Feedback Short stopping when watching movies in ZDMC...

Discussion in 'ZIDOO X9S' started by Blue-beast, Jun 3, 2017.

  1. Blue-beast

    Blue-beast New Member

    Hello


    Could someone help me to set up the ZDMC player correctly. I own a X9S android box and original ZDMC player (version 16).

    When watching movies from a NAS over network I occasionally get short stopping of the movies.

    I have a cache set (advance setting) on ZDMC (buffermode-1, readbufferfactor-4 and cachemembuffersize-300M), but still getting short stopping. I have a Gbit network so the LAN could not be a problem.

    I noticed on some movies that time status bar has another bar that is lighter colour and it is advanced from the movie time bar (I hope I have written in a way that is understandable).

    When there is difference between two bars then there is no stopping, but when the difference is minimal the stopping is noticeable.

    I tried to pressed a pause so that a player could ‘buffer’ or cache a movie data, but there is no ‘caching’ even if I left on pause for a few minutes.

    What else can I do to eliminate this movie stopping (caching problem).

    Otherwise I’m very pleased with the player, it replaced my old popcorn A-200.
     
  2. HaoSs

    HaoSs Well-Known Member

    remove zdmc 16 and try 17.1 beta. i use it over samba to play movies no problem
     
  3. Blue-beast

    Blue-beast New Member

    Hello.

    I tried with Kodi 17.1 (not ZDMC 17 version) and use the same setting and no difference.

    I pressed a pause so that a player could ‘buffer’ or cache a movie data, but there is no ‘caching’ exactly as I have tested in ZDMC (version 16). I would also expect that 'cache' bar would be always slightly ahead from time bar when playing a movie.
    Are you sure that you saw 'caching' happening on your box?

    I don't wan't to update to 14.4 and then to new ZDMC to find out that the problem still exist.

    I ask myself, if there are some other settings that need to be adjusted in ZDMC/Kodi...
     
  4. HaoSs

    HaoSs Well-Known Member

    that's not a reason not to update i'm running 1.4.4 + zdmc on my x9s with share from x10. works fine ( no custom .xml or other settings )
     
  5. Blue-beast

    Blue-beast New Member

    Hello, it is me again...

    'HaoSs' - I tried as you suggested... It took me a while…
    I updated X9S to 1.4.4 version and then deleted the zdmc 16 version and instaled zdmc 17 version.

    I already tried with the original kodi 17.3 version, but the problem was still present.
    Maybe I confused movie stopping with frame skipping and was more of a frame skipping problem than stopping problem.

    I changed the zdmc interface to confluence skin and set the settings. I use audio passthrough and I must say that there are far more frame skipping as in version 16 even with advance settings for cache.
    I will probably return to zdmc 16.

    Any other suggestions...
     
  6. PacoRabanne

    PacoRabanne Well-Known Member Beta test group

    Something similar to your problem happens also to me. But is not every time, instead may not happens for many day and suddenly starts. Video play stops. Pause/play don't solve. Maybe after a while video play resume and all cotinues good, more often freezes. Then Gallery crashes. Then the only way to solve at least temporarily is to reboot X9S at all.
    Indeed I still haven't done the "factory reset" suggested. I'm waiting a stable and more debugged FW release. I'm using 1.4.4 but this isue was present also in previous releases (and reported here).
    On the other hand, when this issue don't happens, play with Media Center is satisfying for me. I have only up to FHD 2D videos, so can't report 4K issues, neither 3D because my tv is 2D only.
    The 4K and 4K HDR samples I have plays (via WiFi and SMB shares) very well from internal TV player, with hiccups from X9S.
     
  7. Blue-beast

    Blue-beast New Member

    Hello

    I also installed the original Kodi 17.3 but I couldn't set the audio passtrough… I changed the setting (on / off) but it was no change, the sound was only pcm…

    I guess the original Kodi doesn't allow audio passtrough on X9S.
     
    firdauslee likes this.
  8. nikos_a

    nikos_a Active Member

    No it doesn't in devices with custom patched android.
     
  9. Blue-beast

    Blue-beast New Member

    Hello.

    Today I deleted from X9S all visable programs for playing videos: ZDMC version 17, Kodi 17.3 (original one that I installed for tesing purposes) and Home theater, so all the apps that was visable in android app settings. I was surprised that when selecting video file from explorer, I was able to play it (even DVD iso and folder type and also BR files) with no problem and with audio passthrough.

