(2015-04-05, 23:31)miappa Wrote: [ -> ]This is the thing, I am a Pi user. OE will never (ever) be my choice. If OSMC didn´t exist I would run xBian. I want to actually be able to use my Pi and OE does not allow me.
When I first got my Pi some years ago I installed OE since it sounded as the official Kodi OS in here. After a couple of days I installed Raspbian instead and dropped Kodi, then dusted off my ATV2 to run Kodi as OE killed my Pi experience. It´s just to locked down and it is simply not for me no matter what hardware I use.
If OE or Android was the only choice; I would simply not use Kodi, that´s a fact.
So here is another area where I am a confused about the Vero specifically and OSMC in general. The idea, at least on the getvero.tv site, is that OSMC will bring Kodi to the non-technical masses. I used raspBMC and now I've tried OSMC on my Cubox-i2. I'm not sure I understand the OSMC approach to updates...
I did some updating in OSMC last night which seems to use apt behind the scenes to update specific packages with new versions. Nothing wrong with that, but now let's contrast to my experience with OpenELEC. I have an RPi2 and I'm running the new almost every day Milhouse test images for Kodi 15. Updating means downloading the latest test image and copying it to the .update folder and then rebooting. If something goes terribly wrong or that particular day's test image is just wonky, no problem... Just copy the previously working image back to the .update folder again and reboot. There is also an option to backup your Kodi settings to a tar file for the case that the new test image really messes things up (and I copy these to my desktop from time to time). I think OSMC will have a similar backup process at some point, though for now (I could be mistaken) it looks like they just advise you to backup the .kodi folder and maybe something else, which is fair enough.
What is the undo process though, if a particular update borks your OSMC or makes video playback worse? Even if you dd the original install image, when you do some updates you'll possibly be back in the same boat again. Perhaps updated package issues/bugs don't occur often or are corrected quickly with a newer package, but... I wouldn't want to have to wait for a package fix. I prefer being able to roll back to the previous working version.
Don't get me wrong, I actually prefer the OSMC/Debian way of updates or additional package installs for my desktop Linux system where I might only want to update certain packages at any given time or install something completely new. For a "it should just work" Kodi media center though, I prefer the OpenELEC approach. There are downsides... If there is not a Kodi add-on you can install to add some functionality then you won't get it unless it is added to the OpenELEC base image. On the RPi, case in point, is something like RetroPIE. Adding additional packages is something you can do with Geexbox or OSMC that you can't do with OpenELEC since the system image is fixed. I can live with that. If I want to use RetroPIE to play old video games, I'll make another SD card for that purpose and maybe even buy another RPi2 specifically for that since they're so inexpensive.
So the Vero has been "in the wild" over a month now. Some seem quite satisfied with it, others not so much. It looks like much progress has been made on CEC support (including replacing a non-CEC capable HDMI cable that was included). There also still seem to be issues with IR receiver response, wireless and wired networking, menu navigation performance and video playback performance for the sample videos at
http://solidrun.maltegrosse.de/~fritsch/
Can any Vero owners share their experience after applying the latest updates?
Caveat emptor.
I ordered the Vero a couple months ago because it was advertised as being able to Bitstream TrueHD (and other HD audio codecs) to my AVR. The Raspberry Pi 2 doesn't have enough CPU grunt to do that. I have several Blu Ray direct rips (no down-encoding) that I used MakeMKV to pull off the original video & TrueHD tracks to put on my media storage array.
When I unpacked and hooked up the Vero I was pretty happy with the snappiness of the GUI and its ability to play pretty much anything from my media collection I tossed at it...... until I got to TrueHD/Atmos movies like John Wick/Atmos Demo Disc/Hunger Games Catching Fire I.
At this point the Vero pretty much fell over on itself. The video seemed mostly okay, but where the issue happened was the bitstreaming of audio back to my AVR for decoding. It would cut out every 10 seconds or so, and the audio was very choppy.
I contacted sales regarding this and they asked if I was running the latest version (I was), and basically the impression was "Well, it supports bitstreaming, I'll look into it, but we're not issuing a refund". The *only* reason I purchased the Vero was because it was advertised to support bitstreaming TrueHD when the RbP2 could not. So it is basically a 200$ paperweight to me due to the way it was marketed.
On John Wick, the CPUs peg up to 80%+ which I assume is causing the playback issues.
Here's some videos for the same .mkv file being played through the Vero & through my HTPC (which I was hoping to retire, but I guess I am not):
Vero:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBb93EUAt_M
HTPC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylx6OhSRrP8
If you are buying this to play direct Blu Ray MKV rips with HD audio passthrough, I'd wait to see if there are any improvements in the software, but as it is now it looks like it cannot handle full blu ray / HD audio passthrough MKVs without stuttering.
Interesting. By the way it is nothing to do with "CPU grunt " on rpi2. You can decode truehd and pass it as pcm on rpi2, which acheives the same result unless you need atmos.
IMX cannot do 23.976 hz with corresponding Audio Clock, therefore HD passthrough is useless.
