Hitchhiker42
Newbie
Just a PSA for those using Tivimate on a Firestick 4k (unfortunately I have no other devices to test this with).
It's generally recommended here and across the internet that auto frame rate (AFR) be switched on where available. This is solid advice, with a caveat when using Tivimate on a Firestick 4k.
If you have AFR turned on in both Tivimate's settings and under settings on the Firestick then you will experience a playback issue that some people may interpret as buffering. If you have both turned on streams will play fine for a variable amount if time, freeze, jump back ~10 seconds and then continue to play fine until the next freeze and so on...
I spent a good hour or so debugging this issue ensuring it wasn't the stream itself and I found that disabling AFR completely resolved the issue. I then enabled AFR under Firestick settings, but this didn't result in the display switching refresh rates when playing a stream in Tivimate - but the freeze and jump back issue was gone. So I re-enabled AFR within Tivimate, display switched refresh rates as expected but would now streams would freeze and jump back intermittently.
Finally, I disabled AFR under Firestick settings, kept it enabled in Tivimate and the display switched as expected and the streams no longer jumped back.
I also tested this in IMPlayer briefly which didn't have the same issue. I think it may be the interaction between the Firestick's hardware decoder and Tivimate - since switching to software decoding in Tivimate resolved the issue above but created many more of it's own.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this is on Amazon, rather than Tivimate, and it's and issue with their decoder... Given the issues their decoder has re. Mixed files that include both DV profile 7 and HDR10 and it's inability to fallback correctly to HDR10.
TL;DR
If using Tivimate on a Firestick 4k (and potentially others) and wanting to use AFR, ensure that it is only enabled within the app settings and not the Firestick's display settings.
It's generally recommended here and across the internet that auto frame rate (AFR) be switched on where available. This is solid advice, with a caveat when using Tivimate on a Firestick 4k.
If you have AFR turned on in both Tivimate's settings and under settings on the Firestick then you will experience a playback issue that some people may interpret as buffering. If you have both turned on streams will play fine for a variable amount if time, freeze, jump back ~10 seconds and then continue to play fine until the next freeze and so on...
I spent a good hour or so debugging this issue ensuring it wasn't the stream itself and I found that disabling AFR completely resolved the issue. I then enabled AFR under Firestick settings, but this didn't result in the display switching refresh rates when playing a stream in Tivimate - but the freeze and jump back issue was gone. So I re-enabled AFR within Tivimate, display switched refresh rates as expected but would now streams would freeze and jump back intermittently.
Finally, I disabled AFR under Firestick settings, kept it enabled in Tivimate and the display switched as expected and the streams no longer jumped back.
I also tested this in IMPlayer briefly which didn't have the same issue. I think it may be the interaction between the Firestick's hardware decoder and Tivimate - since switching to software decoding in Tivimate resolved the issue above but created many more of it's own.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this is on Amazon, rather than Tivimate, and it's and issue with their decoder... Given the issues their decoder has re. Mixed files that include both DV profile 7 and HDR10 and it's inability to fallback correctly to HDR10.
TL;DR
If using Tivimate on a Firestick 4k (and potentially others) and wanting to use AFR, ensure that it is only enabled within the app settings and not the Firestick's display settings.
