How to enable 4k on kodi running on fire tv gen 2?

dn852004

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When viewing Netflix, YouTube etc on my amazon fire tv gen 2 it displays 4k content without any problems however for the life of me I can't get it to display 4k content through kodi. I've checked the "whitelist" section and there's only an option for 1080p. Has anyone encountered similar problems? How is it resolved please?
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I'm not a 100% on this but I think in this specific case that might be the GUI it renders at rather than the output resolution which is controlled by the FireTV itself. So it might not be downscaling the video just the GUI ?

Have you tried MrMC on the FireTV its an app store approved fork of Kodi so its on the ATV store front, see if that is running at 4K or 1080p.
 
I have a feeling that is for the GUI. When you are playing back a 4K file I think you can overlay the output details or better still check what your TV thinks is the incoming signal details.
 
I have a feeling that is for the GUI. When you are playing back a 4K file I think you can overlay the output details or better still check what your TV thinks is the incoming signal details.
The info provided by kodi states its a 4k file however the TV tells me that its displaying at 1080p.
 
Is this the very old one? the none HDR variant?

I still have one of these in the kids room, pretty sure they do not have a full fat HDMI port and it is limited to 4k@30hz, practically all films are below this refresh rate but I don't believe refresh rate switching actually worked for this box within kodi, my memory could be playing tricks though.

Assuming it is the gen 2 box then Netflix etc... will be playing back 8bit 4k SDR files which require less bandwidth on the HDMI port
 
Yes it's the old gen 2. I never upgraded it as everywhere seemed to indicate it was more powerful than the newer versions that followed apart from the cube?
 
Yes it's the old gen 2. I never upgraded it as everywhere seemed to indicate it was more powerful than the newer versions that followed apart from the cube?
yeah you are right it is/was pretty powerful but cpu power is kind of irrelevant when it comes to decoding video as its done in hardware.

When the pendant (gen 3) was released there was still a demand for the gen 2, in part due to the cpu (better for emulation) and the fact it had USB ports and ethernet.

I seem to remember kodi not supporting 4k whilst SPMC did, but again it could be my memory playing tricks, I have had that many boxes over the years, tbh I would have thought whatever the blocker was then it would have been resolved, I guess not.

Try SPMC, I know its no longer updated but prior to the devs move over to the shield TV his main focus was the fire TV and he did resolve quite a few things so its possible they may work correctly on that.
 
I've plugged in my Gen 2 Fire TV back in to my 4K TV at the weekend and Kodi 18.x is playing back 4K content without any problems.

Kodi has supported 4K for some time. Which version of Kodi are you using ?
 
I've plugged in my Gen 2 Fire TV back in to my 4K TV at the weekend and Kodi 18.x is playing back 4K content without any problems.

Kodi has supported 4K for some time. Which version of Kodi are you using ?
Ive been using the latest version of kodi. Does your TV information indicate its displaying 4k? I'll play the 4k content but the TV states its displaying at 1080p. With the newer fire tv 4k max there's no problem at all displaying the 4k content. The fire tv has the latest updates installed etc.
 

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