[jharnasch]

I've had the i4Pro for the better part of a month and, well, it works flawlessly for me. We watch BluRay-ripped to MKV with full DTS-MA passthrough at 24fps with absolutely no blips. Out of the box. Bang. Done. And I leave it running, no sleep/hibernate 24 hours a day.

Now, I don't have a fancy setup, just a garden variety Samsung HT system for the 5.1 and HDMI output to the TV, so maybe that's the trick. Or there were some iffy components for earlier builds.

And my wife thinks it's cuter than baby penguins, so it's kind of a winner around here...

Oh, and I also have a couple of original Pi B's as well. They work pretty decently on a wired connection, but I can't get anything worthwhile over wireless (congested area), so they're not utilized until I get better reception rigged up.

Good to know......I'm open to anyones experience. I research things and knowing personal experiences matters. My setup would be simple xmbc to my tv, nothing fancy. I'd probably use the cat5/ethernet port as well.....so knowing it works for some if valuable.

thank you

[Ned Scott]

To be a little clearer, the CuBox-i series is great hardware. If the Raspberry Pi 2 had not come out, I would say go for it. It's just that the Raspberry Pi 2 is also such good hardware, and for a slightly cheaper price (for the basic model. it's much cheaper when compared to the i4pro) if you don't need to take advantage of things like esata or the better network performance (the Pi has enough performance to playback videos, but maybe not be a NAS at the same time).

Both are great options.

[wrxtasy]

The only problem I see as well, is that once you start getting into $135 territory with a CuBox-i4Pro your in Chromebox territory.
Savvy buyers can get a Chromebox when they go on discount sale for around this price.

You now have the RPI2 spanking it for price at the bottom end of the Kodi market and the Chromebox creaming it at the top end.
Solidrun need to drop their CuBox pricing even further methinks.

[Ned Scott]

I have the mid range CuBox-i, I think. It was $80 or $90. The i2ex. It has been more than enough for Kodi usage. I agree with wrxtasy, that once you go above $100 then it makes less sense to use an ARM box.

[noggin]

I've had the i4Pro for the better part of a month and, well, it works flawlessly for me. We watch BluRay-ripped to MKV with full DTS-MA passthrough at 24fps with absolutely no blips. Out of the box. Bang. Done. And I leave it running, no sleep/hibernate 24 hours a day.

The i.mx6 CPUs are apparently not capable of 23.976 or 59.94Hz outputs though (unless someone has found a hack that lets the HDMI output run at 1000/1001 variant modes) - so there may be the odd repeated frame on 23.976Hz content (the bulk of '24p' stuff) You may or may not see this. If you watch at 60p the odd repeated frame every 40" or so will probably disappear into the 3:2 judder a bit.

The Pi2 will do 24.000, 60.00, 23.976 and 59.94Hz output with no problems.

[jharnasch]

I have the mid range CuBox-i, I think. It was $80 or $90. The i2ex. It has been more than enough for Kodi usage. I agree with wrxtasy, that once you go above $100 then it makes less sense to use an ARM box.

I'd only be using it for Kodi....nothing more. I'm not interested in the android side of things and would only have Linux running on it with Kodi.

The Rasp is sounding more supported to me, which is always the better bet. I just hadn't read much about this device and figured people on here had either used one or reviewed one.

Everyones information has been very valuable.

[crackers]

To be quite honest, I'd go with the Pi. We got the CuBox because I couldn't resist showing it to my wife, who then couldn't resist getting it simply because it was (actual quote) "so effing cute!" The fact that it works for us, out of the box, is truly icing on the cake.

[wrxtasy]

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid1942792

[Ned Scott]

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid1942792

I know the perfect 24hz or 23.whatever hz is a big deal for a lot of people, but can't but help feel that too much weight is put on that when we're talking about sub $100 boxes. It depends on a lot of factors if it will even be noticeable, and even if noticeable, if it will be an acceptable flaw or not. Heck, I normally forget to even turn on refresh rate switching for my hardware that does support those output frequencies.

There's also a lot of issues that guy had with his CuBox-i that I haven't seen on mine, like a bad IR sensor. Mine hasn't had any issue with the IR sensor.

