V1.0.27 beta available for download

It seems that’s how it is. It would be better though if the settings with everything at 50 would be the “ideal” settings instead of what it is right now. Just to remove confusion and for people not to reset the settings by accident.

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Yeah, that was my expectation, that resetting the advanced video setting values, + the video setting values to 50 will result in a perfect picture. Obviously, it’s not, and you need to keep those sliders to the settings shown in the tweak.

We will probably skip this from public release due to the numerous issues. But luckily most are known:

  • launcher issues are known, WIP
  • the brightness/contrast sliders: engineer confirmed to me he overlooked something
  • kodi: also WIP

And finally, there’s no immediate plan for a DPI slider since this change needs to be done in the system image, it’s not easily configurable without rooting (yet).

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Please also tweak the low battery notification. I can already imagine people saying “OMG! that’s BIG and distracting!” :smiley:

Good luck and looking forward for the next beta.

I want to quickly get some feedback in, I filmed a whole lot of stuff that I have to edit first before uploading it privately.

  1. Battery warning size is big (partially due to DPI change) but serves its purpose well. I would like to have it appear at 10% and 5% though, 15% is too soon for my liking (perhaps have two or three configurable warning times?)
    1b. Would it be possible to flash the LED on the unit itself to indicate a low battery warning? Flashing frequency of 1Hz = 15%, 2Hz = 10%, 5Hz = 5%?
  2. DPI change is an improvement in a lot of places, but there are some where it renders the interface almost unusable. I’ve had a few login screens not be shown completely and not scroll up properly, where the on-screen keyboard got in the way. The only way I could get rid of it to complete the dialog box was to press ESC on the connected physical keyboard. Perhaps something we / the developers can have a thought about how to deal with.
    2b. Mouse pointer size is fine with me, makes it easier to find the pointer sometimes.
  3. I remembered (after already upgrading) that I had read somewhere how to see if Kodi was using HW decoding by pressing O while playing, which I believe is only possible if you have a keyboard connected (physically or via Bluetooth). I did it and it confirmed that Kodi is using HW decoding on FW version 1.0.26. Playback seemed the same to me, perhaps I’m less observant / more forgiving of choppy / sloppy playback but it felt the same to me, I didn’t see any issues nor improvements, but perhaps it was using HW decoding already? :man_shrugging:t4: In any case, Kodi has always worked fine enough for me, on 1.0.25, .26, and .27.
  4. (Known issue): The Synology DS Video app I had previously installed but which wasn’t visible in the launcher now showed up on the screen, but crashed (out to) the launcher. Once uninstalled and reinstalled it did start perfectly though from the launch screen.
  5. I haven’t played with the image settings but it all looked the same before and after the upgrade. So I don’t think anything has changed (but apparently something was indeed overlooked)

I’ll update the post with my video later on, once I manage to edit and upload it.

I like the 2x scaling but it still doesnt make sense for me to use the inbuild operation system. The picture quality when using f.e. Prime or Netflix is still miles away from my attached FireTV4K Stick. BTW: I didnt use INFO: How to improve internal video picture quality? and dont want to use such manually optimization in a “plug and play product”.

If you didn’t do it then don’t expect it to be on par with external sources :smiley:
So have you tried this beta version? Maybe you can confirm if it was actually fixed or missed by the developers.

Just to share, after the workaround was shared for fixing the picture quality, I never used my firestick and RPi again and instead exclusively used the internal system. However, I got my surround speakers so I’m now using my PC for anything I want to play with 5.1 surround :sweat_smile:

My feedback was off course related to 1.0.27 which is the topic in this thread. How else could I comment on the 2x scale?

Oh yeah, stupid me :joy:

So can you check the image settings if everything’s set to 50?

Thanks for the feedback of the beta patch.

A good way to test choppy playback in Kodi is to play/stream a 1080p video in Kodi of any scene that has long moving shot where the camera moves from right to left or left to right or zooms out or zoom in to scene.

You got to observe the corners/sides of the screen where the scene unfolds or folds in… You’ll notice the slow frame rate like a fast slide show. That’s choppy playback.

It’s especially irritating while watching high speed action-packed scenes. Or even fast animated moving expressions/expressive gestures.

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Which surround speakers did you get? And how are you connecting them to PPMax?

It’s a cheap one that’s actually for gaming - Logitech z607. It has bluetooth., aux, and RCA. No optical or HDMI so it’s connected to my PC and not directly to the PPM…well either way, there’s no way to connect to the PPM :joy:

This is getting a bit off topic though :sweat_smile:

1.0.27beta
DAZN

Does not start from desktop icon
Opening DAZN from the app store launches the app

Some apps don’t start from the launcher indeed, that’s a known issue indeed.

To be honest. I don’t understand why this 1.0.27 beta software has been released now as an official build. There must be a lot of preasure to execute this step. Some of the findings have not been mentioned in the release notes. I also don’t get what the gamma fix is not doing. Is it setting the tweaked settings in the hidden advanced video settting s menue now automatically ? Why hasn’t it been renamed to 1.0.28 as mentioned in the release plan. This will confuse again a lot of users.

Mainly to get the netflix and home button bugfixes out asap before the next wave of deliveries arrives.

By the way, it’s not the same as 1.0.27 beta. This was internally 1.0.29beta but got renamed to 1.0.27 for whatever reasons…

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We are the only ones to have gotten .27a, so only we know about the previous shortcomings. This is .27f probably, so we will have to redownload it and install it.

Thanks for clarification. So is it worth installing the official 1.0.27 over the 1.0.27 beta ? - What exacly has been changed about the missing video settings tweak in 1.0.27 beta ?

That’s why I asked this question in this part of forum which should be restricted to beta testers.

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Yes it is absolutely recommended to get off the (older) beta and to the current release.

The video settings apply the same adjustment as described in the KB article. There is nothing mysterious, the android output needed to be adjusted to account for the video chip’s response curve.

In the future we will call betas as 1.0.28beta1, 1.0.28beta2 etc. until 1.0.28 is finally released. Though it looks like next one will directly jump to 1.1.0 due to new features. Don’t fixate so much on the numbering scheme… it’s all arbitrary.

FYI the delta between 1.0.27beta and 1.0.27 release is:

  1. better touchpad driver (prevent home returning bug)
  2. better graphics driver (prevent netflix crash)
  3. 4-corner hidden if auto keystone is on
  4. brightness/contrast correction (now actually applied)
  5. autofocus hides after 6 sec
  6. updated preloaded apps

so there’s quite a lot.

kodi fix didn’t make it, its a long business discussion.

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