[te36]

Trying to play (AFAIK the most common) standard "blu-ray UHD" video formats: 4k resolution, HEVC, 10bit ("main10")
Latest windows 10 updates, Kodi 20.1
Same results on windows 11 - not shown (i can not upgrade the reference j4125 to windows 11 due to lack of TPM).

Jasper Lake Mini PC, N5095 CPU: Black Picture when playing back (GUI continues to work)
Gemini Lake Mini PC, J4125 CPU: Displays fine. (this is a generation older CPU / Intel GPU).

Problem only happens when rendering is set to "Auto" or DXVA (Auto seems to select DXVA). Setting it to Pixel Shader fixes the issue
But having to manually figure out that you need to use Pixel Shader is something Kodi should do itself in "Auto" (if DXVA does not work).

Problem does not happen on LibreElec, that plays back video fine on Jasper Lake CPU.
Aka: Jasper Lake CPU do support HEVC/4k decode as confirmed by: github.com/intel/media-driver
But that is of course VAAPI library and not Windows DXVA. Just reconfirming it is not a HW limitation.

Problem is also not happening on non-HDR/8-bit HEVC videos.
Have not been able to locate a HDR video with less than 4k resolution.

J4125 log
N5095 log

Test file used

I could not confirm whether or not DXVA is working in any non-kodi app:

- VLC works fine, but i can not figure out what VLC uses for rendering. If anyone can tell me how to diagnose that, please. Without diagnosis, it simply might use whatever Kodi uses for "pixel shaders" or the like.
- Windows Media Player of course does only display black picture unless you insert 0,99 cent into the Microsoft Store for the HEVC. extension, but with that, the video plays with very low frame rate on both PCs, so i don't think that really uses any HW acceleration.
- Any other non-kodi reference test suggestions welcome to check if DXVA actually works.

[CrystalP]

There is an "interesting" error in the log:
 

Code:

DXVA::CProcessorHD::Render: video device returns result '-7ff8ffa9' while VideoProcessorBlt execution

-7ff8ffa9 is a code for invalid argument

The Intel GPUs (desktop processors) I have around do not throw that error for your sample and similar files so it's going to be difficult to troubleshoot.
You could try turning off the option "Use 10 bit for SDR" in System>Display. That will bring you closer to the situation of your older box and maybe avoid the problem.

[CrystalP]

The simple stuff first, let's make sure the problem is not one of your settings or maybe comes from data copied from another pc.

Please make sure your drivers are up to date and have default settings, and try with a fresh install of Kodi (or portable mode to preserve your current install) and see what happens.
And try turning off the "Use 10 bit for SDR".

[CrystalP]

Could you also try changing a BIOS setting and increase the memory dedicated to the GPU. Not sure what exactly that would be called on your box. It's currently 128MB, maybe 512 would help.

from the log:
DXVA::CDecoder::Open: Total video memory available is 4146 MB (dedicated = 128 MB, shared = 4018 MB)

[te36]

There are no BIOS settings to change VRAM, and from what i can read on the Internet, that is an obsolete concept that only worked a long time ago. Likewise those workarounds to increase VRAM with registry editor - i tried, they don't do anything in windows 10.

I did manage to hook up the PCs to a HDR display, and the black picture doesn't happen there, so it seems to be an issue with HDR->SDR conversion in DXVA nut supported and thus thorwing the error (my guess). 
re fresh from USB stick, will latest windows upgrades nothing else installed. I also only attempted to replicate the same problem from another user in a thread on the german kodinerds forum. You can compare with his pastebin.

The 10bit SDR config option didn't make a difference.

I was primarily interested, because small NUC style PCs are quite popular for Kodi, but i guess that maybe 4k/HDR has not been used that much in the past, and with the Jasper Lake CPU becomine more common on the low end, and claiming HDR support, it was worth taking a look at it. But they're kinda crappy for that purpose it seems (not because of this kodi issue, but because of other issues i stumbled across, which i think are all intel/dxva windows driver).

[CrystalP]

They seem like nice little boxes and can likely be made to work properly with sdr displays since hdr works.
The problem root cause is likely the same for that other user although his parameters are slightly different (intermediate render target format, output resolution).
Can you please do a debug log with the N5095 playing a non-HDR h265 10 bit file.

