www.makemkv.com

OK, that was a great suggestion. The affected MKVs play just fine on VLC on my ATV4. I don't even need to convert them to any other format, or re-encode. THANKS for the idea!

Conclusion (such as it is) - the Sony Bravia lacks the capabilities to play high-bitrate MKV files. Is that an issue with ...

That's a good idea to try on Apple TV... that's going to be my next move. Thanks!

I did the USB test. With the same movie that gives the grey blocks over the network, loaded onto a high-speed USB stick plugged into the TV, I get a very jerky 1-2fps playback with Kodi reading from the local USB filesystem. Not watchable.

So... is my conclusion that the TV (a Sony Bravia) isn't up ...

Thanks, both! Really appreciate the input.

So I checked, and the TV is wired (Ethernet), and so is the fileserver. For what it's worth I also tried the TV WiFi connection... no change / same issue.

I captured an example of what I am seeing in terms of artifacts - in the attachment posted here.

I ...

Firstly, I'm new here, apologies if this has been asked a thousand times before. I didn't find the answer with a search, but I'm always happy to be pointed the right way :)

Anyhow. Happy registered user of Makemkv, great piece of software. I have a weird issue that I can reproduce but not account ...