Kodi on 4k Fire Stick Max

SoAdCrAzY · 6 Mar 2024 at 12:39

Hi,

I have recently upgraded from an older Fire Stick model to a 4k Fire Stick Max.

I have installed Kodi and use it to stream my video collection on my PC via SMB protocol.

I have found out though that some video files do not stream properly. I have tried upgrading and downgrading the Kodi software and converting MP4s to MKVs as the later tend to generally work.

I have found out that the new stick has known issues with playing certain high quality h264 files so think the issue is to do with the hardware of the stick.

Does anyone have any possible solutions?

Thanks,
Matthew

hornetstinger · 6 Mar 2024 at 13:02

Can you install coreelec? I have zero problems with my AMlogic 905x3 box with coreeleac.

Definitely better than kodi ontop of android, better picture quality, no android settings to need messing around with, less resources, better video/audio codec support, proper native framerate, and likely true 44.1khz output.

SoAdCrAzY · 6 Mar 2024 at 13:54

hornetstinger said:
Can you install coreelec? I have zero problems with my AMlogic 905x3 box with coreeleac.

Definitely better than kodi ontop of android, better picture quality, no android settings to need messing around with, less resources, better video/audio codec support, proper native framerate, and likely true 44.1khz output.

From what I can find, the COREelec software is incompatible with the Fire Stick 4k Max.

hornetstinger · 6 Mar 2024 at 13:55

SoAdCrAzY said:
From what I can find, the COREelec software is incompatible with the Fire Stick 4k Max.

If you can boot up with coreelec I'd do so. Stock firmware (Android) is no longer in the background

SoAdCrAzY · 6 Mar 2024 at 14:04

hornetstinger said:
If you can boot up with coreelec I'd do so. Stock firmware (Android) is no longer in the background

You mean completely overriding the OS with a new bootable drive?

That seems complicated.

hornetstinger · 6 Mar 2024 at 14:11

SoAdCrAzY said:
You mean completely overriding the OS with a new bootable drive?

That seems complicated.

I don't know about those firesticks - if you can do that?

But on generic android chinese boxes you can, just boot off microsd card. Remove SD card, and goes back to android. Non destructrive. Basically like a raspberry pi.

Pyr0m@nI@]{ · 6 Mar 2024 at 14:19

As far as I'm aware, Firestick uses a Mediatek processor which is not compatible with COREelec.
Happy to be corrected if things have changed, but I thought it needed Amlogic.

SoAdCrAzY · 6 Mar 2024 at 14:23

Does anyone have a recommended alternative if I cannot get it working?

hornetstinger · 6 Mar 2024 at 14:26

Just buy a amlogic box they're so cheap. 2GB model is plenty. I don't what are the latest boxes that are supported. Ideally want one with good stock remote control as those are the weakest part low power IR blaster

SoAdCrAzY · 6 Mar 2024 at 15:19

That is a shame that this Fire Stick won't work at all as I have just gotten used to it.

hornetstinger · 6 Mar 2024 at 15:21

SoAdCrAzY said:
That is a shame that this Fire Stick won't work at all as I have just gotten used to it.

Do you have a sample video that doesn't work on yours? I'll try it on mine.

Pyr0m@nI@]{ · 6 Mar 2024 at 15:21

Do you have the media info for the files that fail to play?
Cheapest solution for me, personally would be to re-encode the files using handbrake

pepp77 · 6 Mar 2024 at 15:23

I would suggest trying Plex instead of Kodi. Can also allow standard media sharing option on it to use it via SMB rather than the plex front end if you want to.

Also I would recommend any Roku device over a firestick.

SoAdCrAzY · 6 Mar 2024 at 15:28

hornetstinger said:
Do you have a sample video that doesn't work on yours? I'll try it on mine.

The latest file that refuses to work is probably too big to send nor I do I think it'll be the most legal of things. It is Aliens Director's Cut 1080p. Is there anything I can run it through to get the video codecs and stuff that it uses?

Pyr0m@nI@]{ · 6 Mar 2024 at 15:33

Something like MediaInfo maybe?

MediaInfo

MediaInfo is a convenient unified display of the most relevant technical and tag data for video and audio files

mediaarea.net

hornetstinger · 6 Mar 2024 at 15:35

SoAdCrAzY said:
The latest file that refuses to work is probably too big to send nor I do I think it'll be the most legal of things. It is Aliens Director's Cut 1080p. Is there anything I can run it through to get the video codecs and stuff that it uses?

I recently watched that movie on the kodi box. No problem at all. Also H265 4K HDR.

Also some unusual japapense amime, that have unusual resolution and audio/video codec, no problem.

