Bought a new UE 4K, juddery playback

[Glenn2]

Hi folks,

First time caller!

I've just got a new UE4K (from WoS), only had it a week, but have faced a couple of issues.

I was experiencing the T/C tuners going missing occasionally, although I have since done an update to the latest ViX and not experienced it since but it's probably too early to say for definite. I'm hoping this fix made it into the latest Vix but just wasn't in the one my box shipped with a week ago. This is the fix as declared in the German OpenATV forum:
>>>
From Image of 22.12. new driver (20.12,) in the image.
[GigaBlue - gb7252] update gigablue-platform-util
+ the tt3l10 tuner detection issue is fixed.
+ e2 streaming audio issue is fixed.
<<<

However, the main issue I now have is that when playing a recording or playing back from the timeshift buffer, the picture is sometimes juddery, as though it's dropping frames, but only sometimes. If I scan back into the timeshift buffer it happens a lot, and I have to pause/play to get the smoothness back. Same thing on recordings. I observed this initially with my hard drive attached externnaly in a USB dock, but it has continued now that the drive is fitted internally. It also happens if I use a USB flash drive anyway (I can copy a recording to a flash drive and play it from there, same behaviour). The best way of seeing this in action is to use a news channel with a rolling ticker at the bottom (I use BBC NEWS HD). Let the timeshift buffer build up a bit and scan back and forth through it (scanning back is very flickery anyway). Sometimes when you start to play the ticker is jerky and will remain so until pause/play then it's (usually) OK.

I tried flashing OpenATV, but it behaves exactly the same. Is this likely to be a driver issue or to do with the software that decodes the stream? It never happens when zapping, but it happens equally on satellite, cable or terrestrial programs recordings/timeshift. In all cases, pause/play (usually) cures it but it is annoying to have to do it frequently.

I have tried switching the video output between 1080i, 1080p and 2160p and that made no difference. TV is a Panasonic 4K from 2016.

As an aside, I much prefer OpenVix to OpenATV (even with Wooshbuild Infinity on top of it). Love the YouView skin. I was a YouView fan until they messed it all up a year or so ago, and that skin is like the old YouView.

Thanks in advance for any guidance!

Glenn

[ronand]

How are you forwarding and rewinding? On E2 boxes using the number buttons to skip forwards/backwards works best. After pausing use 1/4/7 to go back and 3/6/9 to go forwards. You can change the times that these buttons use. Its very handy for skipping through ad breaks as well.

[Glenn2]

How are you forwarding and rewinding? On E2 boxes using the number buttons to skip forwards/backwards works best. After pausing use 1/4/7 to go back and 3/6/9 to go forwards. You can change the times that these buttons use. Its very handy for skipping through ad breaks as well.

It doesn't matter really, either way the same thing happens. To be clear it's once playback has resumed that the picture is juddery. It's not playing properly sometimes when you start to play again. It's as though the picture drops a frame or two, about once or twice a second. It continues like that forever unless you pause and then play again (sometimes you even have to do this more than once).

[Sicilian]

Whats your A/V out set to 50, 60 or Multi?

If 1080p out set to 50, if 2160p set to 60.

[Glenn2]

Whats your A/V out set to 50, 60 or Multi?

If 1080p out set to 50, if 2160p set to 60.

Thanks. I've mostly had it set on 2160p multi (where it's using 50 as all the source material is 25p/50i), but I did already try 1080p/50, 1080i/50 and 2160p/50.

I would not use a 60 setting for 25p/50i sources (I am in the UK) as that creates its own micro-judder.

I think all UK on 28.2e is 50i isn't it? In theory setting that gives the box the least amount of work to do (the TV then creating 2160p/50 to drive its panel). I think UK terrestrial is a mix of 25p and 50i. Changing these settings didn't seem to make it better or worse.

[twol]

Hi folks,

First time caller!

I've just got a new UE4K (from WoS), only had it a week, but have faced a couple of issues.

I was experiencing the T/C tuners going missing occasionally, although I have since done an update to the latest ViX and not experienced it since but it's probably too early to say for definite. I'm hoping this fix made it into the latest Vix but just wasn't in the one my box shipped with a week ago. This is the fix as declared in the German OpenATV forum:
>>>
From Image of 22.12. new driver (20.12,) in the image.
[GigaBlue - gb7252] update gigablue-platform-util
+ the tt3l10 tuner detection issue is fixed.
+ e2 streaming audio issue is fixed.
<<<

However, the main issue I now have is that when playing a recording or playing back from the timeshift buffer, the picture is sometimes juddery, as though it's dropping frames, but only sometimes. If I scan back into the timeshift buffer it happens a lot, and I have to pause/play to get the smoothness back. Same thing on recordings. I observed this initially with my hard drive attached externnaly in a USB dock, but it has continued now that the drive is fitted internally. It also happens if I use a USB flash drive anyway (I can copy a recording to a flash drive and play it from there, same behaviour). The best way of seeing this in action is to use a news channel with a rolling ticker at the bottom (I use BBC NEWS HD). Let the timeshift buffer build up a bit and scan back and forth through it (scanning back is very flickery anyway). Sometimes when you start to play the ticker is jerky and will remain so until pause/play then it's (usually) OK.

