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I have a simple question and to be honest, I am a little surprised that googling the issue resulted in nearly no hits. So I am trying my luck now here in the forum:
Part of the reason to buy the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 was for me to be able to use it as a playing device for movies on my HDTV. I also bought the official amazon HDMI to Micro HDMI cable to connect the kindle with my TV. The problem I am now having is that my HDTV (Philips 52PFL9632D) produces two vertical black bars to the left and the right of the picture, i.e. it doesn't offer the full 1920x1080p resolution, but something a little smaller (I guess around 1700x1080p).
Yes, I tried all the scaling options on my TV to no avail. And my Xbox, my BluRay-Player and my Dell Notebook do produce a flawless Full HD 1920x1080p experience on that TV Set on the exact same HDMI port. So it must be a problem of the HDMI output of my Kindle.
I suspect that the reason for that behaviour is the fact that the Kindle 8.9 display features a resolution of 1920x1200, which is not 16:9 but 16:10.
So as a result my TV probably squeezes the picture to fit it and thus produces the black bars left and right. It also doesn't matter if I am playing a video using VLC, surfing the web with Silk or just display the Kindle App selection screen on the kindle. There are always the black bars left and right.
(BTW: amazon customer service acknowledged the problem, but couldn't find an immediate resolution and promised to call be back.)
Does anybody have any idea what I can do to get the full resolution on my HDTV? I was so looking forward to not having to unplug my Notebook everytime and hook it to the TV, but being able to use my Kindle for watching movies instead.
What I am really surprised about:
1. Why does amazon produce a default signal output on the HDMI port larger than 1920x1080 anyways? Most people probably would want to hook it up to their TV and except for some monitors I don't know any TV featuring a resolution of 1920x1200.
2. Why does the kindle not offer any configuration option to at least choose the HDMI output?
3. Why is the net basically not producing any results when I am looking for a solution for that issue? Am I the only one hooking up his Kindle to his HDTV? Or am I the only one having that problem? Or am I the only one being annoyed by seeing two vertical bars on the TV?
ANY help how I can get rid of the vertical bars would be greatly appreciated!
I am going to throw a guess at why its not full 1080, someone can correct me if I am wrong because like I said this is just a guess. From what I heard, the kindle fire HD 8.9" model uses a set amount of ram towards the GPU to render out in the resolution it uses, and from what I read it was just barely enough memory for it to use that resolution, so using anything higher than that would probably not be possible. Lemme see if I can find where I read this.
Edit: found it!
ignoramous said:
The wallpaper service public APIs were selectively disabled to alleviate the memory pressure on system_server. Amazon's default Kindle Launcher doesn't need wallpapers (yeah I hear you when you say apps with FLAG_SHOW_WALLPAPER however do need wallpapers... but that functionality was apparently deemed not *that* important).
We freed about 14MiB+ worth RAM from system_server. This change was primarily targeted at the 8.9 Kindles, as 1GiB RAM was barely holding up to Kindle's massive resolution.
I see that having a bool in framework had work cut out for you guys... so I guess props for us to have made it "configurable" eh?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD running CM10.1 Tablet UI using xda-developers app
Interesting theory. But I read elsewhere that amazon claims the output of the HDMI socket of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 would be FULL HD.
I think that the output is in fact 1920x1200 (equaling the native resolution of the kindle display) and thus even MORE than full HD, which is only 1920x1080. And my TV is trying to sequeeze the full 16:10 information into the 16:9 screen and as a result has to display two vertical black bars left and right. So I am looking for a way to actually REDUCE the output of the HDMI socket to the lower (HD standard) 1080 instead of 1200 pixels.
Well I seriously have doubts about this working on amazon's stock os, but supposedly the full version has experimental support for HDMI resolution changing. Give it a shot, though if it doesn't work on Amazon's os I'm more so convinced it will on cm. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nexter.miniscalerfree
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD running CM10.1 Tablet UI using xda-developers app
Same Issues
I actually have had very similar problems using my Sony television. I'm curious if you ever found a solution.
stunts513 said:
Well I seriously have doubts about this working on amazon's stock os, but supposedly the full version has experimental support for HDMI resolution changing. Give it a shot, though if it doesn't work on Amazon's os I'm more so convinced it will on cm. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nexter.miniscalerfree
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD running CM10.1 Tablet UI using xda-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My Kindle is rooted, so maybe it works. Thank you very much for the great tip.
I asked the question in the ROM-AOSP CM10.2 forum, since they even have a line under features saying
"HDMI video out is now correct and work across several resolutions. YMMV"
but so far nobody in that forum cared to answer...
I will try out your tip asap and report the results here.
Still I am wondering why I only found so few hits for this issue including in the amazon.com kindle discussion forum.
If nobody uses their kindle to connect it to their TV, why is amazon selling their own branded version of MicroHDMI-HDMI cables?
Ok. Time for an update. I think I am a step closer to a solution.
