HTPC: capable, silent, reliable

[Dougey_Jones]

Kodi, when run and setup correctly with DSplayer engine, takes control of your PC. It controls your gpu in exclusive mode too.
It turns your PC into a turnkey media player.
Use a Microsoft multimedia IR remote, and you practically don't see the Windows.

What are some of the advantages of this DSplayer engine? I typically think Kodi is shit at passing surround formats UNLESS they're perfectly encoded in a Dolby/DTS wrapper, which is increasingly not the case these days. I don't know when this happened, but every idiot doing rips these days encodes things as 6ch AAC, which you then either need to re-encode in a DD/DTS wrapper on the fly or set windows to 5.1/7.1 and PRAY that the channels end up where they're supposed to.

This is why I don't use Kodi, despite having it installed and configured with access to my libraries. Lets talk about the realities of HTPC use lol, if everyone was watching BluRays or even unaltered BluRay rips Kodi would be top banana.

 

[gorman]

The 3070 ?
That's an overkill.
Mine has an RX 570, and madvr has no problem upscaling 1080p to 4K. smooth playback.
RTX 3070 is way too powerful for video playback only duties.

I play games on the same HTPC.

I have two very different power profiles for both the GPU and the CPU. When I start Steam the performance one is activated and when I return to Kodi the power saving one is back on.

As such, through FanControl, I can manage very quiet operations when watching movies.
Plus the power consumption is limited in that scenario (goes higher when gaming, but that's a given).

 

[gorman]

What are some of the advantages of this DSplayer engine? I typically think Kodi is shit at passing surround formats UNLESS they're perfectly encoded in a Dolby/DTS wrapper, which is increasingly not the case these days. I don't know when this happened, but every idiot doing rips these days encodes things as 6ch AAC, which you then either need to re-encode in a DD/DTS wrapper on the fly or set windows to 5.1/7.1 and PRAY that the channels end up where they're supposed to.

This is why I don't use Kodi, despite having it installed and configured with access to my libraries. Lets talk about the realities of HTPC use lol, if everyone was watching BluRays or even unaltered BluRay rips Kodi would be top banana.

Hmmm... if you have a receiver that decodes them, Kodi can passthrough every codec flawlessly, up to and including DTS-X and Atmos.
If you play back 6ch AAC you can output it as Multichannel PCM.

If you don't use a receiver but have multichannel speakers connected to your PC, you can encode in realtime to Dolby Digital 640kbps (which is not bad but limited to 5.1).

DSPlayer fork uses LAVfilters (any DirectShow filter you want, actually) and madVR (for top upscaling results). It also allows for very granular control of filters choice according to rules (based on codecs, filenames, aspect ratio, etc.). Together with madVR profiles (with similar rules), I find it offers unparalleled flexibility.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

I play games on the same HTPC.
I have two very different power profiles for both the GPU and the CPU. When I start Steam the performance one is activated and when I return to Kodi the power saving one is back on.
As such, through FanControl, I can manage very quiet operations when watching movies.
Plus the power consumption is limited in that scenario (goes higher when gaming, but that's a given).

Its good to meet someone who is fluent in Kodi DSPlayer. Indeed, for videos, it is almost peerless, but the learning curve can be a bit steep.
Neutron media player (for music on Android), is similar. Almost flawless, but with deep learning curve.
Regarding the 3070 and power consumption, they are pretty quiet and low power consumers. I do have the 3060ti on my work PC, so I am familiar with.
I use that one for video enhancing and upscaling using Ai, which requires as much GPU power you can throw at it, hence the 3060ti.
Otherwise, I am not into gaming.

 

[pseudoid]

DSPlayer fork uses LAVfilters (any DirectShow filter you want, actually) and madVR (for top upscaling results). It also allows for very granular control of filters choice according to rules (based on codecs, filenames, aspect ratio, etc.). Together with madVR profiles (with similar rules), I find it offers unparalleled flexibility.

I am getting the feeling that most-all Kodi/DSplayer users (at ASR) truly like this player enough to recommend it to others.
Although, I am guessing not many (*if any) have tried my favorite HTPC player Zoom-by-Inmatrix, which pre-installs a slew of codecs including all of the ones @gorman discusses (above) in his reply.

