[jpcaudill]

Hi,

I've been inundating myself in all the information around the various media devices that can run Kodi. I'm in the process of dropping back to basic cable and want as close to an all-in-one solution as I can get to (although not at the price of sacrificing quality).

So one thing I've decided is I'm going to run HDHomeRun Prime with a Cable Card for the cable. Until Discovery gets off their a** that's the best solution for me.

When it comes to a media device, I want something that is Kodi fast and stable, will easily handle the TV stream from the HDHomeRun, and will interface with Plex or be able to play my remote MKV collection remotely. A bonus would be if the device supported Sling, but I can also get this via the Roku 3.

At this point, I don't need anything over 1080p and my audio receiver is only capable of 5.1. However, I'd still like to be the best setup for 4k and 7.1 that I can for the future.

I've looked at the upcoming Wetek Core, briefly at the ASRock Beebox, and RPi2 solutions for what I'd consider serious contenders. I have also looked at other AMLogic solutions but the lack of passthrough support generally turns me off to those. Also looked into the Fire TV but I believe I discovered it doesn't support hardware deinterlacing so the TV stream would likely be crap.

Any nudges one way or another would be much appreciated. I know there are a million of these threads but I'd appreciate the direct input. I've read a lot but haven't been able to really settle because it always seems like each device is strong at one thing, weak at another and I can't figure out which one is closest to what I want.

Thanks!

[wrxtasy]

Hang about, I though the Braswell ASRock Beebox supported HD Audio passthrough when running OpenELEC / Linux, just like the Chromeboxes do. In fact fritsch confirms HD passthrough is only a Windows limitation here:

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2132009
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2137269

These Intel machines running OpenELEC will give you fantastic deinterlacing.
I would be getting the Beebox or similar Braswell solution for 4K and HEVC.

[jpcaudill]

Let me ask this.

There is a lot of talk about HDMI 2.0 and support for 4k@60fps. For me and probably for the viewing world I'm guessing that's years off. And there doesn't appear to be anything at the moment that actually supports it anyway.

But knowing that it's probably coming soon, should I be thinking some cheaper alternative solutions than sinking hundreds into a Braswell at the moment until the new generation of processors is released? I'd hate to sink money into something that's going to be obsolete in no time.

The water gets so muddy when you start looking at all these possible solutions! Asrock, NUC, Logic Supply. Ugh I really don't want to break the bank but on the other hand I don't want crap performance!

Thanks for your advice.

[Matt Devo]

Let me ask this.

There is a lot of talk about HDMI 2.0 and support for 4k@60fps. For me and probably for the viewing world I'm guessing that's years off. And there doesn't appear to be anything at the moment that actually supports it anyway.

But knowing that it's probably coming soon, should I be thinking some cheaper alternative solutions than sinking hundreds into a Braswell at the moment until the new generation of processors is released? I'd hate to sink money into something that's going to be obsolete in no time.

The water gets so muddy when you start looking at all these possible solutions! Asrock, NUC, Logic Supply. Ugh I really don't want to break the bank but on the other hand I don't want crap performance!

Thanks for your advice.

a Braswell NUC or Beebox will set you back <$200. That's the price point for a competent Kodi box that will last you for a year+. Skylake isn't going to offer anything GPU-wise that Braswell doesn't, so you're safe for at least one more generation.

[jpcaudill]

Let me ask this.

There is a lot of talk about HDMI 2.0 and support for 4k@60fps. For me and probably for the viewing world I'm guessing that's years off. And there doesn't appear to be anything at the moment that actually supports it anyway.

But knowing that it's probably coming soon, should I be thinking some cheaper alternative solutions than sinking hundreds into a Braswell at the moment until the new generation of processors is released? I'd hate to sink money into something that's going to be obsolete in no time.

The water gets so muddy when you start looking at all these possible solutions! Asrock, NUC, Logic Supply. Ugh I really don't want to break the bank but on the other hand I don't want crap performance!

Thanks for your advice.

a Braswell NUC or Beebox will set you back <$200. That's the price point for a competent Kodi box that will last you for a year+. Skylake isn't going to offer anything GPU-wise that Braswell doesn't, so you're safe for at least one more generation.

How are you getting the NUC at sub 200? Even the celeron version I can't see how'd I pull that off by the time you add memory and SSD. And I'm guessing it would be better to invest in the Pentium version anyway?