First I tried the app "Resolution Changer Lite" as recommended by stunts513. In theory it looked great. I was able to select a resolution 1920x1080 and as a result the kindle had a black bar at the bottom and only used 1920x1080 of the 1920x1200 pixels on its display.
So full of expectation I connected the Kindle with my TV. Unfortunately the TV still displayed black bars to the right and left but in addition now also a black bar top and bottom. So while it indeed reduced the displayed area, somehow the Kindle seems to still send the 16:10 information throught the HDMI port, making my TV scale down the picture. I tried all kinds of settings and resolutions to no avail.
As a next step I bought the full version of "Resolution Changer", because it was talking about an additional HDMI feature. Again full of expectation I started the app. Instead of selecting one out of several preset resolutions (like 1920x1080 or 1280x720) the app allows you enter any values for Width and Height. I again tried 1920x1080 with the exact same result as in the lite version.
But the full app has a second tab called "HDMI" and I did the same thing there. Unfortunately again to no avail. After some testing and reading of the description I came to the verified conclusion that all this additional feature does is DETECT if somebody connects a HDMI cable to the port of the Android device and then AUTOMATICALLY changes the screen resolution to the values chosen. So instead of having to invoke the app manually every time you in theory just set the wanted values on the 2nd tab and any time you plug in your TV your android device switches to the defined resolution.
Unfortunately there is no value to edit to stop the Kindle from sending out a 16:10 information to the TV or the app maybe doesn't even change anything that is sent to the HDMI port, but only influences the built-in screen.
But then unexpectedly Amazon's Customer Service sent me a message! They basically confirmed that if you connect your Kindle to a TV through HDMI it sends out it's 16:10 resolution and thus makes your TV scale down the picture.
BUT when you switch to the NATIVE INTERNAL VIDEO APP, the signal sent to the HDMI port automatically switches to 1920x1080 and a 16:9 ratio information. So as a result the native amazon services like "instant video" or other streams will be displayed without any bars. They claimed to even had it tested on a LG Full HD Plasma.
THIS EXPLAINS WHY MOST PEOPLE DON'T HAVE ANY PROBLEMS and thus you can't find much about in the forums.
I have to say I was sceptical, but since I had only used VLC so far to play back the movies, I now used the original video player. And to my surprise the black bars left and right went away and I had a full screen picture!!!
That's why I am saying, I am one step further!
Unfortunately this only helps me partly. For starters VLC plays a lot more formats than the native video player app. In addition I like to watch the movies with subtitles since I am not a native english speaker. VLC plays them automatically if the .srt-file is named the same as the movie itself, but of course the native video player doesn't. I don't even know it is capable of that.
Anyhow the big questions I have now:
1. does somebody know how to make the regular android Video Player display subtitles for example in the format .srt?
2. is there an option in the Android version of VLC (I don't think so, since it is still BETA) to configure the HDMI output?
3. Now that we know, that the regular Video Player can influence the format sent to the HDMI port, is there an app to set the HDMI output permanently to 1920x1080 and more important 16:9 ?
Again any help appreciated...
Ah, I wish I had known you were using vlc I would have suggested a few things. It didn't occur to me you might be using it because I got my from the play store, but it said it wasn't available in the USA, so I had to proxy through another country to get it. Anyways, I know in vlc's options there's a few different output methods, though I don't think that will affect it. Another thing I was thinking of is in vlc, u can change the aspect ratio, I believe the button is on the bottom left above the playback bar while playing a video, when u tap it it switches they various modes, don't know if this will affect the HDMI at all though, as I don't have a minihdmi cable because most of my TV's are CRT, only 2 of them have HDMI plugs, and of those 2 only one has 1080 capabilities, and its a PC monitor so it has no sound output.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD running CM10.1 Tablet UI using xda-developers app
Hashcode's CM10.1 and HDMI 1920x1980
Hi Tronar,
Saw your post (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=45044803&postcount=579) but I'm not allowed to answer in that thread.
I have Hashcode's CM10.1 (20130812) running on my Kindle Fire HD 8.9. I connected the Micro HDMI port to my Samsung Full HD TV, and also saw the 2 vertical black bars (about 2 cm). Using apps like Resolution Changer doesn't help, as I get some weird screen flipping, turning landscape into portrait.
Cheers, S
stunts513 said:
Ah, I wish I had known you were using vlc I would have suggested a few things. It didn't occur to me you might be using it because I got my from the play store, but it said it wasn't available in the USA, so I had to proxy through another country to get it. Anyways, I know in vlc's options there's a few different output methods, though I don't think that will affect it. Another thing I was thinking of is in vlc, u can change the aspect ratio, I believe the button is on the bottom left above the playback bar while playing a video, when u tap it it switches they various modes, don't know if this will affect the HDMI at all though, as I don't have a minihdmi cable because most of my TV's are CRT, only 2 of them have HDMI plugs, and of those 2 only one has 1080 capabilities, and its a PC monitor so it has no sound output.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD running CM10.1 Tablet UI using xda-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, plenty of stuff to respond to.
