[Jdiesel]

What is the recommended device for the best HDR to SDR conversion. I want to watch my 4K HDR remuxes with the best picture quality possible on my 1080p projector.

[nsnhd]

What is the recommended device for the best HDR to SDR conversion. I want to watch my 4K HDR remuxes with the best picture quality possible on my 1080p projector.

Assuming remuxes are on harddisks of a PC then a powerful vga card will do the quality downscaling using MadVR.

[Jdiesel]

I am currently using madVR with MPC so I guess I already have the best setup.

[mija]

Will a rpi 3 b+ run kodi fine?
1080p, streaming content.

i can get a rpi 3b+ with a flirc ir receiver and a flirc case for around 130 usd.

a Nvidia Shield 16GB is 265 usd, to put in context. (500gb version is 380usd)

(Sweden)

[wrxtasy]

Will a rpi 3 b+ run kodi fine?
1080p, streaming content.

Yes it will run 1080p Kodi fine so long as you stay away from high bitrate 1080p 10bit HEVC/H265 material which will really strain the old RPi hardware and possibly cause overheating an throttling problems if you really push it. There is no HEVC hardware decoding on RPi's.

It why a lot of people have gone with cheap out of the box solutions like AMLogic S9xx devices running LibreELEC Kodi Krypton where everything is hardware decoded without breaking a sweat. Some devices like the MINIX ones even come with integrated quality Wireless Mini Keyboard remotes.
For non HDR - 1080p the AMLogic S905 - MINIX U1 is a nice bit of kit with it's A2 lite wireless remote.

Wireless remotes are much more responsive vs Infra Red only. Makes for a snappy LibreELEC Kodi Krypton setup.

[New York]

Hello, I am considering replacing my current android tv box.

I think that the ideal replacement would be an android tv box fulfilling the following criteria:

A specific requirement: Correct playback of 1080p h264 Hi10P... Hi10P support seems very rare (non-existent?) among android tv boxes.
- 4K support
- auto frame-rate switching
- HDR
- (video) format support pretty much the best possible
- good audio support

Please see the following thread:

Auto frame rate switching & dynamic range matching - 4K (HDR10) capable Hardware (click)

BTW.. the MINIX U9 now software decodes and plays up to 1080p 11Mbps 10bit h264 aka H10P Anime (I've personally tested it) but you have to use LibreELEC Kodi Krypton, the Subtitles fixed, GPU overclocked release. 

Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it.

Hmm... it seems like tv boxes right now might just barely live up to the requirements. (Take for example Minix U9 you mention, which needs to be customized with a tailored OS and even then has some limitations (11Mbps) ).
So I'm leaning towards waiting 1-2 years and see how tv boxes develop, how much performance increases and so.
Do you have any thoughts on that? Could there be any point in waiting a year in hope for better tv boxes to be released?

[wrxtasy]

Hmm... it seems like tv boxes right now might just barely live up to the requirements. (Take for example Minix U9 you mention, which needs to be customized with a tailored OS and even then has some limitations (11Mbps) ).
So I'm leaning towards waiting 1-2 years and see how tv boxes develop, how much performance increases and so.
Do you have any thoughts on that? Could there be any point in waiting a year in hope for better tv boxes to be released?

10bit H264 aka Anime is not even a mainstream "requirement" so there is next to no support for that non standard Anime "Scene" video hardware decoding.
These days 10bit H264 has been surpassed by 10bit HEVC video compression anyway.

As for TV boxes development - the A10X Fusion that is under the hood of the ATV 4K is particularly impressive for an ARM based SoC.
The iPhone X's even more powerful, heterogeneous computing capable, Apple A11 Bionic would slot in easily into any future Apple TV upgrade with it's mobile Intel i series level of performance.

Modern, powerful ARM based SoC's (Shield, Apple TV 4K, AMLogic S912's) are more than capable of handling anything you throw at them provided you have great Firmware and media playback software support. This is an essential ingredient - and the much needed API's to enable programming support for various hardware features which are currently lacking in various Operating Systems, especially Android.

Properly engineered thermal control is now becoming important with these much more powerful ARM SoC's.

They are fast enough day to day media players as it is.

The next round of hardware decoding support needed, will be for the Open Source AV1 (click) video compression standard.

Do you want to buy hardware now or wait till the AV1 compression standard is implemented ?
When do you jump on the hardware media player cycle ?

For example if I were NVIDIA with a possible Next Gen. Shield hardware refresh in the pipe, AV1 would be the next logical hardware refresh cycle.

[mija]

Will a rpi 3 b+ run kodi fine?
1080p, streaming content.

Yes it will run 1080p Kodi fine so long as you stay away from high bitrate 1080p 10bit HEVC/H265 material which will really strain the old RPi hardware and possibly cause overheating an throttling problems if you really push it. There is no HEVC hardware decoding on RPi's.

It why a lot of people have gone with cheap out of the box solutions like AMLogic S9xx devices running LibreELEC Kodi Krypton where everything is hardware decoded without breaking a sweat. Some devices like the MINIX ones even come with integrated quality Wireless Mini Keyboard remotes.
For non HDR - 1080p the AMLogic S905 - MINIX U1 is a nice bit of kit with it's A2 lite wireless remote.

Wireless remotes are much more responsive vs Infra Red only. Makes for a snappy LibreELEC Kodi Krypton setup.  

