Which Media Center? ZDMC 16.02 vs SPMC 16.1-2

[cyber7]

Good day fello RK3368 users.
Deciding which Media Center to use is sometimes quite a bit of a headache. Here follows my reasons (and I could be a bit bias due to the fact I also have a Zidoo X6 and it is rock solid!) for using ZDMC.

• SPMC hangs when exit, ZDMC does not.
• SPMC crashes when terminating hung state, causing system to reboot.
• ZDMC (in default state) will not display video, but plays audio, on certain files. Disabling the "RockchipCodec" under Settings/Video/Acceleration fixes this.
• Android still has a delay between Audio and Video. this can be fixed by starting a video, choosing the audio settings and changing/adjusting the Audio offset, applying it to all files, at the bottom.

I hope this helps people deciding which Media Center to use. Please feel free chipping in and giving us your own experience and advice.

kind regards
cyber7 (aka Aubrey Kloppers; Cape Town; South Africa)

[ontherocks]

ZDMC, Zidoo X6 has proven that with their modified Kodi, it is the one with where everything that should work actually works, in addition to being good guys releasing their Kodi source to github.

[cyber7]

ZDMC, Zidoo X6 has proven that with their modified Kodi, it is the one with where everything that should work actually works, in addition to being good guys releasing their Kodi source to github.

---ditto---

Good-in=good-out

[grok]

I read SPMC do not support RK chips thats the reason it is freezing and crashing because Rockchip never released the code for development and they stopped supporting the Rockchip..
So I think you should be going with ZDMC which is more stable and proven for RK3368....

[scooter2014]

You read incorrectly support is already inside just no further added items for rockchip.

[mo123]

I read SPMC do not support RK chips thats the reason it is freezing and crashing because Rockchip never released the code for development and they stopped supporting the Rockchip..
So I think you should be going with ZDMC which is more stable and proven for RK3368....

People only hear half a story and then think Kodi doesn't not work on Rockchip device at all.
Kodi works great on Rockchip devices, a lot better than on other chip companies' devices.
Zidoo is also planning an SPMC build with small Rockchip tweaks like auto framerate switching and pass-through support that even the official Kodi struggles with on other Android devices at the moment.
And then you also have Linux Kodi support on both RK3288 & RK3368 devices.
Even Openelec for RK3368 is being developed.
For the moment if you want correct pass-through support you still need to use RK Kodi 16 or Zidoo Kodi on Rockchip devices until there is further development with their other projects.

The main reason developers don't want device specific tweaks for Android is most Kodi developers only care about Linux support and don't want Android to grow.
They also don't want increased piracy because more tv boxes with Android are sold.
At the moment Kodi doesn't have any Android maintainers, so Android support for all devices are suffering until they get new developers.

SPMC doesn't crash on Rockchip devices, I don't know where you hear that. Maybe very high biit-rate 4K videos but nothing else.
If you have tons of addons installed any build of Kodi will crash. no matter on which device it is used on.
It also depends on what Android device you buy. If you get something under $50 then most likely it will be slow and have firmware problems but more expensive devices tend to work much better.

[ghanashyaml]

I agree with mo123 on the device being important piece in the puzzle. Most buyers don't seem to realize that. My Tronsmart R68 is very solid, as compared to my earlier cheapo android boxes/sticks, Passthrough does not work most of the times in official kodi even for 2 channels, let alone > 5 channels. VidMe does work for me for 5.1 passthrough.

ZDMC, I hear a lot of good comments; I tried it with my Tronsmart R68; it does not enable the passthrough device like VidOn, so could not test 5.1 passthrough at all. Does anyone know how to get it working? Maybe it works only on Zidoo?

I have to try the NTMC (thanks mo123) app still, hope that works on my Tronsmart R68.

[scooter2014]

Kodi/tvmc/Zdmc/spmc/Ntmc/Fmc Is it me or am i loosing track. So many now and its starting to be device specific. Oh damn i forgot moe123mc. (LOL) well you have a few specific kodi builds out now too 😁

[grok]

I didn't mean to make you guys angry lol. I just wrote whatever I read online. I m not a developer. I m just a user so Kodi/tvmc/Zdmc/spmc/Ntmc/Fmc is samething for me as long as they are stable and do not crash/freeze.

