Ill answer it to the best of my understanding which doesnt mean - that it is correct.. Clipping colors above 235 - I've just had a conversation with someone who should know, and his standpoint is - that anything above 235 isnt standard. (In the video realm.) Now - there might be colors in source content that are defined at above 235 - but the point is - that there shouldnt be. The persons educated standpoint was, that YCbCr 236-255 is mainly a "thing" to compensate if a wrong color space is defined (the person who encoded the signal chose the wrong signal space without conversion). Do you know the story Scott Wilkinson shops around, where in that one Snowboard movie, you'll see suuuuper whites? And that he flings around as a "sign of quality", because its on Blueray? The point being, that if the production/encode was done right - you shouldnt. It would not effect your TVs calibration, to talk in test pattern imagery - the signal just tops at 235, but isnt altered or shifted. It gets clipped. You usually dont have to switch your TV to "PC mode" to get YCbCr full, or RGB full, if the TV accepts it - it should do so in any mode. Switching to PC mode has more to do with it displaying 4:4:4 chroma on a 4K signal only in that mode (on some/many TVs). A far as "PC content (images, websites, probably games...) goes - yes, with 235 as the upper "limit" in limited, signal information thats in that content would probably be clipped, and you would have to switch to RGB Full. Its possible that Zidoo does a downconversion to 16-235, but in any case - color information is lost - if by clipping or by condensing is hard to tell to be honest.. (I wouldnt know whatI should look at in test images (I have the Burosch image set f.e., so if some wanted to point me in a direction.. ). In any case - clipping 235-255 for a PC source just means that you loose detail in the bright parts of the signal range (everything becomes "white (respectively one color) too early") - and instead of switching to RGB Full all the time, may I suggest not caring instead.. (A wrongly elevated black level is far more noticeable...) 4:4:4 Chroma (or the lack there of) should be independent from YCbCr or RGB. RGB 4:4:4 chroma "is also a thing", in fact its the only color resolution mode RGB uses, if I am not mistaken. The point wesk05 made was that a limited signal some times gets wrongly expanded to 0-255, when leaving the Zidoo player in auto. He didnt make observations, if a 0-255 signal gets downconverted or clipped, when displayed at 16-235 (probably clipped) - but the difference would be hard to tell. Players that can output YCbCr superwhite would stay more true to the 0-255 signal encode in YCbCr limited mode I suspect, but even that I dont know for sure.
I just looked at a Burosch PC Level test image in the Chrome browser - with the Zidoo set to YCbCr limited, and both "superblacks" and "superwhites" got displayed as different gradients. Which is very good news, because it means, that 0-255 imagery (PC level stuff) gets downconverted to 16-235, instead of clipped. So no switching necessary (color information is lost in downconversion - although only to the extend, that the entire video world decided they would go with a 16-235 signal space, because it saved bandwidth). The clipping wesk05 talked about might have occured only at the video player/Mobileforge app level, where it would arguably be "an ok thing" (again - because 16-235 is the standard there). Now - as for viewing images (jpegs) in Kodi - who knows.. (Do you want me to test it? )
Wow, thanks a ton for this very informative information. This is exactly what I was looking for. Yes, if you could test with images/jpegs/pngs, I'd appreciate it when you get the time. I do like to sit back and relax to images sometimes., and they tend to range in resolution, all the way up to very high res. I'm curious how it handles image scaling (jaggies/aliasing), and definitely also how it works in limited/full. I also use test pattern images sometimes to check TV settings so knowing how it handles color space for images would tell me if I can trust using this player for that purpose. Have you tried any video test patterns for super-black or super-white? On my current Mede8er player, I can use my AVS video test patterns and Disney Wow video test patterns and I can see the super-blacks and super-whites below 15 and above 235, so I know I can rely on the player when I adjust or tweak my TV settings using those patterns. It would be nice to know I can rely on the Zidoo for that also. If you can't see anything below 15 or above 235, does that mean I shouldn't use the Zidoo for playing my video test patterns, or is it okay for those test patterns to not show those in limited? I'd love to know if 0-14/236-255 video is being clipped in limited mode, but I guess it's hard to tell. Ideally, I'd like to know it's displaying those whiter-than whites and blacker-than blacks like my Mede8er does. At least it sounds like it should display video in limited mode without doing any damage to the video, I think.
In general - not that good. Kodis image handling is lackluster (mainly navigation features, getting in and out of slideshows at "not the first image", advancing and going back in slideshows, ...) - at least as far as the usability side is concerned, but Ill look up how signal level is handled in Kodi compared to Chrome. Video wise Kodi is great and arguably still the standard to beat, but picture handling is eh...