First of all VLC was available in the regular Kindle Store. So I didn't even have to root my phone and install the Google Playstore to be able to install it.
In addition VLC is still beta. The configuration options are quite minimal compared to the PC version.
And of course I tried the various screen size and ratio options in VLC. But they only affect the way the Kindle display of 1920x1200 is used, i.e. how the available pixels are filled with the video. So you can achieve all kinds of effects using only part of the Kindle display. But whatever option I chose, the black bars left and right always remained on my TV. To make it simple all I could do was further add more black bars by shrinking the image or distort the image by changing the ratio. None of it seems to have any influence on the HDMI output. I think it is a very special option or feature, the regular Kindle Video Player is using there and would have to implemented explicitly in the VLC player.
Nonetheless this gives me the idea to send some feedback to the VLC developers to add this feature to their wish list. :good:
Anyhow, I really appreciate your help. Please keep the good ideas flowing.
smeitmeister said:
Hi Tronar,
Saw your post (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=45044803&postcount=579) but I'm not allowed to answer in that thread.
I have Hashcode's CM10.1 (20130812) running on my Kindle Fire HD 8.9. I connected the Micro HDMI port to my Samsung Full HD TV, and also saw the 2 vertical black bars (about 2 cm). Using apps like Resolution Changer doesn't help, as I get some weird screen flipping, turning landscape into portrait.
Cheers, S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it seems like nobody is allowed to answer in that read, because so far I haven't received any answer.
Neither in the CM10.2 nor in the CM10.1 thread, where there seems to be at least some kind of life.
Thanks for confirming that the Resolution Changer doesn't help on the CM10.1 ROM. That saves me hours of work of trying out that app on this ROM.
But my question was actually a little more specific. The first page of the thread states under Features:
"HDMI video out is now correct and work across several resolutions. YMMV"
I was wondering if that means that there is some way in this CustomROM to change the resolution of the HDMI video out signal.
Update:
I tried the App "MX Player" to see, if that app would behave more like VLC or more like the native Video Player.
I don't know if I should laugh or cry, but this is what happened:
I started a movie using the freshly installed MX Player and was happy to see, that the subtitles were showing on the Kindle Display. I connected my Kindle with the Micro-HDMI-Cable to my TV and was also happy to see that the vertical black bar were NOT showing, but instead it was using the full resolution of my TV. I was totally excited. And then it hit me:
While the subtitles were showing on the Kindle screen, they were NOT showing on my TV!!! Otherwise both screens showed an identical picture, but the subs were missing.
So I tried out all kinds of options in the subtitles settings. To no avail.
Then I tried switching from using the Hardware accelleration to Software accelleration. The app offers three modes called SW, HW and HW+
And here comes the funny part:
When I switched from any of the two HW modes to the SW modes, suddenly my TV was showing the subtitles. And for a moment I was like "Yeah, I finally found the solution". And then it hit me: now my TV was showing the vertical bars again.
My conclusion from this test:
When you switch to software acceleration, MX Player behaves like VLC. You get the subtitles on your TV, but you have to live with the vertical black bars effectively reducing the resolution.
When you switch to any of the two hardware acceleration options, MX Player behaves like the native Video Player and gives you the correct 16:9 1920x1080p output on the HDMI-out. But for whatever reason the subtitles are only displayed on the Kindle screen and not on the TV any more.
My guess: by using the HW acceleration, the app automatically triggers the built-in feature of reducing the resolution from 1920x1200 to the standard 1920x1080 on the HDMI-out. Apparently amazon has built in that feature into the Hardware acceleration of the Kindle.
I don't know why this kills the subtitles. Either it is a bug in the app or for some reason the Hardware acceleration does not allow the blend-in of the subtitles over the video.
And when you switch to SW acceleration, the Kindle apparently thinks of the app like any other standard app and sends the full 1920x1200 resolution not only to its own screen but also to the HDMI-out.
It would be great to know, if superimposing subtitles is technically impossible when using the HW acceleration because the Kindle chips do not support that at all or if it could be achieved with the right algorithm.
I am unsure if it is the exact same thing offhand but vlc has an option to enable hardware decoding, if it is the same thing try it and see if vlc works . also I don't know much bout HDMI, but if its a digital stream and subtitles aren't showing up, try enabling captions on your TV and see if anything happens, I would think that they would be part of the digital stream in one way or another.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD running CM10.1 Tablet UI using xda-developers app
Thank you for the tip with Hardware Decoding option in VLC, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to make any difference. The picture remains shrinked with vertical bars left and right, no matter if you enable that setting or not. The subtitles also remain visible in both settings.
So my guess is that the current VLC beta isn't really enabling the Hardware Decoding on the Kindle. At least not the way, MX Player and the native Kindle Video Player seem to do it.
