I-like-Hd? in 5.1.? Feedback

[TheCruncher]

I don't have real debrid and also not gonna pay for it, as my 2 channel AAC streams are converted to 5.1 by my amplifier. I know it's only simulating but it sounds like real 5.1 or 6.1 when I select CS II or Neo 6

And it seems that Real Debrid actually may be your problem. I have no other explanation for your problems, because a 5.1 stream really doesn't take that much bandwidth. When I get a 5.1 stream, which is very rare, it plays without issue on my 10mb connection

From the comments on the Koditips site.

http://koditips.com/reduce-buffer-real-debrid-on-kodi/

dolphy on December 9, 2015 at 7:02 pm

Got 30 day account and am mostly disappointed. 1080 and 720 sources in genesis and icefilms buffer especially with 5.1 audio. Much more working links in Genesis and icefilms is useful again but pretty much just sd.

Curtis on January 24, 2016 at 9:09 pm

The top quality streams from rapidgator oboom, etc. All buffer and barely get above 0% . Seems to be 95% of streams with Dolby digital 5.1 are unwatchable for me. Not sure if it something to do with my android tv box or what but it makes RD useless to me.

jt on February 20, 2016 at 3:35 pm

@StinkyPete…you say, “RD streams are more stable (if still available) and offer 5.1 DD or DTS surround audio track.” First of all, the “if still available” is the operative phrase here, as very rarely do they have the best HD both showing up on the list and actually available to stream. Secondly, I have found few streams with 5.1 DD from RD…mostly 2 channel only. I have RD, but I would guess that I end up streaming only 1 in 3 films or episodes from RD b/c I find better streams that are NOT RD. That really shouldn’t be, and I’ve heard lots of excuses for them (like, well, it’s the scrapers’ fault). On top of that, I get the feeling that RD doesn’t give a crap about the quality of the experience Kodi users might have with RD, meaning they have little desire to improve it. Whatever, I’ve subscribed for a 6 month trial, but won’t be surprised at the end of that time if I don’t re-up.

Edit : By the way, could you try to disable hardware acceleration, all 3 of them in Kodi>settings>video>acceleration and see if that makes a difference?

It definitely makes adifference with live streams, so maybe also with the real debrid streams.

Yes of-course our receivers will convert to basic Dolby/NEO surround, but its not the same in a dedicated high end home cinema set up! An RD account wouldn't break the bank I think its about £15 a year, and right now they seem to have pulled their fingers out and its working surprisingly good ( FYI I experience the same issues RD links or not, so RD is not the issue, like I mentioned before it only happens in Thailand, same box in Tbilisi, Georgia and even in Kabul, Afghanistan works better than here with 5.1 sources)

Ive now ventured into some advanced settings and disabled the hardware acceleration. This worked surprisingly well last night but today I haven't had a chance to follow it it up!

But why do I need to change the settings here in Thailand, whats different here . . . . .

The reason it works better in Afghanistan than Thailand is because internet is a joke here. The other day I got about 3Mb to UK and US servers on speedtest, where normally I will get triple that speed. With 3Mb no decent streaming is possible of course.

The advanced settings is supposed to help with a poor internet connection, so at the moments you get good speed it will cache some of the stream, and use that cache at moments when the speed is slower than necessary.

But advanced settings can be troublesome also, because if you set the cache figures too high it may reduce your system memory needed for other things like subtitles.

It also, regardless of what some claim, be no use with live streams. You can't cache what hasn't been sent yet.

It would be interesting if you could point me to some 5.1 streams outside RD, so I can check them out here.

Don't give links for release hub, as i installed it yesterday and couldn't find a single source. I now recall that I tried that addon some time ago, and deleted it for the same reason.So it has been uninstalled again already.

[naidraw66]

It's working great now after some further tweaking, thanks very much for directing me towards this path. 3BB will be happy now that I stop my complaint about the speed, they have even given me a free upgrade to 50 Mps down thank you very much but that won't last! I know you don't want to hear it but if you have a RD account it opens up so many 5.1 sources. Before I joined a few months back I could hardly find any 5.1 content. Now Release Hub, and entertainment hub are linked with and work fantastic with a RD account. Have a go at it just join for a month, I bet you'll be surprised at the content available. Even on Exodus, without the RD account 5.1 content is very limited.

