The device itself seems pretty decent little steep pricing but its the first batch so that will hopefully go down OSMC is nice running it on my old PI so i hope Sam get better deals on the hardware in the future
Yes, OSMC Vero is almost same as CuBox but price of Vero is so big and I simply dont understand till now what is difference. Hope that someone will pin-point difference and why I should pay this difference. To be clear, I like opensource, and hw driven by community.
I have seen youtube videos of OSMC running on Pi2. almost all videos say OSMC seems to be nippier than openelec (which to be frank seems pretty incredible since openelec has a bigger team of developers) but not yet fully stable. looking forward to seeing OSMC in action
(2015-03-18, 20:03)sraue Wrote: [ -> ] (2015-03-18, 18:43)MediaPi Wrote: [ -> ]...since openelec has a bigger team of developers...
no one said this, OSMC is based on Debian, so the whole OS is created from Debian devs and Community?
if you compare
https://github.com/OpenELEC/OpenELEC.tv/commits/master
and
https://github.com/samnazarko/osmc/commits/master
you will see the numbers of active devs are around the same, with the difference the OE devs create a complete OS, while the OSMC devs integrate Kodi in a OS
Excuse me ?
So OpenElec devs wrote their own Linux kernel from scratch ? OpenElec devs wrote busybox all by themselves ? I think Linus Torvalds and the busybox developers would have something to say about this.
Both OpenElec and OSMC are based on a Linux kernel where 99% of the kernel work has been done by others - both apply some patches and custom kernel build options but it is still the Linux kernel at the end of the day.
OpenElec choose to use Busybox as the foundation for their Linux userspace while OSMC uses Debian packages for the userspace foundation.
Busybox has been around a LOT longer than OpenElec or even Kodi/XBMC - I was using it for an embedded project in 1999, two years before the xbox even came out...and busybox is great for what it is, (ideal for small embedded systems) but it does have its limitations.
To even suggest that OpenElec devs have built the entire OS completely from the ground up is laughable - all open source projects stand on the shoulders of others, nobody writes an entire operating system from scratch.
im finding sraue behavior appalling, for a developer there seems to be a lack of respect for other peoples projects seems like all sraue wanna do is bash on Sams project in some immature way.
Imho this only makes me wanna support OSMC more when i see this bad behavior..
sraue I am a big OE fan, but your behaviour here is not the best.
(2015-03-18, 14:20)techespaces Wrote: [ -> ]Hello guys,
I was thinking to buy OSMC Vero device, like I bought many of this community driven devices such as Raspberry Pi, ODROID and so on. After reading this thread from beginning I realized that OSMC Vero is completely or almost same device as CuBox, but cost really more money than CuBox. Can anybody tell me what is difference and is it worth investing money in OSMC Vero?
As the owner of a Cubox-i2 that was ultimately disappointed at what seemed to be hardware/bus limitations I keep wondering this myself. I replaced my Cubox-i2 with an RPi2 several weeks ago and have been quite pleased.
I am anxiously awaiting the first user experiences and reviews of the Vero with OSMC. I expect the experience to be similar to the one I had with the Cubox-i2 but I also hope that it IS better and that a version of OSMC becomes available for the Cubox (at present only RPi and RPi2 images are available for download).
From a price perspective, my Cubox-i2 was $79 last March from Newegg and it came with a power supply and an 8gig microSD card with Android on it. I'm still trying to wrap my head around $199 for similar hardware even factoring in that the Vero adds a specialized remote, 802.11 and bluetooth as well as a better/faster microSD card and a possibly better power supply (I'm in the USA so the power supply that came with the Cubox worked fine for me). I'm all for supporting open source but $199 just seems too high. I bought 2 RPi2 systems (2x RPi2 board, clear case, microusb power supply, 8gb microSD card, usb IR receiver with remote) for $207, so essentially I got 2 Kodi-capable systems for the price of 1 Vero...
(2015-03-18, 21:52)nickr Wrote: [ -> ]sraue I am a big OE fan, but your behaviour here is not the best.
wait... i dont attacked anyone, i only helped one user who seems to not know (and miss) he can use the OS settings dialog with his Chromebox with using a distro which is already avaible, and corrected a "myth" about OE which is available since long time and not true (i heard this often and i know where it comes from). I dont attacked anyone (personally and any projects). Instead i am attacked here because i use my right to use this forum like everyone and answer others posts.
If you all like it more i dont use this forum, or any forum, or if i am not allowed to write anything or help anyone please let me know....
OK lets all just step back and breathe.
Lets take 24 hours before anyone posts anything in this thread other than about Vero - not OSMC but Vero platform!
good call nickr THIS thread should be about the Vero machine NOT about anything else
Has anyone actually received a Vero yet?
Hi, I received mine yesterday. Here is my initial review, which I have just uploaded to the OSMC forums too. Hope it is useful.