About the subtitles still being part of the digital stream in the HDMI output: sounds like a great idea as well.
So I tried it out by activating the subtitle setting on my TV. Unfortunately to no avail. It MIGHT be, that the way US-TVs receive and display subtitles from TV broadcasts is different than the one used in Europe (here subtitles are sent through a quite old system called Teletext oder Videotext (depending on the country)).
Or it might be, that the HDMI protocol just does not support this way of transfering subtitles to the TV.
In any case, unfortunately I am not any closer to solving the issue.
But thanks for the good ideas and tips, please keep them coming as I will keep attacking that problem.
After two days with an Nvidia Shield Android TV , there are many pluses and minuses, but over all, it has BY FAR the best hardware of any android based box on the market... no question at all about that, and here are what I think are the biggest pluses and minuses.
PLUSES
- amazing smoothness in interface - no jerky, delays etc at all
- superb playback of all media, smoother than any box I have seen
- 192khz 24 bit audio output (kodi and mxplayer but I am not sure if they are able to output at that HD rate)
- very well built, sexy touch activated standby button
- very easy to get up and running with controller etc
- shield game streaming service is flawless, fast, smooth, HD
- gaming controller is high quality, has a microphone for voice input and a headphone socket, which work well.
- Voice search within Play Music for artist or track works very well, extremely fast.
- playing Flash-based websites like TennisTV.com etc on Dolphin in Desktop mode is way better than any other box I have tried (and I have tried MANY)
MINUSES
- have to sideload many apps you may want, like TED, BBC iPlayer, IMDB, Spotify, Movie Mate etc.. even Chrome Browser - but relatively easy to work around using APK Extractor to get APK's from your phone, and Chainfire's sideload launcher.
- no up front display of non-Android TV specific apps
- no recent apps
- no way to get to "now playing" with some apps like Spotify if you had returned home, unless its a leanback app
- no notifications
- no mouse on desktop, backpace key on keyboard not working as backspace but as left mouse click
- Keyboard is USA only, so UK users have to know, for example, that " and @ have swopped places
- voice search from the home screen does not find music artists on google play music or spotify, but only youtube... so "play van morrison" will play a track from youtube, and not from the 25 van morrison albums I have already uploaded to Play Music.
- my tv keeps on cropping a lot off the screen, there is no way to adjust the screen crop size, to reduce size so it fits better on my screen... I can adjust my screen but that is a hassle.
- very little customisation, settings limited too.
There is at least one NON-Android TV ROM for this device, so you can fix almost all of those Minuses, and you can run it using Squarehome or NovaLauncher or whatever you like, but I am not sure I actually NEED to customise the box. Personally I use it for Kodi, Spotify, Play Music, TuneIn Radio, Youtube, Movie Mate, all of which works fine... so for the moment, I am not rooting the box, and am adjusting my expectations and enjoying what works fantastically well, pretty much everything.
This is FAR and away the best box I have ever had, goodbye Tronsmart Drako, Minix Neo X8H+ etc, this is WAY beyond. At some point I may change to plain android, but so far I am fine with a couple of extra steps to be able to enjoy the voice input and superb power and playback capabilities.
Mark.
Hi. I'm located in Ireland and looking for android TV box for my FHD projector. I'm considering MINIX Neo X8H+ or Nvidia Shield TV box (not yet available). What advantages of one over the other would you point? Thanks!
The Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is: CLEAN FLASH.
Natakranta said:
Hi. I'm located in Ireland and looking for android TV box for my FHD projector. I'm considering MINIX Neo X8H+ or Nvidia Shield TV box (not yet available). What advantages of one over the other would you point? Thanks!
The Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is: CLEAN FLASH.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Minix Neo offers access to almost all the play store apps without needing to sideload, with the Shield you need to sideload some apps, which isnt hard. The Shield has far better hardware, so you will get smoother HD playback, no question. If playing video is your main think, then the Shield's faster graphics, faster processor is the way to go. They are both good boxes, but my Minix Neo x8hplus is currently UNPLUGGED!
fredphoesh said:
Minix Neo offers access to almost all the play store apps without needing to sideload, with the Shield you need to sideload some apps, which isnt hard. The Shield has far better hardware, so you will get smoother HD playback, no question. If playing video is your main think, then the Shield's faster graphics, faster processor is the way to go. They are both good boxes, but my Minix Neo x8hplus is currently UNPLUGGED!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd like to connect external 2GB HDD USB 3 to the box. Make it media storage to play on the connected to the box projector and available for all devices in home through my local WiFi.
How could I remotely control the box to manage utorrent on it from my phone, at home thorough local WiFi or externally when I'm away. Possible?
The Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is: CLEAN FLASH.
Natakranta said:
I'd like to connect external 2GB HDD USB 3 to the box. Make it media storage to play on the connected to the box projector and available for all devices in home through my local WiFi.
How could I remotely control the box to manage utorrent on it from my phone, at home thorough local WiFi or externally when I'm away. Possible?
The Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is: CLEAN FLASH.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, sorry, no idea, I use it for streaming...
Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk
fredphoesh said:
MINUSES
- no up front display of non-Android TV specific apps
- no recent apps
- no way to get to "now playing" with some apps like Spotify if you had returned home, unless its a leanback app
- very little customisation, settings limited too.
Mark.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Mark! For your minuses mentioned above, you might want to consider HALauncher found in the Play Store. I'm using this on my Nvidia Shield Console/TV and it looks and works better than the default Android TV "Home" launcher. This apps allows you to create your own Home screen with rows of your customized apps. For example, I have a row for my Emulators, Racing Games, Space Shooters, Sports Games, TV apps, etc. You can arrange these rows and apps anyway you want. You can also use your own background image. You can also rename the apps to your liking and edit the icons for higher quality 320x180 images. Everything looks great now. This is what Android TV home launcher should be like. The only thing that is missing now is a button for rebooting the system, and another one for shutting it down!
Check out the images below to see what HALauncher can do:
http://postimg.org/image/kuncrk5tf/
http://postimg.org/image/57w3e6s1f/
http://postimg.org/image/fkie09lkj
http://postimg.org/image/mjwfzmlir/
-- Manny
funtasticguy said:
Hi Mark! For your minuses mentioned above, you might want to consider HALauncher found in the Play Store. I'm using this on my Nvidia Shield Console/TV and it looks and works better than the default Android TV "Home" launcher. This apps allows you to create your own Home screen with rows of your customized apps. For example, I have a row for my Emulators, Racing Games, Space Shooters, Sports Games, TV apps, etc. You can arrange these rows and apps anyway you want. You can also use your own background image. You can also rename the apps to your liking and edit the icons for higher quality 320x180 images. Everything looks great now. This is what Android TV home launcher should be like. The only thing that is missing now is a button for rebooting the system, and another one for shutting it down!
Check out the images below to see what HALauncher can do:
http://postimg.org/image/kuncrk5tf/
http://postimg.org/image/57w3e6s1f/
http://postimg.org/image/fkie09lkj
http://postimg.org/image/mjwfzmlir/
-- Manny
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Manny,
Yep, I've been using it for a few days and like it a lot.
My gripes are that the voice search doesn't work properly and always shows empty results, and there is no "now playing" function... and the lack of a power button. For some reason ALT-Tab doesn't show recent apps. Oh, there is no ALL APPS function either, so new apps are invisible till you edit the home screen. But yeah, the best home screen for the SATV for sure.
Cheers,
Mark
Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk
I agree with pretty much everything you said, I've had mine for two weeks and I love it. I have Kodi running to play local media, plex to stream stuff from friends servers, Netflix (which really upped their game since the last time I subscribed a year or two ago), along with tons of games. This will only get better over time, its still a relatively new product. I'm still debating on whether or not to root it, I think I'm going to but will be keeping the stock launcher because I like it, despite the lack of "recent apps" which I still don't understand why they didn't include it. The only reason I want to root it is so that I can install the Xinstaller module from Xposed so all my apps will install to my sdcard and not the internal memory.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
I have had mine a few weeks and it is definitely a really nice device and it is crazy fast!
Really the only gripe I have is 4K support but that isn't Nvidia's fault. Basically because I am running through a processor (more or less an AVR without an amp) and HDMI 2.0 standard is not used on them, Netflix won't show 4K content on the device unless I am directly connected to the TV.
Fortunately Ultraflix works at 4K and everything else does as well.
brando56894 said:
I agree with pretty much everything you said, I've had mine for two weeks and I love it. I have Kodi running to play local media, plex to stream stuff from friends servers, Netflix (which really upped their game since the last time I subscribed a year or two ago), along with tons of games. This will only get better over time, its still a relatively new product. I'm still debating on whether or not to root it, I think I'm going to but will be keeping the stock launcher because I like it, despite the lack of "recent apps" which I still don't understand why they didn't include it. The only reason I want to root it is so that I can install the Xinstaller module from Xposed so all my apps will install to my sdcard and not the internal memory.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try HALauncher, it is good enough for me to not install a custom rom and root... So far! Also once you root you'll have to manually install rom updates and reinstall apps etc... Also you can move most apps to sd card. DON'T set to Automatically Move apps to SD card, that doesn't work. Install to system then move them to SD card in app settings after player no the game once.
Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk
Had mine for about a week and like it an awful lot.
As someone who bought an Ouya, I must say focusing on the media services first THEN worrying about gaming made this a MUCH BETTER product.
I am a bit disappointed I can't have my HBO Go on it, there's currently no Amazon Video and the Netflix app needs better voice options, but I'm really digging the Gamestream from my PC upstairs to the downstairs TV, It works most of the time without a hitch. The only time it doesn't is when I'm playing my Steam games and the Ubisoft games try to go through Uplay and Uplay crashes or its a game I've never ran before and Steam itself crashes because it doesn't seem to like running a game in Big Picture mode if it has never been opened and ran at least once on my PC in normal Steam mode first, and those are client problems, not Nvidia issues so can't fault them there.
