Beta version v6.3.66 for Z9X/Z10 Pro/Z1000 Pro/UHD3000 release

I think your latest beta firmware for the Z9X has some serious problems playing .avi (no divx) and .mkv so far i can tell.
After setting up the new device, implementing the latest beta firmware and starting building the media database aso, i realized that the HT integrated player handles .avi files or annoyingly .mkv files just worse.
Or the most annoying is the whole season package of Home Improvement which i have in .avi cannot be played at all, 9 x ~24 files which were no problem with my ancient WDTV Live i used before, or even no problem with a local player on the Notebook over the LAN from the Z9X local storage.
When you start to play this kind of files, the player shows a black screen.
On most files you can listen to some seconds of the audio on a few you can't even do that. But the behavior is always the same.
Just after a few seconds the player drops the movie with the message, cannot read the movie content and then quits.
The specs of the Z9X says it can play avi files. But it seems to me that this is a bigger bug than just can't play this container format, cause also some 720p .mkv files show the same behavior.
This mkv files are for example from the Mr. Robot Season 1 or 2 which are all mkv and work flawlessy on a Notebook and old WDTV Live player for years.
This is weird and shows to me that this issue is more than just a tiny HT player bug in the actual Z9X beta firmware.
I haven't tried alle movies so far, cause i'm still in the situation to build the cover database aso. Anyway this situation is so annoying to me that you can gamble which type of movie is playable or not.
As i said before, it also affects mkv files. It's totally weird. There're for example same type of 720p mkv files of one season. The player plays a few just fine, others are played fine for 3-4 seconds, then you see a green screen and the player quits.
On the other hand for the same SD material of .avi files the same behavior. The player plays a few just fine, most others begin with playing audio, but black screen, and then the player suddenly quits after ~3 seconds with the message the movie content cannot be red.
Btw. i also try to change all possible affecting settings without any luck. It still behaves the same. This is IMHO an unacceptable situation!

 

MKV works great, of course. Small problems only with MP4. Otherwise I don't use any apps. I've been dealing with this standby problem for a few days.
Now I am sending this device back wondering what to do next.
I personally miss the CEC function at Zidoo very much. CEC with my oled805 works great. Dune Vision solo and its CEC don't work that well.
General Zidoo made a very positive impression on me.

Maybe I'll take a little break now. (But my enemies shouldn't celebrate, I'll be back.)

Let me say thank you to everyone (especially Markswift2003, OlivierQC, Sledgehamma) nice people who always responded quickly to my question and were helpful.

 

Just by coincidence my Z10 Pro Locked up and no response from my Separate Bluetooth Remote or Zidoo Remote .
I knew straight away it was the You Tube App that came pre installed on my Zidoo .
as that what was being used last night at the time .

Hard shut down will sort it and back to normal usage .

 

You do realize that you are using a beta version software and as such is in no position to complain about performance or functionality. With your high demand I'd stay on release software and avoid beta as this is only to help developers to improve and fine tune software, and in addition to add objective evaluation to forum member.
Thank you.

 

MKV and AVI are just video wrappers and all Zidoo players fully support AVI and MKV wrappers. Playback depends on the codec used inside the wrapper so a MediaInfo listing would be helpful to be able to comment fully.

You do however mention DIVX which is an old proprietary codec and not supported.

 

Did _you_ overall realize theat i mentioned at least a ton times "beta", and furthermore do _you_ relaize that i don't complain about performance, eben more entry level functionality which is overall claimed to be supported?
We don't need to exercise a fundamental debate about things that should be clear.

 

Yeah, i just wanted to mention that i was already pointed to this old codec.
How can i serve your needed information? Do you maybe know a tool on OSX or maybe on the Z9X itself?

 

I'm pretty sure there is a Mac port of MediaInfo.