If I can help with anything let me know, and thanks for your posts

ND

[2fishin2]

open a command prompt.

Type in : ping -t <any ip address>

To stop type ctrl c

It will show how many packages you lost

On further thoughts, if there was something wrong with your internet connection, it would also not let you play HD streams with normal sound.

That should be

open a command prompt.

Type in : ping -t <any ip address> - press enter

To stop type ctrl c press CTRL and C key simultaneously.

Thanks again, I will have a go at that later. HD streams 1080/720p with 2.0 sound source usually no problem at all! its only when you add the 5.1 sound source that it starts to freeze, I had it down to the large file sizes associated with the Dolby soundtracks . . . .

Please tell where I can find Criminal Minds on Exodus with 5.1 stream.

I can find it in both 1080p and 720p, but the audio streams are AAC 2.0 and no choice to change audio stream Both sources are Sezonlukdizi/gvideo and are playing perfectly.

I noticed when I first installed my Minix that enabling stereo upmix in the Kodi settings would give me trouble.

Edit to add : In your audio output settings in Kodi you should also select 2.0 channel en not 5.1. look at the Minix forum links I posted.

I got the new criminal mind show in 5.0 last night through Exodus.

[TheCruncher]

It's working great now after some further tweaking, thanks very much for directing me towards this path. 3BB will be happy now that I stop my complaint about the speed, they have even given me a free upgrade to 50 Mps down thank you very much but that won't last! I know you don't want to hear it but if you have a RD account it opens up so many 5.1 sources. Before I joined a few months back I could hardly find any 5.1 content. Now Release Hub, and entertainment hub are linked with and work fantastic with a RD account. Have a go at it just join for a month, I bet you'll be surprised at the content available. Even on Exodus, without the RD account 5.1 content is very limited.

If I can help with anything let me know, and thanks for your posts

ND

Glad you managed to get it working, so you see my attitude towards you wasn't that bad after all.

I don't know what tweakings you used, especially regarding the advanced settings file, just be aware that using the Zero cache setting is a bad idea and will wear you internal memory. Cache is meant to be written to the RAM, and nothing else than the RAM.

So a last tip before I make the invoice. Have a read about the caches explained and the myths about cache.

http://kodi.wiki/view/Caches_explained

http://www.tekto-kodi.com/kodi-technical/cache-full-error-help/

[IMHO]

In answer to the OP's question: I've never seen a 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack on iLikeHD - it's a stereo stream only from what I can see.

Most Netflix titles are streamed with proper Dolby Digital 5.1 though.

[naidraw66]

It's working great now after some further tweaking, thanks very much for directing me towards this path. 3BB will be happy now that I stop my complaint about the speed, they have even given me a free upgrade to 50 Mps down thank you very much but that won't last! I know you don't want to hear it but if you have a RD account it opens up so many 5.1 sources. Before I joined a few months back I could hardly find any 5.1 content. Now Release Hub, and entertainment hub are linked with and work fantastic with a RD account. Have a go at it just join for a month, I bet you'll be surprised at the content available. Even on Exodus, without the RD account 5.1 content is very limited.

If I can help with anything let me know, and thanks for your posts

ND

Glad you managed to get it working, so you see my attitude towards you wasn't that bad after all.

I don't know what tweakings you used, especially regarding the advanced settings file, just be aware that using the Zero cache setting is a bad idea and will wear you internal memory. Cache is meant to be written to the RAM, and nothing else than the RAM.

So a last tip before I make the invoice. Have a read about the caches explained and the myths about cache.

http://kodi.wiki/view/Caches_explained

http://www.tekto-kodi.com/kodi-technical/cache-full-error-help/

I'm still playing with it as its better but still struggle to get a full episode/movie without buffering especially after 8pm. No Ive no intentions on changing to 0 cache, I'm trying 1 & 2 at the moment and also increasing the readbuffer factor!

If you go with RD let me know how you get on be interesting to know if it works for you!

