Home Theater 2.0 - Tips/Questions/Tricks

Thank. I'll give it a try. Have you tried the newer version of ZDMC based on KODI 1.9? I don't want to replace/update it unless it works OK.

 

I haven't used Kodi/ZDMC for years, so unfortunately I don't have the answer.

 

I normally just use it to keep a full count of 3D titles (Zidoo interface counts collections of movies as 1 title). It has more sorting options. If it activates the same player, though it shouldn't matter which interface is used.

I don't know if the new firmware supports any regular KODI versions (I 17.6 on there with an up-to-date network list of my 2K movies as a backup in case my NVidia Shield craps out or something). I have a hard time exporting the KODI database files from the Zidoo to backup, though. It refuses to copy them to my USB stick I use for updates and backups. No idea why (It says check log, which I cannot find since the Zidoo seems to hide everything from view somehow).

I installed the new firmware and Home Theater 4.0 seems to work OK, but sadly, there's still no PCM audio support for their native player (i.e. Redtails has no sound, let alone Auro-3D playback which KODI somehow manages to botch on Android hardware as well (can't be bit-perfect or the receiver would see the Auro-3D signal inside the PCM audio). I was hoping the updated Zidoo firmware might play PCM correctly, but no such luck.

 

Sounds like you have an intricate setup, but sounds rewarding once everything runs the way it should. Good luck with everything, I hope they fix those bugs.

 

For the few remaining titles that had PCM soundtracks in my collection, I just used the FLAC profile on MakeMkv and it rips them to multichannel FLAC lossless audio files which play just fine on the Zidoo's.....

 

I tried FLAC before, but I still didn't get Auro-3D passthrough from it with the movie Redtails. Come to think of it, that was with KODI. I should probably try it with the Zidoo. I'll have to make a FLAC version and test it. There's always a chance conversion to FLAC could somehow alter it by a single bit somewhere and that alone could make it not detect Auro-3D. But I'll try it on the Zidoo just to be sure....

Either way, I'm afraid it might come down to Android and its apparent inability to properly pass PCM unaltered to the receiver since I've been told by KODI Windows users that they can pass Auro-3D through PCM using a certain driver option in Windows and that Android's drivers are the problem, not KODI (and thus Zidoo might not play it either since it's running on Android also). Somehow using the DTS-HD MA wrapper avoids the problem as it does pass the wrapper and its contents intact correctly.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. You were correct. FLAC doesn't work for Auro-3D playback on the NVidia Shield using KODI at all, but it does work 100% correctly on Zidoo's Home Theater Player. Finally, I don't need to play it directly off the disc any longer.

 

A subwoofer is a purpose-built speaker designed to exclusively deliver bass, yet it may be the most important single part of any home theater

 

Is there a way to move something from the TV Show section to the Movie section? I tried a workaround but it won't let me add something it thinks is a movie thing to a TV Show collection.

 

How do I change the category/categories for a movie?
A lot of the movies have really weird categories. What is the source for them?
I am used to being able to do that in the Zappiti desktop software and think it is a really good feature.

 

http://IP address of your Zidoo:9528/pc/

 

That does't let me change or control what goes into the default categories. I can only add new ones.
The default "Children" category has all kinds of movies in it, not related to kids at all.
So where do I change/control the DEFAULT categories and what determines if a movies goes into it?

 

[/ATTACH] In the webUI under a search category Children’s the movie ‘71 is listed, what I see with that there are children caught up in that civil mess not so much “suitable for children”. However on the HT entry for 71 on the Zidoo it correctly shows War, Action, Drama etc. now they can be changed deleted or added from within the webUI that will be reflected in the Zidoo interface. How and if one can change some of the search parameters in the webUI I really don’t know. So if dies depend a lot on how you workday interpret Children’s ie as having children in the film or as a rating?

 

There are two main ways to classify movies:
1) category
2) genre
For your example of '71, the "Action", "Drama", "War" and "Thriller" are all genres. But when you edit the individual movie information in the web interface, they are called "Movie Type" (confusing to have two names for the same thing)

As far as I can see, there is no way I can edit the default Categories. They seems to be built into the HT software with no edit options..?
I am just trying to understand, how a movie is determined to belong to the defasult "Children" category.

 

AFAIK... the Children category is a bit of misnomer as you have found. I remember messing with this a few years ago on my X9s Zidoo... What I found at that time was that the Children category was directly tied to any movies that were not designated to be restricted in your HT settings. For example: when I designated HT to use the Child Lock feature for anything rated R or above, it automatically put the remaining movies in the Children category.. not so much for their child friendly content, but simply that that they weren't being restricted by the Child Lock. Again, I haven't had to mess with this on the Z9x or the later version HT4... so I have no idea if it works in the same way yet. I now put all my kids movies on ZDMC and HT4 is for my movies.

 

Hi ,
Which is the latest official version?