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[EXPERIMENTAL] CoreELEC 22 · samurihl DV build (20260712143939)

[EXPERIMENTAL] CoreELEC 22 · samurihl DV build (20260712143939) Pre-release
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@SamuriHL SamuriHL released this 12 Jul 18:47
v22.0-samurihl-20260712143939
c98e6e7

⚠️ EXPERIMENTAL · UNSUPPORTED · USE AT YOUR OWN RISK

This is an unofficial, experimental CoreELEC 22 build. It is NOT an official
CoreELEC release and it is NOT a supported CE22 port. I am not a CoreELEC 22
port maintainer, and I will not be providing support, bug fixes, updates, or
ongoing maintenance for this build.

The only purpose of this build is to give Amlogic AM9 Pro-class users a more
complete Dolby Vision experience than stock CoreELEC 22, by carrying a set of
custom Kodi features I built for my own device. That is the entire scope.

READ THIS BEFORE YOU FLASH ANYTHING

  • USE ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. There is no warranty of any kind, express
    or implied. It may fail to boot, misbehave, break Dolby Vision, or do nothing
    useful on your hardware.
  • BACK UP YOUR CURRENT INSTALLATION FIRST. Take a full CoreELEC backup
    (Settings → CoreELEC → Backup) and/or image your existing boot media before
    you install anything from here. Assume you may have to restore it.
  • Prefer a SEPARATE SD card or USB stick you can boot from, instead of
    overwriting a working internal (eMMC) install.
  • Do NOT report problems with this build to the CoreELEC team or forums.
    This is not their build; it is not their responsibility. Do not ask them to
    support it.
  • I am also not offering support. If it breaks, you keep both pieces.

By downloading or using any file in this release you accept all of the above.

Install

  • Clean install (recommended): flash the *.img.gz to an SD card or USB with
    balenaEtcher (or the Amlogic USB Burning Tool for eMMC), then boot from it.
  • In-place update: copy the *.tar to the /storage/.update folder on an
    existing CoreELEC install and reboot. (Back up first — see above.)
  • Verify your download against the SHA256 sums below before flashing.

What's changed in this update

This is an incremental update to the previous experimental build
(v22.0-samurihl-20260712130155).
The feature set is otherwise unchanged — see that release's notes for the full
rundown of the Dolby Vision / audio / playback features and install instructions.
This update is all about making Dolby Vision usable on non-Dolby-Vision displays
(e.g. a Samsung HDR10 / HDR10+ TV).

⚠️ Still experimental and completely unsupported — see the disclaimer above.
Back up your current install before flashing.

Dolby Vision still requires dovi.ko (the CE22 5.15 build) installed on your
device — it is not bundled; install it yourself as on stock CoreELEC 22.

Dolby Vision on non-DV displays (VS10)

Previously, the entire Dolby Vision menu — the VS10 engine, VSVDB override,
Smart CMv4.0 and L5 active-area options — was hidden on any display that
doesn't advertise Dolby Vision. That's exactly backwards: VS10's whole purpose is to
convert Dolby Vision to HDR10 / SDR for displays that can't decode DV natively.

Three changes fix this:

  • The DV menu now appears on non-DV displays. VS10 / VSVDB / Smart CMv4.0 / L5
    are now shown whenever the box can process Dolby Vision, regardless of what the
    TV reports. The VS10 output picker only offers modes your panel can actually take
    (Off / SDR / HDR10) and omits native-DV. Native-DV output settings (TV-LED /
    Player-LED, DV enable/disable) still require a DV-capable display, as before.

  • Native DV content now converts automatically. A Dolby-Vision-only title
    (profile 5) with the default "native" output would previously show a black/broken
    picture on a non-DV TV. It now falls back automatically to HDR10 (or SDR on
    a panel without HDR10) — no settings dive required.

  • Profile 7 FEL titles are now reconstructed, not flattened. 🧪 Full Enhancement
    Layer titles (dual-layer profile 7 FEL — most UHD Blu-ray DV rips) used to drop
    their enhancement layer entirely on a non-DV display and play the base HDR10 layer
    only, losing the extra highlight detail and the full grade. They are now fully
    reconstructed (base + enhancement + RPU) and tone-mapped by VS10 to HDR10 / SDR.

