Is 4K 60Hz frame rate working properly?

Using my z9s, I don't see any difference between 60, 50 or 24Hz when playing movie files (mkv) in terms of frame rate or movement smoothness. The colour depth/output is limited to 420 if choosing 4k 50 or 60Hz (reduced from 444) and the movie colour is visibly more dull.

In contrast, if I select 60Hz on other devices/sources eg Sony x800 Blu-ray player and YouTube app, the movie/file/video will be visibly much more smooth compared to 24Hz, very clear difference. This confirms the other components in my system eg HDMI cable and the projector are not the cause of any issue.

So, is the z9s simply incapable of outputing real 4K 50 or 60 Hz? Anyone has different experience?

Thanks

 

The Z9S will output 4K50 & 4K60 perfectly, but you certainly wouldn't want it to output that for 4K23 material due to pulldown.

If you make sure you have auto frame-rate on as you should, the Zidoo will match output frame-rate to source perfectly.

The maximum colour decoding mode for 4K60 is 444, but only at 8-bit output and presumably you have (correctly) chosen 10-bit output, therefore the colour decoding mode can only be 420 for 4K60.

Frame-rate notwithstanding, this is correct however since the movie should be encoded at 10-bit 420 anyway (the standard for UHD is 10-bit 420, the standard for HD is 8-bit 420) so there is absolutely nothing to be gained if you could choose 444, or indeed 422 which is only available at 12-bit, and again, pointless - all you're doing is increasing HDMI bandwidth for no change in image quality.

However, at 4K23 which is the mode you should be watching 4k movies in, with output set to 10-bit as it should be, the only available decode mode is 444, but that only pads the 420 encoded video stream as far as colour decoding goes - there is no video processing going on.

The only mode that the Zidoo reports incorrectly is 4k23 12-bit 444 which actually outputs at 4k23 10-bit 444 by design (a decision I disagree with).

 

Hi Mark, many thanks for your feedback, much appreciated.

Totally understand that the movie files themselves are only encoded in 23Hz, but sometimes I do enjoy/prefer watching them in 60Hz which gives a lot smoother movement and kind of "contemporary feel" (albeit artificial). My old Sony X800 Blu-ray player can produce that video if it is set to 60Hz output, but disappointingly for me the z9s seems cannot (24/23Hz looks the same to me as 50/60Hz in terms of frame motion smoothness). I wonder if it is the same for everyone else or some wrong setting with my z9s.

Thanks again.

 

Gotcha - I take it you've turned Auto Framerate off on the Zidoo and and the TV reports 60Hz? If so, the Zidoo, like the Sony will use pulldown to make the best of converting 23.976 > 60fps but it sounds like the look you're after is down to frame interpolation/motion settings which would usually be found on the TV.

I'm not sure if the Sony BluRay has FI settings or not, but certainly the Zidoo hasn't so you'll just get the pulled down version which to be fair it makes a decent job of. It may be that you've got the TVs motion settings on for the BluRay input and not for the Zidoo, or it may be that the BluRay does it internally - not sure.

So to get that "contemporary feel" from the Zidoo, you'll need to get into the TVs menus and look for motion settings and switch them on..

As an example, I have a Sammy TV that calls it "Digital Clean View" and "Auto Motion Plus". My projector calls it "Clear Motion Drive" - it's usually pretty obvious.

 

Then it must be the Sony x800 (and the YouTube app) has some kind of frame interpolation built in for 60Hz, as I have not enabled such function on my projector, and when I compared the Sony x800 and z9s I used the same HDMI input and settings on my projector (basically I have just swaped the Sony with the z9s with no change to anything else).

Yes I manually select the frame rate on the z9s, and both the AVR and projector confirmed the input source is 60Hz.

Is it correct to say that there is no no benefit in setting the framerate on z9s to 60Hz as it doesn't do any frame interpolation?

Thanks

 

I would say that is definitely detrimental to use 60Hz with 23.976Hz material because it uses pulldown - basically repeating frames twice and then three times repeatedly or even in, for example, a 2:3:3:2 pattern (but I doubt the Zidoo does that - be interesting to know though)

This causes a loss of cadence and "dirty frames", ie a mixture of two frames. So not ideal, especially in pans.

 

Thanks Mark. I see no visible difference between 60Hz and 24Hz on the z9s, except for the colour vibrancy/brightness. On the Sony x800, 60Hz really smoothed out the movement and gives me that "immersive" feel, but of course it makes the movie look like a video game than movie.

I don't have an absolute preference of one over the other, but would very much like to have the ability to choose between them as and when I like it, sadly the z9s doesn't give me that choice.

 

It's a love it or hate it thing - you'll find many evangelists about frame rates (I would include myself in that category to a certain extent) but at the end of the day it's personal preference - if it looks right to you, then it is right!

Are you sure your projector doesn't have motion settings - it'd be very unusual not to...

 

In fact this is a complicated thing. Some boxes do nice upscaling with smart interpolation other don't this both for frame-rates and resolutions.
So don't ask anybody which is the best. What is the best is what you like most and nothing else. It all depends on your player, TV and even AMP if not put in transparent mode.
My OLED 4K TV frankly does a nice job for up-scaling so I use auto-resolution plus auto-framerate. For 1080P sources my TV does the upscaling to 4K and it is fed the native frame-rate of the source. Is that the best? No idea but for my setup it is what I like most.

 

Chroma upsampling is not the same as zero padding used to fit word length. Chroma upsampling does involve video processing. The interpolation algorithm can be a simple nearest neighbor to more advanced filtering algorithms such as the NNEDI3 or NGU used in madVR.

Can't talk of the Z9S, but on X9S it is just 3:2.
"dirty frames" applies to interlaced pulldown. There are no "dirty frames" when pull down is done for 60p output.