    I might sound ridiculous and I apologize for the stupid questions, but could someone be so kind and explain to me how is this possible?

    1. ZDMC is Zidoo's player customized for this device and based on original Kodi, is that right?
    2. What is the purpose of the Home theater app?
    3. ZDMC uses some kind of external player when sellected in settings, which player is that and where could this app be seen?
     
  10. n_p

    n_p Active Member

    Hah, people trying to troubleshoot issues in an environment, that never learned Kodi, but uses it all the time... :) I can't tell you how much better the "scene" was back in Xbox v1 XBMC days...

    First - streaming trouble shooting with Kodi.

    Do yourself a favor and press the o button (Keyboard) on a video, when playing a video file. Kodi will provide you with an information overlay, that shows you:

    - CPU usage
    - dropped frames
    - cache fill rate
    - video codec/and renderer

    It has changed in newer Kodi versions, and I dont know off the top of my head, if all the information is present in a v17 build, but if you go back to Isengard, its all there.

    What it tells you:

    High CPU usage/dropped frames:
    Its the Android boxes fault

    Cache "running out"
    Its the networks/NAS'/ISPs fault

    So what I'd expect in this case is the cache running out at some point (even though its set to 300MB), due to the NAS/smb server, or the harddrives going to sleep, for example.

    So by looking at just that, it potentially prevents you from doing all the troubleshooting on the Android Box (X9S), in the dark. All of it.

    For people that don't have a keyboard to attach, simply editing Kodis keyboard.xml adding those lines
    Code:
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <keymap>
      <FullscreenVideo>
        <keyboard>
          <menu>CodecInfo</menu>
        </keyboard>
      </FullscreenVideo>
      </keymap>
    
    allows you to bring up said information overlay by pressing the menu button on your remote, while a video is playing in Kodi. That is - while a video is playing in KODI not in ZDMC (explaination soon to follow).

    I can't stress this enough, because we went through a "phase" we generally dont talk about, where I saw hundreds and I mean literally hundreds of "smartphone users" recommending to each other to increase Kodi cache size, FOR NO REASON (even I run with default cache settings), ruining their Fire TV Stick Kodi setup in the process, because that thing has very limited storage, and once it only hase about 600MB left, it gets unstable. Also they had no idea how to prune Kodis databases, or delete those cache files - because they grew up on smartphones where "have you tried uninstalling" is the prefered tip they would circulate on reddit.. And the funny thing is, that it took them hours to set up Kodi with only a remote... (and no backup).

    So please, dont be so stupid, and look at whats causing Kodi to stop and buffer instead of trying the "I've hit it with a hammer, and uninstalled..." method.
    -

    Second question -

    How does ZDMC work, and what does it use to playback files.

    ZDMC is a Kodi clone/fork that takes the Kodi frontend (menu, navigation, plugin plattform, databases, ....) and switches the playback software to another player (apk) for most of it file formats. You can look up what player (apk) they use in the playercore.xml file (http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Use_external_players_on_Android) in ZDMC (the file is situated in /sdcard/Android/org.zdmc.something/.zdmc/userdata/ - the .zdmc folder is "hidden" (by having the . in front of the zdmc in its name), so you need a fileexplorer that can show you hidden files (most of them have it as an option)) - I don't know how the app is called they use for playback - but you'll find it in there (and thereby learn, how to setup other external players with ZDMC/Kodi (MXPlayer is always a good alternative to have).

    Why are they doing this?
    Their player software probably is optimiced for the SOC, so can get a little better performance out of the X9S, and it allows them to implement their auto framerate switching (the may have fixed it for Kodis internal player in ZDMC 17, or not - I'm not sure), which is a good thing.

    Why can't I uninstall their player from the app menu (presumably)?
    Android has user installed apps and system apps, system apps cant be uninstalled by the user, unless you are root and delete the .apk files from a system folder

    But - you shouldnt need to.

    You can use/install the stock Kodi .apk (32 bit) directly from the play store if you have to and run both in parallel. You can also take a look at FTMC which is one of the few Kodi forks these days that actually makes sense (hybrid between 16 and 17 with the old playback engine, but most of the new system tweaks (https, newer version of python, ...). You shouldnt have to uninstall anything to do any of your trouble shouting.