    ✅ Confirmed working (2026-07-12): a user verified correct FEL decoding on a
    Samsung HDR10 (non-DV) display with a screenshot. Still gathering reports across
    more profiles, titles and panels — please keep them coming (see below).

⚠️ Please test before trusting this — this needs real-hardware confirmation

The FEL reconstruction path (the third item above) is the experimental one. The
Kodi-side plumbing is in place and verified, but whether the Amlogic Dolby Vision
kernel driver actually performs full FEL reconstruction while outputting HDR10 to a
non-DV sink can only be confirmed on real hardware. If you have a non-DV display,
please test and report back.

What to test (on a non-DV / HDR10 TV such as a Samsung):

  1. The menu shows up. Settings → CoreELEC → Dolby Vision now lists the VS10 /
    VSVDB / Smart CMv4.0 / L5 options. (Level 2 settings — set Settings to Standard
    or higher.)
  2. A DV-only (profile 5) title plays with a correct picture out of the box —
    no black screen, no broken colours — as HDR10 (or SDR).
  3. A profile 7 FEL title plays with its full detail. This is the important one:
    • Confirm the title is FEL, not MEL — enable Kodi debug logging and look for
      the SetDoviIsFEL / enable_fel and the BL/EL "package … arrived" merge
      lines, plus a VS10 engaged line. Their presence means the new path is active.
    • Compare the picture against the same title on a DV-capable display (or a
      known-good FEL reference). You're checking that highlight detail and the full
      grade are present — not just a flat HDR10 base layer.
  4. HDR10 / HDR10+ / SDR / HLG content is unaffected and still plays normally.
  5. DV-capable displays are unaffected — native DV playback should be identical to
    the previous build.

Please report results (TV model, title + DV profile, and the relevant debug-log
lines) so this can move from experimental to supported.

Install

  • Clean install: flash the Generic *.img.gz (SD/USB via balenaEtcher, or the
    Amlogic USB Burning Tool for eMMC).
  • Update in place: drop the *.tar in /storage/.update and reboot.
  • Verify your download against the SHA256 sums below before flashing.
  • On other Amlogic-no boards (Odroid / Khadas / Radxa): use the *.tar update, or
    your board's own image.

Source

  • CoreELEC (distro): SamuriHL/CoreELEC tag v22.0-samurihl-20260712143939
  • Kodi: SamuriHL/coreelec-xbmc tag v22.0-samurihl-20260712143939

Checksums (SHA256)

adb92ca1c21788eeab7a5387d9ee1c56e80281ad248e5c15f45c09e8a1b689a4  CoreELEC-Amlogic-no.aarch64-22.0-Piers-samurihl-EXPERIMENTAL_20260712143939.tar
3e3ad65f85f521f67c78541dbdb13cb836df2470b11a3c1bef529d71563c75f8  CoreELEC-Amlogic-no.aarch64-22.0-Piers-samurihl-EXPERIMENTAL_20260712143939-Generic.img.gz
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[EXPERIMENTAL] CoreELEC 22 · samurihl DV build (20260712130155)

[EXPERIMENTAL] CoreELEC 22 · samurihl DV build (20260712130155) Pre-release
Pre-release

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@SamuriHL SamuriHL released this 12 Jul 17:16
v22.0-samurihl-20260712130155
c98e6e7

⚠️ EXPERIMENTAL · UNSUPPORTED · USE AT YOUR OWN RISK

This is an unofficial, experimental CoreELEC 22 build. It is NOT an official
CoreELEC release and it is NOT a supported CE22 port. I am not a CoreELEC 22
port maintainer, and I will not be providing support, bug fixes, updates, or
ongoing maintenance for this build.

The only purpose of this build is to give Amlogic AM9 Pro-class users a more
complete Dolby Vision experience than stock CoreELEC 22, by carrying a set of
custom Kodi features I built for my own device. That is the entire scope.