 

I agree with @Markswift2003. Most likely your projector or TV is applying frame interpolation on your Sony Player but not on Zidoo or very minimum even if you just swap the cables.

I have Epson projector that detects not only devices connected to the same input port but it will also recognize different source material based on resolution and refresh rate. It stores separate set of parameters for each. On the other hand I have 2016 LG OLED TV that doesn’t care much about specific devices and it has one set of parameters per port. All internal apps like Netflix, YouTube and Internet Browser share the same settings. It does keep separate set for HDR material

Epson approach is much cleaner where I can control level of frame interpolation based on 24, 30 or 60fps.

If my TV has motion processing on it will make no difference at all if I use 24 or 60fps on Zidoo based on 24fps film material. TV decodes source 24fps from 60Hz signal and applies interpolation at selected level no matter what frequency 24 or 60 is used in between.

One more note on frame rates with LG TV. It needs special mode called “Real Cinema” in order to show correct 24fps film cadence without frame interpolation. If not selected it will default to 60Hz display with 3:2 pulldown even if Zidoo is sending 24fps. This is another case where there would be absolutely no difference between 24 and 60fps selected in Zidoo.

 

i previously had noticed stutters on 23/24hz contents too. tried some 60hz clips which r definitely smoother. while one could argue stutters on 24hz is normal, compared to the internal player on my sony tv, somehow it seemed to me stutter on z9s was more noticeable (under the same settings). I eventually decided to turn on motionflow in the tv (contrary to conventional suggestion).

any other thoughts comparing x800 to z9s in terms of picture quality?

 

Thanks everyone for your input and sharing.

>any other thoughts comparing x800 to z9s in terms of picture quality?

The z9s is acceptable whilst the x800 is definitely better due to: 1) more picture settings and parameters to fine tune including turning grainy videos to look a lot smoother and "clean" and 2) a few preset and custom settings which are very very handy to toggle between different file/video types/sources. All these are absent from the z9s.

(Of course z9s has other unique advantages over the x800 which make it a keeper eg poster wall, ability to play almost all file types and atoms lossless audio over network.)

 

Very interesting, do you know if the 2018 OLED models have improved this?

Greetings.

 

Sorry - you're totally correct - I was thinking of the good old days going from 24p (although we didn't call it that then!) to 30fps via 60 - it is simply 3:2 pull down so the cadence issues still apply.

 

I'm just an end user of my LG OLED65E6P Took me about a year of testing and experimenting with the TV and collective forum knowledge to fully understand controls of this TV It would be a lot simpler if they had a decent manual that would list functions with definitions. LG decided not to confuse anyone and keep it simple The classic in the manual is definition of:

"Real Cinema - Provides a cinema-like experience". This is the only function that provides true cinematic 24fps film cadence. However most of the time is is grayed out stuck ON or OFF. There is no explanation what triggers it and how it works. The Real Cinema true 24fps film cadence is too juddery and strobing on OLED for my taste. It's the extreme fast frame transition without any blur common to LCD technology that makes 24fps popping one frame at the time making 24fps rather choppy motion.

Going back to Zidoo it appears that it has some issues with 25fps source. I remember someone complaining about it all the time in firmware thread. I don't have a lot of 25fps material except for few foreign movies and some music video clips. Zidoo sends this out to the TV as 60fps disregarding automatic frame rate and resolution setting. I know TV excepts 25fps signal from other devices. Since I have motion processor active "TruMotion" on it extracts source 25fps over 60Hz and applies motion processing to correct frame cadence and to reduce judder effect. If Zidoo was sending it at 25fps, 50fps or 60fps it would be no difference to me at all unless I look at player info screen or shut the TruMotion off on the TV.

As far as LG models and improvement I know 2016 OLED's were the last ones with 3D best 3D TV's ever made .
2017 lost 3D functionality and had some improvement in HDR color mapping, YouTube HDR support, I think 120fps support.
2018 improvement in motion processor (greatly reduced artifacts), further HDR improvements etc.

Naming of functions and logic behind them is probably maintained throughout LG line of products.

 

similar on my sony tv. while most users r not technical but the naming really makes life difficult for more tech savy users, especially there r new fns like black frame insertion. cant be that much more work to inc some tech descriptions of these fns.

 

The very first thing I do with any display device, be it direct or projection, is to turn off all the so called digital enhancements - frame interpolation/noise reduction/motion processing.

Then I double check I've not missed anything.

 

Slightly off topic but we are all Zidoo users here
I remember when I bought LG OLED TV I couldn't take this strobing, choppy 24fps motion. We had hundreds of pages of forum threads in avsforum.com and avforums.com discussing best settings and possible combinations. 24fps true film cadence was so bad on some panning scenes that I could swear that rocking motion was 2 steps forward and one back as the camera was penning. I was filming the screen with high speed video camera to see if there is an issue with the screen or my eyes/brain are playing tricks on me

Back then I went to the local store with my samples on USB stick to check Sony version of OLED A1. Same thing but I was able to look at this black frame insertion feature that supposed to fix some of this choppy motion just like additional shutters in theaters for 24fps celuloid film projection. What a disaster this "Black Frame Insertion" function. It was really bad, bad. It had nothing to do with 24fps source. It was like a independent filter flickering at 60Hz that I could turn ON or OFF at any giving time and nothing to do with source frame rate. Horrible. It was like my 3D Epson projector with active shutter glasses operating at fixed 60Hz alternating per eye where the source is 24 fps. Unless I push frame interpolation to the max, frame cadence is uneven and different on each eye. I hope by now Sony got their sh... together and made some sense out of this black frame insertion because flickering screen at 60Hz wasn't working for me at all

 

Player has video settings, AVR has video settings, UHD TV also has video settings.

Normally video settings in which component u guys adjust?