Yep: https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download

 

A = No audio, no video. After a few seconds, the player writes the file cannot be played and quits.
B = Audio is available for a few seconds until the player quits. No video at all. After a few seconds, the player writes the file cannot be played and quits.
C = Works without any problems. As a side note, media info shows this file is same encoded as B. Also from the same series.
D = I swear i tried dozens of time to play this file, and now it plays without any problems. The strange behavior before was that the movie played for the first ~ 10 sec. normal, then you saw a green screen and the player quits without any info. I tried some additional files of the same season and later seasons, now it behaves just normal. Very strange.
E = No audio, no video. After a few seconds, the player writes the file cannot be played and quits.
F = Audio is available for a few seconds until the player quits. No video at all. After a few seconds, the player writes the file cannot be played and quits. Side note: it's from the same season as file E, also same encoding.
G = Works without any problems. As a side note, media info shows this file is same encoded as E and F. Also from the same series.

There are a lot of more files like mentioned above that behave the same. The strange topic concerning the avi files is that the same encoding of the files from a same season behave on 2 or 3 ways.
The biggest problem right now is that suddenly the Z9X behaves normal with the few 720P files i was in trouble before and that i cannot reproduce the issue with other tested files so far. And i have tested the mentioned issues for days. And now suddenly it behaves normal which is really strange since nothing has changed. I tried a list of other files 720p, 1080p, as runs fine right now.

See the attached files for media info.

 

A, B, C, E, F & G use the XVID codec which was I believe an open source version of DIVX so I would perhaps expect issues with them depending on how they were encoded.

D is an AVC encode which is the closed source version of H.264 and I've never had any issues playing either AVC or H.264. Most 1080p BluRays are encoded in AVC, and most 720p/1080p encodes use H.264. I would expect that file to play perfectly.

Basically this comes down to file compatibility and I guess there's a limit to how backwards compatible a modern media player is going to be with legacy codecs. It has nothing to do with AVI or MKV containers.

 

AFAIK xvid |= divx !
But how come that 3 files with the same encoding show 3 different behaviors. From nothing, to a few seconds audio but no video, and finally no problems at all?
Either it works or it don't works. I couldn't imagine that it depends on the form of the day of the Z9X.

Same goes with the mentioned D example.

Overall i just fear when powering on this device in the upcoming time i can never be sure to expect the same functionality as the day before, or like with the same encoded file before.
This is like gambling and nothing you can really rely on.
I cannot proof but i this is a new device and it seems to work quite well. But i feel that there's, even a tiny quirk in this .66 firmware that shows this behavior.
Desperately i have no long term experience with different firmwares, or this device overall since i own this Z9X for a few weeks.
This situation makes me mad and i don't know what to do to fix this issues.

 

I have quickly checked b and c and they are not even the same video
size, plus one has a custom matrix the other does not.
DivX (Xvid) encoding has a gazillion parameters and very few people can produce standardised files, my advice would be to re-encode them to avc using a converter that has basic standard templates.

 

I would play DivX Files with ZDMC or Kodi since with them I never had problems playing them, native player gives you troubles a lot with them.

 

I lose audio consistently (ie. it always happens) once or twice per movie and then it starts to stutter, I stop playback and restart it and it's gone for a while. All kinds of variables could be at play here ofcourse but it didnt happen in the previous version(s).

Some mediainfo details for an example file, most things i play are similar;

Code:

