problem playing videos on Kodi + 4k Samsung TV

[circulosmeos]

I've used an ODROID-C2 for several years, with Kodi 17.6+hk2-odroidc2ubuntu7 (Ubuntu 16.04.2), connected to a Samsung HD TV. Reproduction of videos were always smooth even for 4k (though in this case video was downgraded to 1080).
Now I connected it to a Samsung Q60R 4k TV, and all videos (no matter the resolution) play with lots of glitches as if something is doing heavy CPU processing. I've found this on kodi.log:

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DEBUG: ffmpeg[7F687FEFD0]: [swscaler] No accelerated colorspace conversion found from yuv420p to bgra.

I'm suspecting some problem with the HDMI connection requiring bgra color space... Is this possible? Is there some solution to this? Other 4k TVs show this problem?

[rooted]

I'm guessing you're playing 10bit videos and they are being software decoded, the C2 doesn't support 10bit.

[rooted]

I meant to say HDR.

[circulosmeos]

The problem is that these are the very same videos that I played connected to the HD TV without any issue...

Is this something related to the HDMI communication? The TV imposing HDR? Can this be fixed?

[rooted]

If the videos aren't HDR I don't know what the issue is, but that message leads me to believe it's using software decoding for some reason.

Have you tried using CoreELEC? I think you will have better luck.

[circulosmeos]

I've checked the CPU, and amazingly, it is not being used intensivily... This seems to be something related to the HDMI connection... maybe the 4k impose color space?

Maybe I could downgrade the resolution to 1080 instead of 4k to see if this have some impact, but this cannot be done from kodi (only 4k appears on video options)

[circulosmeos]

I have reduced the resolution of ODROID-C2 HDMI when it starts, on /media/boot/boot.ini to 1920x1080, but problems persist.
I'm beginning to feel tired... I've played with 30, 50, 60 Hz with no result... I can't explain what is happening here.

Could someone please tell me if you see also these warnings on kodi.log?:

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DEBUG: ffmpeg[7F687FEFD0]: [swscaler] No accelerated colorspace conversion found from yuv420p to bgra.

[cdu13a]

@circulosmeos As @rooted suggested trying CoreELEC (https://coreelec.org/) to see if you have the same problem with it as you do with your current setup would be a good idea. If you have an extra micro sd install CoreELEC on it just to try. So as not to loose your existing setup. (You don't have to keep using it if you don't want, but trying it would help narrow down the cause of your problem.)

[circulosmeos]

I've tried CoreELEC as suggested and it plays videos smoothly even at 4k

Now the question is that now I have Ubuntu 16 and Kodi 17 on my ODROID-C2 (and I use also the OS, so I'd like not to use CoreELEC installation directly)
maybe I must upgrade to hardkernel's Ubuntu 18? (and the Kodi 18 that I think it has available)

I'm not sure anyway as to what is exactly failing here...
does somebody know if the new kernel or libs for Ubuntu 18 have video corrections?

PS: as a side note, I also tested a RPi2 and it couldn't show but vga garbage on Samsung TV, even though the Kodi GUI is clean that's the reason I was almost convinced this was a TV/HDMI issue

[circulosmeos]

This question continues here, trying to use 4k with mali-fbdev controllers instead of mali-x11 ones.