Hue Sync on Amazon Fire TV

[mrmrmrmr]

ah I see, I had to try the Hue feature.
now I tried and it seems to work fine.

But now I don'T understand; for the Hue feature we needed the software to get frames from screen, so we had enabled capture. Now we disabled it. How does it get the color of the screen ?

And what is the difference of Mediacodec surface and non-surface ?
What are the cons and pros ?

[koying]

Mediacodec (surface) is using an Android "blackbox" to display the images, while non-surface is using OpenGL..
We can grab the OpenGL images to drive hue, while the "blackbox" doesn't allow that, so we use the trick of "capturing" screenshots repeatedly using a standard android API that *should* work on all devices, unless the firmware has bugs.

Con of using non-surface is that you're losing HDR and probably 4K (once again, that depends on the firmware)

[mrmrmrmr]

ok. so if we summarize;

on Fire TV;
either we use surface codec and benefit from 4K and HDR
or we use non-surface codec and get Hue sync but lose 4K&HDR features.

Actually, my TV which is connected to the Fire TV is not a 4K TV and does not have HDR. So I can go on with the non-surface codec and have Hue sync functionality.

However, I'd also like to understand and maybe help you solve why we can't use capture feature with surface codec on Fİre TV.
When I enable capture, Fire TV prompt asks me for a permission. So it understands that there is a request to capture frames.
Besides, when I use capture + surface codec, the Hue lights go in sync with the subtitles. So it can get some data from screen.
Maybe when using surface+capture, it is just capturing a layer of the screen where it only sees black (empty) screen and white subtitles. Maybe you can try to capture the layer behind that (actual movie frame)

Also, I remember that when I first installed mrmc on this device, I was able to sync Hue with the frames. Then I did many settings (including skin change) and the next day when I tried it was not able to sync Hue to colors other than the subtitles.
I remember that I did not change any codec settings. So it might be some other setting which prevents the capture of the real image.

any ideas ?

[mrmrmrmr]

any comments on this ?

[davilla]

any comments on this ?

Not sure what you are looking for...

mediacodec (surface) capture seems to be broken on the FireTV. As we use standard API's, it's a firmware problem. As we do not have access to the inner workings of fireOS, there's nothing we can fix or suggest to be fixed.

[mrmrmrmr]

I was sure that my previous post stated what I want.
As I don't have HDR or 4K features on the TV that my Fire TV is connected, I am happy with my current setup (non-surface media codec with Hue sync enabled and working)

I just offer you help to understand the problem and maybe solve.
As I wrote :

When I enable capture, Fire TV prompt asks me for a permission. So it understands that there is a request to capture frames.
Besides, when I use capture + surface codec, the Hue lights go in sync with the subtitles. So it can get some data from screen.
Maybe when using surface+capture, it is just capturing a layer of the screen where it only sees black (empty) screen and white subtitles. Maybe you can try to capture the layer behind that (actual movie frame)

Also, I remember that when I first installed mrmc on this device, I was able to sync Hue with the frames. Then I did many settings (including skin change) and the next day when I tried it was not able to sync Hue to colors other than the subtitles.
I remember that I did not change any codec settings. So it might be some other setting which prevents the capture of the real image.

I was looking for your comments on this. Instead , you keep saying capture with surface codec is broken on fire TV.
I don't think that's the problem. there is something else which you are overlooking. But 'f you are not interested in solving, then as you wish...

[koying]

I never tried with subtitles, TBH. Maybe (and probably, actually) the firmware just fails when rendering video on the surface layer, while it's ok with the subtitles, which are in the GUI layer.

You can see by yourself what the firmware produces: when surface + capture is enabled, the screenshot feature of MrMC uses the same API.

[mrmrmrmr]

how do we take a screenshot ?

[mrmrmrmr]

how do we take a screenshot ?

[mrmrmrmr]

On a Fire TV stick (no 4K) capture is working fine with no issues even if I select surface media codec.
But with the 4K Fire TV, capture does not work correctly.
However, it makes the lights turn on white whenever there is a subtitle.
So I believe it can get info from the screen but not correct layer.
If you would like someone to help you test/debug, I am here.

Btw, I had asked how to take screenshot because you told me :

You can see by yourself what the firmware produces: when surface + capture is enabled, the screenshot feature of MrMC uses the same API.

However, I could not find out how to take screenshot. If someone tells me I can try..