Wrong video size when playing HD video on crt-tv with s89-H
#1
I have a Tronsmart s89-H connected to my crt-tv (haven't got the money yet for a flatscreen and wanted to be prepared for hd-content so already bought the androidbox).
In android settings I set the display to 576p. I thought this would mean that the resolution is 720x576, but when I use an app to see what the resolution is, I get: 1920x1080. The android and apps are all normal screen size (full).

I have given Kodi (13.2) superuser access and I when I start it up, I can see permissions granted. When playing sd video everything is fine, but when I play hd video (720/1080p) I see only the top-left quarter of the video on my whole screen (the screen is filled with video, the video is 4x my screen).

Now I've been studying this a bit. What I found out was that after starting the script "set_display_mode.sh" I can watch this (1080p) video normal but only a few times (1-4 times) after which it's wrong again. I noticed that playing a 1080p video changes /sys/class/video/axis from "35 28 683 546" to "0 0 1919 1079" (outputx, outputy, outputwidth, outputheight). When I manually edit the file axis to "35 28 683 546" I can play the 1080p-file normal again (and continuously). The only problem with this is that after a reboot I have to set read-write access again because it's changed to "rw- rw- rw-" and I get a grey video screen on any video, UNLESS I grant Kodi superuser access again, but than after 1 start I have to deny superuser access again or the file axis is changed again. *
When I set the file to read-only and start kodi (with superuser access), the file is set to rw again and is changed. After a reboot it's also rw again.

So it seems that when playing a 1080p video, xbmc changes /sys/class/video/axis which is the cause of the wrong video.

Than I tried changing "/sys/class/graphics/fb0/free_scale_axis". After reboot it's set to "0 0 1919 1079" (normal android and app sizes on screen). When I change it manually to "0 0 720 576", the android screen is messed up (it's almost totally black only the top of the screen is not black and the android window is perhaps 10x beside each other). This seems to affect only the output to the tv, because when I watch this on teamviewer I get a normal screen. And when I then start the 1080p video, I can see on the not-black part of the screen (part of) the 1080p video which is now the correct size (but I can only see the top part of it, the rest of the screen is black)!

When I connect the box to my neighbours 1080i tv everything is normal, so the box is okay.

I don't know what's the root cause of the problem (build.prop, the script "set_display_mode.sh", kodi, ...?). Can anyone help me please?

Wim
* A workaround could be to make a script with superuser access(!) that makes all the changes that Kodi normally makes and deny kodi superuser access. But I am not good enough in scripting for that and I would like to solve this properly.
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#2
Well I got the script working and starting at boot, so I've got a good workaround.

In the script I give xbmc full (666) access to all files kodi needs in amlogic devices EXCEPT for /sys/class/video/axis .
And I denied kodi access in supersu (otherwise kodi would change permission and contents of the file).
To start the script at boot I use smanager.

Question remains why xbmc is changing /sys/class/video/axis in such a way that I can't play hd-files properly.
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#3
I have the same problem here and no idea what to do. It works when I'm at home on my 1080p tv but for the night i have to use an old philips crt and every video played only shows the top left quarter even standard definition ones. I tried to use es file explorer to edit the axis file but it won't open it at all and if I modify free scale axis I can't save the modded file because I think it's read only so I don't know what to do. I tried spmc but it isn't displaying any video on the crt I'd assume it's trying to use hdmi. I did see that disabling amcodec can sort it out so i'm going to try it now.
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#4
Hello, i have same problem with my mxq s85 and crt-tv with RCA output, In "android settings" I set the display to 576p but in kodi "info system" resolution is 1920x1080 and I see only the top-left quarter of the video on my whole screen.

Help Me Please
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#5
Hello, with Kodi 14.1 i have resolved the problem disable the Amcodec Hardware Acceleration in System - Settings - Video - Acceleration
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#6
(2015-02-05, 15:46)metallicus76 Wrote: Hello, with Kodi 14.1 i have resolved the problem disable the Amcodec Hardware Acceleration in System - Settings - Video - Acceleration

That's not a fix, and it will cause you issues later.
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#7
(2015-02-05, 21:37)Ned Scott Wrote:
(2015-02-05, 15:46)metallicus76 Wrote: Hello, with Kodi 14.1 i have resolved the problem disable the Amcodec Hardware Acceleration in System - Settings - Video - Acceleration

That's not a fix, and it will cause you issues later.

then how can I fix the problem?
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#8
I don't know, but turning off hardware acceleration will cause you other issues. So basically you'd be replacing one problem with another.
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#9
I have a similar 1/4 screen problem playing videos in Kodi from my Tronsmart s89-H. However this only happens if I set the Tronsmart to output 4K onto my 4K TV. Disabling hardware acceleration corrects the 1/4 size screen but causes issues as Ned said (glitchy playback). Setting the Tronsmart to output 1080P fixes it. I'd like to run at 4K (er, 2160p), but I gather there is no fix for that currently.
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Wrong video size when playing HD video on crt-tv with s89-H0