[EXPERIMENTAL] CoreELEC 22 · samurihl DV build (20260722100800)

⚠️ 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.

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What's changed in this update

This is an incremental update to
v22.0-samurihl-20260721183344
(see that release and its predecessors for the standing feature set: HDR10+ → Dolby
Vision conversion, VS10 output on non-DV displays, VSVDB override, tone-mapping
target controls, disc-menu playback + the disc-menu review/BC fixes, reference-player
capability registers). The headline this time: Dolby Vision FEL (profile 7) titles
now play with the full enhancement layer on HDR10 displays that don't support Dolby
Vision — plus a proper colour fix for Dolby Vision / HDR menus and subtitles,
and a new disc-menu button control.

⚠️ 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.

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🎬 Dolby Vision FEL now plays properly on HDR10 (non‑DV) displays

If you have a Dolby‑Vision‑capable box connected to an HDR10 display that does not
support Dolby Vision, profile‑7 FEL (Full Enhancement Layer) titles used to play
base‑layer only — you got a valid HDR10 picture, but the enhancement layer that
carries the extra detail and dynamic range was silently dropped. No FEL.

Now the player reconstructs the full image (base layer + enhancement layer + Dolby
Vision metadata) and tone‑maps it to HDR10 through the VS10 engine, so you get the
complete profile‑7 picture on a non‑DV display instead of a stripped‑down base layer.

• Works for files and Blu‑ray discs, including disc menus authored in Dolby
  Vision.
• Off by default is not a thing here — it follows your existing
  Settings → System → "DV VS10 for DV video" choice. Set it to HDR10 to get
  FEL reconstructed and output as HDR10 on a non‑DV panel. (SDR is also available; on
  a DV display "Off" still passes native Dolby Vision through untouched.)
• Validated on‑device on an HDR10 (non‑DV) sink: the Dolby Vision core engages, the
  base and enhancement layers are merged, and the output is HDR10 (12‑bit, BT.2020) —
  not base‑layer‑only.

Why it was broken: the code only tagged a FEL title as Dolby Vision when the
display advertised DV support, so on an HDR10 display the enhancement layer was
discarded before it ever reached the decoder. The DV core now engages whenever your
VS10 setting says to convert, regardless of what the display itself can do.

🎨 Dolby Vision / HDR menus and subtitles now render the right colours

Menus, on‑screen display and subtitles composited on top of Dolby Vision (and HDR)
video were colour‑ and brightness‑wrong — under‑corrected and, on saturated
elements, off‑hue. The graphics were being scaled without a proper colour transform.

The GUI now goes through the correct HDR path on Amlogic: sRGB → linear →
BT.709 → BT.2020 gamut mapping → PQ (ST.2084) encode, with graphics white set
to the BT.2408 reference white (203 nits). Menus, subtitles and OSD now match a
reference player instead of looking washed out or mis‑coloured. Validated on‑device.

(This only changes the Amlogic GUI compositing path; playback on other platforms is
untouched.)

🎛️ New: open the popup or top disc menu directly

The disc‑menu control now takes an argument so a skin or remote can open a specific
Blu‑ray menu instead of the combined behaviour:

• PlayerControl(ShowVideoMenu(popup)) → the in‑movie popup menu only
• PlayerControl(ShowVideoMenu(top)) → the top / root menu only
• PlayerControl(ShowVideoMenu) → unchanged legacy behaviour (popup first, then
  top)

This lets you wire up separate POPUP and TOP MENU buttons the way a standalone
Blu‑ray player has them. DVD‑Video (which has no separate popup) opens its single menu
for any of them.

🛠️ Clearer settings text

The "DV VS10 for DV video" description was inaccurate — it only mentioned Off and
SDR and never explained the HDR10 option, and "Off" is only offered on a Dolby Vision
display. It now describes all three outputs and, in particular, that HDR10
reconstructs the full FEL image and tone‑maps it so Dolby Vision can be watched on an
HDR10 display with no Dolby Vision support.

How to help

The new FEL‑on‑a‑non‑DV‑display path especially wants real‑world eyes: on an HDR10
(non‑DV) panel with "DV VS10 for DV video" set to HDR10, play profile‑7 FEL titles
(files and Blu‑ray, including menus) and check that you're getting the full picture in
HDR — dark detail and highlights should look like the complete image, not a flat base
layer, with no black‑outs or drops to SDR. Also welcome: eyes on Dolby Vision / HDR
menu and subtitle colours against a reference player, and the standing
target‑luminance / TrueHD‑sync checks from earlier releases. When something misbehaves,
grab a debug log (kodi-send --action=ToggleDebug), note the disc/title, and
report it. "Worked perfectly" reports help too.

Known rough edges (still open)

• VC‑1 discs still don't play (endless busy spinner) — known, open.
• 3D Blu‑rays (MVC) don't decode — known, open.
• A ~1/3‑second stream‑start trim remains at title start (matches stock player).
• The FEL‑on‑non‑DV path is new; deep‑shadow tone‑mapping in particular is worth a
  critical eye.

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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.

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Source

• CoreELEC (distro): SamuriHL/CoreELEC tag v22.0-samurihl-20260722100800
• Kodi: SamuriHL/coreelec-xbmc tag v22.0-samurihl-20260722100800

Checksums (SHA256)

a7f3df058debe65e364436d2968980a1aa8c08d4bf1c395891fbf48ad10e0a08  CoreELEC-Amlogic-no.aarch64-22.0-Piers-samurihl-EXPERIMENTAL_20260722100800.tar
e2817fc86edca5a9c1de2782615ef08f6e736d9153102556ae5f979a19c3fce2  CoreELEC-Amlogic-no.aarch64-22.0-Piers-samurihl-EXPERIMENTAL_20260722100800-Generic.img.gz