Video playback: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 20:43, 9 June 2018

Home icon grey.png   ▶ Video library ▶ Video playback


Introduction

This page will detail how to select and play a title from your video library. It will alse describe the settings and options that are available for, and during, playback of the title.


Navigation

This page assumes that you understand how to navigate Kodi and are familiar with the various screens.

See: Basic_controls


Keyboard Controls

Kodi is primarily designed to be used with a correctly programmed remote control.

Using a keyboard is possible. Using a mouse is also possible but can be awkward at times as Kodi was not designed to be used with a mouse. If you are using a keyboard, shortcuts can be found here...

See: Keyboard_controls


Play

Navigate to the Movies, TV Shows or Music Videos main menu item and enter it to view a listing of all available titles in your library. Once you have Highlighted the title for playback, there are numerous methods to commence playback:

  • Press Enter/OK on a remote control, or Press  Enter on a keyboard or left click with a mouse
  • Using the Context Menu, select Play
  • From the Information page, select Play

If a Resume Point is available, additional options will be Play from beginning and Resume from hh:mm:ss


Video Player OSD

This image shows the main OSD (On Screen Display) for the Video Player during playback. It has been overlayed with labels for illustrative purposes.

Most of the OSD is self-explanatory. This page will cover the four icons in the bottom right corner, along with other available OSD examples which are separate to the below image.

It is important to note that all OSD's are skin dependant and may show more information, and in a different format, than the default skin Estuary.

Video Playback OSD 01.jpg



Information

Video Playback OSD 02.jpg

The Information icon will display available data for the title currently playing. Amongst other information, it shows the Tagline, Plot and Poster. Selecting Cast will list the Actors.

The two methods to display this screen are:

  • Using the icon described in the image
  • Press i on a remote control, or Press i on a keyboard



Bookmarks

Video Playback OSD 03.jpg

Displays a graphical listing of Chapters along a time-line. The listing will populate with Screenshots if the setting Extract thumbnail is enabled.

This screen also allows the creation of Bookmarks which can then be accessed from this screen when required.

See: Bookmarks_and_chapters



Subtitles

Video Playback OSD 04.jpg

Allows the control of Subtitles for the currently playing title. If no internal or external subtitles are found, all options except Download will be inaccessible.

Options are as follows:

Enabled
Allows subtitles to be displayed during playback of the current title
Download
If a subtitle service has been set, allows download of subtitle files from the provider. See: Setup Subtitle Services
Subtitle offset
If the sync between the display and the subtitles is not correct, adjustments can be made here in milliseconds
Toggle language
Allows you to scroll through all available subtitle languages


See: Subtitles



Settings

Video Playback OSD 05.jpg

The cog icon in the bottom right corner will display the Settings menu detailed in the image.

The following items are available

  • Audio and subtitle settings- See next section
  • Video settings- See following section
  • Toggle audio stream- Allows selection of an alternate language track if more than one is available.



Audio and Subtitle Settings

Video Playback OSD 06.jpg

The following settings can be used to modify the behaviour of the currently playing title. There is an option to save the settings as the default for all video media.


Volume
Allows you to adjust the playback volume. If audio passthrough is in use, this option will not be available
Volume amplification
Additional audio amplification that is then limited/compressed at a certain threshold to prevent clipping. If audio passthrough is in use, this option will not be available
Audio offset
Adjusts how long that the audio is delayed in relation to the video. This is useful when viewing poorly synced videos.
Audio stream
If the video file contains more than one audio stream you can select them here.
Kodi will auto select audio language based on your global settings. See: International Settings
Stereo upmix
Outputs stereo to all speakers


Enable subtitles
Enable or disables subtitles. Subtitle tracks with the "forced" flag are unaffected by this and should always display.
Subtitle offset
Adjusts the sync between the video and subtitles
Subtitle
Allows you select which subtitles are displayed. If only one subtitle track is available, this option will not be available.
Kodi will auto select subtitle language based on your global settings. Set as defaultfor all Media is now Set as default for all Videos. See: International Settings
Browse for subtitle
Allows you to browse the filesystem for external subtitle files


Set as default for all videos
Selecting this will make the current settings the default


See: Subtitles



Video Settings

Video Playback OSD 07.jpg

The following settings can be used to modify the behavious of the currently playing title. There is an option to save the settings as the default for all video media.