[Matt Devo]

How are you getting the NUC at sub 200? Even the celeron version I can't see how'd I pull that off by the time you add memory and SSD. And I'm guessing it would be better to invest in the Pentium version anyway?

the N3050 NUC is $138, you can add 2GB RAM and a SSD for under $200 total easily. And if you're just running OpenELEC, a USB3 flash drive is perfectly sufficient vs a SSD.

[jpcaudill]

I guess I need to decide how I'm going to deal with streaming services like Hulu and Netflix. I was thinking I'd dual boot it with Windows and OpenELEC so I have this option. Maybe I need to rethink that and use my Roku for that.

[wrxtasy]

Decent price there, the next step up in the Intel Braswell NUC's is the 4 core Pentium N3700 / NUC5PPYH

The $119 ASRock is cheaper with the equivalent Intel Celeron N3050 dual core found in the NUC.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product

You get faster Dual Channel memory in the ASRock if you use 2x2GB SO-DIMM's.
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2030616

[ozkhan1]

Why not shield tv. It does all you want ..sling, netflix, kodi, etc.

[wrxtasy]

PVR=TV=deinterlacing

Far superior deinterlacing quality out of Intel, AMLogic and RPi compared to basic Blurry Bob software deinterlacing on the nVIDIA Shield.

[jpcaudill]

PVR=TV=deinterlacing

Far superior deinterlacing quality out of Intel, AMLogic and RPi compared to basic Blurry Bob software deinterlacing on the nVIDIA Shield.

Right this is exactly why I ruled the Android devices out. The TV experience needs to be near flawless.

[noggin]

If you want high quality deinterlacing your options are :

Raspberry Pi 2 (overclocked to allow for 1080i MMAL Advanced) Will output DD/DTS bitstreamed or PCM 5.1/7.1 lossless decoding of HD Audio (and FLAC/AAC multichannel) apart from 5.1/7.1 192kHz stuff.
ODroid C1+ (though there is a little sharpening which I'm not a fan of) Will output DD/DTS bitstreamed or PCM 2.0 (no lossless decoding of HD Audio and FLAC, and AAC multichannel will need to be transcoded)

Intel x86 box with a decent CPU (Chromebox or better - not Baytrail) (DD/DTS/HD Audio will be bitstreamed and FLAC/AAC output as 5.1/7.1 PCM)
Intel x86 box with an nVidia GPU (which may still offer the best deinterlacing - though Intel MCDI is very good) (Audio as above)

My recommendation for a primary PVR solution would be a Chromebox or similar Celeron 2955/2957U based box running OpenElec and the VAAPI EGL experimental branch from the Linux forum (which delivers very good 16-235 output with minimal or minimised banding)

[wrxtasy]

PVR=TV=deinterlacing

Far superior deinterlacing quality out of Intel, AMLogic and RPi compared to basic Blurry Bob software deinterlacing on the nVIDIA Shield.

Right this is exactly why I ruled the Android devices out. The TV experience needs to be near flawless.

Android running on AMLogic hardware has very good Hardware deinterlacing output from its VPU.
I think the deinterlacing quality coming out of my AMLogic S812-H WeTek Core is a wee bit better than the S805 C1+, both in Android and OpenELEC.

I'm not a fan of the RPi2's - Kodi GUI slowing down markedly when using 1080i MMAL Advanced deinterlacing. Try pulling up the EPG with TV playing in the background. The Kodi devs have achieved remarkable deinterlacing results. But the RPi2 shows its limits here.

As Noggin said, Intel gear will give you the best all round results.

[jpcaudill]

So the good news is the ASRock Beebox works great. The bad news is there are a lot of deinterlacing issues with HDHomeRun and OpenELEC it seems. Some channels work flawlessly with it. Others are flickering nightmares. I have to turn deinterlacing completely off on those channels in order to be able to watch them.

Hopefully a future release of OpenELEC makes some ground on this.

[WillStewart]

Is it plausible to consider the following client/backend on a single RPi2;

- Kodi
- TVHeadEnd (or other PVR?) connected to HDHomerun Connect
- Openelec (or OSMC)
- 2TB HDD

Most scenarios would only have one 1080i recording or playback going at one time, but there will undoubtedly be those times when both are active at one time.

Would an RPi2 have sufficient CPU throughput (overclocked a given)?