[UHD8000] Initial observations after 48 full hours vs Zappiti 4K HDR

Hi all,

I just took possession on my UHD8000 on Saturday, here's my initial impressions after 48 hours of use.

• The UI is absolutely glorious! I have mine in 4K HDR. I had read in another post on one of these forums that the 4K UI is faster than the 1080P, and I can confirm this to be true on my setup
• Reaction speed is phenomenal, light years ahead of the old Zappiti!
• UI is super intuitive and easy to navigate
• Scrapping was very good in comparison to the current Zappiti with R_Video! I have a little over 300+ movies on two 16 TB HDDs, first drive with the most movies took a little over four minutes. Accuracy was decent, with only about 7% not matched for my whole collection, not bad. Every title I added to the Zappiti through R_Video had the incorrect or missing metadata, only the title was correct. The old Zappiti movie player was a little better with that regard
• Forced subtitles!! Yes, finally! I don't have many movies that utilize forced subs, but I'm so glad this is a feature, and it works flawlessly
  
• I don't know what voodoo they're doing on movie playback, but my movies have never looked better!
• This is my first time experiencing Dolby Vision via a media player, but it looks great, some even better than on my Sony X800 m2
• I've had no issues with disc menus or playback on the titles I've tested (see note below on VC1)
• I am using this as my main music player as well, works great! I am moving my Yamaha WXA-50 to the bedroom. This ESS DAC sounds amazing, I almost feel like I have a new pair of speakers!
• Don't judge, but my main steaming app is Pandora, (I've had it for over a decade), and I'm going to try to load the APK on the Zidoo this evening, I'll keep you posted.
• File navigation is a breeze, and I was able to transfer a movie via SMB to the Zidoo with ease

Cons:

• Funny, I had just taken the time recently to rip my old HDDVDs and the rips played fine on the Zappiti, not so much on the Zidoo, they freeze every 8-10 seconds, not a big deal for me as I only have 10 titles
• I'm having occasional HDMI handshake issues, the screen goes completely black after stopping playback. If I switch inputs on my receiver and back, it goes away. Overall not that big of a deal, but an issue none-the-less
• When navigating the companion app via Android, the navigation was clearly setup for Apple users, as it completely ignores the in-built back button on Android devices and has you use a software back button located only at the top of each page. It's taken me a while to get used to this, but it's kind of a pain, here's wishing they allow the Android back button to function like it was intended in a future firmware
• 8K playback is absolute trash! LOL It barely plays back 8K video created with my Galaxy S23 Ultra. I have a Canon R5, which can shoot 8K 12 bit RAW, but at it's lowest 8K setting it produces HEVC 8bit 4:2:0, 230 MBs clips, which the Zidoo can't handle! That's sad as I was looking forward to using this for watching my Canon 8K clips on my TV.

Other that that, I'm so glad I got this player, it's everything I've ever wanted in a media player, and should carry me into the foreseeable future.

Thanks for reading.

 

Some additional notes,

It doesn't like when I connect an external SSD enclosure to the USB connection. For some reason it slows the system down and causes glitches. I have a bunch of music files on an SSD and it won't even scan the drive to pick up the music it just keeps defaulting back to the home screen.

My built-in, software keyboard doesn't work properly, it always types the second (shift) option no matter what I try. Weird.

The temperature and time of day icon isn't always correct.

I had a folder full of surround sound demos on the same hard drive as my main movies and for some reason the system wasn't picking it up, I had to go in and manually add that folder to be scanned.

All for now, still loving this unit.

 

Have you updated the firmware to v1.1.60? That may fix the HD-DVD issue.

Temperature and time of day - I assume you've set your location correctly? Never seen that go out as long as there's an internet connection.

HDMI issue is possibly due to a UI video mode that's on the cusp of what the AVR can deal with - that's an old receiver, not sure what HDMI version it uses, I think it's 1.3.

 

Your Playback issues / Hdmi / 8K issues amongst others maybe because your receiver is Onkyo 807 is a 1.3 HDMI ?

 

Thanks for the response, I haven't manually updated to that firmware yet. I did check for an update via the system check, but that version wasn't available (.60).

Someone over at AVSFORUM helped me fix my HDMI issue shortly after posting this, I set my display out via HDMI to force 12bit 4:2:2, works without a hitch now. I'm also running audio via the second audio only HDMI, no video to the receiver. All video goes directly to my OLED.

Location is set and it's connected via ethernet, the time is always correct, but the temperature is constantly off. Also the time of day/weather icon is always wrong. It shows the sun when it's nighttime, etc.

 

I'm not using my receiver for any video, just audio. All video goes straight to my OLED.

 

Possibly the location is still wrong - when I select location in Weather Settings and search for my town I'm presented with two identically named locations with no way to know which is the correct one - it doesn't even show country - one is correct and one isn't - maybe choose a wider area or another nearby location.

Or just turn weather off

 

Amazes me the Zidoo weather app causes so much reports ……
When peoples phone app is so more Accurate or tv weather reporting or as we say stick your head out the window
Is the Most Accurate of all .

id be more concerned of Zidoo Movie playback of concern etc .

 

It's a nice addition, but yeah, I wouldn't miss it.

 

Maybe show as Default picture showing
Sun , Rain , Cloudy , Thunder storms , Hurricane , Snow
, lightening etc and thats all bases covered so no complaints

 

Just rain would do here.

 

@Troy LaMont
We have the same setup and I have the exact same problem that I also solve by switching from one input to another. Can you tell me exactly how you solved it? Thanks.

 

Settings -> Display -> Color settings -> select Priority YUV422 12 BIT

 

Yes, ok, but under what heading should I select YUV422 12 Bit?

Color Settings/8K
Color Settings/4K 50~60Hz
Color Settings/4K 23~30Hz
Color Settings/Non-4K

 

I did it for all...

 

I had to reset my UHD8000 last night. I use it a lot for music playback and I couldn't get it to launch any streaming apps or play any music. It would just freeze then eventually go back to the home screen, after half an hour of trying, I reset the unit, so far all is well now.

I did have a USB drive connected with local music, and I had removed that, I'm not sure if that was a cause of the problems, but mentioning it in case anyone notices issues once they remove a USB drive.

On another note, I need to create a backup of my cover art etc., so if I have to reset the unit again, I won't have to rescan my movie collection.

 

May I ask what Streaming Apps? I assume you know the UHD8000 is essentially a media player, playing local files?

 

Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon Music, etc., music streaming apps. I have local music files on my USB thumb drive.

 

Ahh ok. Yes, you shouldn't have issues with those, so something isn't right. Fingers crossed the Reset should've solved your issues

 

Pandora APK installed and plays fine on non 'G' firmware.