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Sorry for the late reply but yes, I contacted Alex through MakeMKV he set me up with a ASUS BW-16D1HT with the proper firmware and tested it and would not accept payment until I had it up and running at home. :) 135.00 but there are less expensive drives.

Studly, thanks for that info.

I think $135 is a reasonable price for that drive, modded to UHD friendliness.


I'm probably not getting a new drive until March or so.

Mind if I check in with you then to see how the drive is performing at that point?


T
 
Studly, thanks for that info.

I think $135 is a reasonable price for that drive, modded to UHD friendliness.


I'm probably not getting a new drive until March or so.

Mind if I check in with you then to see how the drive is performing at that point?


T

It's the drive I've been using for over a year now. Works great with the right firmware. I've had zero problems with it.
 
It's the drive I've been using for over a year now. Works great with the right firmware. I've had zero problems with it.

That's good to know SamuriHL.

I do plan to get that brand and model UHD-friendly.


But what I really meant was whether the drives from his particular source work out over time, e.g. are they really new, not refurbished units, that continue to perform well, is the firmware downgrade done properly or is it eventually causing issues, etc.



T
 
Sent you a pm with some interesting info.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 
Hmm, my Shield (using Kodi) does not convert BT2020 / HDR to BT709 SDR when playing on an old 1080p TV. It plays, yes, but looks like crap (typical washed out colors).

There's good news:
The Shield supports HDR to SDR conversion since the release of Kodi 18.1. :)
 
Really? You consider that good news? I followed some threads and would either be interested in SHD to HD upscaling or streaming Dolby Vision or other HDR formats to a TV. But this is still in the open countryside. Until then I'm not really interested in streaming boxes.
 
Call me cynical. But I want to have a cinema-like experience at home - as good as possible. And I don't make any concessions. That's the reason I stayed with optical discs and backups of them until anything better or equivalent is coming up.
 
For those of us with a mix of screens down scaling properly to SHD means we don't have to rip twice. And is a godsend!
 
There's good news:
The Shield supports HDR to SDR conversion since the release of Kodi 18.1. :)

Is this just on the Shield? Or is it for KODI 18.1 in general? I'm hoping it is in general as I have LibreELEC installed on my Intel HTPC.

EDIT: I noticed that LibreELEC 9.0.1 is out (based on KODI 18.1) so I'll have to update my HTPC and give it a try.
 
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Call me cynical. But I want to have a cinema-like experience at home - as good as possible. And I don't make any concessions. That's the reason I stayed with optical discs and backups of them until anything better or equivalent is coming up.

I agree with you 100% there coopervid.

But I can see why this conversion from HDR-to-SDR would be important if you have whole house distribution of your media and want to be able to play anything anywhere, including HDR media on the SDR TV's in the house.


T
 
Yep, it matters to me! My wife and I bought 2 x new 4K UHD TV's back in 2015 and neither of them have HDR! (Also, didn't know what HDR was at the time either..) Therefore, I have ripped all my UHD's to SDR mkv's. I'm sure there are a lot of other people in the same situation.

If this HDR to SDR conversion in Kodi works good, then I can re-rip all my UHD's as standard 10 bit with HDR mkv's and be prepared for when I do end up getting a new TV again in a few more years.
 
Yea, I just want to rip my UHD's once and have it play on both of my TV's. One of which is a C8 :D but the other is my Panny plasma which is 1080p. And if done right, HDR->SDR tone mapping can be an improvement over blu-ray. So there is DEFINITELY reason to look at this. If you've got UHD tv's with HDR support in all your rooms...great, this isn't for you.
 
FYI,

I upgraded my LibreELEC from 9.0.0 to 9.0.1 (which is for KODI 18.1) and remade a 10 bit HDR mkv of San Andreas to test. HDR to SDR conversion in KODI works fine for me!

I compared a few sections from both my old 8 bit SDR mkv I made using CloneBD and the new 10 bit HDR mkv and the colors look the same. Not washed out at all. I got sucked in and ended up watching the whole movie LOL.

I'm going to try another movie in the next few days. Maybe something more CGI'ish? Ninja Turtles perhaps?
 
I need to see if mrmc has been updated from that code yet. That would be great if it had.

Nope. Not updated yet. So I installed Kodi and um I'm not seeing tone mapping. Colors are still washed out for me. Is there something I need to set somewhere? I looked through the options but didn't see anything.



Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 
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I remade a 10 bit HDR mkv of Transformers: Last Knight and just watched it.

HDR to SDR conversion in Kodi 18.1 works great! I didn't have to touch any settings at all. It just works!

Time to rerip all my UHD's as 10 bit HDR mkv's.
 
It's not working for me on the shield. Still washed out. sigh. I've got the latest Kodi installed on it. Would LOVE to figure out how to get it to work properly.
 
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