Refresh rates how to decide what to use each time

[ryadre]

I have only just relalised that the choppiness / stuttering in my Beyond XBMC on my X7 with Finless 1.9 is due to the refresh rate not matching the streamed tv show or movie I am watching.

My questions are please:

Is there a way to bring up a menu over the show being played to say what the refresh rate is so I can then go into Android settings and alter it to match? or do I just have to keep going in and out of the setting trying different settings with each show I watch until it looks smooth?

Does the "Adjust refresh rate to match video" selection in the BXBMC setting work, with android? So it does it automatically for me?

Also I see there is a selection in BXBC to enable libstagefright hardware acceleration. Do I leave this on all the time? I mainly stream DVD quality tv shows and 720p movies. Im unsure what the HW accelertion actually does? Is that only good for watching 1080p movies? Does it cause other issues if its left turned on but not being used for DVD / 720p programs?

My tv if it makes any difference for the settings is a 55 inch LG LED about a year old. Minix is connected with HDMI, and i have the sound connected from Minix to my old amplifier via SPDIF, and have SPDIF passthough enabled in android settings. Minix is connected to modem with ethernet cable, and we only have about 5 or 6 Mbps download speed at our house.

Thanks in advance! I really love my Minix X7 and use it every night

[berrani]

I do this: with xbmc, when I start a video, I press the "o" key and see on screen the frame rate of the video, if it is 25 I return in android video setting and choose as refresh rate "50", "60" for a 30 frame rate and "24" for a 23,97 frame rate (tipical for hd material). For what I know actual version of android os has no api functions to automatically adjust refresh rate, so option in xbmc video setting has no utility (tested on my x7).

[harmani]

It would be VERY convenient to be able to have a shortcut on the homescreen to bring up the HDMI modes right away... Any app available for this?

[ryadre]

I do this: with xbmc, when I start a video, I press the "o" key and see on screen the frame rate of the video, if it is 25 I return in android video setting and choose as refresh rate "50", "60" for a 30 frame rate and "24" for a 23,97 frame rate (tipical for hd material). For what I know actual version of android os has no api functions to automatically adjust refresh rate, so option in xbmc video setting has no utility (tested on my x7).

Thanks, yes I had a play around last night and found out about the 'o'key to see the frame rate etc. which has helped out a lot . Thanks for telling me what settings you use as I dont know much about frame rates.

Edit - i had a play around with using different frame rates watching true dectective in SD / DVD quality. The frame rate was 23.97 so I tried 24 but there was still some stutter, tried some other rates and it sort of varied on how bad it was. So I dunno maybe theres other issues as well?

[ryadre]

It would be VERY convenient to be able to have a shortcut on the homescreen to bring up the HDMI modes right away... Any app available for this?

Yes that would be good to minimize the screens to go through to play with the settings, seeing as it cant do it automatically

I see under the programs then android in Bxbmc you can access the android settings in there, but probably no faster than going to the main home screen

[ryadre]

so should i leave the libstagefright button turned on all the time, or only i im watching hd material?

[ryadre]

just an update

i tried different refresh rates based on what was said above, and have found that basically every refresh rate had a slight jerk to it, except for 1080p50 which seems to play everything (no matter what the rate of the video) pretty smoothly