Some settings are hardware dependant. Not all options may be shown on your system, and there may be newer options not yet listed here. (please feel free to edit the list)


Video stream
If more than one video stream is available, this option becomes accessible and allows selection of an alternate video stream.


Deinterlace method
  • Auto select - Tries to guess the best method.
  • DeInterlace -
  • None
Video scaling method
Changes the size of a video frame in order to match the resolution of the display device. All methods here are non-adaptive so they may produce different amount of aliasing, blurring and edge halos. There are no best methods it’s up to personal taste what method you should use. The methods are:
  • Auto - If supported uses Lanczos3 Optimized when video resolution is lower than 720p (1280x720) and video FPS is lower than 30, otherwise it uses Bilinear.
  • Bilinear - fairly simple and fast method (video resized with this method may appear slightly smoothed/blurred but with no edge halos also called ringing artifacts).
  • Bicubic - more sophisticated method than Bilinear (more precise and slightly sharper video than Bilinear, but can introduce some ringing artifacts).
  • Lanczos2 - 4-tap filter that uses a 2-lobe Lanczos windowed sinc function (sharper than Bicubic with less aliasing).
  • Spline36 Optimized - 4-tap + 3-lobe filter, more precise than Lanczos2, which tries to produce the sharpest image with slightly less ringing artifacts then Lanczos3 Optimized (differences only noticeable with high resizing factors or when downsizing).
  • Lanczos3 Optimized - 4-tap filter that uses a 3-lobe Lanczos windowed sinc function (comparable results to Spline36 Optimized, with less aliasing and more sharpness, but more ringing artifacts).
  • Spline36, Lanczos31 - 6-tap filters that are more precise variants of above "Optimized" versions (they are sharper but might produce more ringing artifacts in some situations).
Characteristics of different methods:
  • Sharpness - Bilinear < Bicubic < Lanczos2 < Spline36 Optim < Lanczos3 Optim < Spline36 < Lanczos3
  • Aliasing artifacts - Lanczos3 < Spline36 < Lanczos3 Optim < Spline36 Optim < Lanczos2 < Bicubic < Bilinear
  • Ringing artifacts - Bilinear (no ringing) - Bicubic < Lanczos2 < Spline36 Optim < Lanczos3 Optim < Spline36 < Lanczos3
1 On GL builds these methods are slower than the optimized versions; this is the reason why they are not available by default but can be activated by advanced users in advancedsettings.xml
View mode
Allows you to choose how the video is displayed. The options are:
  • Normal - Movie is displayed so that at least 1 dimension fills the screen. No cropping will occur. Aspect ratio is unaffected.
  • Zoom - Movie is zoomed in, and the movie cropped so that there are no black bars on screen. Aspect ratio is unaffected.
  • Stretch 4x3 - Movie is stretched to fill a 4x3 frame. Aspect ratio is changed.
  • Stretch 14x9 - Movie is stretched to fill a 14x9 frame. Aspect ratio is changed.
  • Stretch 16x9 - Movie is stretched to fill a 16x9 frame. Aspect ratio is changed.
  • Original Size - Movie is displayed so that the height (in pixels) displayed is the height of the movie exactly. No zooming is performed. Aspect ratio is unaffected.
  • Custom - Movie is displayed using the Zoom and Pixel Ratio settings as defined in the video On Screen Display. See below for more details.
Zoom amount
Allows you to control how much that the view is zoomed into the video.
Vertical shift
Determines the amount a the video is shifted up on vertical axys on current display (helpful for projectors)
Pixel ratio
Allows you to adjust the pixel ratio that the video is displayed at. This can be used to adjust videos that are not displaying at the proper aspect ratio.
Post-processing
Basically puts an unsharpen mask over the image to reduce pixellation/macroblocking on low-res/low-bitrate videos


Brightness
Adjust brightness
Contrast
Adjust contrast
Non-linear stretch
When enabled the stretching method doesn't look so wide in middle of video area ?
[VDPAU] Noise reduction (only visible when VDPAU is in use)
Select level of noise reduction for video content
[VDPAU] Sharpness (only visible when VDPAU is in use)
Select sharpness amount to apply to video content


Stereoscopic 3D mode of video
?
Invert stereoscopic 3D mode (flip eyes)
?