Video Formats:
DVD • BluRay (decrypted main-movie playback) • Matroska (MKV) • AVI MPEG2 Transport (TS/TP/TSP/TRP/M2T/M2TS/MTS/PVA/PVR/TOD) • AV1 • H.264 & AVCHD (MPEG4 AVC) • H.265 & HEVC • XVID • DIVX • WebM Flash Video (FLV) • Windows Media (WMV/ASF) • QuickTime (MOV/HDMOV) • Ogg Movie (OGM) • Theora (OGV) • Real Media (RM/RMVB) • VideoCD (VCD) Super VideoCD (SVCD) • MPEG (MPG) • MPEG2 Program (M2V/VOB/MOD) • MPEG4 (SP/ASP) • MPEG4 ISO (MP4) • General Exchange Format (GXF) • Material Exchange Format (MXF) • Media Center DVR (DVR-MS) • VP3 • VP6 • VP7 • VP8 • VP9 • CamCorder (MOD/TOD) • Digital Video (DV) • DVCPRO Motion JPEG (MJPEG) • Motion JPEG 2000 (MJPEG2000) • Flash (SWF) • Cellphone 3GPP (3GP/3G2) • FLIC (FLI/FLC)
Audio Formats:
MP3 • Free Lossless Audio CODEC (FLAC) • OPUS (OPUS) • Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) • Windows Media (WMA) • OGG Vorbis (OGG) • CD-Audio (CDA) • Cell Phone (AMR) • Matroska (MKA) • Wave Audio (WAV) • Dolby Digital (AC3) • Dolby Digital TrueHD • Digital Theatre Surround (DTS) • SHOUTcast (Streaming) • Monkey Audio (APE) • Real Media (RA) •MusePack (MPC) • WavPack (WV) • OptimFROG (OFR) • Shorten (SHN) • True Audio (TTA) • LPCM • MIDI • Apple Lossless Audio Coding (ALAC) • AIFF • MO3 • IT • XM • S3M • MTM • UMX
Interactive Formats:
DVD • Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) • Flash (SWF)
Image Formats:
JPEG (JPG) • PNG • GIF • BMP • PSD • TIFF • ICO • TGA • PSD • FAX • WMF • EMF • JFIF • RLE • WIN • VST • VDA • ICB • PCC • SCR • RPF • RLA • SGI • BW • EPS • PCX • PDD • PPM • PGM • PBM • CEL • PIC • PCD • CUT • PSP • PN
Decoding supported by DirectShow technology

I was "influenced" enough by the recommendation to install Kodi (not on my NUC HTPC but) in my home server (Z790)... initially.
The first jitter I got -- upon launching it -- was that Kodi wanted to 'database' (catalog) my entire system and all that is connected to it.
Kodi also wanted to "enhance" what additional metadata that IT thinks my music library folders are desperately in need of (album covers, ID3tags, m3Us, etc.).
NO and NOT!
It has taken me over 4 decades of building my pristine digital music library, with its own Dewey Decimal System << Over my dead body, I will let any software wanting to play conductor with my media... ever again!

Kodi, when run and setup correctly with DSplayer engine, takes control of your PC.

I do fine and have done fine w/o software-overlords wanting to take control of my own multimedia files.
I've learned from older software/programs which attempt to manage (for user-convenience?) everything we do, on a computer:
iTunes and Mezzmo are were two such evil software which taught me to properly manage my own media libraries; my music library contains 4731-albums and near 64000 tracks.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

I am getting the feeling that most-all Kodi/DSplayer users (at ASR) truly like this player enough to recommend it to others.
Although, I am guessing not many (*if any) have tried my favorite HTPC player Zoom-by-Inmatrix, which pre-installs a slew of codecs including all of the ones @gorman discusses (above) in his reply.

I was "influenced" enough by the recommendation to install Kodi (not on my NUC HTPC but) in my home server (Z790)... initially.
The first jitter I got -- upon launching it -- was that Kodi wanted to 'database' (catalog) my entire system and all that is connected to it.
Kodi also wanted to "enhance" what additional metadata that IT thinks my music library folders are desperately in need of (album covers, ID3tags, m3Us, etc.).
NO and NOT!
It has taken me over 4 decades of building my pristine digital music library, with its own Dewey Decimal System << Over my dead body, I will let any software wanting to play conductor with my media... ever again!

I do fine and have done fine w/o software-overlords wanting to take control of my own multimedia files.
I've learned from older software/programs which attempt to manage (for user-convenience?) everything we do, on a computer:
iTunes and Mezzmo are were two such evil software which taught me to properly manage my own media libraries; my music library contains 4731-albums and near 64000 tracks.

