Upgrading from 5202T to 6604T - Kodi concerns

[Xsen]

Hi everyone!

I'm considering whether the upgrade is worth it in terms of video playback with Kodi. I currently have a 5202T unit, connected to the TV via HDMI. The main purpose of the NAS is video playback and after some fine tuning I managed to make it work almost perfectly. Almost.

The problem is - while playing heavy 4k videos I get a few micro freezes every now and then. Movies are fine, but when the bitrate goes to 70-100 mbps in various h.264 homemade videos shot with GoPro cameras - that's when freezes happen. If anyone here has owned both 5202T and 6604T units and experienced the same issue - could you please share if the problem fixed itself after upgrading?

[Nazar78]

Hi,

I don't use any of those NASes but I'm using the 5304T. Differences are 5202T has Intel Celeron J4005 Dual-Core 2.0 GHz (burst up to 2.7GHz) and 5304T has Intel Celeron J4105 Quad-Core 1.5 GHz (burst up to 2.5GHz). 6604T of course has a better spec. I may be wrong but honestly I don't think your current hardware is causing the micro freezes issues. Might be HDMI cable issues, try replacing? Or insufficient RAM, try upgrading? Or issues with Kodi itself, try other versions or other means of troubleshooting especially checking background processes when you see those freezes?

I also don't use Kodi, I'm using Jellyfin to direct play my media to my Samsung TV. But for the sake of troubleshooting or comparison, take a look at the screenshot of me playing raw unedited video on VLC player in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish via modded Asustor Linux Center) over HDMI, it uses only minimal CPU usage playing H264 2160/60fps @ 100Mbps of course with hardware acceleration. It also plays well in H265 (Dlog-M 10bit videos), doesn't exhibit micro freezes as you described and there's no dropped frames either.

Screenshot 2022-05-04 041254.png (848.68 KiB) Viewed 324 times

[Xsen]

Hey, thanks for answering. I've changed the HDMI cable twice, using expensive 2.0b cables both times, that actually exceed the capabilities of the NAS. I run 8Gb RAM, and it's never used for more than 50%. And I can't switch the Kodi version, as there's no other version for ADM 4.0. BTW, switching to ADM 4.0 and installing Kodi 18.9 finally solved my issue with the multi-channel audio, that I hadn't been able to tackle while using Kodi 18.7 for the older ADM.

I use Jellyfin as well, but both TVs are 4k Sony unit, and I can't transmit 4k to them via the net - Sony TVs have a 100mbit LAN ports...

My avg CPU load looks similar to yours, never exceeding 30-35%, while playing a 100 mbps 4k h.264 videos. Weird, that an h.265 video would play smoothly, no micro-freezes at all. But whenever it's a 'heavy' h.264 video with bitrates approaching 150-170 mbps - that's when the issue arises.

Maybe there's something that should be tuned in Kodi? All hardware acceleration is on, all needed resolutions and fps are whitelisted.

[Nazar78]

My 4K Samsung also comes with 100Mbps yeah that sucks for modern 65" TVs but to overcome high res media you can use the builtin 5GHz Wifi if your TV supports or better, use a USB 1Gbps ethernet dongle plug into one of the TV's available USB ports.

Probably Kodi needs a little more tuning for 100Mbps H264. I've used Kodi before but not on this NAS, during 1080p era, and had switched to streaming ever since. Perhaps someone more experience can help advice.

[Xsen]

I checked the playback of a pretty 'heavy' 4k Bluray video - remux into mkv, h.265 HDR10 of a Gemini Man movie. 'Heavy' as it runs in 59.94 fps VS regular 23.976 fps. Well, 5202t performance is awful. Watching is practically impossible as the movie jerks every half a second or so. Another feeling that I get is that I get only about 40-50 fps on the screen from the original 59.94 fps. What I don't get is whether this is a problem related to Kodi 18.9 (Patrick's version, with all due respect) or is it a problem with the 5202t capabilities, based on a J4005 CPU.

This makes me think back to the original question. Would 6602T (or 6604T) play this video seamlessly as expected? I use my NAS exclusively as a home multimedia server and HDMI video player for the TV. Not interested in other functions at all, but the playback quality is crucial for me.

[sksbir]

hello
I briefly used hdmi output of my AS5002T in 2017, and decided to buy some android box.
Today, I use a firestick tv 4k ( about 35€ when price is reduced by Amazon and this happens very often), and my AS6602T is located in my entrance, connected to wire and not wifi, so I have no noise in my living room, a perfect image in all resolutions, a remote control...
I never regretted my choice especially when I see your problems.

[father.mande]

Hi,

On 5202T did you try another Kodi delivery (myHD + MH-kodi19) , because myHD use another newer libva (2.7 vs 1.4)
... this don't break existing kodi, can be deleted if no result as any APKG and in case of better result you can get you old settings to copy it to myHD/MH-kodi19)

I can't be sure that you win a better result, but normally this new libva used less CPU ... even not magic ...

in all case, take attention to other application running at same time (ex. rsync or Synthing .. eating CPU resources) and be sure to have enough memory 4GB min, 8GB best and 16GB for ultimate usage ...

Upgrading to a new model with a more powered CPU/IGP can help to solve, but this don't change the old libraries used ... by Asustor Xorg delivery.

Philippe.