Yes, having to install some of my apps from the PC through the Play Store is a bit of a pain, but it also keeps the kids from loading it up with a bunch of useless crap, so I'd say its a fair trade.
tobalaz said:
Had mine for about a week and like it an awful lot.
As someone who bought an Ouya, I must say focusing on the media services first THEN worrying about gaming made this a MUCH BETTER product.
I am a bit disappointed I can't have my HBO Go on it, there's currently no Amazon Video and the Netflix app needs better voice options, but I'm really digging the Gamestream from my PC upstairs to the downstairs TV, It works most of the time without a hitch. The only time it doesn't is when I'm playing my Steam games and the Ubisoft games try to go through Uplay and Uplay crashes or its a game I've never ran before and Steam itself crashes because it doesn't seem to like running a game in Big Picture mode if it has never been opened and ran at least once on my PC in normal Steam mode first, and those are client problems, not Nvidia issues so can't fault them there.
Yes, having to install some of my apps from the PC through the Play Store is a bit of a pain, but it also keeps the kids from loading it up with a bunch of useless crap, so I'd say its a fair trade.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh yes, speaking of Gamestream, what does everyone think of the quality?
I tried it both before and after the update that was supposed to improve the quality and have not been that impressed. The bitrate seems somewhat low and I get random stutter and both the PC and Shield are wired gigabit.
Well as far as Gamestream goes for me, I've got my win7 gaming rig w/ an i5, 12gb ram and gtx 750ti hardwired to my Buffalo AC1750 and the Shield on 5g to a 42" 1080p TV and I've no problems with it, everything runs smoothly, well, smoothly when Uplay isn't f*cking everything up...
I had issues initially so I had to go into my router and change the settings for my 5ghz channel.
OK interesting, maybe it is is an issue with SLI since I am running 3 Titan Xs, i7, 32GB RAM, etc through an Asus RT-AC3200. I will try disabling SLI and see if that helps.
mutelight said:
OK interesting, maybe it is is an issue with SLI since I am running 3 Titan Xs, i7, 32GB RAM, etc through an Asus RT-AC3200. I will try disabling SLI and see if that helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You've really peaked my interest here, was the SLI making it not work correctly? Like maybe the video encoding being slit amongst the cards wasn't working too well?
I'm about to upgrade my 750ti so it'd be nice to know if it was SLI or just isn't playing nice with your Titan.
tobalaz said:
You've really peaked my interest here, was the SLI making it not work correctly? Like maybe the video encoding being slit amongst the cards wasn't working too well?
I'm about to upgrade my 750ti so it'd be nice to know if it was SLI or just isn't playing nice with your Titan.
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Click to collapse
It is honestly hard to say, I still need to try disabling SLI to see if it helps. Also I should mention I have been running Windows 10 for a couple months now there have been a few driver updates for it since I tried it last.
Video calling only available for the Shield ATV
One unique feature on the Shield ATV is the camera support.
Just plug a camera and it works! I've been checking out other Android SmartTV's and set-top-boxes, but yet couldn't find any other device having this support.
And, there is already a video calling android tv app on google play called "Tellybean - Easy video calling". It works perfectly on the Shield ATV.
furkna said:
One unique feature on the Shield ATV is the camera support.
Just plug a camera and it works! I've been checking out other Android SmartTV's and set-top-boxes, but yet couldn't find any other device having this support.
And, there is already a video calling android tv app on google play called "Tellybean - Easy video calling". It works perfectly on the Shield ATV.
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Nice, but surely Hangouts works just fine, and even Skype?
fredphoesh said:
Nice, but surely Hangouts works just fine, and even Skype?
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Click to collapse
Your right. Since shield has camera support basically any video calling app might work. But I don't believe they work as smooth as Tellybean. Skype and hangout does not have Android TV apps (not gonna have one any time soon). They don't exist on google play for Android TV. You need to sideload their default android app.
Also, their UX is fine for a mobile app but not so much for a TV app. They don't really fit into the leanback UI. Not so usable if you are sitting on the couch and just want to have a video call. I use hangouts and skype on my smartphone and laptop but Tellybean on my TV
Tellybean is an Android TV app, shows up on Leanback launcher and it works smoothly on the shield ATV.
tobalaz said:
Well as far as Gamestream goes for me, I've got my win7 gaming rig w/ an i5, 12gb ram and gtx 750ti hardwired to my Buffalo AC1750 and the Shield on 5g to a 42" 1080p TV and I've no problems with it, everything runs smoothly, well, smoothly when Uplay isn't f*cking everything up...
I had issues initially so I had to go into my router and change the settings for my 5ghz channel.
