topic KD-55AF8 and ethernet in Android TV

KD-55AF8 and ethernet

sukmudha7 — Mon, 18 May 2020 17:09:46 GMT

Hello,

I have the KD-55AF8 and was wondering if there is anyway to upgrade the ethernet to 1GB? Will a USB to 1GB ethernet adaptor work? I have a lot of 4k videos taken on my Sony RX100 IV and they are unable stream smoothly over my 1GB network. Kodi keeps buffering and freezes playback.

Thanks

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

rooobb — Tue, 19 May 2020 00:05:38 GMT

Unfortunately not, yours is a very special case in which the 10/100 mbps LAN you find on any tv is not sufficient. You may try to make use of a 5ghz connection in your router that, if very close to your tv, may reach more than the 100 mbps ethernet cap

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

sukmudha7 — Tue, 19 May 2020 07:25:13 GMT

Hi there,

I am now using a Wifi connection are getting around 180mbps but, Kodi is still struggling to play my 4k Videos 😞

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

Kuschelmonschter — Tue, 19 May 2020 08:03:15 GMT

@sukmudha7 schrieb:
I am now using a Wifi connection are getting around 180mbps but😞

Is this the effective throughput or what is shown as connection speed?

I am using AC WiFi and my connection speed goes all the way up to 866mbps due to the access point being in direct line of sight of the BRAVIA. Effectively I get 250mbps out of it.

Kodi is still struggling to play my 4k Videos 😞

The other thing is the slow SoC inside your BRAVIA. Kodi will struggle badly to play high bitrate content at 2160p60. Are your recordings 60p? Then you better check VLC.

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

rooobb — Tue, 19 May 2020 08:37:03 GMT

or rather the stock app video (you just have to setup a DLNA server for it to work). BTW which is the bitstream of your videos?

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

Kuschelmonschter — Tue, 19 May 2020 08:58:58 GMT

With respect to 2160p60 at very high bitrates, VLC does a far better job compared to the stock Video app. With my setup, the Video app struggles badly with very high bitrate video.

It also makes a huge difference indeed how you share your media. SMB on Kodi might not be a good choice. DLNA wasn't the best either. FTP was the fastest in combination with Kodi. VLC+DLNA probably worked the best during my tests. More can be read in my review. High bitrate 2160p60 is a big challenge indeed.

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

sukmudha7 — Tue, 19 May 2020 09:06:22 GMT

Hi there,

My Netgear R8000P router is in direct line of the TV.

Using the Netflix app under "Get Help" there is a network tester and the internet speed reported is from 150 to 180 mbps. I also ran analiti and the internet speed was 220mbps.

My 4K/1080p Sony RX100IV camera recordings are shared via my Windows 2019 server connected using Cat 6 cables to my NETGEAR switches. Within Kodi I have mapped an SMB share to the windows network share. Some of the 1080p plays back fine, but the 4k 60p recordings buffer and fail to playback smoothly and cause the whole TV to freeze up

I tried to use VLC and could never get it to connect to the Windows 2019 share which is protected by a Windows User and password. Even if I follow the syntax suggested by VLC help i.e. domain;user and pwd it never connects.

Thanks

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

Kuschelmonschter — Tue, 19 May 2020 09:10:59 GMT

You could set up an FTP server or Servio DLNA on the Windows machine and try sharing over those. SMB has quite some overhead...

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

rooobb — Tue, 19 May 2020 09:40:46 GMT

I agree with @Kuschelmonschter install serviio (www.serviio.org ) on the windows machine and try using the videos via DLNA. Still I did not get how fat is the bitstream of your video... if it is above the network speed you actually have (which I guess it should not) we are talking about an impossible task....

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

sukmudha7 — Tue, 19 May 2020 09:56:05 GMT

Hello,

Looking at one of my videos the Total Bitrate is - 51357 kbps and Data rate - 4984 kbps

Thanks

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

rooobb — Tue, 19 May 2020 10:40:15 GMT

@sukmudha7 ha scritto:

Hello,

Looking at one of my videos the Total Bitrate is - 51357 kbps and Data rate - 4984 kbps

Thanks

51mbps should work easily also on lan....maybe the problem is elsewhere (i.e. Kodi)

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

sukmudha7 — Tue, 19 May 2020 10:46:25 GMT

All the videos playback fine on my Windows 10 PC connected to the same Windows 2019 server share over the same network the TV is connected. I also have another cheap Andriod box i.e. WeTek Play 2 and Kodi plays all the videos including 4k fine, but is running a custom Android 6 ROM and cannot be upgraded to Android 7/8/9. I would like the TV just to work considering I spent £2500.

I will look into VLC if I can get around the domain; username issue and also DLNA

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

rooobb — Tue, 19 May 2020 10:56:07 GMT

@sukmudha7 none here is interested on how much you spent for your tv nor if the same thing works on a PC. We are trying to help you out to solve your problem and give suggestions. On my own tv I can easily view 4k HDR video with bitstream as high as 90mbps using stock video app and a serviio media server (or even a flawky twonky on my WD NAS). If it solves the problem for you too I'm happy, that's it. I cannot watch a 4k action cam video via network cause the bitstream is higher than 100mbps and this fact doesn't bother me enough to use a wifi 5ghz connection instead of the more stable lan cabling.

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

sukmudha7 — Tue, 19 May 2020 10:59:13 GMT

hello,

I appreciate everyone's help here - Thank you

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

sukmudha7 — Tue, 19 May 2020 11:06:32 GMT

Hello,

Is it possible to set a username and password when viewing content via serviio media server? There are several devices on the network and I don't want anyone just viewing the videos openly via DLNA?

Thanks

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

rooobb — Tue, 19 May 2020 11:48:33 GMT

Only with the pro version but never used myself , you should have a 10 days trial if I remember right for you to try

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

Kuschelmonschter — Tue, 19 May 2020 11:51:50 GMT

To get 2160p60 playing well on the slow SoC of the AF8, all things need to play well together. Rendering a 4K frame every 16ms is a hard job to do. Kodi's streaming and rendering aren't very efficient which especially becomes obvious with 2160p60 content on low end CPUs. Either the streaming thread starves due to high rendering load or the rendering thread starves due to high streaming load.

SMB inevitably adds quite a bit of overhead, performance- and bandwidth-wise. I can only suggest to go with VLC and DLNA. That's a combination you have a chance with on the slow SoC.

@rooobb schrieb:
On my own tv I can easily view 4k HDR video with bitstream as high as 90mbps

It makes one hell of a difference if you just play 2160p24 or 2160p60 content. With the first you only have to render a 4K frame every 41ms, with the latter every 16ms. It is double to triple the frames (or half to third the frame cycle) we are talking about...

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

rooobb — Tue, 19 May 2020 11:51:31 GMT

@Kuschelmonschter a 51mbps bitstream is hardly a problem for the Af8 soc IMHO regardless of the frame to be rendered

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

Kuschelmonschter — Tue, 19 May 2020 11:57:34 GMT

I am still seeing micro-stuttering in YouTube when playing the 2160p60 streams. Many people probably can't see those or do not bother. But the frame cycle clearly already struggles there. And the bitrate is only about 30mbps. Also Kodi exhibits occasional micro-stuttering for those clips while playing them over local network.

When using the right combination of protocol and app, 50mbps streams should at least not result in rebuffering. I give you that. Kodi and SMB probably isn't the best combination though. The micro-stuttering however starts at pretty low bitrates already.

Rif.: KD-55AF8 and ethernet

Kuschelmonschter — Tue, 19 May 2020 13:02:00 GMT

Or try to play a 2160p60 video from YouTube via Chromecast... total f..-up.