READ THIS BEFORE YOU FLASH ANYTHING

  • USE ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. There is no warranty of any kind, express
    or implied. It may fail to boot, misbehave, break Dolby Vision, or do nothing
    useful on your hardware.
  • BACK UP YOUR CURRENT INSTALLATION FIRST. Take a full CoreELEC backup
    (Settings → CoreELEC → Backup) and/or image your existing boot media before
    you install anything from here. Assume you may have to restore it.
  • Prefer a SEPARATE SD card or USB stick you can boot from, instead of
    overwriting a working internal (eMMC) install.
  • Do NOT report problems with this build to the CoreELEC team or forums.
    This is not their build; it is not their responsibility. Do not ask them to
    support it.
  • I am also not offering support. If it breaks, you keep both pieces.

By downloading or using any file in this release you accept all of the above.

Install

  • Clean install (recommended): flash the *.img.gz to an SD card or USB with
    balenaEtcher (or the Amlogic USB Burning Tool for eMMC), then boot from it.
  • In-place update: copy the *.tar to the /storage/.update folder on an
    existing CoreELEC install and reboot. (Back up first — see above.)
  • Verify your download against the SHA256 sums below before flashing.

What's changed in this update

This is an incremental update to the previous experimental build
(v22.0-samurihl-20260711195422).
The feature set is unchanged — see that release's notes for the full rundown of
the Dolby Vision / audio / playback features and install instructions. This
update only fixes and refines a few things.

⚠️ Still experimental and completely unsupported — see the disclaimer above.
Back up your current install before flashing.

Dolby Vision still requires dovi.ko (the CE22 5.15 build) installed on your
device — it is not bundled; install it yourself as on stock CoreELEC 22.

Dolby Vision — Level 5 (letterbox / active area) fixes

  • Hard-cropped titles now mask correctly. DV content authored as a hard-cropped
    frame (e.g. a 3840×1600 scope encode) had its letterbox bars raised to washed-out
    grey by positive-lift trims. They now mask to true black. (Native geometric
    auto-letterbox — derives the bars from the frame geometry and injects them.)
  • Titles with missing L5 metadata now tone-map. DV content that ships with no
    Level 5 metadata     previously showed no tone-mapping at all (a broken picture).
    It now renders correctly.
  • OSD-unmask no longer leaves the bars grey. With the L5 OSD-unmask option
    enabled, the letterbox bars could stay washed-out grey for the whole title even
    with nothing on screen (the overlay-visibility signal was stale/over-broad). Fixed:
    the bars now stay black during playback and only lift for the moment an
    OSD/subtitle is actually shown in the bar region. (Only affects displays that lift
    the bars in the first place; a no-op on panels that already keep them black.)

Dolby Vision — VS10

  • HDR10 default now preserves HDR10+. The default VS10 output mode for HDR10
    sources is now bypass (native passthrough), so HDR10+ dynamic metadata is
    passed through untouched     instead of being converted away. (You can still pick a
    specific VS10 conversion per source type in the settings if you want.)

Audio

  • Passthrough A/V-sync refinement on the hardware-vsync-clock path — tighter
    discontinuity gating for cleaner sync on bitstreamed audio.

Install

  • Clean install: flash the Generic *.img.gz (SD/USB via balenaEtcher, or the
    Amlogic USB Burning Tool for eMMC).
  • Update in place: drop the *.tar in /storage/.update and reboot.
  • Verify your download against the SHA256 sums below before flashing.
  • On other Amlogic-no boards (Odroid / Khadas / Radxa): use the *.tar update, or
    your board's own image.

Source

  • CoreELEC (distro): SamuriHL/CoreELEC tag v22.0-samurihl-20260712130155
  • Kodi: SamuriHL/coreelec-xbmc tag v22.0-samurihl-20260712130155

Checksums (SHA256)

af74b384fc79f00b8920c51c1013043d2e9a22b6459a8f50f9e0787178ce25a6  CoreELEC-Amlogic-no.aarch64-22.0-Piers-samurihl-EXPERIMENTAL_20260712130155.tar
05beaee92ec709e4a40a24f4d7b7b51d054cb6802119f7dfb91020449f827588  CoreELEC-Amlogic-no.aarch64-22.0-Piers-samurihl-EXPERIMENTAL_20260712130155-Generic.img.gz
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[EXPERIMENTAL] CoreELEC 22 · samurihl DV build (20260711195422)

[EXPERIMENTAL] CoreELEC 22 · samurihl DV build (20260711195422) Pre-release
Pre-release

Choose a tag to compare

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@SamuriHL SamuriHL released this 12 Jul 00:06
v22.0-samurihl-20260711195422
c98e6e7

⚠️ EXPERIMENTAL · UNSUPPORTED · USE AT YOUR OWN RISK

This is an unofficial, experimental CoreELEC 22 build. It is NOT an official
CoreELEC release and it is NOT a supported CE22 port. I am not a CoreELEC 22
port maintainer, and I will not be providing support, bug fixes, updates, or
ongoing maintenance for this build.

