Introduction

This long introduction might be interesting to understand my personal rant on this ... click on button if you really want to read this ...

My name is Frank, I am 46 years old and I am from Germany living in the beautiful
city of Munich. I am working for a SOC company formerly known as Fujitsu Semiconductor,
nowadays it is called "SOCIONEXT", holy shit, who had chosen this name for a company
addressing a "high tech" business ... anyways, we are designing chips for the automotive
companies (especially in southern Germany), which deal mainly with displays in cars.
I have also a background with SOCs designed for the consumer (TV) business with my former
company.

Privatly I am a video and audio maniac and started this around 1996 with a DVD drive build in
a PC connected to a Loewe TV which already had a VGA input these days ... and somehow
this was the start of that all.

In 2001 I did purchase a projector (Norwegian company ASK, M3) and build up my first "home cinema" with already a screen size of 240cm by 180cm. The projector of cause was a business
projector only (as many these days) and of cause had some shortcomings which I was not
aware of before the purchase, in Germany we say I payed "Lehrgeld". So in fact this was
a 4:3 business projector which only worked with 60Hz refresh rate. This would have been
worked properly in the states but not in Germany. I mainly bought DVDs Region Code 2 which
all contain 25p/50i material which was created with the PAL Speed up mastering from the
original 24p ... the movies have been 4% shorter and the original audio was pitched high :-)

Side note: The original 24p sources are converted to 60p for the American broadcasting.
This done with a very simple 3:2 pulldown. This results in less than perfect content, but
to my knowledge that is state of the art for US broadcasting. Compared to the PAL speedup
the video quality lacks if there are panning shots, they will judder. The same was done
for Region Code 1 DVDs, which were sold in north american countries.

Of cause as a newbie I discovered all this with the time and I suffered a lot, because watching
DVD was pain in the ass more or less with that tearing because of 50Hz to 60Hz hard conversion.
Rarely I had some Region Code 1 DVDs - this was tightly better ... but not perfect.

In 2004 I got rid of this projector and went for a "HD ready" projector (which was affordable
these days) which was capable to play 48Hz, 50Hz and 60Hz sources. It was the Optoma H81 with
a 16:9 resolution of 1280x720. I connected it mainly to a PC because I preferred the digital
connection rather than analog ... even I had a progressive analog DVD Player, which of cause
had benefits in convenience. This was always the downside for having a PC as a player.
You never will have the convenience with a PC, even with some advanced scripting (eventghost)
on the machine, I tried a lot at the end you need a least a mouse ...

I was happy with that equipment for a long time and I was also one of the first German HD PayTV
customer. I had a contract starting 2005. Of cause as well I was seeking for other
HD material as well. From time to time one got some peaces of HD material not only from
Europe but also from US and I got in contact with 24p HD. As well the XBOX 360 and the HD-DVD
came up, which I also purchased - it seems that I am an early adopter - OK, this was
not format which had success at the end .. :-). This HD-DVDs could only be watched correctly
in respect to frame rate (ripping HD-DVD was pain in the ... goddamn BR is so much easier to rip)
when playing them with the PC, setting the refresh rate to 48Hz. The XBOX was fixed to 60Hz.

In 2009 it was time for new hardware after moving with my wife to a new flat ... the WAV
became important. So I changed things and brought a first flat TV - up to this my TV
was still a tube - and as well a bought a AVR 3812 Denon amplifier, which had two HDMI
outputs - one for the TV and the other for the projector. And a first bluray player came into the
house. I tested many but than I chose the DUNE HD Prime 3.0 which has a drive and was as
well capable of being a good network player on top. Especially the player can handle
BR ISO. This "innovation" brought up, that the Optoma H81 projector was OK with the PC
to play 24p but not with the new AV switch and the BR player ... which ended up in
purchasing a Full HD projector (Epson TW4400). This time I had still a PC connected to
it as well as a BR/HD player but I used it only fewer and fewer ...

Today I have still nearly this setup, but the PC as a player is not used any more. I have a NAS
which has stored plenty of BR ISOs and as well a lot of recorded TV stuff. The NAS
has a Plex Server setup since 2014 ... as well I got some new hardware, a Enigma2 clone
SAT receiver (linux based, custom ROM setup, works perfect as a streaming server for iPads
for live and recorded TV, an lately the Amazon Fire TV Box (AFTV) ...
... and with that the dilemma starts ...