But my post triggered a lot of good information.. Thanks guys..

[cyber7]

SPMC doesn't crash on Rockchip devices, I don't know where you hear that. Maybe very high biit-rate 4K videos but nothing else.
If you have tons of addons installed any build of Kodi will crash. no matter on which device it is used on.
It also depends on what Android device you buy. If you get something under $50 then most likely it will be slow and have firmware problems but more expensive devices tend to work much better.

Hi mo123
I have a huge problem with SPMC. When I shutdown (not exit) SPMC on both my RK3368 (Zidoo X6 and Nexbox Z68) SPMC just gets stuck on a black screen. If I then return to the desktop and force-close SPMC, the RK3368 will reboot. I also get that if I run SPMC and it sits idle for a long while, the system will also reset by itself.

I have tested this behaviour with ZDMC and can not emulate the problem.

Thus, the problem must be with SPMC.

kind regards
cyber7 (aka Aubrey Kloppers, Cape Town, South Africa)
ps - Thank you for your great support and guidelines with the RK3368

[mo123]

I agree with mo123 on the device being important piece in the puzzle. Most buyers don't seem to realize that. My Tronsmart R68 is very solid, as compared to my earlier cheapo android boxes/sticks, Passthrough does not work most of the times in official kodi even for 2 channels, let alone > 5 channels. VidMe does work for me for 5.1 passthrough.

ZDMC, I hear a lot of good comments; I tried it with my Tronsmart R68; it does not enable the passthrough device like VidMe, so could not test 5.1 passthrough at all. Does anyone know how to get it working? Maybe it works only on Zidoo?

I have to try the NTMC (thanks mo123) app still, hope that works on my Tronsmart R68.

Hi

What Tronsmart R68 firmware are you using?
Tronsmart's firmware support has gone very quite the last few months and there are just complaints in their forum.
They even removed all their blog posts comments because people complained so much.
But the R68 hardware wise is a lot better than other cheap RK3368 devices, it's just Tronsmart's support that is missing.
You can try to install the Zidoo ROM port for R68 in the Tronsmart RK3368 forum.
Then you can use Zidoo ZDMC or my NTMC.
On Tronsmart's own firmware those apps won't work properly as it's too old.

ZDMC or NTMC only work on Zidoo, Nagrace & UGOOS devices properly(and R68 with Zidoo firmware) on all other cheap RK3368 devices they won't work as those manufacturers have almost no firmware support to fix bugs or don't use new codecs that Kodi depend upon.

[ghanashyaml]

Hi mo123,

I am using the (old) august build of Tronsmart R68 firmware. My primary usage is watching online videos via Kodi, with ethernet and this firmware meets most of my requirements except ones I mentioned earlier. Yeah, I know Tronsmart has stopped support/development of R68, shame on them.

Yes, I plan to install the Zidoo ROM but not sure if it works for 100M version which I have.

I tried NTMC and it seems to work, and am able to see the options for DD/DTS passthrough and True/Master HD. However, in NTMC, I am unable to see any NaviX 5.1 videos or in any other addon to properly test 5.1 passthrough. Any sources you can suggest?

Why would ZDMC/NTMC need firmware fixes while VidOn (which is tweaked version of XBMC 14.2) works with passthrough without needed firmware fixes?

Thanks for your answers!

[mo123]

XBMC 14.2 still had a different way for pass-through to work.
It was changed in newer Kodi versions to have better universal support for pass-through on all Android devices.
These new changes made pass-through stop working on Rockchip devices and new firmware is needed to make use of these new methods.
You can try addons from here

[scooter2014]

If it wasnt for giys like you moe id have alot of door stops at my house 😁

[ghanashyaml]

Yeah, I read about Kodi team making it more generic and so in the process, breaking lot of things for rockchip devices. Did not know that included passthrough as well. I usually use all of the good addons (via tvaddons) but 5.1 channel audio sources seem to be almost non-existing.