR and Dolby Vision.
I know Blu-rays are 8bit.
I know UHD is 10bit.

I already explained about my TV panel just a few posts ago. Possibly (most likely) 8 bit with dithering/processing - billion+ colors (advertised as 10-bit).

I already said I bought a brand new HDMI 2.0 premium certified cable from Wal-Mart - Black Web brand - 18gbps.

I already explained that the new cable fixed the black flashing issue for me, but has introduced the booting issue I have now when Deep Color is set to 10bit or 12bit.

Again, 12bit from the Zidoo offers very little to no banding even on the worst test material I can find. 10bit is improved over deep color turned off, but 12bit is still the best setting. Since 12bit drastically improves even the worst banding, I would say obviously my TV accepts Deep Color. It's also obvious because my TV has an "ULTRA DEEP COLOR" setting in the menu for each HDMI input. Why should I forget about 12bit when it clearly offers the best image for me with the Zidoo?

I'm trying to call attention to the fact that the Zidoo has issues that need addressing. It is not my TV that is the problem.

 

4:2:0 disappeared for me earlier after I switched HDMI mode to 1080p. I have no idea why. It came back in the list again after I switched HDMI mode back to AUTO (my TV is 4k so perhaps that's why 4:2:0 came back for me). I had to go back to the home screen and then back to settings before 4:2:0 appeared again. Maybe it's a bug? Or maybe this is intended?

 

I posted this in my other thread...

You should be able to access 4:2:0... but there's a trick to it.

In quick settings, choose one of below (others don't seem to work) resolution options, click home then go back to Display>Color Space Mode, and 4:2:0 should be available
Auto
1080p 30Hz
3840x2160p 60Hz
4096x2160p 25Hz
4096x2160p 30Hz
4096x2160p 60Hz

But it doesn't really matter... as soon as you play a video... it switches back to 444.

What I find interesting is the fact that other than playing movies... the X9s defaults to 420.