(Edit: sorry, the latest firmware is not 1.2.4 as suggested in my title. I think it's 1.2.12) Bought my first zidoo today after reading about its strong support track record. Great features too. But I couldn't get used to ZDMC so I installed the latest Kodi (17.1) from Google Play store. Kodi can play video successfully, but big problem is with Audio. Sound is continuously stuttering / choppy. I have tried multiple files and these files have no problems on ZDMC or other media players. What can I try to fix this? I already made sure Audio settings are the same as ZDMC, but doesn't help. Anything else I can try? Should I upgrade to beta firmware v3? Should I return X8 and get an X9S which seems to get better firmware?
x8 and x9s has 99.9% the same firmware. Not sure why you have choppy sound, you using PCM 2.0 audio ?
I have set "Enable Passthrough" on both ZDMC and Kodi. On the OS itself, I set Audio to Multichannel LPCM. Should I use PCM2.0 to get rid of choppy sound?
enable passtrough is used if you have a receiver that decodes the sound for you, if you don't have a receiver, turn it OFF. If you don't have 5.1 sound system. set it to 2.0
kodi 17 can't do passtrough on the current firmware, So you can't use that with passtrough. ZDMC on the other hand should work. What about zidoo media center ? how is sound using that ?
Should I upgrade to beta firmware 1.3 on the X8? Will it fix the Kodi 17.1 Audio passthrough issue? So far ZDMC works without audio stutter so I don't want to wreck it by upgrading to beta. Zidoo media center works without issues.
No. there is much work to be done on firmware before kodi 17.1 passtrough will happen, if you want passtrough, you will have to stick with zdmc or zidoo media center.
Alright, I just tried bitstreaming by using Audio > RAW in Settings, once again ZDMC works perfectly but Kodi 17.1 has no sound whatsoever. So it looks like X8 or current firmwares don't really have good support for Kodi right now. For small issues it's fine, but having no audio or choppy is a major flaw!
Can't call it a flaw, ZDMC had passtrough implemented long time ago by zidoo team itself, Now kodi team decided to implement there own passtrough using android API with 17.1 . For that to function zidoo now needs to undo there work on the android API without braking the zidoo media player passtrough. kodi passtrough with official API will come to x8/x9s/x10, but allot of work needs to be finished first. p.s. for passtrough, raw needs to be the default setting
Thanks for explaining in more details. Now I know it's not Zidoo's fault, but Kodi's. But one question though, it seems a lot of cheap boxes are advertising that they support 17.1 passthrough/bitstreaming, so is this limitation unique to Zidoo boxes like X8, X9s, X10?
well, its no ones fault really... zidoo success with passtrough now comes around and bite them on the a$$. for kodi 17.1 passtrough to work you only need android 6 or better with no changes to the API, because zidoo already did passtrough,but they did it there own way, they messed with the API. There is no telling how much they modified the API and what will brake if they undo all the work ( but zidoo media player will brake for sure, and some users prefer it over kodi player ) bottom line is no passtrough before => passtrough now with official API passtrough before => undo work to get to official API before passtrough can work again
Thanks for the detailed explanation. Now I get the full picture, which is quite unfortunate. On one hand, I like everything about Zidoo, I may even upgrade to X9 for it's slightly better features. This is seriously the best box in terms of features that are supported imo. But this issue of unknown support for Kodi 17 are really killing it for me. Will Zidoo somehow fix this issue before my 30-day Amazon return window is up? I really hate those cheap Android boxes but at this point it's shocking that they have no problem supporting Kodi 17.
As a compromise, would installing the shitty Kodi 16 solve the bitstreaming issue in the meantime until Zidoo fixes the problem for 17? If yes, is there a specific build for Kodi 16 that is recommended?
ZDMC is kodi 16 with passtrough code, normal kodi 16 does not have passtrough buildin, x9 is a older box ( released in 2014 ) x8/x9s/x10 are the latest boxes, same SOC, different outer case i'd say stick with ZDMC 1.6 till ZDMC 17.1 is out, but its hard to tell when that will happen
