[icon123]

Hi,

I have been doing a lot of research and I think I have narrowed down the hardware I need. A little back ground first.

I'm replacing around 10 WD TV Live boxes. All of them are connected via Ethernet to Unraid servers. Most of the content are 1080p mkv with 5.1 lossy DTS & DD. Most are progressive 23.976, some will be VC-1 a few others will either be 29.97 1080i or MPEG2 (mix of progressive and interlaced). Here are my requirements:

* Hardwire Ethernet support
* IR support for Harmony remote (model 550)
* Capable of playing movies from USB HDD and smb shares
* No Plex
* Relatively cheap (less than $100)
* Don't care if it's Android or Linux OS
* Pure Kodi experience (prefer to directly boot into Kodi)
* Some of these need to be set it and forget it scenario (for parents)
* Must support 5.1 lossy DTS/DD passthru
* HDMI only
* Don't need Netflix or streaming capabilities
* Don't need 4k or HD audio
* Don't need Wireless Ethernet or Bluetooth

I have narrowed in down to rPI 2 or 3 or Odroid C1+ or C2. I was leaning towards the Odroid mainly for the built in IR receiver. The C2 looks promising due to the higher hardware specs, but seems to be lacking in the software/kernel currently. I don't mind testing for a bit. I do plan on only buying one of these for setup and testing before I would change out all of them. But I would like to switch them all by end of summer. Thanks for your considerations and opinions.

[hdmkv]

10 WD TV Live boxes?! Thought I was bad w/multiple media boxes around.

The key requirements you note are VC-1, especially if 29.970 1080i, and MPEG2. Pi2 or 3 will give pure Kodi experience, but you'll need to buy VC-1 codec license to get h/w decoding. In fact, I'd recommend getting MPEG2 license as well. It's only about $5 total.

[noggin]

AMLogic (C1, C2, Wetek Core etc.) doesn't play native interlaced MPEG2 in VOB container properly. The Pis do. (C2 has issues with DD/DTS bit streaming, and dynamic frame rates, too at the moment)

I'd go for the Pi 3 with a low cost IR dongle if you cant use CEC I were you, but if you don't have native interlaced DVD content then the ODroid C1+ is also a worthy contender (and has in-built IR)

[icon123]

10 WD TV Live boxes?! Thought I was bad w/multiple media boxes around.

The key requirements you note are VC-1, especially if 29.970 1080i, and MPEG2. Pi2 or 3 will give pure Kodi experience, but you'll need to buy VC-1 codec license to get h/w decoding. In fact, I'd recommend getting MPEG2 license as well. It's only about $5 total.

AMLogic (C1, C2, Wetek Core etc.) doesn't play native interlaced MPEG2 in VOB container properly. The Pis do. (C2 has issues with DD/DTS bit streaming, and dynamic frame rates, too at the moment)

I'd go for the Pi 3 with a low cost IR dongle if you cant use CEC I were you, but if you don't have native interlaced DVD content then the ODroid C1+ is also a worthy contender (and has in-built IR)

Thanks for the replies. Based upon these and a little more research, I think I will try out the Pi2/3. Is there any reason I shouldn't go with a Pi 3 over a Pi 2? Thanks,

[hdmkv]

No reason... Pi3 is noticeably faster. Not by a huge margin. Pi2 may be available for le$$.

[noggin]

Thanks for the replies. Based upon these and a little more research, I think I will try out the Pi2/3. Is there any reason I shouldn't go with a Pi 3 over a Pi 2? Thanks,

No - though if you end up playing HEVC stuff then a heatsink might be a good idea (the 3 is the first Pi which properly benefits from one IMHO)

Also if you go for the Pi 3 you can probably use a PS3 Blu-ray remote (which is Bluetooth) with no dongle (good if you can find a low cost source of them)

[icon123]

No reason... Pi3 is noticeably faster. Not by a huge margin. Pi2 may be available for le$$.

Thanks for the replies. Based upon these and a little more research, I think I will try out the Pi2/3. Is there any reason I shouldn't go with a Pi 3 over a Pi 2? Thanks,

No - though if you end up playing HEVC stuff then a heatsink might be a good idea (the 3 is the first Pi which properly benefits from one IMHO)

Also if you go for the Pi 3 you can probably use a PS3 Blu-ray remote (which is Bluetooth) with no dongle (good if you can find a low cost source of them)

Thanks again. Just ordered Pi3. Do you guys recommend openelec or osmc? Why?

[katsup]

Thanks again. Just ordered Pi3. Do you guys recommend openelec or osmc? Why?

This is personal preference. OSMC has Debian in the background so you can run other processes, while OpenELEC and LibreELEC are just straight Kodi.

[noggin]

Yes - personal preference. However if you are deploying them as 'appliances' then the read-only nature of OE (and I think LE) too in file system terms may have a benefit, as they may cope better with less-than-graceful power-downs.

You can still add additional software to OE/LE installs via add-ons (including binary add-ons), but it's not as straightforward as apt-get install... I routinely add TV Headend server and an OpenVPN client to my OE Pi installs.