Home Theater 2.0 - Tips/Questions/Tricks

Guys I have a problem with HT 2.0. Some of my movies are 1080p but when I run them through the HT they show incorrectly as 720 resolution. I tried adding fhd or 1080p after the movie name and it seems that the bandana is correct until the moment I run the film. Then the film show again 720 and the HD bandana disappears. It's like the file naming is overridden once you run the movie.

Any way to correct this or why these movies are incorrectly being recognized as 720 resolution when they are 1080p?

 

Maybe the movie is 720p? Check with Media Info app.

 

After going through many Media Info files I think I found what is causing it. If the movie is not exactly 1920 pixels width it's not recognized as a 1080 movie. Some of the films I have are 1910, 1916 or 1918 pixels width and they are all recognized as 720 resolution.

The same with 4K. I have a movie that is 3828 pixel width instead of the normal 3840 pixels. And in HT it shows as 2K.

Is there a way to fix this?

 

The movies that are not exactly 1920 we resized, maybe cropped or coming from some capture device. Most likely low quality. Don’t know about the fix.

 

They are high quality mkv files. I dont know why they were cropped to be honest. There must be a way around this.

 

Ok this starts to become frustrating. I downloaded a different version of both films that have the full 1920 pixels width but HT2.0 still refuses to recognize them as 1080 video files. They still show as 720 resolution.

Below you can see their MediaInfo files. I really don't know what else to do with these...

General
Unique ID : 205567997203888796618405998419183425287 (0x9AA6F4C5BD5BD0A9A211E32F43B45707)
Complete name : \\28 Weeks Later.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 1
File size : 7.94 GiB
Duration : 1 h 40 min
Overall bit rate : 11.4 Mb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2008-05-17 17:30:42
Writing application : mkvmerge v2.0.2 ('You're My Flame') built on Feb 21 2007 23:40:55
Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5.1
Format settings : CABAC / 5 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1 h 40 min
Bit rate : 9 850 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 040 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.85:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.206
Stream size : 6.73 GiB (85%)
Writing library : x264 core 59 r845 9386865
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=7 / brdo=1 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=6 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / bime=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=2pass / bitrate=9850 / ratetol=1.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=1.00 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=2:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Audio
ID : 2
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 1 h 40 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 509 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 1.06 GiB (13%)
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

General
Unique ID : 244100396109711032252427588032020604595 (0xB7A406B709E3771DBBF59E0D403BE6B3)
Complete name : \\Event Horizon.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 1
File size : 7.94 GiB
Duration : 1 h 35 min
Overall bit rate : 11.9 Mb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2009-01-02 18:10:41
Writing application : mkvmerge v2.4.1 ('Use Me') built on Dec 5 2008 18:30:05
Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4
Format settings : CABAC / 5 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1 h 35 min
Bit rate : 11.2 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 816 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.35:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.298
Stream size : 7.36 GiB (93%)
Writing library : x264 core 65 r1069 ed32ad2
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=2pass / bitrate=11212 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1 h 35 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 640 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 439 MiB (5%)
Service kind : Complete Main
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Text
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

 

From your MediaInfo screen shots, your videos have obviously been compressed or shrunk using an external program...Both videos are only 7.94 gb and their bit rates are low....combined with all those ancillary Encoding settings that are included in your MediaInfo screenshot..... the "shrinking" method of the movie file by whatever program was used is more than likely what is tripping up Home Theater from reading the video format properly. If the source of the videos is via download and not ripped yourself..... well, then you get what you get. You could try to re-encode them yourself with Handbrake and you could possibly fix them.

 

I'm just curious what HT sees in these files that makes it believe it is 720 resolution. I originally had different versions of these two that had less than 1920 pixels width and I thought that this was the problem. But these two now are completely different versions so there must be something else going on.

 

Also now I have another problem with HT 2.0. It seems that for some reason when I input the film folder into the source destination it detects the change, makes the auto scanning but the film fails to appear.