The only purpose of this build is to give Amlogic AM9 Pro-class users a more
complete Dolby Vision experience than stock CoreELEC 22, by carrying a set of
custom Kodi features I built for my own device. That is the entire scope.

READ THIS BEFORE YOU FLASH ANYTHING

  • USE ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. There is no warranty of any kind, express
    or implied. It may fail to boot, misbehave, break Dolby Vision, or do nothing
    useful on your hardware.
  • BACK UP YOUR CURRENT INSTALLATION FIRST. Take a full CoreELEC backup
    (Settings → CoreELEC → Backup) and/or image your existing boot media before
    you install anything from here. Assume you may have to restore it.
  • Prefer a SEPARATE SD card or USB stick you can boot from, instead of
    overwriting a working internal (eMMC) install.
  • Do NOT report problems with this build to the CoreELEC team or forums.
    This is not their build; it is not their responsibility. Do not ask them to
    support it.
  • I am also not offering support. If it breaks, you keep both pieces.

By downloading or using any file in this release you accept all of the above.

Install

  • Clean install (recommended): flash the *.img.gz to an SD card or USB with
    balenaEtcher (or the Amlogic USB Burning Tool for eMMC), then boot from it.
  • In-place update: copy the *.tar to the /storage/.update folder on an
    existing CoreELEC install and reboot. (Back up first — see above.)
  • Verify your download against the SHA256 sums below before flashing.

What's in this build

This is a custom CoreELEC 22 (Amlogic, aarch64) image that adds a set of
Dolby Vision, audio, and playback features on top of stock CoreELEC 22 — aimed at
giving Amlogic AM9 Pro-class users a more complete Dolby Vision experience. The
features are native Kodi 22 code and need no custom kernel patches.

Dolby Vision still requires dovi.ko. As with any CoreELEC 22 install, Dolby
Vision playback needs the standard CE22 dovi.ko (the 5.15 build) present on your
device. It is not bundled in this build — install it yourself the usual way,
exactly as you would on stock CoreELEC 22. Without it, the DV features below have
nothing to drive.

⚠️ Experimental and completely unsupported — see the disclaimer at the top of
this release. Back up your current setup before installing.

Unless noted otherwise, the new options live under
Settings → CoreELEC → Dolby Vision (set the settings level to Advanced or
Expert to see them all).

Dolby Vision

VS10 engine — per-source output mode

Choose what the Dolby Vision engine outputs for each type of source
(SDR, HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, and Dolby Vision itself): leave it native, or convert it
to SDR / HDR10 / Dolby Vision. This lets you, for example, watch HDR10 or SDR
content processed through the DV engine, or force a specific output your display
handles best.

  • Per-source-type options (VS10 for SDR8/SDR10/HDR10/HDR10+/HLG/DV).
  • Live switching while a video plays via remote/keymap actions
    (Original / SDR / HDR10 / DV) if you map them.
  • Default: native/passthrough (no conversion), so behaviour matches stock until
    you change it.

Smart CMv4.0 metadata

Dolby Vision profiles authored with older CM v2.9 metadata can be upgraded on
the fly to CM v4.0, which many displays tone-map better.

  • Modes: Off / Append when no L2 / Always / Smart.
  • Smart is the interesting one: it upgrades to CM v4.0 per frame, except when
    a scene's peak brightness is higher than your display can show (by a configurable
    margin) — in that case it keeps the original CM v2.9 L2 trims, which handle
    that case better. Best of both, decided frame by frame.
  • Configurable: display peak brightness (nits) and the Smart threshold (%).

Display peak luminance + VSVDB override

Tell the Dolby Vision engine your display's real peak brightness — useful when a TV
or projector reports the wrong value and DV tone-maps too bright or too dim.