Set as default for all videos
Selecting this will make the current settings the default
Video calibration
Opens the Video calibration window



Player Process Info

Video Playback OSD 08.jpg

The Player Process Information OSD details the Audio and Video codecs in use, along with system memory and cpu usage.

The OSD can be activated using one of the following methods...

  • Pressing o on a keyboard
  • Pressing the equiveland key on your remote control. This is not a standard button press and will need to be mapped to your remote control. See: Keymap Editor
  • Using one of the remote control Apps, special functions are available to activate and deactivate this OSD





Player Debug Info

Video Playback OSD 09.jpg

The Player Debug Info screen displays dynamic data of the current audio/video stream.

The OSD can be activated using one of the following methods...

  • Pressing ctrl+ Shift+o on a keyboard
  • Pressing the equiveland key on your remote control. This is not a standard button press and will need to be mapped to your remote control. See: Keymap Editor
  • Using one of the remote control Apps, special functions are available to activate and deactivate this OSD


VSyncOff
Indicates the offset between the vertical sync signal of the display and the timestamps of the video frames. This offset is used for a/v sync. If VSyncOff is greater than zero and constant, all good. If the value shows 0.0, the framerate (fps) of the video does not match the refresh rate (Hz) of the display.




Display Info

Video Playback OSD 10.jpg

The Display Information screen displays the View Mode, Aspect Ratio and other display related data.

The OSD can be activated using one of the following methods...

  • Pressing z on a keyboard
  • Pressing the equiveland key on your remote control. This is not a standard button press and will need to be mapped to your remote control. See: Keymap Editor
  • Using one of the remote control Apps, special functions are available to activate and deactivate this OSD


The following data is displayed

View Mode
The zoom/crop/stretch mode currently in use. For available options See: Video Settings above.
Sizing
Information about the output display of the video stream
(Resolution of video)->(Output resolution. Shows upscaling if any) (If any zoom has been applied) AR:Aspect Ratio of video (Pixels: Pixel ratio in use) (VShift: Amount of Vertical Shift applied)
See: Video Settings above.
Screen resolution
Reported resolution to Kodi. Usually the resolution set on the graphics card, and the TV may then further upscale. Also displays the type of Full Screen in use.



See Also

Other useful links related to playback


3D

Starting in v13, Kodi supports a number of passive 3D video formats such as SBS, TAB, anaglyph or interlaced. This support extends to the Kodi GUI including subtitles and on-screen-controls.


AirPlay

As of v11 (Eden), Kodi has very limited support for being an AirPlay target, allowing any device/platform that can run Kodi to receive some AirPlay content.


Playlists

These playlists are created by the user for specific requirements. The two types of playlists available for user creation are:

  • Basic playlists - The Basic Playlist is a user created list of music or video that does not require a correctly scraped library as it uses the folder paths to the media files. As the playlist is based on paths, different classes of media can be mixed, like movies and episodes. The list can be created within Kodi or transferred from another media player.
  • Smart playlists - Smart Playlists are a versatile feature that allow you to create customised lists of media that may be more suited to your browsing preference. They are a set of rules/filters that allow you to display a sub set of the media in your library.


Skip steps

Skip steps is a new seeking function that has been implemented into Kodi as of v15, and is a method of additive skipping (also known as additive seeking) that applies to both videos and music. This allows the user to skip backwards and forwards with the left and right cursor keys (this is the default keyboard and remote mapping), and by pressing these keys multiple times they can skip with increasingly larger steps.


UPnP

Kodi can be used as a UPnP Server that will stream its library contents to other players on the network, or it can be used as a UPnP Client that can receive music and video from a UPnP Server on the network.


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