I installed this yesterday and am liking it a lot. Not too many bugs, though I have no 4K clips to try and I do not use it for TV, so I cant comment on those areas. The same issue arises with the black bar at the top of the screen if you press the remote volume control while HDMI in is recording. (So use kodi internal volumes per video for a work around) Also disable the 2 acceleration settings under video settings or you will see black bars.. the picture looks like it shifts.. with these 2 settings off, you can also use aspect ratio and zoom and bright/contrast. I think the picture looks better over all than 16.1 Another thing I noticed is that kodi's individual settings for video clips (its own settings like PAR, zoom, brightness and audio settings etc..) will not hold per clip (some do, some dont) Other than that it seems to be working pretty good. Kurt
Also with this version... If you have a huge video library, changing from one video to the next is fast, so you can set to 'play next video automatically' in kodi video settings. in 16.1 on the X9, this setting would take forever to load the next video. (actually I think this was a X9 issue and not a kodi one.. but am not positive of that) There is a bug related to this however, if you set 'play next video automatically', then when you return to the list of video clips or movies, it always defaults and goes to the top of the list rather than highlighting the video clip you were on..
yes. i'm also using kodi 17 beta for some time now. it works good if you don't need passtrough. it does have a bug tho. 1 black bar at bottom of the screen
I am using the beta 5 vers, not the night builds.. You can get rid of that black bar at the bottom by turning off the 2 acceleration options in kodi's video settings.. I do have a bug where I can not click on 'videos' as the root directory in the UI.. I get a 'can not connect to the network' error.. however kodi's file manager can see the network fine. So I dont know what thats about, if its just me or not.. I can see the files if I go into the individual HDD's (to build the movie library) I also have several plugins installed that work fine.. Keymap editor backup transparency skin (though I kind of like the default kodi one better, I just wish the 'list' view was longer). I installed another scraper but I cant figure out how to use it, I think now only the default one works. Kurt
Not if you aint playing 4K you dont. The only other time, (the one without 'surface') is needed for smooth playback is recording and watching at the same time, a 1080p and possibly 720p clip. If you want to get rid of the black bars, and want zoom, PAR, brightness/contrast to work on the X9 or X9S, then It has to be disabled. (for some both are needed to be disabled, I'd imagine this is related to some other setting in zidoo configurations).
i don't want to get rid of black barS , i want to get rid of 1 black bar. that should not be there. on the bottom of the screen http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=297240 this one
on the X9S there are 2.. One at the top (this happens when you hit the volume on the remote if HDMI in is recording) The one on the bottom happens if the acceleration settings are on in kodi. Disable them both, then reboot kodi (maybe the X9S, as well, i forget) then a full screen (4x3 or 16x9) picture will sit correctly on the screen with no black bar at the bottom. From there you can probably enable the one acceleration setting that does not have 'surface' in parenthesis.. --Re-enable it if you want to record and watch that recording at the same time. The HDMI In, even without recording it, shows stutter and interlace...on a 1080p setting! So something is messed up there... what it is doing is recording this stutter... So dropped frames are probably happening even before recording. If a recording is tested, and all frames are there (nothing dropped, even though it looks choppy) then it has to do with some interlacing setting that is not right on HDMI In, and has nothing to do with kodi's settings (acceleration on or not), its the recorder app or HDMI in app .. I just emailed yeaman45 who made the schedule recorder because I think we may have to have had another recorder installed for his app to work. If so, then this other recorder app could smooth out the interlace issue on a progressive screen... and that makes no sense, but its whats happening... As soon as I hear back from him on that, I will try the other recorder if we needed to install it for his app to work. Kurt
Also I forgot to mention... this acceleration on/off issue started happening on kodi 16 (possibly 15)... But before that these settings never needed to be changed. It is a kodi issue with some chips .. If you have an X9 you aint using, or the transmart box (X9 duplication basically), install an older version of kodi on it to see..
to be honest. i don't mind if acceleration is ON. i want it ON. the black bar is a bug. kodi knows about it. once the next update is out it will get fixed. its not the end of the world ( did not test zdmc with surface off , but i have no black bar in zdmc , si there is no need for it off ) if you disable acceleration. decoding will be done by software ( bad )
actually last night I was using 17 with both accelerations on, without black bar on the bottom. Not too sure yet how I did it.. I fell asleep.. But I had zdmc and hdmi both running at the same time. I am pretty sure zdmc had them both off.. there may be some order of turning each app on or something..
I also run some movies once and the bar was gone. Next day was back. also. some asian somewhere died of hearth attack after reading this. calling anime cartoons http://www.diffen.com/difference/Anime_vs_Cartoon
LOL.. Anyway, I am beginning to think that having zdmc and kodi B5 open at the same time you can keep both accelerations on. In zdmc, I have only surface disabled. Then open kodi, and enable both. The black bar will still be there, however the zoom and PAR settings will now work (I think this is because zdmc is open). Zoom till the bar is gone, then set the PAR (brightness and contrast will still not work however..)
