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START HERE - Pick the Right Kodi Box (updated Dec 2020)
I guess you can still modify Kodi when using LibreELEC with a Play 2 using the various add ins form this forum if you want or am I wrong.
LG OLED C7, Marantz SR7010, Panasonic BD35, Logitech Elite, Virgin V6, Mission 752, Mission 75C, Wharfedall 9.0, BK XLS200 Mk 2, iPhone 6S, Synology 214Play, Wetek Play2 with LibreELEC 8.2.3, Mede8er MED600X3D, Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV 4K, NowTV, Airport Extremes
(2017-04-17, 14:07)JohnWB Wrote: I guess you can still modify Kodi when using LibreELEC with a Play 2 using the various add ins form this forum if you want or am I wrong.
If it's kodi - which it is - you can use addons.
(2017-04-17, 14:17)trogggy Wrote:
(2017-04-17, 14:07)JohnWB Wrote: I guess you can still modify Kodi when using LibreELEC with a Play 2 using the various add ins form this forum if you want or am I wrong.
If it's kodi - which it is - you can use addons.

Thanks for that Smile
LG OLED C7, Marantz SR7010, Panasonic BD35, Logitech Elite, Virgin V6, Mission 752, Mission 75C, Wharfedall 9.0, BK XLS200 Mk 2, iPhone 6S, Synology 214Play, Wetek Play2 with LibreELEC 8.2.3, Mede8er MED600X3D, Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV 4K, NowTV, Airport Extremes
Are the goobang doo "abox a3" any good?
I've been reading this forum thread for a month, lots of good info, special thanks to wrxtasy for all of his good info!!! This is my personal experience with this piece of hardware. My goal was to boot LE from internal cause I don't need android, just a good stable Kodi box.

I've had good luck with the following for a cheap LE Kodi box.
For $45 its a great deal.
X96-Amlogic-S905X-Quad-Core-2G16G-Android-6_0-Marshmallow-Wifi-HDMI-4K-Kodi-TV-Box-Android-Mini-PC from Bang Good
It has 905x, 2 Gigs RAM & 16 Gigs eMMC, WIFI, 100Mb ethernet port, IR remote.
It will boot LE from the MicroSD card for dual boot Android / LE or installs just fine to internal NAND.
Install Terminal Emulator from Play Store.
Run Terminal Emulator, type "reboot update" and it'll boot LE from MicroSD.
Install http://kszaq.libreelec.tv/s905/8.0.1e/ to the MicroSD card,
For more info about installing, read the following link.
https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread-5556.html
Once you enable "Control with External Devices" in Kodi yatse works just great from your
cell phone as another remote control.
I installed Confluence skin as my family is more comfortable with it.
Audio Passthru works just fine to my Sony receiver.

Just my $.02.
(2017-04-18, 00:09)meadrocks Wrote: I've been reading this forum thread for a month, lots of good info, special thanks to wrxtasy for all of his good info!!! This is my personal experience with this piece of hardware. My goal was to boot LE from internal cause I don't need android, just a good stable Kodi box.

I've had good luck with the following for a cheap LE Kodi box.
For $45 its a great deal.
X96-Amlogic-S905X-Quad-Core-2G16G-Android-6_0-Marshmallow-Wifi-HDMI-4K-Kodi-TV-Box-Android-Mini-PC from Bang Good
It has 905x, 2 Gigs RAM & 16 Gigs eMMC, WIFI, 100Mb ethernet port, IR remote.
It will boot LE from the MicroSD card for dual boot Android / LE or installs just fine to internal NAND.
Install Terminal Emulator from Play Store.
Run Terminal Emulator, type "reboot update" and it'll boot LE from MicroSD.
Install http://kszaq.libreelec.tv/s905/8.0.1e/ to the MicroSD card,
For more info about installing, read the following link.
https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread-5556.html
Once you enable "Control with External Devices" in Kodi yatse works just great from your
cell phone as another remote control.
I installed Confluence skin as my family is more comfortable with it.
Audio Passthru works just fine to my Sony receiver.

Just my $.02.

Does it have Bluetooth?
Even if it doesn't have BT, the dongles are cheap enough.
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
(2017-04-18, 08:27)nickr Wrote: Even if it doesn't have BT, the dongles are cheap enough.

Agreed.

But why buy a box without Bluetooth if you can buy one with?

Also a dongle takes up one of the USB ports :-(
(2017-04-18, 08:12)Jeffers24 Wrote:
(2017-04-18, 00:09)meadrocks Wrote: I've been reading this forum thread for a month, lots of good info, special thanks to wrxtasy for all of his good info!!! This is my personal experience with this piece of hardware. My goal was to boot LE from internal cause I don't need android, just a good stable Kodi box.

