I bought a Z9X today and having frame drops. I tried different good quality hdmi cables. Tried every options—color settigns, resolutions... I am playing the files from my nas via Home Theater 5. I tried different players. I tried connecting the box to ethernet directly instead of the switch box. I noticed the realtime bitrate drops to 0 when freezing happens(I don't know if it's something) and another thing is that my projector says 12 bit on info no matter what I set the box to(output mode on zidoo says 10bit tho) What could be the problem? I haven't been able to solve it the entire day. Software version: v6.4.68_G Avr: Denon x2500h Projector: Epson ehtw6150
The original Z9X has been incredibly stable for years, so the first thing to say is that the Z9X hardware/firmware definitely doesn't suffer from frame drops in of itself. First thing - is Frame Rate Mode set to Match Frame Rate? Also, freezing is also definitely not an issue with the Z9X, so if you get that something's badly wrong somewhere. What do you mean by "I tried different players"? If you post your EDID I can probably tell you why the 12 bit thing happens - There were Epson projectors that had a bandwidth restriction somewhere between HDMI 1.4 and HDMI2 which would explain it, so they have to use 12-bit 4:2:2 instead of 10-bit 4:4:4 (which isn't a problem at all). To Download EDID ================ Settings/Display/Custom EDID/Save EDID Save to a USB stick or network location Post file as attachment to forum
I tried both frame rate match and resolution. Players as in vlc or mx player. I tested the speed and I have over 500mbps internet speed on my zidoo. EDID is attached. So I tried playing the same episode via usb and there is no drop. I play it via network and drops appear. This is how it freezes: Also this just happened: I closed and reopened the app and fixed but still sharing because maybe it has something to do with the problem.
Ok, so the first question about 12-bit - as I thought that EDID is essentially a 300MHz HDMI 1.4 EDID with extra bits tacked on like HDR etc. That may be due to the projector (as I say Epson had a habit of doing that) or the Denon not being in enhanced mode so check the Denon HDMI menu. The freezing - that's got to be a network issue - very little else can cause that on a Z9X, which would probably go for the frame drops too. Goodness knows what the pink screen thing is about! Never had that. Although it does look a bit like what happens if you send TV Led Dolby Vision to a display that doesn't support it. And a dodgy HDMI chain can do that too. Not saying it's either of those, just that's what it looks like.
So having 12 bit on the projector is not an issue as I understand. Denon has enhanced option on. My main issue is the freezings. Same ethernet cable does not cause any issue on my shield pro but it does on z9x. I am really out of options. Chat gpt told me something about switching to NFS but im gonna have to see how to do that. Can you think anything else?
Ok, if the Denon has Enhanced HDMI output on then it's the PJ and yes, it's not a problem at all. It only becomes a problem with 60Hz Dolby Vision content which needs HDMI 2.0. Yes, you can try NFS - personally I prefer SMB, but I use NFS with Jellyfin and it works fine. Not a Synology NAS by any chance?
I have Asustor Drivestor 4 pro gen 2. I opened NFS and added the folder but can't see the folder when I scan in the Home Theater app. I'll do it with a help of a friend tomorrow. I am learning so can you tell me why you prefer SMB over NFS?
If I'm honest, probably no good reason. We used to use NFS years (decades!) ago for high bitrate DVD rips because NFS is a more primitive protocol - less network overhead than SMB, so in those days it made a difference. But SMB improved and hardware improved dramatically and it became a non issue. I can also remember having problems with an early Zidoo using NFS and switching to SMB fixed it - actually might even have been a Sigma Dune or a Sigma Mede8er - and I switched to SMB and have used it ever since with zero problems. So in most cases, SMB just works fine, but I'm sure NFS does too - as I say, I used it with the native Jellyfin app on the Zidoo as an experiment and it works great.
1 question: I am thinking of using Jellyfin on my zidoo. Do you think it would make any difference in term of picture quality or anything like that? I found jellyfin much better because open source and more features etc.
None whatsover - you have to set Jellyfin to use the internal Zidoo player (external to Jellyfin) so picture quality is the same. If you try to use the default player, playback will be impaired because it can only run in software (unless you stick to 2K content or below, then it'd probably work ok).
I just installed Jellyfin but I can't get the refresh rate switching working for some reason. I tried both Scale on TV and device. What could be the reason? Edit: Okay okay using external player (zidoo's native player) solved the issue. Thought, surfing on jellyfin looks worse. It is more laggy. Edit 2: Oh boy! Switching to jellyfin solved the drop issue. I don't know how tho, I am still using the zidoo's native player.
Yeah, Jellyfin is a bit rubbish at poster caching - it's like that on any client Even though you're using the Zidoo native player, the streams are fed from the server and not the NAS directly, so the network routing is different - I'd still want to fix it direct to the Zidoo, but I'm glad that fixed it.