    Android apps dont interact with each other, unless you make them. If you make them google will not let you publish them on the Play Store, so people don't make them that way - usually (root, xposed, magisk are your keywords for when you want them to).

    So if you are starting to uninstall Android apps to fix a buffering issue, you have been the victim of some of the lousiest advice imaginable... (or just suffer from being a millenial.. ;) (don't worry, I also qualify ;) ))
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2017
  11. Blue-beast

    Blue-beast New Member

    Hello.

    Thanks 'n_p' for the explanation.

    I must say that I first meet with Kodi about 3 months ago when decided to change my media player (popcorn hour) for some newer model. I choose the Zidoo X9S and I'm not disappointed.

    It takes some tweaking but it is working well.

    About the video information, I must say that I found information that you are talking about in zdmc (16) but not in zdmc (17), but thanks to you, I found those too (I added a keyboard.xml file and it works – thank you).

    Which explorer do you recommend to install so that I could see the hidden files, I tried with ES file explorer and Total commander for android but didn’t see any of the folders (I’ve seen folders with dot infront of them, but did not find the folders that you mentioned for zdmc)?

    I read about those files but I couldn't find them with original explorer even when the 'show hidden file' option was on. The problem is that I lack the programming knowledge, but nevertheless I understand what you mean, but as I said I didn’t find any of those files so that I could make those changes.

    You said it right zdmc is supposed to be optimized for the soc hw that is why it works better than kodi but zdmc is not a kodi (most video files worked better in zdmc as they did in kodi and there is also an audio passthrough setting that on kodi didn’t work for X9S, which is important to me).

    As I see it, zdmc uses own zidoo player and a kodi player, but I would like to add some other external player, but I can’t find those files to make the necessary changes.

    About uninstalling the player apps, I tried to configure which player is active/default. I found some old post: http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?threads/zidoo-x9s-video-players.4778/ , which was a starting point for me.
    As I figured, the default player (zidoo videoplay) is used by zidoo explorer and home theater and also as an external player for zdmc (but I might also be wrong).
    I would like to add some different external player to zdmc, but I can't seem to find the right file (playercore.xml) or the one that is used in zdmc.


    The possibility is also, as you suggested to install a kodi and then add external players, but one of them I would like to be a zidoo default player, but I can't find the correct apk.

    Can somebody tell me which is the zidoo default videoplayer and where can I find correct apk and the player that uses zdmc as an internal player and also the correct apk?
     
  12. n_p

    n_p Active Member

    I'll try to look it up for you as soon as I get home.

    On the device I use Total Commander which has the ability to show hidden folders, it should be a toggle somethere in the settings.

    Normally I use adb (aafm file manager) from my Laptop though. (advanced user stuff... ;) )

    That the media player zidoo uses is defined in the playercore file, was a guess, I have to admit, they could also have hardcoded it (they do compile the apk ;) ). But I can find out which process it is via the ps (the Android/Linux process manager) command regardless.

    But you dont have to uninstall it. Just install the normal Kodi as well and you can have the best of both worlds. :) Kodi works on the X9S, so does FTMC.

    "Better optimized for the hardware" was the polite way of saying "they control the player environment and can fix or tweak stuff, they cant with Kodi alone". Kodi uses certain codecs and renderers (ffmpeg, ...) they dont have to use, when they provide their own player. Why they went with it, is most likely an internal decision, they'd rather not talk about. ;) (So about those bluray isos... ;) )
     
  13. n_p

    n_p Active Member

    "Interesting" news. :)

    First, you are correct, there is no playercorefactory file in the zdmc userdata directory (if you've found the keymap folder you're in the "hidden" .zdmc folder already). So they are changing the player "internally" (presumably in the apk), and not with the config file thats there to "the same" in stock Kodi.

    Second, even more puzzeling, the only process that seems to be active while watching a video is ZDMC's own player core (DvdPlayer), so my presumption is, that they have integrated the "custom" player into ZDMC somehow.

    [​IMG]

    But to be honest, I'm stumped. No way to find out, but to politely ask the devs, or reverse engineer the .apk. :)

    But on that note - there are dependencies for ZDMC 17 in the Android system somewhere - because you can only use it from a certain firmware version onward... *hm*

    Have I told you guys already, that "uninstalling it" isn't necessary and probably doesnt solve anything? ;) (Just install KODI or FTMC alongside ZDMC, and use both. :) )
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2017
  14. Blue-beast

    Blue-beast New Member

    Thanks 'n_p' for the information, I'm glad that I was right in some way.