  • Display peak luminance (nits) — one value that feeds both the tone-mapping
    target and the Smart CM v4.0 threshold. 0 = auto-detect from the display's EDID.
  • Force peak onto display (VSVDB) — inject that peak into the display's Dolby
    Vision descriptor so the engine actually maps to it.
  • Colour space (VSVDB) — optionally also force the primaries
    (Display / DCI-P3 / BT.2020 / BT.709).
  • Adjustable live during playback — change the value and the picture updates
    without restarting the video (most visible in player-led mode).

Level 5 active area (letterbox handling)

Controls the Dolby Vision Level 5 active-area (letterbox/pillarbox) metadata,
which tells the DV engine where the real picture is so black bars stay true black
instead of being lifted to grey.

  • Source (default) — use the stream's own L5 as authored.
  • Zero — treat the whole frame as active (the old "override level 5 to zero"
    behaviour; helps displays that mis-crop DV).
  • Auto-detect — for titles that ship with no/zeroed L5 but have bars baked into
    the frame, a quick background scan finds the bars and supplies the offsets, so the
    bars mask to black. If a title already carries correct L5, that is respected.
  • Show OSD/subtitles over letterbox bars — when the bars are being masked, this
    temporarily lifts the mask while the on-screen menu, info, or subtitles are
    showing, so overlays in the bar region stay visible.

Audio

LAV Audio A/V sync (always on)

An audio/video sync path derived from Hendrik Leppkes' LAV Filters that keeps
audio locked to video across all audio output — both bitstream passthrough (Dolby
Digital, DTS, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, etc.) and decoded PCM — correcting the slow
audio/video drift that can otherwise build up over a long title. For bitstreamed
TrueHD it additionally fixes audio dropouts at seamless-branch points (some
seamless-branching discs/remuxes). It is always on for normal playback; the only
exclusion is live/PVR streams. No setting — it just works.

Playback

Hardware vsync reference clock

Uses the display's real hardware vertical-sync as the playback reference clock for
smoother, more consistent frame delivery (less judder), with a safe fallback if the
signal stalls.

  • Setting: Use display as clock (on by default).

Requirements & notes

  • dovi.ko required (not included): Dolby Vision needs the standard CoreELEC 22
    dovi.ko (5.15) installed on your device — install it yourself as on stock CE22.
    This build does not ship it.
  • Device / image: the attached .img.gz is the Generic Amlogic image
    (S922X / G12B / SM1), which is what AM9 Pro / Ugoos-class boxes use (with the
    right device tree). Flash it for a clean install, or drop the .tar in
    /storage/.update to update an existing CoreELEC 22 install. Other Amlogic-no
    boards (Odroid, Khadas, Radxa, …): use the .tar update, or your board's own image.
  • Dolby Vision output works in both TV-led and player-led modes; the VSVDB and
    L5 features have the most effect in the mode where the box does the tone-mapping.
  • The Level 5 Auto-detect and OSD/subtitle un-mask options are the newest
    additions in this build — if you use letterboxed Dolby Vision content with
    subtitles or the on-screen menu, those are the settings to try.
  • Verify your download against the SHA256 sums in this release before flashing.

Credits

  • LAV Audio sync — based on LAV Filters by Hendrik Leppkes (Nevcairiel).
  • Dolby Vision features — native Kodi 22 reimplementations, informed by the
    CoreELEC Dolby Vision community work (notably the pannal/p3i and avdvplus
    builds) and built on libdovi (quietvoid) for RPU handling.
  • Built on CoreELEC and Kodi. Thanks to both teams.

Source

  • CoreELEC (distro): SamuriHL/CoreELEC tag v22.0-samurihl-20260711195422
  • Kodi: SamuriHL/coreelec-xbmc tag v22.0-samurihl-20260711195422

Checksums (SHA256)

13bf460a49b03cd3c4187177cf43261b97f7d75696a51652cd385a2da0d8e927  CoreELEC-Amlogic-no.aarch64-22.0-Piers-samurihl-EXPERIMENTAL_20260711195422.tar
03194a9017c892a07245ec7681069be4b583dd9e4d9d09bf54c688579f8f808d  CoreELEC-Amlogic-no.aarch64-22.0-Piers-samurihl-EXPERIMENTAL_20260711195422-Generic.img.gz
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