Just having a read of the two links you added

Thanks

[TheCruncher]

It's working great now after some further tweaking, thanks very much for directing me towards this path. 3BB will be happy now that I stop my complaint about the speed, they have even given me a free upgrade to 50 Mps down thank you very much but that won't last! I know you don't want to hear it but if you have a RD account it opens up so many 5.1 sources. Before I joined a few months back I could hardly find any 5.1 content. Now Release Hub, and entertainment hub are linked with and work fantastic with a RD account. Have a go at it just join for a month, I bet you'll be surprised at the content available. Even on Exodus, without the RD account 5.1 content is very limited.

If I can help with anything let me know, and thanks for your posts

ND

Glad you managed to get it working, so you see my attitude towards you wasn't that bad after all.

I don't know what tweakings you used, especially regarding the advanced settings file, just be aware that using the Zero cache setting is a bad idea and will wear you internal memory. Cache is meant to be written to the RAM, and nothing else than the RAM.

So a last tip before I make the invoice. Have a read about the caches explained and the myths about cache.

http://kodi.wiki/view/Caches_explained

http://www.tekto-kodi.com/kodi-technical/cache-full-error-help/

I'm still playing with it as its better but still struggle to get a full episode/movie without buffering especially after 8pm. No Ive no intentions on changing to 0 cache, I'm trying 1 & 2 at the moment and also increasing the readbuffer factor!

If you go with RD let me know how you get on be interesting to know if it works for you!

Just having a read of the two links you added

Thanks

Zero cache is something different from the buffermode setting, which in your case should be 1.

Zero cache is an advanced settings xml where the cache is written to the local memory instead of the RAM.

What you can play with is the size of the cache buffer, but I should not go over 250Mb ( 262144000), I think the read buffer at 10 should also be sufficient, but let know how you get on with it.

Since you say that your issues are time related, it is clear that your internet speed goes down at that time, either because 3BB throttles or that there are to many users in your area. Internet shops are a killer.

I would do a speedtest to US and UK servers at the time you experience the issues to see what speed you get. Additionally you could also run a ICSI Netalyzr test, http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/index.html, which may give you some background info on your network

@IMHO, may be good if you would let know how the 5.1 streams on Netflix work out for you and what your internet speed is.

[naidraw66]

I'm running out of time this trip. Back to Georgia on Wed. I don't use NETFLIX, never subscribed may try a free trial next time I'm home. Do you have the 3 video acceleration boxes on or off

Thanks

[TheCruncher]

I'm running out of time this trip. Back to Georgia on Wed. I don't use NETFLIX, never subscribed may try a free trial next time I'm home. Do you have the 3 video acceleration boxes on or off

Thanks

I have them off.

[naidraw66]

I have just arrived back in Tbilisi. I have brought back the same box as I was using at home in Thailand with all the issues. Speed here is 50mbs down, 47mbs up compared to 50mbs up, and 23mbs down in Thailand. The box works flawlessly here, no issues at all perfect streaming of 1080p in 5.1 surround sound. So this must prove that the issue is ISP related, it can't be anything else with all factors considered.

Did you look at a short subscription with RD all links here are in 5.1, brilliant if only it was like this in TH

[IMHO]

@IMHO, may be good if you would let know how the 5.1 streams on Netflix work out for you and what your internet speed is.

They are all Dolby Digital 5.1 streams, and they work flawlessly. Not much else to say, they sound just like a DD5.1 stream from any other source.

Sure, I wish they were Dolby Atmos or DTS:X streams, or at least even DTS:MA, but I expect those need too much bandwidth for streaming.

On my 7.2.4 system, it sounds v.good, and achieves good separation across the 7 main speakers, the 4 height speakers don't do much though. It's a huge step up from most 2.0 streams upconverted to DTS Neo:X, but not as good as Dolby TrueHD, DTS:MA, or the two new formats (Atmos and DTS:X) - the latter of which admittedly I've only so far heard on demo discs.

My net speed is advertised as 30mbps. It's enough to watch 2-3 Netflix 1080P/5.1 streams simultaneously, or a single Netflix 4K/5.1 stream so long as the kids aren't watching YT or the like at the same time.