Beta version v1.0.65 for Z9X Pro/Z20 Pro/Z2000 Pro/Z2600/UHD5000 release

Ok, I did some testing. I don't think it will help you, but it maybe will shed some light..

I turned off "Automatic updating sources" and switched off the box.

I waited until I was sure all 3 NAS drives had gone to sleep.

Then rebooted the box and checked in Wireshark that it wasn't calling the NAS drives (shouldn't be with Auto Update off). Wireshark was quiet.

And HT started with all sources intact.

As I say, doesn't really help you but it does kind of tell me that maybe the box isn't the issue.

But I have to admit that although the firmware is like a flan that somebody dropped at the moment, I've never had an instance where HT has been devoid of content on booting.

 

its only been out a couple months ,barely into f/w cycle yet and had been major delays because their Eversolo top end audio player A6 was a HUGE hit so lots of sales ,meaning lot of dev time diverted

Just in the last 2 weeks weve had 2 patches and theres also a new alpha testing atm

Returning your player atm seems a bad idea

 

Good to see someone else had the same suggestion as me. It's good to see from our perspective though too as users, we need to know what he risks of upgrading to the latest FW is.

If you can share that list in the OP or if it's on Google Docs or something that would help us make better informed decisions and hopefully to stop reporting the same thing over & over.

 

Hi
Can you tell me a little more about the image quality on the 'PRO'!
Thanks in advance

 

It might get a bit off topic now, but in my country it'd be a bad idea to not return it back, now. Here, the seller takes the full risk of throwing (unfinished) products on the market. I was sold a device capable of wifi, playback isos and many other things. It's just not doing that/having incredible issues. The wifi upload issue might be hardware related (I didn't get any feedback from others, yet). And even worse, the iso over wifi issue exists on my older device, too. Literally, 2 generations older (Z9S). So, I'd get my money back, including shipping costs. I can watch the threads and hope for the improvements of Zidoo. I do appreciate their work. On the paper, they are the best. On the paper.

I am a software developer on my own. Software is never finished. For the reason alone of security fixes, adding some new features and hotfixing minor bugs that haven't been spotted during development/testing. But what we go through here is taking part of the early phases of development (months after the product got released). Basic functionality is just not working at all. Take a look at the shitstorms of games like Cities: Skylines II. They released it a couple of weeks too early. They burned millions of dollars, instead of earning them.

+1 for the idea of a proper issue tracker that may also be used to obtain feature wishes, discuss with people and share ideas. While I do appriciate the work of @Markswift2003 that seems to know all the bugs. The community doesn't. At least not in that entirety to decide whether to install a specific firmware or buy that thing at all right now. btw why is the beta firmware not released by Zidoo officials? It's one of the many open questions I have and probably won't get any answers as like here.

So now let's see if I get this thing downgraded to the firmware that it had when I received it to check whether the wifi upload is a firmware regression... If that issue is still present I'll definitely send it back. Chances of a real hardware issue are way to high then.

Still, I have not yet given up hope in Zidoo. I hope you manage to tame that thing and turn it into an awesome product.

 

Very difficult to quantify - I'm sure I could if I did a side by side test with patterns but quite honestly, I really couldn't be bothered these days

What I can say is I sat in the cinema last night and not for the first time, thought, Ooh - that looks better

...and that was my very first impression when I first got the box and first switched it on.

So in summary:

"Ooh - that looks better"

 

OK, we'll be happy with that!
So possibly in the event of a Z9X breakdown, purchase a PRO!

 

yes that might be but a lot of customers are using there own time here to help with necessary improvements and bugs. as I said earlier, if you communicate that in advance via Kickstarter you get the right people for participation in software development. if you just sell it you get guys like me who don't have a lot of fun with that

this here is 100% intransparent. as frost also mentioned a change would be helpful.
is there ever just one product responsible (or to say it correctly product owner) from zidoo in this forum?
are you employed at zidoo?
of you have the overview in a table - share it?! you could start with display only for a week

 

I don't have any problem at all with wifi streaming. If the issue also happened on your older device, the culprit may be your wifi system, not the player. My Wifi router is a recent flagship model and it has wifi6 which is quite fast. Maybe the location of your Zidoo device is a blindspot and has a weak Wifi signal.

 

. turn off Bluetooth is another function I would like to have

. still subtitles and pause sign while pausing is really a no go with oled

. subtitle download doesn't work

. cannot find folder for wallpaper

. seasons and episodes from poster view and detailed view is unlogical and complicated. no possibility to jump to show itself. 11-20 field should be below not between episodes and play symbol.

. make 2 play buttons one with play at xxx (resume) and one start from beginning, then kill the pop up and text in the player. enable artists in the player with pics.

