Unable to whitelist different resolutions

I just bought a Beelink GT-King rev.b and installed CoreELEC 9.2.2, and when I configured it I found out that I couldn’t see any entries except for 1920*1080@60Hz in whitelist configuration. I’m connecting the box to my Sony X8500G, it’s a 4K TV and supports 2160p@24,25,30,50,60Hz, 1080p@24, 30, 50, 60Hz and so on, so I’m not sure why I couldn’t see those modes. I have the same issue with KODI on Android, and also my previous Zidoo X9S with ZDMC 18.4(based on KODI 18.3). Is it something wrong with my TV? Or there are some prerequisitions before I configure whitelist? Thanks in advance.

Have you ever thought maybe HDMI cable may be your issue ?

Your TV is not reporting available resolutions to your box.

First try HDMI cable and switching HDMI ports on the TV.

SSH and run command below. Copy url link and post back here.

dispinfo

Thanks for the suggestion! I will try later today and post the results here.
Before I plug this box to my TV, I plugged it to my PC’s monitor, which is a 1440p@120Hz monitor, and the whitelist can only show 1080p@60Hz. I wonder if this whitelist option is written into configuration files and not renewed when plugging into my TV?

Also, I see from a bug on KODI Github(https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues/15135). One guy says “Amlogic’s Android Oreo SDK doesn’t support auto frame-rate switching in Kodi even if the hardware is more than capable of doing it, they didn’t implement Android’s Display API correctly. Kodi 18 also dropped support for Amlogic’s propriety AMLCodec and moved to MediaCodec that is supposed to be supported on every Android device now.” I wonder if CoreELEC will behave different since it’s not based on Android?

What options are available when you change the resolution?

Coreelec is based on Linux so it does not have those problems from Android.

Just one: 1920*1080@60Hz, nothing else.

Try changing the port on the TV. I had a Sony TV once which lost its EDID.

You need to make sure that HDMI 2.0 is enabled in the TV settings for the port you have the CoreELEC device plugged in to. I’m not familiar with Sony TV menu layout, so the easiest way to enable it is to google the TV model + HDMI 2.0 menu

On many Sony TVs only HDMI 2 and HDMI 3 support ‘Enhanced HDMI’ for high-bandwidth HDMI 2.0 connections AND this still also has to be enabled in the TV menus.

HDMI 1 and HDMI 4 are often the ports that are limited to HDMI 1.4-bandwidth, and thus the only HDMI 2.0 2160p50/60 modes they support are 4:2:0 8-bit 2160p50/60 and not 4:2:2 12-bit at 2160p50/60 (in other words these ports don’t support HDR at 2160p50/60, only at 2160p30 and below ISTR)

However I’d expect all the various 1080p and 720p modes to be flagged irrespective of which Sony HDMI port is being used.

This sounds like the EDID information from the TV isn’t being read by the Beelink? (EDID is what tells the source which modes the display supports)

That could be either a faulty cable (or HDMI socket at one end or there other), powering up the CoreElec box before the TV is switched on, or the CoreElec box somehow ignoring or overriding the EDID reading?

I’d try :

  1. A different HDMI cable.
  2. A different HDMI port on the TV.
  3. A different TV.

This would help narrow down where the possible issues are coming from?

Does CoreElec support doing an EDID dump from SSH, that can then be analysed, and if needed copied to a Boot folder to allow it to override the EDID read from the TV at boot? I know a number of platforms let you do this (it means your CoreElec boots with the right display mode support even if you switch it on when your TV is powered down etc.)

Thanks. My TV has 4 HDMI 2.0 ports, and I’m connecting to HDMI2. I will try enable the enhanced mode and/or change a cable/port if needed. Will update in a couple of hours.

Yeah it does mate.

@redraiderj

Try switching your box on after the TV has been switched on and in the HDMI input that your box is connected to.

I reset CoreELEC by running rm -rf /storage/.*; reboot and test with below scenarios, then I can see correct whitelist options in all of the scenarios, weird.

  1. Same cable plugged into different port(HDMI3)
  2. Same cable plugged into same port(HDMI2)
  3. Different cable plugged into different port(HDMI3)

Some people commented here that I might start box first then the TV, but I don’t think that’s the case, because my TV has HDMI-CEC enabled and when I plugged in the box, TV is automatically started without my intervention.
So my guess is when I first test the box with my PC monitor(1440p@120Hz), the whitelist options are written into configuration files, and the values are not changed even though I connect to a different device - my TV.

Now there is another but minor question: Sony claims my TV supports 720p@30Hz and 720/24p, but I can’t see these two options when configuring whitelist, while all other 1080p and 2160p modes Sony claims to support can be found. Here is the output of dispinfo: http://ix.io/2mLV Looks like my TV only support 720p60Hz and 720p50Hz, is that right? What will happen if I play a video file with 720p@30Hz? When I do that I can see the my TV is on 720p60Hz mode, but what does CoreELEC do to change the frame rate? Will CoreELEC do frame interpolation?

Yes - all 4 ports are HDMI 2.0 on most Sony sets these days - but only 2 of them are capable of the Full Bandwidth (aka ‘Enhanced HDMI’) HDMI 2.0 modes, the other 2 ports often only accept the reduced bandwidth HDMI 2.0 modes.

HDMI 2.0 included some HDMI 2.0-only modes that were within the HDMI 1.4b bandwidth - this is confusing I know (it allowed manufacturers with UHD TVs that only had HDMI 1.4b hardware to software upgrade them to add 'HDMI 2.0 compatibility)… You can call these ports HDMI 2.0 (and Sony did and do) - even though they are only using HDMI 1.4b hardware (and only support the 4:2:0 2160p50/60 modes and not the 4:2:2 and 4:4:4/RGB ones)

My XE9005 and XF9005 UHD HDR sets both had HDMI 1 and 4 as reduced bandwidth HDMI 2.0 ports (reduced HDR functionality), and HDMI 2 and HDMI 3 (which is the ARC port) as full bandwidth HDMI 2.0 ports (which supported full HDR at all frame rates in UHD) (My first UHD SDR set only supported reduced bandwidth HDMI 2.0 modes.)

If you can’t whitelist 720p23.976, 720p24 and 720p29.97 or 720p30 then I believe the following will happen.

720p30 videos will play at 720p60 if you have 720p60 whitelisted. This will use 2:2 and on almost all modern TVs will look identical (or very close to identical) to 720p30 (in fact many TV 2:2s p30 to p60 internally when fed p30 signals.)

720p29.97 videos will play at 720p59.94 - very similar to the above.

720p24 videos will probably play at 720p60 - but with 3:2 added (I think Kodi prefers this to switching to 1080p24 if that is whitelisted - though I may be wrong). 3:2 is not great - unless your TV has a 3:2 removal mode that displays 3:2 content at 24p (Some TVs do this - including Sony models I believe)

720p23.976 videos as above but p59.94.

I may be wrong - and there may be an advanced settings option that lets you chose whether resolution or frame rate are prioritised (i.e. whether 720p24 files are played at 720p60 or 1080p24/2160p24 when 720p24 isn’t a whitelisted mode)

I wouldn’t assume this. I would always ensure my TV is powered up before booting my CoreElec box. If I had problems, or wanted my CoreElec box to be able to boot before my TV is powered I’d do an EDID override (where you override the TV’s EDID with a file containing a ‘known good’ EDID)