Rational

In late 2014 I was searching for the perfect Plex Client hardware. The PC was my first try,
just as a basic evaluation of my concept. That works quite OK, most important with
the TV I could setup the refresh rate exactly as needed *but not automatically* ...
which is possible in theory but I don't wanted the PC again.

I discovered that there was some open source development for the DUNE players ongoing
(https://github.com/newloran2/emplexer) and I am quite happy with it. I is not best
at performance and the graphical views are lacking some elegance but it can:

 1) play the recorded TV movies and TV shows (mainly 50i) without re-encoding
 2) play the ISOs and switches automatically the out frequency to 24Hz
 3) play some 24p mkv or m2ts files and switches automatically the out frequency to 24Hz

(without re-encoding is important for me, because I don't like the re-encoding when
not needed and as well the NAS can't handle it, at least for the 1080i@50Hz sources.
I have a MAC MINI as well as a Plex Server, which I use than with an Ipad, which
needs the re-encoding somehow ...).

So basically I am happy with the DUNE player. But AFTV came into the house because
I thought it could do the following:

 a) of cause play the content of AMAZON prime video
 b) Netflix
 c) Plex client
 d) XBMC/Kodi player
 e) MLB at bat app

I was aware before that 24p is a problem with that box, I hoped that there will come
updates in the future or that the rooted device can handle it ... but this was my
fail ...

Fail

With the upcoming streaming services there came quite few new boxes to market.
As well with the latest streaming services like Amazon Prime Video or Netflix 4K was
hyped a lot. First TV sets which are somehow 4K capable exist as well ... and as in the
older times (-> "HD ready") a 4K TV set from the very first times is junk already. To be
honest I did not dig into the technical specs of modern 4K TV sets, lets hope that they
are no compromise between shipping date and shortcomings inside. But I dare to say
that 4K today is only excellent in respect to resolution but does not carefully
consider frame rates ... I think this will change with the definition of a new standard
when 4K is delivered as Bluray or something comparable. 4K from the streaming services
will include some wilderness as already true for HD contents today

So I don't really need 4K (today) because:

• I don't have the equipment :-)
• 4K is not ready in respect to standard
• 4K is rare, only streaming services announce it
• 4K needs bandwidth
• streaming services can not handle HD ... so why should it become better with 4K

Streaming Client Boxes available

AFTV / Amazon Prime Video

My opinion on AFTV

+ very fast and intuitive interface
+ remote is simple and offers voice recognition which even works for Germany
+ easy to install
+ MLB at bat app works fine for me
~ open to install third party apps
- can play Amazon prime video (core functionality), but with some problems
- can play Netflix, but with some problems
- Plex client is rather annoying the working good
- XBMC/Kodi can be side loaded, 24p support is missing
-- Android version does not support auto frame rate switching between 50 and 60hz
-- Android version does not support 24p in general


Amazon Forum (German language only)

https://www.amazon.de/gp/help/customer/forums/ref=cs_hc_g_tv?ie=UTF8&forumID=Fx33KMZFHN8X92G&cdThread=Tx2VUYSKQ76MR78

Unfortunately I can not show a link from the .com Amazon help forum which cares about the
same issue. But you can find it in other forums (avsforum eg.)

The sum up for the German thread is:

There are several issues
     a) judder for these and that content depending on 50Hz or 60Hz
     b) lacking support for 24p when using e.g. XBMC or KODI
     c) some TV set can obviously - at least up to some readers opinion - compensate this
     d) other TV sets cannot ... or the readers are more picky about a smooth playback

Streaming

(one has carefully to distinguish what is the reason for that even the available down bandwidth
can be reason for something like this)

Lets assume one has a good down bandwidth - in my case 50Mbit/s down:

Here are some examples what can happen:

Breaking Bad Original version   1080HD runs OK but only if the device is switched to 60Hz manually
Breaking Bad German Translation 1080HD runs OK but only if the device is switched to 50Hz manually

Automatic switching does not happen. I never had a content up to now which forces the
device to change the output frame rate. I guess that is a major bug in the system. Or the
content does not flag that correctly. But is makes sense. Breaking bad was intentionally
produced for the US Broadcaster, so 60Hz was chosen as the frame rates are in US. The German
translation was produced for 50 Hz (Sky did broadcast it in Germany) as the frame rates here are.

Bad Example:

Aerial America, season 1, 1. California

Neither with 60 Hz nor with 50 Hz this will run - at least on my TV screen or my projector -
smoothly. There are heavy panning shots vertically as well as horizontally and the ends up
in a lot off stuttering. I cannot watch these with the Amazon Fire TV.

