Good Evening, I’m having some real issues with my Z9X. It seems to be happening more now, but I am getting some real annoying freezing during movie playback. The freezing happens anywhere from 1 to 5 seconds at a time. This evening we were watching a movie and it probably happened 10 times during the first half of the movie. I finally turned it off and went and put the disk in. Some background into my setup. I just factory reset it before the movie and updated to the latest firmware. All my disks have been ripped to a Synology NAS. I used to use an SMB share but this evening used NFS instead but it didn’t make a difference as I get freezing on both. Network is gigabit throughout. I play back any file with no issues on my Apple TVs using Infuse or Windows PCs using VLC. Has anyone had these issues and figured out a solution? I really want to like this device, but it’s difficult when playback is as problematic as it has been. Thanks!
First of all, no, I've never had this behaviour, even in the pre-launch early days. It's not a known problem and could have a multitude of reasons - file problem, network problem, even a faulty player (although the closest I've ever seen to a genuinely faulty player is a broken leg on the power LED, so unlikely, and of course no-one ever believes that their files or network can be the problem). Don't suppose you ripped the discs with DVDFab did you?
No, these files are all mkv ripped with makemkv. I don’t foresee it being network related either as I have an ApppeTV plugged into the same exact switch. Have even used the same ports and that didn’t help.
Is the freezing related only to the Z9X or does it still happen as you move up the product line as well?
Ok, that's really really odd then - I've never had a single issue with files created with MakeMKV. The only reason I asked about DVDFab is that's been a common denominator with a few issues recently. As I say, it's not a known systemic problem, so the only way to figure out what the problem is is by a process of elimination. For example, can you play a file that has preciously failed via USB? or from a Windows share?
Z9X or Zidoo RTD 1619DR chipset does not go well with Synology for some people. There is 24 page long thread about freezing here. Next inline after Synology is Zidoo and PC .
True! I use Western Digital and they're faultless, but I also have no issues streaming from a Windows 10 PC as well...
I have WD Red 18TB drives. I know when I contacted Zidoo support they mentioned it could be a subtitle compatibility issue. We watched a movie with no subtitles last night and it played flawlessly. The one I had so many issues with the previous evening did have subtitles. At this point I’m not moving away from the Synology. If I keep having issues, I may look at one of the various other players to see if they play correctly.
Sorry, I meant Western Digital NAS, not just the drives (which are obviously WD as well). My feeling is that any issues with network playback are not necessarily to do with particular hardware, but more to do with network topography, setup, and of course finger trouble. But as I've said several times, people don't like to be told that their network is at fault, they'd rather blame the player, so I rarely bother.
Understood. While I would tend to agree, I can play the same movies from an AppleTV connected to the same interface that the Zidoo is connected to and I have no issues whatsoever. I really do want to like this device which is why I’m trying to figure it out.
I am having a similar problem with my Z9X. Except I can't even get full scans in without it freezing. I have yet to watch a movie on it. I am streaming from ZD-Samba with my Zidoo UHD 3000 in the living room. So frustrating. Did this problem ever get fixed Mark?
I'm not aware of a problem like this caused by the boxes. I just tried a full BD remux (Dolby Vision) on a USB stick plugged into one Z9X and played on another one using the SMB. One box on one side of the house and one on the other, maybe 50M of Cat5 (not 6 or 7) cabling and going through 3 network switches. It played absolutely fine - no freezing, no issues.
So essentially, you just put a movie in one box in the USB and then played it on another by connecting the two with an ethernet cord? Is that right? I don't think I could hard wire the two together without causing a disturbance with the wife.
After further review, I discovered that you should not use a splitter to run the zidoo and the cable box together for the ethernet. when I plugged the Zidoo in directly, everything seems to run fine. So it was a network problem all along.
No, not at all - both boxes are on a LAN consisting of 10 switches, 5 APs, 2 routers and over 100 clients. If you use a splitter, the way they work is to use 2 pairs each rather than the 4 pairs in the cable and network speed is reduced by a factor of 10 from 1000base-T to 100base-T.
They can be very handy, but only for stuff that doesn't demand a fast throughput. Video's definitely out though