It is worth noting that the Freescale imx.6 development (the SoC inside all of the CuBox-i's) is still a work in progress. People shouldn't buy a CuBox-i unless they like to tinker with things and be on the bleeding edge of development, with bugs and occasional set backs. It's not for people who want something that just works.

[jharnasch]

I'm not worried....I have been a mac user since the early 90's...the end

[fritsch]

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid1942792

I know the perfect 24hz or 23.whatever hz is a big deal for a lot of people, but can't but help feel that too much weight is put on that when we're talking about sub $100 boxes. It depends on a lot of factors if it will even be noticeable, and even if noticeable, if it will be an acceptable flaw or not. Heck, I normally forget to even turn on refresh rate switching for my hardware that does support those output frequencies.

There's also a lot of issues that guy had with his CuBox-i that I haven't seen on mine, like a bad IR sensor. Mine hasn't had any issue with the IR sensor.

It is worth noting that the Freescale imx.6 development (the SoC inside all of the CuBox-i's) is still a work in progress. People shouldn't buy a CuBox-i unless they like to tinker with things and be on the bleeding edge of development, with bugs and occasional set backs. It's not for people who want something that just works.

I don't see a single thing, kodi playback wise(!) that the RPi2 could not do or even could not do better (23.976 fps, 50p content) as all imx hw I have tested, run, implemented features. While the costs are at 1/3 to one half of the price depending on the cubox you decide for. There is truehd, dts-hd on the cuboxes - but hell only for "european blurays" that are exactly 24.0 fps.

If all those cuboxes are sold with 30% off - then one can talk about them again as kodi alternative.


If _and_ only _if_ you want to do something else with that box (a NAS, eSata 2TB hdd and so on) - then you should reconsider very wise for your usecase.

[fritsch]

The mentioned chromebox plays 4K h264 @ 30 fps content, has 23.976 fps playback, does deinterlacing in high quality for LiveTV. It's a complete different world and most probably the best box for the money in that use case region.

[jharnasch]

The mentioned chromebox plays 4K h264 @ 30 fps content, has 23.976 fps playback, does deinterlacing in high quality for LiveTV. It's a complete different world and most probably the best box for the money in that use case region.

Good to know..knowledge makes all this easier.

[noggin]

I know the perfect 24hz or 23.whatever hz is a big deal for a lot of people, but can't but help feel that too much weight is put on that when we're talking about sub $100 boxes. It depends on a lot of factors if it will even be noticeable, and even if noticeable, if it will be an acceptable flaw or not. Heck, I normally forget to even turn on refresh rate switching for my hardware that does support those output frequencies.

If you lived in Europe you'd have a different view...

Many of us here are constantly flicking between 50Hz for DVDs and TV Blu-rays, 25p TV Catch-up services, 50i/p broadcast TV via DVB-T/T2/S/S2/C tuners for Live TV and Recorded TV, 23.976/24.000Hz for Blu-ray and movie stuff, and US TV series (and online services like Netflix and Amazon), and 59.94Hz (not found much 60.00Hz stuff) for US DVDs and the occasional 1080i Blu-ray.

25/50Hz viewed at 59.94/60Hz is not at all nice. Similarly 23.976/24.00 and 59.94 viewed at 50Hz isn't either. The 23.976/24.000 repeated frame every 40 seconds or so is very different to 1, 5 or 10 dropped or repeated frames every second.

[noggin]

It strikes me that for a pure Kodi experience - the Pi 2 is a very high quality base-entry level device, that will work for many with few or no compromises.

The Haswell Celeron boxes (Chromebox, Zotac BI320, HP Stream) improve in a number of ways (HD Audio bitstreaming, very high quality deinterlacing etc.) and form a very high quality - "next level" which will more than satisfy a very large group of people (though some may well be happy with the Pi 2 experience to be honest)

Then you have high-end Core i series which allow much more CPU processing and discrete nVidia GPUs which will potentially allow for the highest quality de-interlacing, high bitrate H265 etc.

As fritsch says, unless you need additional functionality (like file serving, or Android Apps for streaming services) in your Kodi box, then there is almost nowhere for the non-Pi 2 ARM SoC devices, or those running Android, to fit in now. The Pi 2 really has been a game-changer, as - in some regions where it is better value than in others - has the Chromebox.