You mention other issues, possibly driver related, could they be relevant?

edit: there are a couple VP9 HDR samples in Kodi samples (#28 & 29), could you give them a try. I doubt the issue is codec related but who knows.

[te36]

Thanks. Will be travelling a bit now, so replies will be delayed
The original german thread of me complaining about the experience with the boxes.

Something like:

The j4125 box does not even offer HDR in windows display config. And of course its questionable if one should still buy such a box given how most of them will not have the fTPM in their BIOS given how they most often came out before Win11. For my box (admittedly i bought it as a router with openwrt, i am just abusing those boxes now), the aliexpress vendor wanted to persuade me that a hacked windows 11 would work perfectly fine *sigh*. Intels driver update app/web-page wasn't even offering me any driver for that display. quite weird. I could manually install some latest 2022. And then intels web-page says you need to create an account to download further drivers.

The 5095 could install pristine windows 11 (didn't see any significant difference over windows 10 btw, so i didn't mention it). But then it does only do HDR for up to 30fps. And its only 8-bit HDR, not 10-bit, so needs to dither etc. Aka: i think it ended up using RGB 8-bit HDR according to my display. And then kodi or windows settings can not change to 50 or 60 fps, because you need to use the Intel app to change the pixel setup, to 4:2:0, and then you can select 50 / 60 Hz - without HDR.

LibreElec for once delivers interestingly different results on the 5095. It does do HDR for both 24 fps and for 50 / 60 Hz, but it does it not for BT.2020 9 (as the DXVA windows driver), but BT.709. And all the colors look ugly green. But at least Kodi can then switch by itself 24 / 60 fps. I guess this is all Intel developers for VAAPI though.

In any case. sufficiently weird. Alas, i am a big fan of 3D, and i fear that the inofficial MVC builds will continue to only work for Intel well, as they have done so far. Hence i wanted to see what good small portable intel boxes are. At home my HTPC uses ryzen with win 10. Gives me 4k/60Hz, 10bit HDR BT.2020. Alas, they messed up 3D support in their windows drivers.

Oh well ;-) You asked.

[CrystalP]

I added more logging in the development version, can you please try the latest v21 nightly (dated April 3rd or later) and provide logs.
It won't solve the issue but there will be a lot more information in the debug log, in particular the results of an API that determines format compatibility.
The dev versions are not unstable these days but just in case you should backup your Kodi config files first or use the portable mode to avoid interfering with your normal setup.

[te36]

Just between travels. Should get to it next week. Thanks a lot!

[CrystalP]

@te36 did you get a chance to try a recent v21 nightly with additional logging?

[te36]

Sorry, travel, and then then the forum hack, and now i just had to ask friendly forum support for forum password reset,
which just worked etc. pp. And that my N5095 is gone for the original purpose it was bought for, and now i've got an N95
ox in front of me, and i just got around to hook it up yesterday yada yada excuses excuses... pls. stay tuned..

[te36]

*sigh* Alas the N5095 box is gone, and when i tried with other boxes i now have with different CPU, N95 for example, i can not reproduce the problem. If/when i get hold of an N5095 again, i will retry. The problem was constricted to non-HDR capable display for HDR media with DXVA playback, so it could as well have been an inssue with Intels DXVA libraries and been fixed by any of those automatic upgrades windows does.

[CrystalP]

It's good news when things work. Regardless, more improvements are going in to detect the support of the dxva processor for various formats.

[te36]

Sure. I just wish we could have found the root cause.

For example on my Ryzen computer i had a long time ago the issue of black screen, not with kodi i think, but vlc. And after a lot of searching for solutions it turned out one needed to increase memory for GPU in BIOS. And not even the AMD windows config tool was helpful to find this. Aka: if we'd have rrors in Kodi where the root cause was somethng like this and that can be identified, one could give useful popups to user, because this can be quite frustrating.

Kinda terrible how bad really support for all of this from microsoft, intel, amd is...

[leif]

I can confirm H265 2160p 10-bit is still a problem on N5095A (Beelink mini-PC) with Kodi v21 beta 2. Blank screen, but sound plays and UI works. Software rendering and Pixel shader plays but stutters. Windows Media Player with the sideloaded microsoft codec plays smoothly but washed out colors and no sound. "Movies & TV" plays smoothly with a great looking picture but also no sound :-D.

My N5095A machine isn't going anywhere, it's permanently behind my bedroom TV. Can I help by testing a special build with debug logging?