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Hello! From Italy here! 10 days I have a 16Gb unit I struggle with Ethernet AND wifi 5Gb connection! Wifi N working about fine. Netgear R7000 and Fastweb FTTS connection 85MBps! I only get 10 MBps at most, and this is the only device that gets this low! Need to solve this or ask for replacement the soonest! Any help much appreciated.
Regards
Alessandro
Hi all,
I am new to Fire Tv and Kodi, but have recently be trialing some paid sports apps as alternative to Sky Sports. I'm currently paying for Infusum and have just been trying out the service from HDTV (mbox hd iptv). I am playing back on my LG smart tv from 2012. The picture quality is quite good, but as soon as you get to any moving pictures, it becomes a bit juddery/blurry and difficult to watch. As this happens with both these add-ons, thinking it is either due to fire tv or tv itself (though all motion and added settings are turned off). I have read that some people not happy with playback on their Amazon boxes, so likely to be this?
Has anyone else got a football feed in HD running perfectly on their tv via the Amazon box and is there anything I can do in settings or addons to make this run better? (I have tried all the options in fire settings, ie 60hz, 50 hz etc and did not seem to make any difference. Such a shame but looks like Sky Sports is still only suitable source for me?
I also would like to know
So as you guys know the Shield TV is a solid 4K device sporting support for [email protected] over HDMI 2.0.
nVidia gamestream works by playing the game on your PC and using the GPU to rapidly encode the video stream to H.264 to stream to the shield while redirecting all of the input on the shield back to the PC. This, for the most part, works very well. Up to this point it's been [email protected] in general. The new beta of GeForce Experience has enabled both [email protected] as well as [email protected] streaming to the Shield. Additionally, the new nVidia Network Streaming service no longer kills the game if the monitor is powered off or detatched from the PC. (this is crucial for this to work.)
This generally works out of the box if you already have a 4k monitor connected to your computer. However, most of us probably don't. So here's a relatively easy way to get true 4k gaming in your living room.
Prerequisites:
GeForce Experience Beta Release which you can get here: http://www.geforce.com/geforce-experience/gfe-beta
nVidia GTX 970 or better (or SLi equivalent.) (My opinion just to be playable.)
Ethernet connected Shield or a really really good MIMO 802.11ac bridge (which is was I use.)
If you already have a 4k monitor attached to your computer and you're already able to play games at 2160p then you're done, just go to your shield, set your game resolution and play and enjoy.
However, if instead you have a field of 1080p monitors and no 4k to speak of here's what you need to do.
Open nVidia Control Panel
Disable nVidia Dynamic Super Resolution
Go to the "Change Resolution" screen and select your monitor.
Click the "Custom" button, then create a custom resolution.
The custom resolution should match that of your TV regardless of what monitor(s) you have attached. In most cases this will be [email protected] If you have an earlier 4k tv model that only supports 30hz on it's HDMI port, then change the refresh to 30hz. This needs to exactly match the current refresh rate that the Shield is running as it's connected to your TV for the best quality and smoothness of the video stream.
Click test, your monitor will go black and you won't be able to see anything. This is key, hit the right arrow on your keyboard TWICE then hit enter. This tells the app that "yeah, that resolution looked ok," even if you didn't see crap.
Repeat this step for EVERY monitor in your setup ensuring that all the settings are exactly the same. This is crucial or your game will NOT be able to see the custom resolution when it's time to turn up the pixel count!!!
Once you've created the custom resolution for your monitors, restart the nVidia Network Streaming service. Then, if you like or you're afraid of breaking your monitors by sending out of range resolutions to them (which unless they're CRT's you shouldn't be worried) you can turn your monitor(s) off. This is the part that matters here. nVidia has made it so that the card can render headless which is huge for this. Potentially opening up to being able to render complete unbeknownst to a user using the workstation physically. That's beside the point.
Head over to your shield, fire up a game, go into the settings and you should see the 4k resolution you configured earlier. Fire it up and you're good to go. Expect to see around 21mbit/s bandwidth used.
Hit me up in this thread if you have issues.
4k gamestream issues
Hi there, I am having issues getting my Nvidia Shield TV to stream games at 4k. I just tried this steps on my (ultra wide 3440x1440) but when I Test it says the test failed and my display does not support the custom resolution. Is there any other way to force 4k into the Shield TV?
MForce22 said:
Hi there, I am having issues getting my Nvidia Shield TV to stream games at 4k. I just tried this steps on my (ultra wide 3440x1440) but when I Test it says the test failed and my display does not support the custom resolution. Is there any other way to force 4k into the Shield TV?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same with me. Using the 2017 Shield TV with latest update.
What if I just enable DSR and choose 4k in the game?
DSR works as well. But the aspect ratio is important (should be 16:9)
You no longer need to add a custom resolution or enable DSR, it will allow you to select 4k even if your monitor does not support it or if the monitor is off with the 2017 upgrade.