1- I would not use Kodi of any type, for audio.
2- I used to use Zoomplayer! when I was just a lad. (many moons ago)
3- You can tell Kodi where a media folder is, you tell it what is inside, i.e. TV shows or Movies. then it scans only that folder. you can tell it several folders, each with varying types of material. you can even tell it not to scan it at all. At any rate, it is read only! Kodi does not add or subtract anything.
4- when I said, it takes over your PC, I meant it has its own full screen interface, sitting on top. The PC can be accessed at any type, at it carries on working and running other stuff.
5- Kodi can access the gpu and screen output in "Exclusive" manner, akin Jriver or Roon accessing the DAC in "Exclusive" manner.
It can also do the same with siund card, DAC or AVR!
6- its interface is designed for IR remotes, not mice. Think of it as a turnkey media player.
7- DSplayer is an option! use it to get better upscales, better picture. if you want to, or just use the Kodi.
8- you never need to worry about codecs or compatibility.
Hell it even plays ProRes material .

 

[Littletycoon]

I am getting the feeling that most-all Kodi/DSplayer users (at ASR) truly like this player enough to recommend it to others.
Although, I am guessing not many (*if any) have tried my favorite HTPC player Zoom-by-Inmatrix, which pre-installs a slew of codecs including all of the ones @gorman discusses (above) in his reply.

I was "influenced" enough by the recommendation to install Kodi (not on my NUC HTPC but) in my home server (Z790)... initially.
The first jitter I got -- upon launching it -- was that Kodi wanted to 'database' (catalog) my entire system and all that is connected to it.
Kodi also wanted to "enhance" what additional metadata that IT thinks my music library folders are desperately in need of (album covers, ID3tags, m3Us, etc.).
NO and NOT!
It has taken me over 4 decades of building my pristine digital music library, with its own Dewey Decimal System << Over my dead body, I will let any software wanting to play conductor with my media... ever again!

I do fine and have done fine w/o software-overlords wanting to take control of my own multimedia files.
I've learned from older software/programs which attempt to manage (for user-convenience?) everything we do, on a computer:
iTunes and Mezzmo are were two such evil software which taught me to properly manage my own media libraries; my music library contains 4731-albums and near 64000 tracks.

As another poster wrote, kodi does not alter your media files, it reads the tags to create it's own database in it's own system folder. It needs that to be able to present your catalog in the various skins in an efficient way. What kodi additionally gets (for it's own database) is up to you and depends on what you choose in settings, but again, it does not mess with your media files.

The additional scraping is quite handy. I have well over double the amount of your tracks (also took decades spent on ripping cd's, what a waste of time that was). All files are tagged with MusicBrainz and/or Discogs. It enables enormously rich media presentation in kodi from additional artist and album scraping (like Roon and the streaming services).

To summarize, kodi does nothing you accuse the software of.

I bitstream (wasapi exclusive) to an av processor. Somebody wrote you shouldn't use kodi to play music, that is completely irrelevant when bitstreaming.

 

[gorman]

Kodi does not touch your tags. At all.

Zoom Player was the first software I used on a HTPC, in 2007. Back the Kodi was available just for Linux (and the original Xbox).

I still hold a top tier license for it but Kodi's way of handling couch use is unparalleled, if you take into account the many skins available, its plugins, the overall customizability.

Not wanting to put down Zoom, it's a good product. As is JRiver. But for couch use, IMHO, they unfortunately still leave a lot to be desire.

Regular Kodi, in my opinion, currently has a strong deficit in upscaling performance. Still stuck at Lanczos3 as its best option means being stuck to 10 years ago... That's the main reason I keep using the Dsplayer fork (not the only one but close).

 

[Ken Tajalli]

Kodi does not touch your tags. At all.

Zoom Player was the first software I used on a HTPC, in 2007. Back the Kodi was available just for Linux (and the original Xbox).

I still hold a top tier license for it but Kodi's way of handling couch use is unparalleled, if you take into account the many skins available, its plugins, the overall customizability.

Not wanting to put down Zoom, it's a good product. As is JRiver. But for couch use, IMHO, they unfortunately still leave a lot to be desire.

Regular Kodi, in my opinion, currently has a strong deficit in upscaling performance. Still stuck at Lanczos3 as its best option means being stuck to 10 years ago... That's the main reason I keep using the Dsplayer fork (not the only one but close).

The reason why I wouldn't use Kodi for music, is that it does not have the audio DSP features of Jriver. That is important to me.
Kodi interface for movies and TV shows is really good.
To be fair, it occasionally freezes on me! but I can close it and restart it.
An insight in to DSplayer:
since it upscales and filters on the fly, lower resolution material require more processing ! so playing a 4K movie is lite work, while playing 720P material takes a lot of processing.
BTW , there is a new JRiver out, that as well as madVR , its got its own similar engine, designed inhouse. They claim it is as good as madVR, but simpler and more efficient on the gpu.
I haven't tried it. Jriver guys are a keen bunch.