My guess is (I cannot proof this, since there is no transparent view to the sources): This
content is derived from a bluray and it contains 24p frames, this causes the heavy stutter.


Good Example:

BBC Documentation Africa: Runs perfect with 50 Hz. My guess is, that this is a production for
the British TV broadcaster so it works well.

Summary

1) some contents will never play smooth on fire TV
2) some cinema movie content will play smooth in 50Hz if produced for Europe broadcast
3) some cinema movie will slightly stutter (as in the history for the US, 3:2 pullup) if produced
   for US broadcast in 60Hz

I wonder whether the situation in US is different? Are the US customer used to it? Do they
accept it? All movies are produce in 24p and they should be broad casted in such a manner at
least with 48Hz. But that seems to be impossible.

For Bluray the situation is better now, the are all 24p.

For streaming we have chaos obviously.


Short remark to the people which say with some magic image processing they have perfect results:
Impossible! If there is any 24p content it is unavoidable to have some judder and this is because
50/24 or 60/24 is not even. Of cause modern TV sets can handle 120Hz or 240Hz which is 5*24p or
10*24p but the AFTV box does break this. You will have judder. Some algorithm may make it
better but not perfect. At least I haven't seen such an algorithm.

As for 4k: Not seen up to now, but I think there will be issues in the same manner.

Netflix

Very same experience here, but I stopped my subscription after a month or so ... did only
watch Orange is the new black

Plex

Plex App on the AFTV does work to some extent but is has some disadvantages:
- 24p no
- re-encoding is not avoidable since some video audio constellation requires this. 5.1 audio
does not play
- direct play setup does not work properly (forced)
- external player setup does work (with out re-encoding) but it is unhandy, because there
is an application swap, returning to plex is not convenient.
- my recommendation: Use the Plex Plugin in KODI instead, setup direct play, no more problem with
audio. 24p is still not possible

XBMC/Kodi

If you are a hacker and if you accept to fail initially but want to solve your problems, this
is right for you. The application of cause opens you a lot of possibilities, which are
quite handy and as I described I use KODI as an Plex Player. I should say that because of the
initial failing I changed to SPMC which is a fork to KODI and best suited for AFTV. 24p is still
not supported. KODI on other platforms can handle it e.g. rasberrypie.

MLB at bat App

Works good, with the latest update there is lost some functionality which was quite nice
for watching a game re-live the other day. This was the boxscore navigation where you can
navigate easily the innings. But anyway ... currently I am not a subscriber. I wait for the
better SF Giant times :-)

ATV / itunes

I don't have it. But I think basically what I saw from googling it: 24p nope! It can
handle 50/60Hz frame switch automatically and it prevents the customer from the real
24 problems with the itunes store, which is more or less the only (legal) way to get
movie content onto the box. I assume that there is some mirco judder present.

For the 2015 WWDC there are some indications that there will be an update on ATV. I am
curios what the will introduce ... most likely the HBO integration I think.

If I can have some wishes (I am so naive ):

- open it up a little bit, so that e.g. third party like KODI can be installed on
- support 24p
- support automatic frame rate switching between 24p/50p/60p
- perfect Plex App

Other / Short comments without knowing them in detail

Nexus player

Introduce newly in Germany ... first reviews have a lot of criticism on lacking apps support.
Interesting part is the Android Lollipop OS, which should enable automatic frame switching by
the OS. Maybe this is a myth and has to be busted, I did not read anything accordingly.

chromecast

Very basic, more for people which do not expect to much and which happy to see anything
ignoring the quality.

android boxes (Minix)

The benefit are the custom ROMs for this machines. The seem to support 24p. And as well
auto frame rate switching at least for specific hardware, the know obviously the hardware
register to changes (which is by the way the bigger problem with SOC in FireTV, Qualcomm
Snapdragon 600, even if rooted no body discovered how to change the framerate).
Netflix or Amazon fire TV seems to be an issue.

Boxee box

Older one ... 24p seems to be possible

Roku

Famous in US. May be not suited for the European market.

rasberrypie(2)

This is more or less a PC which runs Linux. There are also many custom ROMs, like OpenElec
which give the device some sexiness. But you must be aware that you invest some time up
to the point it will run perfect. Remote Control and especially switching on and off with
the remote is a topic ... there are solutions out there, but many people (to my knowledge)
become desperate on this.