You *might* have to flag experimental features in the Geforce Settings though, not to sure on that. To activate it, make sure you set resolution to 2160p in the Quality settings on the Nvidia Shield for the PC.
Can someone with a non 4K monitor let me know if GameStream is still working fine?
A few weeks ago I had everything working properly. 4K would stream fine without having to change anything on my monitor. But for some reason it has stopped working. I can't figure it out and it's doing my head in!
The only thing I can think of that has changed recently was the Windows 10 Creators update. But surely that isn't it because I can't seem to find anyone else having issues.
I even tried reinstalling Windows and Geforce Experience from scratch. Still have issues!
When I try loading a game in GameStream, it doesn't change from my monitors resolution (1920x1200)
I've tried turning game optimization on and off, I've set the resolution in the GameStream settings to 2160p (and even tried all the other resolutions)
I've reset the shield to factory settings, I've even tried a different shield. Nothing is working.
Any ideas what is causing this?
Video card is a gtx 1070 (with latest drivers)
Monitor is a Dell 2407wfp-hc (1920x1200)
TV is a Samsung 55KS8000
Shield is the 2017 model (though I have also tried the 2015 model as well)
Mine does not work out of the box
PC = 34" Ultrawide 3440x1440 w/ 980TI
4k = Samsung UN75MU8000F w/ 2017 shield
4k = Vizio p65-c1 w/ 2015 shield
I am messing with Custom Resolution Utility from https://www.monitortests.com now to try to get it to work
Hello !
Few years later... I've got a Nvidia Shield 2019 and I will try those things to play in 4K on my TV while my PC's monitor is 2K.
BUT... I read that, few years agao, Nvidia provide the ability to shutdown PC's monitor w/o turning off the gamestream connexion, right ?
Nowaday, if I turn off my PC's monitor, it stop the gamestream connexion... what am I doing wrong, please ?
Hello,
my new Amazon frie TV stick 4K is attached to a Denon AVR 1912, and this one to a Panasonic LCD TV set. My problem is that I would like the stick to switch the framerate (24Hz, 50Hz, 60Hz, etc.) automatically according to the source framerate automatically, which can be set in the settings menu of fire TV stick accordingl, but the problem is that this setting only works once after it has been selected. If you hibernate the stick and it wakes up again, it will be stuck to 60Hz all the time, no matter what source framerate your video has. It stays that way until you change *something* (no matter what parameter actually) in the fire TV video settings, i.e. switching from "HDR" to "disable HDR", then the auto framerate works again, until you hibernate it the next time, and so on, which is very uconvenient.
You can also see it clearly when you install (sideload) Kodi to the stick, the whitelist of possible resolutions will normally offer a great variety, but when the stick is stuck at 60Hz, also Kodi will only allow this one refresh rate, and the same is true for all other apps on the stick that make use of framerate siwtching.
I have read a lot on the net that some people only have that problem when they are using a AVR (like in my setup), but for some people it also happens with the stick directly attached to their TV. So it seems Amazon devs have completely messed up this essential feature, which I was missing in the previous Fire TV sticks completely. Now I was happy to have that feature just to see that it isn't working properly Very poor performance, Amazon. Anything one can do against it? Any way to create a log and send it to Amazon devs to fix that problem?
Refresh rate is not equal to framerate.
If there is such a dramatic difference using regular pulldown, you might need a new tv.
No media is created with variable refresh rates in mind.
TimmyP said:
Refresh rate is not equal to framerate.
If there is such a dramatic difference using regular pulldown, you might need a new tv.
No media is created with variable refresh rates in mind.
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Click to collapse
Sorry, but I think you totally did not understand my post: I am using various apps on the FireTV Stick, i.e. Kodi, using media with various framerates. And there is of course a relationship between the framerate a media was created and a suitable refresh rate which is in the best case the same or an integer factor to the framerate of the video (i.e. if a video was recorded with 25fps, then 50Hz would be a good choice for autoframerate, 60Hz would not be a good choice!). But this is not the point to discuss here.
The point is that the Fire TV Stick can only select an appropriate refresh rate once it has been set in the video options of the stick, as soon as it goes to hibernate once, it will be stuck at that refresh rate, no matter which other media is played. This does not only affect Kodi, it afffects, as I wrote, all the apps on the fire TV stick. And as soon as you select any other option in he video options, it again works - but only once!
It doesn't matter. There is absolutely no point to watching video with a refresh rate lower than the highest you have available.
You need to be sure in kodi settings -> system -> video -> refresh rates You see non standard refresh rates !
I had some problem while connected to AVR 5.1 not showing 50fps or lower
For 4k material auto framrate doesn't work so to have it enable for movie put some small fullhd starter with same fps as 4k movie played. Works for me all the time. I've cuted out 3s clip from my movies via ffmpeg
None of this matters. Any difference you see is completely placebo. There is never a circumstance where you do not want to use the pulldown your tv gives you.
edit: passtrough for everything, as much as possible. Unless there are specific *firetv-software-only needs.