[me_matty]

Hi all.

I'm band new to posting on this forum, but used to be a xbmc user back in the good old days of the ATV 1.

I'm looking to come back to using xbmc and can't decide on the hardware. I've read the thread on this forum regarding the choices, and had a look at the wiki.

The 2 real candidates I think are:

Amazon fire tv - £79 delivered
Advantages:
good spec for the money
Get to use apps such as I player, 4OD etc natively
Regarded as the best for the job by some
Easy to setup with xbmc
I get it tomorrow

Disadvantages:
Paying money to a huge horrible multibillion pound company that pays less tax than me....

PI2 - £50 approx (with case etc)
Advantages:
supporting British firms (built in the UK and even the ARM chip inside was designed in the uk)
I get a PI
I get to play with my new PI

Disadvantages:
Half the ram of the fire tv - will I notice this??
Slower delivery
No native support for things like iplayer

What are you wise thoughts folks?

Cheers.

[noggin]

The Pi 2 has a couple of major upsides you've missed off. AIUI it handles refresh rate switching - which is pretty much vital if you care about picture quality and watch UK Catch Up TV, European DVDs, Freeview/Freesat Live/Recorded TV and also 24p movies. The Pi 2 also has good deinterlacing, again potentially an issue if you watch TV or video DVDs (concerts, old TV shows shot in studios etc.)

I have some recollections that the Fire TV didn't automatically frame rate switch - so you ended up having to manually switch or put up with judder on iPlayer, 4oD etc. if you left the Fire TV in 60Hz mode but were watching 25Hz content.

I doubt you'll notice the RAM difference.

You were able to get an iPlayer plugin for Kodi which worked on the Pi 2 - though I don't know if this still works after recent iPlayer changes.

As for the ARM - they're even. The Fire TV also has one in it (the Qualcomm Krait in the Fire TV, like the Broadcom chip in the Pi and Pi 2, is ARM based too)

Personally - if you don't need Netflix and Amazon video - I'd go for the Pi 2. But I wasn't a huge fan of the Fire TV Stick I had - so gave it to my mum...

[wrxtasy]

Welcome fellow ATV1'er, some of us ol' timers are still going strong..just

After Amazon pulling Kodi from their App store just to protect their turf for paid DRM streaming, a bunch of us no longer recommend giving them any more money than we have to.
The lead Kodi Android Dev. Koying even yanked his XBMC offshoot SPMC from their store in protest and to support Open Source Software. We applaud him for that. I would not expect any bug fixes to come to the Amazon platform as a priority.

You then also have the issue where the Amazon TV Firmware is closed and protected so paid Streaming apps work in HD.

Your actual best bet is just get the cheap Fire TV Stick for Apps and HD streaming services and then get the very good RPi2 for Kodi use only. The optimised RPi2 works nicely with low resources Kodi OS platforms like OpenElec and OSMC even with 1GB of RAM. Just make sure you get a Samsung MicroSDHC 8/16/32GB Class 10 Plus UHS-I for optimal results.

Don't try to do it all with the one platform, the Amazon gear has too many compromises to run Kodi at its full potential.

[Shazb0t]

When you guys mention that the pi2 handles dynamic refresh rate switching. Does that mean in order to take advantage of this feature you have to check off "adjust display to match video" under settings or does it do this automatically?

[wrxtasy]

Its actually around the other way to auto switch the TV's refresh rate:

Adjust display refresh rate > On start / stop

[noggin]

When you guys mention that the pi2 handles dynamic refresh rate switching. Does that mean in order to take advantage of this feature you have to check off "adjust display to match video" under settings or does it do this automatically?

Yes - you have to enable the adjust refresh rate to match video option, and on start/stop is the usual option.

This means that the refresh rate is changed between (usually) 23.974/24/50/59.94/60Hz dynamically (assuming all normal refresh rates are supported by your device and display - 23.976/24 isn't supported by all displays and 23.976/59.94 aren't always available on all players)

On other platforms - particularly a lot (but now not all) Android boxes, you have to manually leave Kodi, and change the refresh rate in system settings, and it is not unusual for fewer refresh rates to be available.

[me_matty]

Thanks for the replies.

I think I'm going to stick to my moral guns and go for the rpi2.

[Ned Scott]

There is a theory that Amazon sells their Fire TV stick (and maybe the box, too) at a loss, in hopes you buy into Amazon Prime for video service. If so, when you buy it but don't buy Prime, then you're actually hurting Amazon ;)

[natethomas]

You know, my Pi2 has been sitting around not doing much lately because I've got other devices handy (major 1st world problem). This thread makes me want to dust it off and attach it to my main TV again. It really is the best device for 3D content, which I'm a huge fan of.

[Shazb0t]

Its actually around the other way to auto switch the TV's refresh rate:

Adjust display refresh rate > On start / stop

When you guys mention that the pi2 handles dynamic refresh rate switching. Does that mean in order to take advantage of this feature you have to check off "adjust display to match video" under settings or does it do this automatically?

Yes - you have to enable the adjust refresh rate to match video option, and on start/stop is the usual option.

This means that the refresh rate is changed between (usually) 23.974/24/50/59.94/60Hz dynamically (assuming all normal refresh rates are supported by your device and display - 23.976/24 isn't supported by all displays and 23.976/59.94 aren't always available on all players)

On other platforms - particularly a lot (but now not all) Android boxes, you have to manually leave Kodi, and change the refresh rate in system settings, and it is not unusual for fewer refresh rates to be available.

Okay, I took your guys advice and have enabled the "adjust display refresh rate to match video" option to on start/stop. What about the "Sync playback to display" option. That too was default unchecked, should I enable this setting also on the RPi2?

You know, my Pi2 has been sitting around not doing much lately because I've got other devices handy (major 1st world problem). This thread makes me want to dust it off and attach it to my main TV again. It really is the best device for 3D content, which I'm a huge fan of.

It's definitely been a worthy investment on my end. Awesome little piece of kit!

[noggin]

What about the "Sync playback to display" option. That too was default unchecked, should I enable this setting also on the RPi2?

Usually that is there to avoid the 23.976 vs 24.000Hz issue, to avoid 23.976 material played on platforms that only support 24.000 output suffering from the 41" micro stutter. On the PI 2 it shouldn't be needed AFAIK.

It can also be used if you have a 50/59.94/60Hz only display and can't watch 23.976/24.000 Hz content with 3:2, and instead would prefer to watch it with 4% speed up at 50Hz with 2:2. (Smoother but pitch shifted and a bit faster than is ideal. It's how we watch 24p movies and TV shows in Europe on TV, though usually they are pitch corrected)

[popcornmix]

I'd say "Sync playback to display" is desirable. If there is a discrepancy with audio/video timestamps,
with this disabled you will have a video frame drop, with it enabled, it can be handled with resampling which is generally less noticeable.

It's also needed if there is a clock drift between video and audio. Shouldn't happen with audio/video both on hdmi, but will happen if you use a USB/I2S audio sound card.

[noggin]

I'd say "Sync playback to display" is desirable. If there is a discrepancy with audio/video timestamps,
with this disabled you will have a video frame drop, with it enabled, it can be handled with resampling which is generally less noticeable.

It's also needed if there is a clock drift between video and audio. Shouldn't happen with audio/video both on hdmi, but will happen if you use a USB/I2S audio sound card.

I bow to your better judgement popcornmix. Though if you have sync playback to display and don't have a 24p display, won't you watch 24p at 50p rather than 60p? Or is there something I've missed?