DTS passthrough problems with KODI

[smallhorse]

Hi,

sorry, not sure this is the right forum. Please direct me to the correct one if this one is wrong.

I have the QBOX 2/16 since a few days and I think it is a really nice piece of work.
I bought it because I wanted a media-center for my TV that is capable of Kodi and CEC and working together with my AVR.

Anway, things are really nice but one tiny hiccup drives me crazy. There is a problem playing DTS sound via passthrough in Kodi (16.1) and also in SPMC (16.3).
Every 5-6 seconds the stream "hiccups" or drops for a short time. This essentially makes watching DTS movies impossible.


It seems this is a known problem that exists since a long time, but no one is doing much about it.

For example:
http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-...with-kodi-spmc

http://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?t=19309&p=128317

https://github.com/koying/SPMC/issues/89

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?...696#pid2347696

As far as I know this occurs with every Amlogic S905 based box out there.
What's funny though is that when I used uboot (see other thread about OpenELEC on this box) to start OpenELEC from the SD the DTS files play fine!
Now that is great, however I really would like the Android GUI with all the Apps and also Kodi/SPMC. Seems I am stuck either just running OpenELEC with no bells and whistles or running the QBOX Android with everything I want but not being able to play DTS files :-(

Does anyone else have any clues on how to fix this or who could have a look into this?

Thanks and regards,
Smally

[Macen]

Hi,

sorry, not sure this is the right forum. Please direct me to the correct one if this one is wrong.

I have the QBOX 2/16 since a few days and I think it is a really nice piece of work.
I bought it because I wanted a media-center for my TV that is capable of Kodi and CEC and working together with my AVR.

Anway, things are really nice but one tiny hiccup drives me crazy. There is a problem playing DTS sound via passthrough in Kodi (16.1) and also in SPMC (16.3).
Every 5-6 seconds the stream "hiccups" or drops for a short time. This essentially makes watching DTS movies impossible.


It seems this is a known problem that exists since a long time, but no one is doing much about it.

For example:
http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-...with-kodi-spmc

http://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?t=19309&p=128317

https://github.com/koying/SPMC/issues/89

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?...696#pid2347696

As far as I know this occurs with every Amlogic S905 based box out there.
What's funny though is that when I used uboot (see other thread about OpenELEC on this box) to start OpenELEC from the SD the DTS files play fine!
Now that is great, however I really would like the Android GUI with all the Apps and also Kodi/SPMC. Seems I am stuck either just running OpenELEC with no bells and whistles or running the QBOX Android with everything I want but not being able to play DTS files :-(

Does anyone else have any clues on how to fix this or who could have a look into this?

Thanks and regards,
Smally

Probably a stupid answer, but did you try to update to the latest firmware for the Q-box?

[smallhorse]

Hi!

Sorry for not mentioning it. Yes the box has the newest firmware from Geekbuying. (The one from June)

This problem seems to happen with ALL S905 based Android devices. It seems there is a "bug" in the AMLOGIC core or rather a "dirty" implementation of some Android APIs (that's what team KODI says),

I really like the box and the CEC feature is very nice as well, but a lot of my media is DTS and I watch and listen to surround sound and having those hiccups is very annoying.
Thanks for the hint about the firmware, but as said, it is up to date.

[Macen]

Hi!

Sorry for not mentioning it. Yes the box has the newest firmware from Geekbuying. (The one from June)

This problem seems to happen with ALL S905 based Android devices. It seems there is a "bug" in the AMLOGIC core or rather a "dirty" implementation of some Android APIs (that's what team KODI says),

I really like the box and the CEC feature is very nice as well, but a lot of my media is DTS and I watch and listen to surround sound and having those hiccups is very annoying.
Thanks for the hint about the firmware, but as said, it is up to date.

Can you try this rom, and see if it solves it?

http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/amlogic-based-tv-players/s905/q-box/firmware-roms-tools-bk/583567-rom-qbox-2gb-16gb-superceleron-v1-0

[smallhorse]

I will try this new firmware!
Great that someone is taking some love to the 905 devices! Most of the times sadly enough the box developers/sellers do not provide firmware updates etc.

Btw. I asked the question about the S905 DTS passthrough audio drops on the Kodi forum and it seems the issue has to do with Android API21. Android did not support passthrough audio at all it seems and since API21 it supports AC3 only. All the KODI and SPMC implementations for Android up to 5.1 use HACKS by sending IEC frames over PCM it seems. They say that only Android API23 (Version 6.X) will solve this issue because by then they support DTS passthrough.

Look at this thread:

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=252852&pid=2252568#pid2252568

I will try the new firmware however and report back if it works!

[251643711]

Kodi can not HD DTS it? It is better to be able to transplant and rk3368, zidoo 905 decoding is still good, and hope to have someone to transplant!