Does the Zidoo have a native built-in picture viewer, as opposed to using Kodi/ZDMC? Is Zidoo's built-in image viewer any better? I would likely be using the native video player in general for most things I watch, especially since as I understand it full blu-ray menus are only supported with the native player, not ZDMC. Of course I also heard blu-ray menus don't work currently with the latest updates. I'll just be copying movies over to watch and then delete on my USB thumb drive, or maybe the HDD if I go with the x10. Basically copy, watch, delete. I keep my stuff archived for saving on other storage drives, so I don't need Kodi's fancy indexing features, unless it's a better player in general.
Ive never tried it, but I'll look it up tomorrow. I bet functional is what will come tom mind.. (If not, I'll mention it.) Yet, you have the entire Android ecosystem open to you - you're bound to find something thats good.. Those are some of the potential alternatives alternativeto.net is listing: https://alternativeto.net/software/acdsee/?license=free&platform=android or try googling android tv gallery apps. You have to find one that works "decently" with a remote, which might be harder than it sounds, because most devs dont design with direction keys or accessibility features in mind.
I forgot about Android apps. Well, I only need basic viewing options anyways, and a few nice transition effects maybe. I don't need anything too fancy. As long as the player's native image viewer is displaying the correct color and scaling it well without aliasing issues, I'll be okay. Just as long as I know which color space to use for image viewing, limited or full.
It's a shame they still haven't fixed the mapping issue with YCbCr full. This thread was started a long time ago and it's a shame it still hasn't been fixed. Then we wouldn't have the confusion over worrying about auto mode, since we could just leave it on auto.
Havent looked up the Image viewer still.. Ill do it in the next few minutes. The answer to your last Question is "shouldnt matter", "the one your TV/monitor is set to" (if "auto" on your TV/Monitor works > doesnt matter), and YCbCr limited for "less color space conversions - maybe", which would be a good thing, only in theory.. edit: Scratch that - answer should be - the player and the TV should negotiate. Respectively "I don't know". Probably limited, if its an option.. (see fun stuff like that: https://forums.xbox.com/de-DE/thread/8772F011-50BE-4C15-B039-8FE29BDD8507 I only ever measured SDR content on the X9S. ) The reason for being so vague is, that we dont know, how the Zidoo/Android does colorspace conversions internally - but we can measure the results on our TVs, and the "both should be fine" (as long as the monitor/TV expects "one or the other", respectively auto switches).
Both Kodi and the native image viewer are fine for viewing images. Zidoo set to output YCbCr limited, TV set to receive a limited signal. Black level for pictures in both Kodi and the native Zidoo Image viewer is 0 and not 16 - which is correct. Kodi in the end turns out to be the better image viewing experience, because of transitions. Both "apps" have built in transitions, the one in Kodi turn out to be nicer on the eyes.. (In Zidoo File Explorer its a very fast slide, Kodi has a more of a transition going on. ). Slideshow feature apparently is only available in Kodi. No visible aliasing in the images. Kodi Image rendering for some reason was more "pleasurable" - but I couldnt tell you why..
Very helpful, thank you. When you say both Kodi and native player, do you mean the ZDMC that is included with the player, and the player's file explorer? I get confused when I hear ZDMC, Kodi, and native player being used, sometimes interchangeably. I just received my X9s so I'll give it a try this wekend and see what happens.
I've tested it in Kodi 16 (installed separately), but there should be no difference to ZDMC. ZDMC (currently ) is Kodi 16 - with a different _Video-Player_ set as the default for some (non streaming) video content. You can start/use the default Kodi player in those cases using the Android menu button on the remote, over the selected item (open with...). The ZDMC image "player" (renderer) is the default Kodi one. File explorer is referring to the native file explorer Zidoo has put on the Android box, which launches its own image viewer. Should you need a better file explorer (not image viewer ) I recommend Total Commander from the Play Store (has nothing to do with image or video viewing.. ) ).
Okay, so I just connected the X9s and I'm in quick settings. Deep Color is off. I have color space set to YCbCr 4:2:2 (should I have it set to YCbCr 4:4:4?). My TV is a UHD LCD set with HDR, but my A/V receiver is not 4k compliant, so right now I've got it connected to my receiver and set to 1080p@60Hz until I get a new 4k receiver. At some point soon I'll be using it to play UHD/HDR content, but for testing right now, I'll just be playing SD/HD content. But I'm confused - Under HDMI range, it was set to auto by default. I changed it to limited (16-235) and the dark grey background got noticeably lighter. Setting it to full made it darker again, which exactly matches auto, so it seems auto is setting it to full. My TV is set to "low" under "black level". If I set black level in my TV to "high" the screen gets much lighter and washed out, for both "limited" and "full" on the X9s. My TV is always set to "low" and everything has always looked correct. So I'm not sure which shade of grey the Zidoo menu should be - limited it's lighter, and full it's darker. Is full darker because of that issue that was discussed here about the improper output when set to full? It does the same thing if I set the player to RGB 4:4:4 though - limited is lighter and full is darker. Confused.