Chaos · 6 Mar 2024 at 15:59

SoAdCrAzY said:
Does anyone have a recommended alternative if I cannot get it working?

Install Jellyfin on the pc that has your media, then use Jellyfin app on firestick.

SoAdCrAzY · 6 Mar 2024 at 16:02

Here is the MediaInfo stuff on a movie that didn't work (Aliens) and one that did (Poor Things).

Aliens:

General
Unique ID : 181414339073471052971203285099265512913 (0x887B217BDD7872DD290DD695C1A5D5D1)

Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4
File size : 2.20 GiB
Duration : 2 h 34 min
Overall bit rate : 2 042 kb/s
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS
Movie name : mkv.264#trackID=1:fps=[email protected]
Encoded date : 2013-03-06 11:45:46 UTC
Writing application : Lavf59.16.100
Writing library : Lavf59.16.100
ErrorDetectionType : Per level 1
Language : und
VENDOR_ID : [0][0][0][0]

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2 h 34 min
Nominal bit rate : 1 942 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 036 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.85:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.041
Writing library : x264 core 129 r2245 bc13772
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=1942 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC LC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID : A_AAC-2
Duration : 2 h 34 min
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -125 ms
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Poor Things:

General
Unique ID : 90412253046550012678929462404482546275 (0x4404C43C80809501CA9503E87B9B3A63)

Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4
File size : 1.61 GiB
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Overall bit rate : 1 623 kb/s
Frame rate : 24.000 FPS

Writing application : Lavf58.76.100
Writing library : Lavf58.76.100
Comment
ErrorDetectionType : Per level 1

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 10.0 Mb/s
Nominal bit rate : 1 299 kb/s
Width : 1 790 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 5:3
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 24.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.217
Stream size : 9.94 GiB
Title :
Writing library : x264 core 164
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=2 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=4 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=34 / lookahead_threads=8 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=20 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=1299 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 320 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Bit depth : 32 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 778 MiB (47%)
Title
Writing library : Lavc58.134.100 ac3
Language : English
Service kind : Complete Main
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Text #1
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 15 min
Bit rate : 47 b/s
Frame rate : 0.200 FPS
Count of elements : 1627
Stream size : 45.0 KiB (0%)
Title
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Text #2
ID : 4
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 53 b/s
Frame rate : 0.256 FPS
Count of elements : 2175
Stream size : 55.4 KiB (0%)
Title : SDH
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

Text #3
ID : 5
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 44 b/s
Frame rate : 0.193 FPS
Count of elements : 1643
Stream size : 46.0 KiB (0%)
Title : Latin American
Language : Spanish
Default : No
Forced : No

Text #4
ID : 6
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 2 h 21 min
Bit rate : 43 b/s
Frame rate : 0.165 FPS
Count of elements : 1400
Stream size : 45.5 KiB (0%)
Language : French
Default : No
Forced : No

Menu
00:00:00.000 : Chapter 01
00:04:51.666 : Chapter 02
00:08:12.125 : Chapter 03
00:11:12.500 : Chapter 04
00:15:42.375 : Chapter 05
00:20:07.875 : Chapter 06
00:25:42.250 : Chapter 07
00:31:38.000 : Chapter 08
00:36:54.000 : Chapter 09
00:41:05.958 : Chapter 10
00:48:28.166 : Chapter 11
00:51:27.708 : Chapter 12
00:59:05.458 : Chapter 13
01:04:49.500 : Chapter 14
01:09:36.333 : Chapter 15
01:15:48.666 : Chapter 16
01:22:32.208 : Chapter 17
01:24:11.250 : Chapter 18
01:30:57.833 : Chapter 19
01:37:16.625 : Chapter 20
01:43:33.125 : Chapter 21
01:45:18.833 : Chapter 22
01:48:23.041 : Chapter 23
01:51:10.750 : Chapter 24
01:58:14.208 : Chapter 25
02:11:36.666 : Chapter 26
02:15:57.000 : Chapter 27

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I'm sorry if there are things I shouldn't have posted. I converted Aliens from mp4 to an mkv as that was the main difference I noted between the two but that didn't help.

SexyGreyFox · 6 Mar 2024 at 16:14

I use 5x Fire Sticks in the house with my room using a 4K Max and I have zero problems streaming from my NAS or anything.
I have got an older version of KODI on though, may be something like 19.4 because it works flawlessly with my Enigma 2 Satellite System.

SoAdCrAzY · 6 Mar 2024 at 17:44

Maybe my setup isn't needed. I have my PC connected to my TV anyway via HDMI but I have the Amazon Fire Stick as I don't like the Netflix or YouTube website (I use SmartTube anyway).