And when I go to sources I can see it showing 458/459 which means there is 1 that has not been scanned. I have no idea how to fix this...

 

Well...HT is very picky with some specific file names which can cause a lot of trouble. The two files I had problem with seems that HT liked them when I added 1080p at the end of the file name instead of FHD. With 1080p at the end both of them appeared correctly both inside the NFO and with the correct HD bandana at the poster.

Fingers crosses not to break anything else....

 

Does anyone know how to reset a movie poster so it can be re-scanned? I mean when you originally import a new movie it shows only the MKV badge and after you run it for the first time it shows also the resolution and framerate badges. Is there a way to delete this for a specific movie so it will display only the MKV badge again? Because when I delete a movie from HT and reimport it, it keeps the previous resolution and framerate badges.

 

Anyone ever run into a situation where it's "updating in the background" and it just keeps updating and updating over and over again? A reboot did NOT help. The only thing I can think of is I removed a couple of movies on my server that got replaced with new MKV DTS:X versions (I noticed it still thinks the old files are there and trying to play them just says it failed, but it doesn't offer to remove them from the list). I've never had it do this before. I have not upgraded firwmare or anything in over a year.

 

I worked around the problem by switching to manual source updates instead of automatic for now....

 

Well, FWIW on the rare occasion where I notice that a particular source has a scan that keeps going over and over again... I simply go into the source settings and manually stop the scan... then I will look at my other sources and see if they are awaiting their scans to finish... If so, I will manually select another source and manually start its scan... then when that is complete I go back to problem scan source and rerun the scan ... everytime it then completes with no issue. But, this was on my X9s running one of the last versions of H.T. 3

 

I ONLY use manual! automatic is very problematic.. DESPITE using manual, it will never scan any shares in WAITING after the initial finishes... and thats IF IT FINISHES.. half the time it fails by getting stuck on a particular file, or CRASHING completely, or FINISHING with a result of ZERO files found??

its quite a headache & frustrating but I do have a fairly large database...10,000 RECOGNIZED posters, & about same unrecognized.. altho after upgrading HT I removed all unrecognized to rescan.. apparently those unrecognized files are now just stored under random WRONG POSTERS... there is no way to find the mistakes without searching ONE BY ONE.. some posters have 50 - 80 films incorrectly stored under them..

HOW to ever fix this IDK... WHY can't we have an alternate database to search solely by filenames? my 20 yr old net gear uses this method.. it recognizes dvd folders & bluray folders as a single file & anything else as its exact file name.. I can search easily & quick,quick, to FIND ANYTHING by file name.. the only downside with this was that u had to manually add movie info or a poster... But its an EXCELLENT backup search method bcuz it doesn't rely on RECOGNITION of the movie or TV show or personal recording!!

I cannot RETIRE my old netgear streamer for this sole reason! whether its HT or Kodi Id lose access to HALF my library without this older database on my netgear...( btw- its a Netgear EVA9150, digital entertainer)

any advice much appreciated?

 

Good afternoon, everyone ... After the latest firmware (although maybe earlier) ... Zidoo stopped updating or just finding movie posters ... Moreover, thetvdb.com and themoviedb.org sites themselves function perfectly and films by titles are there at times two ... No one had such a problem?

 

Sorry, no - all working here (UK)

 

Hi everybody
I have a problem with HT 2.0.
I scanned all my sources and then made a backup.It all worked fine including playback via smb.
After a while, when i tried to restore my posters after a reset i did, it will not play movies through smb.I push the play button and does nothing.
any ides?please help.

 

So do any newer versions of Home Theater work on the X9S (I think they're up to 4.0 on the Z9S and above?) or is this X9S box just now totally unsupported and outdated?

 

I'm using HT 4.0 now with my Zidoo X9s . Once you update the firmware it will included the latest version of Home Theater.
Check out the attachment to see HT updates.