 

[gorman]

An insight in to DSplayer:
since it upscales and filters on the fly, lower resolution material require more processing ! so playing a 4K movie is lite work, while playing 720P material takes a lot of processing

Not necessarily. If you tonemap HDR, 4K can be quite taxing for the GPU.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

Not necessarily. If you tonemap HDR, 4K can be quite taxing for the GPU.

What's a tonemap?
you mean converting to SDR?

Edit
OK I looked it up.
Luckily, I have a HDR 2000 capable TV, so I don't need to worry about it.

 

[Dougey_Jones]

Hmmm... if you have a receiver that decodes them, Kodi can passthrough every codec flawlessly, up to and including DTS-X and Atmos.
If you play back 6ch AAC you can output it as Multichannel PCM.

DSPlayer fork uses LAVfilters (any DirectShow filter you want, actually) and madVR (for top upscaling results). It also allows for very granular control of filters choice according to rules (based on codecs, filenames, aspect ratio, etc.). Together with madVR profiles (with similar rules), I find it offers unparalleled flexibility.

I'm very interested in trying this, do you have any guides for setup? My main issue with 6ch AAC right now, is that in order to get it to work properly, I have to set Windows to 7.1 instead of the codec just being recognized by the receiver as an SPDIF bitstream like Dolby/DTS wrappers. Can Kodi be configured with DS Player to both pass DD/DTS AND pass 6ch AAC as LPCM without having to toggle anything back and forth?

Regarding MadVR, I have wanted to try it out for a very long time, but it's difficult to use with PotPlayer / VLC, any links or guides would be appreciated.

 

[gorman]

I'm very interested in trying this, do you have any guides for setup? My main issue with 6ch AAC right now, is that in order to get it to work properly, I have to set Windows to 7.1 instead of the codec just being recognized by the receiver as an SPDIF bitstream like Dolby/DTS wrappers. Can Kodi be configured with DS Player to both pass DD/DTS AND pass 6ch AAC as LPCM without having to toggle anything back and forth?

Regarding MadVR, I have wanted to try it out for a very long time, but it's difficult to use with PotPlayer / VLC, any links or guides would be appreciated.

You can start from this guide: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=222576

I gather you are running your PC through an AVR via optical/coaxial cable, correct? Or is it via HDMI cable?

 

[Dougey_Jones]

You can start from this guide: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=222576

I gather you are running your PC through an AVR via optical/coaxial cable, correct? Or is it via HDMI cable?

HDMI

 

[Littletycoon]

HDMI

I'm not aware of avr's supporting bitstreaming multichannel aac. To play aac you'll need to setup kodi(in sound settings) to use windows direct sound driver and specify the number of channels (like in windows), kodi then converts everything to lpcm before sending it to the receiver, but it also does it for everything else like dd.

To summarize 1) hdmi bitstream via wasapi or asio exclusive (likely no multichannel aac because no support on the avr/hdmi side 2) hdmi lpcm, everything gets converted by kodi (lpcm max support is 7.1 channels), basically no pass through (bitstreaming).

The above is universal, it does not depend on which software player you use.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

I'm not aware of avr's supporting bitstreaming multichannel aac. To play aac you'll need to setup kodi(in sound settings) to use windows direct sound driver and specify the number of channels (like in windows), kodi then converts everything to lpcm before sending it to the receiver, but it also does it for everything else like dd.

To summarize 1) hdmi bitstream via wasapi or asio exclusive (likely no multichannel aac because no support on the avr/hdmi side 2) hdmi lpcm, everything gets converted by kodi (lpcm max support is 7.1 channels), basically no pass through (bitstreaming).

The above is universal, it does not depend on which software player you use.

If it is a newish TV, set Kodi sound out as WASAPI (your TV), turn on bitstreaming on whatever both your TV and AVR are capable of.
Simply connect yiur TV optical to your AVR.
Tell TV to bitstream.
Any audio format that you ticked on Kodi bitstreaminhg, will get routed to AVR.
That said, AAC is like mp3, let any of them to decode it, it won't matter! low quality sound anyways.

 

[Dougey_Jones]

I'm not aware of avr's supporting bitstreaming multichannel aac. To play aac you'll need to setup kodi(in sound settings) to use windows direct sound driver and specify the number of channels (like in windows), kodi then converts everything to lpcm before sending it to the receiver, but it also does it for everything else like dd.

To summarize 1) hdmi bitstream via wasapi or asio exclusive (likely no multichannel aac because no support on the avr/hdmi side 2) hdmi lpcm, everything gets converted by kodi (lpcm max support is 7.1 channels), basically no pass through (bitstreaming).