***********************
I received my Vero in the post yesterday and after a morning of setting it up and optimising it to my tastes I thought I would share my initial thoughts. By way of background, I am a longtime RaspBMC user, although for the past 6 months have been using openELEC on Raspberry Pi Model B as I found it much faster.
What's in the box?
Everything was very well packaged and protected. In the box was the Vero itself - even smaller than I was expecting - a remote control, a solid power adaptor and an HDMI lead. There was also a very nice looking colour card which pointed me towards the OSMC quick start page. All good so far, although my only piece of feedback here would be to suggest that for true HTPC novices (target market?) the card should really contain the top 5 'must know' pieces of information rather than just a weblink. Minor stuff though.
Plugging in
This was all easy enough. One of the things which attracted me to Vero was the fact it would be able to handle DTS, 5.1, multichannel sound etc. The quickstart page recommended I used the Optical out if I wished to activate these features and pointed me to the correct settings page to toggle the audio output accordingly. I found that the optical was unable to correctly process and sen 5.1 FLAC files to my AV receive - some reading online showed me this is a common issue with the optical output so I removed this and sent everything through HDMI. Once this was activated and I had toggled the right settings I was delighted to find I was receiving discrete 5.1 channel surround sound from my Vero. Sam - I would suggest amending this on the QuickStart page; the vast majority of people with AV receivers will be using HDMI which negates the need to use the optical out to the receiver.
Software
This was the first time I have used OSMC. I've given it a few hours of solid use and unfortunately it just isn't to my tastes. I recognise that this is highly subjective so please don't take it as a criticism. I have reverted back to the Amber skin which I have been using for years and it now looks exactly how I would like it to.
As per Sam's advice, I manually checked for updates when I first booted the Vero. As expected, it downloaded a ton of updates and prompted me to restart the machine. I restarted and it dropped into the classic blue screen updating view with a progress bar. Unfortunately, after about 20 minutes the bar had been fixed at 44% for a long time and I deduced that the system had hung. Again, this would be quite disconcerting for a novice. I power cycled the device and thankfully it had not lost any data, just booted back into Kodi. This morning I attempted the update procedure again and this time it seemed to work smoothly and quickly.
AudioVisual quality
Nothing to fault here. The components must be of a good quality as both picture and sound are excellent. As previously mentioned, the 5.1 surround is superb and something I've been really missing from my previous Pi setup.
Performance
I must say I'm a bit disappointed with the overall speed performance of the device. For processor intensive tasks such as a couple of streaming addons I've been using for years the speed performance is a definite improvement and for that I'm thankful. Overall however, the interface is certainly a lot slower than my Raspberry Pi openELEC setup which positively glided through the menu system. I don't really understand why this is, the technical specs of the Vero are a beast in comparison, it should be making mincemeat of these menus. Boot / reboot times are very fast, as you would expect. I'm not saying the device is slow, it's perfectly usable, but it is noticeably slower than my previous setup - it is struggling with the music visualisations for example, something I haven't experienced since the earlier days of RaspBMC.
Remote Control
HDMI-CEC just will not work for me. This was always one of the huge pluses of the Pi setup, particularly as my wife found using the TV control so intuitive. I'm not sure if this is a fault or not, my Pi CEC would not work when plugged into the AV receiver HDMI either. I expect it is a hardware issue my end with the Onkyo AV receiver but I'm out of ideas on how to solve it.
Thankfully, the Vero comes with a custom remote control which mitigates the issue for me. The jury is out on the remote still in my house - it looks great, and is pretty miniature which is good for keeping the room clutter free. The buttons are quite clicky, which I don't really like, but again that's subjective. I'm probably only getting an 80% success rate with button presses which is frustrating and feels like you're fighting against the Vero. I'm not sure why this is, I suspect it's software lag of some kind so hopefully this will improve.
Conclusion
Overall, I applaud Sam for a fantastic project which he's seen through to fruition. Yes it was delivered late (note of advice, particularly for IT projects - always try and underpromise / overdeliver) but the fruits of labour are obvious. At the moment, it isn't without gripes and I would expect to see some big performance improvements over the next few months. The speed performance of the device is really disappointing compared to openELEC on the Pi and I will probably do some reading to see how easy installing openELEC would be on this device. Right now, I don't think it's worth £134.99 but this opinion could move if more improvements are delivered. I also don't think a novice could dive in and start using one of these devices but that may also change over time. Personally, if it hadn't have been for the ability to be finally able to access DTS / 5.1 sound content then I would be really disappointed with the device as it would have offered nothing over my previous Pi setup (in fact, being critical, it would have offered less).
Overall, a solid start but a long way to go.
(2015-03-22, 14:20)samburrows Wrote: [ -> ]Personally, if it hadn't have been for the ability to be finally able to access DTS / 5.1 sound content then I would be really disappointed with the device as it would have offered nothing over my previous Pi setup (in fact, being critical, it would have offered less).
@samburrows: I have to ask the obvious question, why couldn't you get DTS/5.1 surround content working with the Pi (over HDMI)?