I've had good luck with the following for a cheap LE Kodi box.
For $45 its a great deal.
X96-Amlogic-S905X-Quad-Core-2G16G-Android-6_0-Marshmallow-Wifi-HDMI-4K-Kodi-TV-Box-Android-Mini-PC from Bang Good
It has 905x, 2 Gigs RAM & 16 Gigs eMMC, WIFI, 100Mb ethernet port, IR remote.
It will boot LE from the MicroSD card for dual boot Android / LE or installs just fine to internal NAND.
Install Terminal Emulator from Play Store.
Run Terminal Emulator, type "reboot update" and it'll boot LE from MicroSD.
Install http://kszaq.libreelec.tv/s905/8.0.1e/ to the MicroSD card,
For more info about installing, read the following link.
https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread-5556.html
Once you enable "Control with External Devices" in Kodi yatse works just great from your
cell phone as another remote control.
I installed Confluence skin as my family is more comfortable with it.
Audio Passthru works just fine to my Sony receiver.

Just my $.02.

Does it have Bluetooth?

According to the web site it does not. I'll ssh into it later & see if it does.
So long story short, it's not possible to get HD Audio (DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD) with a RPi3 and should go for a Vero 4K directly?
(2017-04-21, 11:25)ShadoX Wrote: So long story short, it's not possible to get HD Audio (DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD) with a RPi3 and should go for a Vero 4K directly?

You will see some posts from over the last 4 pages, I was trying to work out best dedicated kodi box and got down to the same options you have I am sure, went for odroid c2 in the end with only LE installed. Very pleased and getting TrueHD/Atmos almost out of the box.

After flashing LE, and of course the basic setup, add NFS folder for movies etc. i connected my amp via HDMI, that gave me some extra options in the audio settings of kodi and was able to add passthru for all the enhanced audio formats.

I am using Harmony remote which took quite a bit more setting up but got that working perfect in the end. But otherwise would have gone for the Minix A2 Lite (I think that is the one). I also had a spare Enermax 2.4g wireless keyboard lying around, I plugged that in and it worked out of the box.
(2017-04-21, 11:25)ShadoX Wrote: So long story short, it's not possible to get HD Audio (DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD) with a RPi3 and should go for a Vero 4K directly?
Yes especially if you want Object based Audio DTS:X and Dolby Atmos support.
Any of these AMLogic S905(x) boxes running OSMC or LibreELEC will give you what you want, plus you will also get Hardware HEVC decoding.

Had an odroid c2 support question - now moved to c2 thread
Unable to comment, all support question in the ODROID C2 thread pls.

See the recent .tar update in the ODROID C2 thread as well that may help.

I feel stupid for asking this after reading and re-reading the information in the opening posts, along with some of the hardware-specific threads.

I'm currently using a 2009 Mac Mini (Nvidia 9400M) and a Celeron 2955 Chromebox as my primary Kodi playback devices. The Mac has served me well for the past 8 years, but it's getting a bit old and it seems that I have to stick with Jarvis 16.1 to retain hardware decoding. The Chromebox is humming away on Krypton 17.1 quite happily, for the most part. But that Mini is ready for replacement so that I can finally make the upgrade to Krypton across all my devices.

I have a 1080p-only setup right now. 4k is not in the planner for another year at least. But of course it makes sense to overprovision a bit for the future so that I don't have to buy new hardware when I do finally buy a 4k TV.

Here's some of the primary requirements:
cost <= $300ish (so no "new" Mac Mini that hasn't been updated in forever, thanks Apple)
LibreELEC 8.x Krypton goodness
GigE
10bit HEVC
10bit h264 (anime nerd, this comprises a sizeable chunk of my library; understood SW decode only)
5.1 DD / DTS (not enough room/cash/source media for 7.1 speakers)
quiet. no big honkin l33t gaming pc's. and preferably no Windows.

would be nice:
4k HEVC
5.1 FLAC

don't need / don't want / don't care:
Netflix
Amazon
3D
PVR
Android

Given those factors, I think a WeTek Play or a Kaby Lake i3 NUC would be what I need? There's definitely a big price difference, but I think the big question for me is: does the WeTek has the horsepower to software decode 10bit h264 with multichannel FLAC? I think everything else I need/want can be handled by both, but if I can save $100+, then why not, right? Or if anyone has suggestions on better choices?

Thanks for all the info you've all already provided. It can get a bit dizzying for this old fart to get it all sorted out in his head.
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