. set subtitle functions like delay or position to other custom keys like +-chapter, not only to up down keys

. no direct artist pictures in detailed view, no search for artists

hope it's ok to enable dev options and set animations to off. Just did

 

Thank you for this feedback. Are you reffering to 1080p Blu Ray iso files that play just fine on your Z9X Pro? Or do you mean streaming of mkv, mp4 files?

The wifi issue I was reffering to which is also present on my older Z9S is the playback of Blu Ray iso files: slow motion stuttering w/o sound. My wifi speedtests (actually between the Zidoo and my NAS) showed half a Gbit net throughput (>500 Mbps. It's a Fritzbox 7590 AX). From a bandwidth point of view, this should be enough to stream 5 movies at a time. Yet, I am trying to stream just 1 Blu-Ray iso file. 4K mkvs requiring the same or even more bandwith play just fine. It's also not related to the files, as it plays quite fine over Ethernet. Thus, I guess their buffering algorithm when fetching the data through wifi is just half-baked.

 

I can stream 4k mkv files via wifi without any problem. I'll try to get a hold of a blu-ray iso and stream it using wifi. I'll keep you updated.

 

I ripped one of my blu-ray disc into a 43GB iso file and uploaded it to my Synology NAS. It plays flawlessly on my Zidoo via wifi, and with perfect sound (trueHD). I have to say that my device is the Z2600 with internal wifi antennas and the latest firmware (.065). Not sure if it matters.

 

I have something very strange since the latest firmware.

Movies with dolby atmos don't have sound anymore.

When I start the movie my external dac switches automatically from 48lhz input to 192khz input....no sound.

When I switch to the dolby digital track everything plays fine and the dac switches back to 48khz.

Update, every UHD file with Dolby Atmos....wether it is a MKV file or M2TS or wether it is HDR10 or Dolby Vision has no sound unless I choose the Dolby Digital track.

Positive...when I choose the Dolby Digital track MKV files play without issues ...no more stutter or playback slowdown

 

Thank you. Finally, I figured out what causes the wifi iso playback issue in my setup. I tested files that were hosted on an external HDD. That one is attached to my NAS via USB. Files that are stored directly on my NAS are played fine over wifi, even high bitrate 95 Mbps 4K Blu Ray isos. Though, I don't quite understand why this solves the issue. The r/w speeds are pretty decent over SMB/Ethernet (even or better said especially from that external drive, because they are faster than the internal drives often). Maybe that USB3 connection adds some kind of extra latency that reduces IOPS too much? Anyway, I think this could be solved by an optimized Zidoo firmware. The bandwith itself is fast enough. Also double checked with my Z9S. It has no problem with that file over wifi when it is hosted on the NAS directly. Side note: this is the highest bitrate file I have. It doesn't even play over Ethernet when hosted on that external drive. Other lower bitrate iso file work over Ethernet from that external drive, though. That's were my guess about IOPS/buffering etc. comes from.

Also I managed to downgrade the Z9X Pro to v1.0.52. And upgraded to v1.0.52_G afterwards. Unfortunately, the wifi disconnect on upload issue is still present here. So it's not a regression as I was hoping for. Either no one spotted that bug before or my device is actually corrupt.
Could someone pls try to upload a big file (>= 1GB, e.g. from here) from a Zidoo Z9X Pro to your network storage over wifi, e.g. via SMB? Or perform a speed test that fully utilizes your wifi upload speed (e.g. by running a openspeedtest server on your network and open it through a browser on your Zidoo)?

 

Speaking for myself, I have a wifi 6E backhaul mesh router that. Is getting a 700 megabit out of 1 gig speed. And I’m still having issues.

 

@DarthPrater according to my post above: are your files stored directly on your NAS or through some USB connection like in my setup which caused the issue? How did you measure the 700 megabit?

 

I have 1 gbps wired at the main mesh router, and with a Speedtest app on the Zidoo I’m right around that (700).

I have my files stored on a Synology NAS that is wired directly into the main mesh router.

 

So you actually measured the 700 Mbps data transfer rate from your NAS to your Zidoo? Or is this some other part of your network? If so 700 should be enough. Blu Ray bitrates are roughly in the range of 50-100 Mbps. 700 is about a magnitude faster. According to my observations the only thing that I could think of is latency/IOPS/random read related stuff in the context of iso files. speed tests are like sequential reads. I think mkvs are pretty good in that regard, too. Have you tried to remux probelmatic isos to mkv? Of course it might still be a firmware problem, too.

 

I just measured 700 of internet. Speed is 1 gig at the router that the NAS is wired directly into. Maybe this is an inaccurate way to test? If so, how would I test the speed from the Zidoo to the Synology?

what’s weird is that all of the direct BD rips play fine. It’s the remix/iso downloads that have issues.