The above is universal, it does not depend on which software player you use.

This is why I hate AAC as a surround format, I can't fathom why anybody would encode content this way. I guess it's just the obsession with file size driving it?

 

[Littletycoon]

This is why I hate AAC as a surround format, I can't fathom why anybody would encode content this way. I guess it's just the obsession with file size driving it?

Yes and No, seems to be used in broadcasting and included into mpeg standard as a relatively high quality small size lossy audio format. Both efficiënt and effective transmission is important in broadcasting.

Apple is also a long time supporter of aac.

It's the multichannel aac that is pain in the ass, 2.0 seems to work (and/or multichannel aac only plays 2.0), but not sure as my experience with aac is years back as I try to avoid it, maybe still have the odd music album in aac.

 

[gorman]

I'm not aware of avr's supporting bitstreaming multichannel aac. To play aac you'll need to setup kodi(in sound settings) to use windows direct sound driver and specify the number of channels (like in windows), kodi then converts everything to lpcm before sending it to the receiver, but it also does it for everything else like dd.

To summarize 1) hdmi bitstream via wasapi or asio exclusive (likely no multichannel aac because no support on the avr/hdmi side 2) hdmi lpcm, everything gets converted by kodi (lpcm max support is 7.1 channels), basically no pass through (bitstreaming).

The above is universal, it does not depend on which software player you use.

No. It doesn't work like that.

Kodi offers two different settings for normal audio playback (decoding on the computer) and audio passthrough (decoding on the receiver).

For the first one you can set WASAPI just the same and it will decode any format to LPCM, *except* those you select for audio passthrough.

In the Audio Passthrough settings you're better off selecting WASAPI again and simply activating the formats your receiver is capable of decoding (Atmos and DTS-X need TrueHD and DTS-HD, respectively, to be active for passthrough).

This means that multichannel AAC (or multichannel FLAC) gets decoded to multichannel LPCM and then sent to your receiver. While DD, E-AC3, DTS, DTS-HD MA, DTS-X and Atmos can be bitstreamed to your receiver, in order for it to decode them. Kodi can decode everything except Atmos and DTS-X, those need to be bitstreamed to get their full benefits, otherwise you just get TrueHD (or E-AC3) and DTS-HD MA and no spatial information.

Using Kodi DSPlayer the logic is similar. You simply select in LAV Filters Audio the formats your receiver is capable of decoding natively and those are bitstreamed to it. The rest is decoded and sent as LPCM.

I have both versions of Kodi working perfectly with both AAC and FLAC multichannel files. I even use it to play multichannel music albums in FLAC. And it's capable of playing back Atmos music files in both m4a and mka formats.

 

[Dougey_Jones]

No. It doesn't work like that.

Kodi offers two different settings for normal audio playback (decoding on the computer) and audio passthrough (decoding on the receiver).

For the first one you can set WASAPI just the same and it will decode any format to LPCM, *except* those you select for audio passthrough.

In the Audio Passthrough settings you're better off selecting WASAPI again and simply activating the formats your receiver is capable of decoding (Atmos and DTS-X need TrueHD and DTS-HD, respectively, to be active for passthrough).

This means that multichannel AAC (or multichannel FLAC) gets decoded to multichannel LPCM and then sent to your receiver. While DD, E-AC3, DTS, DTS-HD MA, DTS-X and Atmos can be bitstreamed to your receiver, in order for it to decode them. Kodi can decode everything except Atmos and DTS-X, those need to be bitstreamed to get their full benefits, otherwise you just get TrueHD (or E-AC3) and DTS-HD MA and no spatial information.

Thank you for this clarification. Can you tell me, if Kodi is set as the "decoder" of all formats with the exception of DTS:X and Atmos, do I still need to configure Windows as "5.1" or "7.1" in order for the channels to make it where they're supposed to, or can I leave it set as "stereo" and the LPCM output from KODI will still convey the surround encoded LPCM to the AVR properly?

I can explain why this matters to me. I watch sports in my PC browser through my AVR. If I have Windows configured as Stereo, when I engage a surround mode like DD or DTS, the center channel is properly matrixed from the stereo L/R information coming out of Chrome/Firefox. If I set Windows to 5.1 or 7.1, the stereo information being received from my browser gets weirdly encoded as the only channels in a surround mix that Windows has created, and then I can't get the center channel to work in any mode other than "All Channel Stereo".

I made a thread about this problem, and people got all riled up and accused me of not knowing what I'm doing, but in my experience this is how it works. So I prefer to keep Windows in "Stereo" mode, which is why I hate Multi-Channel AAC and prefer Dolby or DTS encoded surround formats.