I tried flashing OpenATV, but it behaves exactly the same. Is this likely to be a driver issue or to do with the software that decodes the stream? It never happens when zapping, but it happens equally on satellite, cable or terrestrial programs recordings/timeshift. In all cases, pause/play (usually) cures it but it is annoying to have to do it frequently.

I have tried switching the video output between 1080i, 1080p and 2160p and that made no difference. TV is a Panasonic 4K from 2016.

As an aside, I much prefer OpenVix to OpenATV (even with Wooshbuild Infinity on top of it). Love the YouView skin. I was a YouView fan until they messed it all up a year or so ago, and that skin is like the old YouView.

Thanks in advance for any guidance!

Glenn

I don‘t use timeshift and have never experienced this on recordings on either of the 2 GB 4K receivers......so I guess its an issue in timeshift....... if I get time tomorrow(probable — as I need to check out something else with timeshift) then I will try to repeat with your BBC NEW HD example.... and timeshift.

[Sicilian]

@Glenn2, did you format the HDD with the receiver?

[Glenn2]

I don‘t use timeshift and have never experienced this on recordings on either of the 2 GB 4K receivers......so I guess its an issue in timeshift....... if I get time tomorrow(probable — as I need to check out something else with timeshift) then I will try to repeat with your BBC NEW HD example.... and timeshift.

Hi yes that would be great.

I do also get it with the playback of recordings too. If I use << and >> to scan backwards and forwards when I resume playback it sometimes goes into 'juddery mode'. It's not always immediately obviously until you get camera pans (hence the news ticker advice as that shows it immediately). It seems to happen less when use the numbered skip keys although it does still happen.

The << with timeshift is a bit of a mess anyway, although I can live with that just not the juddery playback afterwards.

[Glenn2]

@Glenn2, did you format the HDD with the receiver?

I initially formatted it to EXT4 using Gparted in my PC (running Linux Mint), but once connected to the box I initialised it there too. If I copy a recording from it to a USB stick and play it from there it's no different anyway.

[twol]

Hi yes that would be great.

I do also get it with the playback of recordings too. If I use << and >> to scan backwards and forwards when I resume playback it sometimes goes into 'juddery mode'. It's not always immediately obviously until you get camera pans (hence the news ticker advice as that shows it immediately). It seems to happen less when use the numbered skip keys although it does still happen.

The << with timeshift is a bit of a mess anyway, although I can live with that just not the juddery playback afterwards.

Just tried this on the GB quad 4K and no issues - jumps backward and forwards pretty smoothly whether using the >> keys or the 3 6 9 etc keys. This is at 1080p 50 and internal HDD.

[Glenn2]

Just tried this on the GB quad 4K and no issues - jumps backward and forwards pretty smoothly whether using the >> keys or the 3 6 9 etc keys. This is at 1080p 50 and internal HDD.

OK thanks. I guess I got a dud then. It just does not have the feel of a hardware issue, if you know what I mean. It seems like the sort of thing you get in linux when a dodgy build of ffmpeg or avconv is used for decoding the stream or file. It's a shame as I like the box otherwise.

I did a bit of digging in the German atv forum and similar issues were reported last year but were fixed in the drivers. I suppose I could try flashing a year-old version of ViX if I can find one.

[Sicilian]

Doubtful that its hardware.

[dntaylor]

I to have the same problem with my GigaBlue UHD QUAD 4K. It only happens on recordings as you reported. I found the way to stop the juddering is to pause the recording for about 2 seconds then resume play and the juddering stops. This dose not happen frequently but it is annoying when it happens. I do think this is a driver issue.

[Sicilian]

Guys, please report direct to Gigablue, link to their ticket system:

https://support.impex-sat.de/

[Glenn2]

I did some experimentation last night with an old 5.1 build of ViX (as there are still the last few available to download).

Although I can recreate this issue at will on the latest build of ViX (and ATV), I could not make it happen at all on the old build, so it's definitely a driver/software issue (as now confirmed by another user).

However, the old build gives totally different picture quality to the current build.

The CURRENT build impressed me with its pq. I was impressed with the scaling of SD to HD/UHD resolutions, the scaling of HD to UHD and also the deinterlacing. For example setting 2160p (box upscaling and deinterlacing) looked just as good on HD channels as when setting 1080i (Panasonic TV upscaling and deinterlacing). SD looked very good to me also.

The OLD build looked rotten when set to anything other than 1080i and showing HD material (when the box was doing no scaling or deinterlacing at all, which looked the same as before). SD looked appalling. Setting to 1080p/2160p gave that 'vibrating' of thin horizontal lines like text, and all settings gave badly jagged SD images. I noticed within seconds that pq had taken a nosedive.

I all cases I had a BT/Humax DTR-T2100 YouView box to compare with (both using DVB-T when doing comparisons). The new build has better pq than the BT box, the old build has worse.

So the new drivers give (to my eyes and on my TV) vastly superior images, which surprised me. They just need a few tweaks I guess.

Forced to choose I'd still take the latest build as it's worth the annoyance of having to pause/play sometimes, just to have much better pq. If you only watch HD channels you can leave it set to 1080i of course and you'd be fine on the old build.