    To be honest I already use the Kodi, but the problem is that the zdmc has better player quality and also has working audio passthrough which on kodi doesn't work.

    My intention was to use latest kodi with option off using an external zidoo player.

    I'have read something about xbmc wrapper but I'm not really sure what its purposes is (does it 'find' and 'activate' internal zidoo player that can be used like an external player in kodi).

    I will also try FTMC as you suggested and try what it can do ;) … and as you suggested all the setting could be set the same as in kodi.
     
  15. PacoRabanne

    PacoRabanne Well-Known Member Beta test group

    I "reply" to myself to refresh this issue, hoping anyone can help me, or give me some advice, or tell me "is a problem that will never be solved" :p
    I just done a full reflash, I mean the one using a empty USB pendrive formatted FAT32, puttingo on it an IMG file (I used the 1.4.12 version), and powering on holding down "reset" button (the one behind the back panel hole).
    Flashing perfect. Rebooted as "brand new".
    Registered on my WiFi network, registered on Google, adjusted video and HDMI parameeters (to have a good video I need to force RGB 4.4.4), adjusted time zone, installed only Youtube for Android TV (downloaded fresh from APKMirror), and registered SMB share accessto my PC shares.
    In this condition ZDMC is not installed, but I currently prefer to use native (Zidoo) file manager (or media center, changed name many times...), and don't like Zidoo Theater.

    Well, the issue of (sometimes) video freezing, pause OK button do nothing, and after a while the popup about "Gallery not responding, wait or close" appears.
    Sometimes choosing "close", waiting a while and reselecting the video it starts playing (in the same point, seems that bookmarks works), other times (more often) I need to reboot X9S at all.

    Someone tell me "never seen a similar behaviour", "mine plays always perfectly".
    I trust is true, but this happens to me.
    I'm thinking: is there something faulty on my X9S, like some cells of the RAM or of the Flash memory?
    Maybe an external event in the flow of data from the SMB share to my device that causes a so catastrophic malfunction?
    Is there a way to do a full hardware check of the whole device to detect faults?

    Hope someone can give me an answer or an advice, even by PM.

    TIA!
     
  16. HaoSs

    HaoSs Well-Known Member

    what if you dont use SMB ? does it still happen ?
     
  17. PacoRabanne

    PacoRabanne Well-Known Member Beta test group

    The real problem is that this event happens often, but not every time I play a video. May not happen for a whole day, and may happen many times in an hour another day.
    Will be helpful to have a detailed procedure, if possible, to capture a debug log from "gallery" to catch the bug.
    But... is this (gallery) the android name of the video player? Or is the app that works as a "bridge" (better "frontend") between local or network videos and Zidoo Player?

    Anyway, I can try to copy a bunch of videos on an HDD and play them directly connecting this HDD (USB) to X9S.
    If no more suggestion/advice/solution come up, I'll try one of these days, when I've some spare time to do the huge copy........
     
  18. HaoSs

    HaoSs Well-Known Member

    Over wi-fi I got same results x10 share on wifre x9s recive on wi-fi. Playback will get stuck for no apparent reason. Speed was enough for stream.
    On WiFi my router speed graph will go down to 0 than jump to 10MB than down to 10 again.
    On whire now it stay constant at 3MB, 0 playback problems.
     
  19. PacoRabanne

    PacoRabanne Well-Known Member Beta test group

    Thanks HaoSs! I remember some (you ?) already reported this behaviour on WiFi connection.
    On the other hand, when my internet connection is stable (currently I have high crackling noise on ADSL line, so connection is unstable, but internet and phone provider don't solve this problem...) Youtube is fine, always. Maybe Youtube require less bandwidth and handle better unstable streams, or (and?), more probable, is a sum of not perfect X9S WiFi flux handling and fragility of Zidoo Media Center/ Zidoo Media Player to unstable streams.
    And, more, this doesn't happen on TV native media player, as well connected to the same WiFi network...

    I'm going to cable my house, but, as you can understand, having modem/router far from my TV/X9S, is a big job.
    Not a thing I can do soon...
    I also thought to simplify and use a Powerline/Powerlink connection between router and X9S, but I'm not so sure is stable as a well cabled wire.
     
  20. HaoSs

    HaoSs Well-Known Member

    I know how it is, I had to run 15m of wire and go trough a wall
     

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