{
"@type": "Video",
"StreamOrder": "0",
"ID": "1",
"UniqueID": "1",
"Format": "HEVC",
"Format_Profile": "Main 10",
"Format_Level": "5.1",
"Format_Tier": "High",
"HDR_Format": "SMPTE ST 2086",
"HDR_Format_Compatibility": "HDR10",
"CodecID": "V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC",
"Duration": "7485.311000000",
"BitRate": "47809471",
"Width": "3840",
"Height": "2160",
"Sampled_Width": "3840",
"Sampled_Height": "2160",
"PixelAspectRatio": "1.000",
"DisplayAspectRatio": "1.778",
"FrameRate_Mode": "CFR",
"FrameRate": "23.976",
"FrameCount": "179468",
"ColorSpace": "YUV",
"ChromaSubsampling": "4:2:0",
"ChromaSubsampling_Position": "Type 2",
"BitDepth": "10",
"Delay": "0.000",
"StreamSize": "44733595642",
"Encoded_Library": "ATEME Titan File 3.9.0 (4.9.0.0)        ",
"Encoded_Library_Name": "ATEME Titan File",
"Encoded_Library_Version": "3.9.0 (4.9.0.0)        ",
"Language": "en",
"Default": "No",
"Forced": "No",
"colour_description_present": "Yes",
"colour_description_present_Source": "Stream",
"colour_range": "Limited",
"colour_range_Source": "Stream",
"colour_primaries": "BT.2020",
"colour_primaries_Source": "Stream",
"transfer_characteristics": "PQ",
"transfer_characteristics_Source": "Stream",
"matrix_coefficients": "BT.2020 non-constant",
"matrix_coefficients_Source": "Stream",
"MasteringDisplay_ColorPrimaries": "BT.2020",
"MasteringDisplay_ColorPrimaries_Source": "Stream",
"MasteringDisplay_Luminance": "min: 0.0001 cd/m2, max: 1000 cd/m2",
"MasteringDisplay_Luminance_Source": "Stream"
},
{
"@type": "Audio",
"@typeorder": "1",
"StreamOrder": "1",
"ID": "2",
"UniqueID": "2",
"Format": "MLP FBA",
"Format_Commercial_IfAny": "Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos",
"Format_AdditionalFeatures": "16-ch",
"CodecID": "A_TRUEHD",
"Duration": "7485.312000000",
"BitRate_Mode": "VBR",
"BitRate": "3840474",
"BitRate_Maximum": "3705000",
"Channels": "8",
"ChannelPositions": "Front: L C R, Side: L R, Back: L R, LFE",
"ChannelLayout": "L R C LFE Ls Rs Lb Rb",
"SamplesPerFrame": "40",
"SamplingRate": "48000",
"SamplingCount": "359294976",
"FrameRate": "1200.000",
"FrameCount": "8982374",
"Compression_Mode": "Lossless",
"Delay": "0.000",
"Delay_Source": "Container",
"StreamSize": "3593393736",
"StreamSize_Proportion": "0.06790",
"Language": "en",
"Default": "Yes",
"Forced": "No",
"extra": {
"NumberOfDynamicObjects": "13",
"BedChannelCount": "1",
"BedChannelConfiguration": "LFE"
}

 

I'm sure you know this but there are absolutely no red flags in that MediaInfo listing at all - it's encoded with Ateme, standard audio, not a high bitrate - nothing there of note. I assume it's an MKV.

I know it's of no help to your situation, but I don't, and never have had, any such issues. I almost exclusively use MKVs - either clean remuxes or encodes (using Staxrip and NVenc), played from a NAS box.

 

Both B + C share xvid, this is what i wrote. That's not an ideal situation that a few work others not.
And again, xvid |= divx!
Concerning to your suggestion, i have no clue how to convert for example the mentioned files to something more compatible by preserving at least the input quality, even when this would mean a huge time investment looking at the amount of files to convert. I never did this before. Do you know something for OSX?

 

I cannot pick let's say 4634 files, build a time consuming database, test every single file to play with HT internal player, then pic up by hand f.e. 7529 files to play with your suggestion after i also tested every single file, and 3rd, do the same with the remaining f.e. 10256 files with a 3rd unknown player whatever it could be.
That wouldn't make any sense to consolidate that by this way on a player like the Z9X.
One would mean a player unifies all, and not a player with dozens of databases and players splitted by formats because lack of compability.

 

Xvid is similar but not the same as DIVX - I seem to remember came about as an open source project after DIVX went closed source, and given the open source nature, open to all sorts of manipulation.

It might be worth contacting Zidoo directly ( service@zidoo.tv ) and providing some samples.

In the year and a half I've been testing this device I could count on one hand the number of files that have been unplayable.

 

http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-divx-and-xvid/

 

I thought this is Zidoo? I mean i was in contact over the official Zidoo on FB, then i come here while thinking this is an official Zidoo forum, if not tell me.
If it is, i mean i discussed already on two Zidoo places in detail, can't you just point the authority you're thinking of to this examples i already shared with you in public just to prevent i have to do a 3rd time (time consuming) to finally find a solution?