This is known since January 2K15, so nothing new here.
Playback has been heavily improved during last months, even 1080i50 is now possible (@25 fps). HW limitations are still the same (concerning fractional modes and audio passthrough).
(2015-05-15, 16:46)ClemsonJeeper Wrote: [ -> ]Caveat emptor.
Can we see a mediainfo output on that file?
(2015-05-15, 21:59)fritsch Wrote: [ -> ]Playback has been heavily improved during last months, even 1080i50 is now possible (@25 fps). HW limitations are still the same (concerning fractional modes and audio passthrough).
No 1080/50i at 50fps? That's a bit of a non-starter for Live or Recorded TV isn't it?
I thought 50i was supposed to be shown at 25 fps? 50 half frames per second=25 full frames surely?
Or do I need to revisit tv tech 101?
(2015-05-16, 02:28)noggin Wrote: [ -> ] (2015-05-15, 21:59)fritsch Wrote: [ -> ]Playback has been heavily improved during last months, even 1080i50 is now possible (@25 fps). HW limitations are still the same (concerning fractional modes and audio passthrough).
No 1080/50i at 50fps? That's a bit of a non-starter for Live or Recorded TV isn't it?
At least it does not use "bobbing", but it deinterlaces two fields to one frame -> 25fps, same as Deinterlace (Half), method is called IMX_FAST. Yeah, it's a full dealbreaker, as it's outperformed by the Pi2 in every benchmark besides network throughput ... but hey, this is nothing new. It was known since months, vero / cubox have other advantages (esata port, USB2.0 driven gigabit lan).
But - I really wonder, why the Pi people not just get a
http://www.amazon.de/Digimate%C2%AE-Ethe...t+ethernet http://geizhals.de/logilink-ua0158-a754125.html for 10 bugs and done ...
(2015-05-16, 08:19)fritsch Wrote: [ -> ]But - I really wonder, why the Pi people not just get a http://geizhals.de/logilink-ua0158-a754125.html for 10 bugs and done ...
Well, maybe because a gigabit lan is not needed for Kodi?
A BD ISO of 50Gb for a 2h movie (arguably the best you can stream currently) = 50000 MB / 7200 sec * 8 bits = 55Mb/s only, if not mistaken...
(2015-05-16, 08:19)fritsch Wrote: [ -> ] (2015-05-16, 02:28)noggin Wrote: [ -> ] (2015-05-15, 21:59)fritsch Wrote: [ -> ]Playback has been heavily improved during last months, even 1080i50 is now possible (@25 fps). HW limitations are still the same (concerning fractional modes and audio passthrough).
No 1080/50i at 50fps? That's a bit of a non-starter for Live or Recorded TV isn't it?
At least it does not use "bobbing", but it deinterlaces two fields to one frame -> 25fps, same as Deinterlace (Half), method is called IMX_FAST. Yeah, it's a full dealbreaker, as it's outperformed by the Pi2 in every benchmark besides network throughput ... but hey, this is nothing new. It was known since months, vero / cubox have other advantages (esata port, USB2.0 driven gigabit lan).
But - I really wonder, why the Pi people not just get a http://www.amazon.de/Digimate%C2%AE-Ethe...t+ethernet http://geizhals.de/logilink-ua0158-a754125.html for 10 bugs and done ...
I think a few people who want high speed network throughput do use a USB 2 or USB 3 (no point in it being 3 but you can get them easily) GigE adapter. But no real need for Kodi. Blu-ray bitrate stuff seems fine over the 100Mbs connection.
I've used USB ethernet adaptors with Raspberry Pi Model A+s now and again.
That being said, the Gigabit Ethernet is for sure not a selling point for the Vero (cause a Pi2 can be made Gigabit aware for 10 euros ;-)). But that has been discussed many times for now. Goal here currently is to get everything out of this machine, that is possible - 3D would be nice to have, e.g. Modeline management, auto switching. But besides that, it's already maxed out.
(2015-05-16, 08:19)fritsch Wrote: [ -> ]At least it does not use "bobbing", but it deinterlaces two fields to one frame -> 25fps, same as Deinterlace (Half), method is called IMX_FAST. Yeah, it's a full dealbreaker, as it's outperformed by the Pi2 in every benchmark besides network throughput ... but hey, this is nothing new. It was known since months, vero / cubox have other advantages (esata port, USB2.0 driven gigabit lan).
Does it have the option of bob for native interlaced content? Whilst 50i->25p deinterlacing at high quality is great for stuff shot natively 25p (drama - apart from some soaps, some documentary etc) 50i->50p bob is better for entertainment, sport, news etc. which is shot 50i native? (Unless you are in a 720/50p area like Germany, Scandinavia etc.)
Nope. It has not, one can use IMX_DOUBLE, but for this the vero is too slow. i4 cubox can do that "most of the time", for 576i it works without issues. Alone the 50fps rendering is a challenge for imx hardware.
Edit:
https://discourse.osmc.tv/t/vero-performance/2415 <- here is what user have reported.