So if it is a case of Shield vs Rpi3 b+ you would lean towards shield? I do have a modern nvidia gaming pc too and play games and I guess the extra functionality of the shield as a game-streamer could come in handy as well, also neat with voice-controls which kodi 18 seems to support on the shield as well.

[JohnWB]

Hmm... it seems like tv boxes right now might just barely live up to the requirements. (Take for example Minix U9 you mention, which needs to be customized with a tailored OS and even then has some limitations (11Mbps) ).
So I'm leaning towards waiting 1-2 years and see how tv boxes develop, how much performance increases and so.
Do you have any thoughts on that? Could there be any point in waiting a year in hope for better tv boxes to be released?

10bit H264 aka Anime is not even a mainstream "requirement" so there is next to no support for that non standard Anime "Scene" video hardware decoding.
These days 10bit H264 has been surpassed by 10bit HEVC video compression anyway.

As for TV boxes development - the A10X Fusion that is under the hood of the ATV 4K is particularly impressive for an ARM based SoC.
The iPhone X's even more powerful, heterogeneous computing capable, Apple A11 Bionic would slot in easily into any future Apple TV upgrade with it's mobile Intel i series level of performance.

Modern, powerful ARM based SoC's (Shield, Apple TV 4K, AMLogic S912's) are more than capable of handling anything you throw at them provided you have great Firmware and media playback software support. This is an essential ingredient - and the much needed API's to enable programming support for various hardware features which are currently lacking in various Operating Systems, especially Android.

Properly engineered thermal control is now becoming important with these much more powerful ARM SoC's.

They are fast enough day to day media players as it is.

The next round of hardware decoding support needed, will be for the Open Source AV1 (click) video compression standard.

Do you want to buy hardware now or wait till the AV1 compression standard is implemented ?
When do you jump on the hardware media player cycle ?

For example if I were NVIDIA with a possible Next Gen. Shield hardware refresh in the pipe, AV1 would be the next logical hardware refresh cycle. 

Do you have any idea when the AV1 compression standard will be implemented ? ie will it be common this year.

Do you think any of the current boxes work with it ie the Wetek Play 2, the new Dune players coming out now or te Apple TV 4K

[wrxtasy]

It will be for the Open Source AV1 (click) video compression standard.

Do you want to buy hardware now or wait till the AV1 compression standard is implemented ?
When do you jump on the hardware media player cycle ?

For example if I were NVIDIA with a possible Next Gen. Shield hardware refresh in the pipe, AV1 would be the next logical hardware refresh cycle. 

Do you have any idea when the AV1 compression standard will be implemented ? ie will it be common this year.
Do you think any of the current boxes work with it ie the Wetek Play 2, the new Dune players coming out now or the Apple TV 4K

It will be software decoded via FFMPEG first, likely later this year then new Silicon hardware decoding support will come I suspect in 2019 with new hardware releases. It takes a decent amount of time for new video compression standards to become widely adopted.
No idea what sort of CPU package will be required for software decoding.

Expect mobile/cell phones to gain AV1 support first if there are data transport savings to be had. Netflix as well is already testing AV1 video encoding.
That is all the details I have.

[wisdomtooth]

> "Only the very recent Intel Apollo/Kaby Lake series NUCs will match the cheap AMLogic S9xx's for video playback (excluding 3D MVC). … Yes these cheap AMLogic devices are better than both the more expensive Intel "Lake" NUC's and the NVIDIA Shield for auto, mixed 1080p / 4K HDR Kodi Krypton video playback."
> "99% of cheap AMLogic S905/S905X/S912 boxes running Android Marshmallow 6.0, like the Beelink GT1 as an example, even worse than that is the Android S912 - H96 Pro Plus box. They all run virtually the same crap MM Firmware.""

So what are you saying exactly?? This post is so poorly written it feels like a (brain) dump.

How about a summary table?

[wrxtasy]

> "."
> "99% of cheap AMLogic S905/S905X/S912 boxes running Android Marshmallow 6.0, like the Beelink GT1 as an example, even worse than that is the Android S912 - H96 Pro Plus box. They all run virtually the same crap MM Firmware.""

So what are you saying exactly?? This post is so poorly written it feels like a (brain) dump.

How about a summary table?

If I added the word LibreELEC, there would be a distinction between a crap Android OS and superior LibreELEC OS for running Kodi....

Only the very recent Intel Apollo/Kaby Lake series NUCs will match the cheap AMLogic S9xx's for video playback (excluding 3D MVC). … Yes these cheap AMLogic devices are better than both the more expensive Intel "Lake" NUC's and the NVIDIA Shield for auto, mixed 1080p / 4K HDR LibreELEC Kodi Krypton video playback

And surely you would have read this bit in bold which tells you to use a different Operating System for Kodi ..... ?

AML S905/S905X/S912 boxes however, do make excellent 4K LibreELEC Kodi Krypton devices.

[wisdomtooth]

If I added the word LibreELEC, there would be a distinction between a crap Android OS and superior LibreELEC OS for running Kodi....

So is this not really about hardware, but about OS instead? Pretty much any box can have its firmware upgraded, no?

Still find the post very confusing. It'd be great to have an actual tutorial on what specs are actually needed, what they deliver, and how to update the f/w and s/w to make it deliver.

Cheers

[wrxtasy]

That is completely beyond the scope of this thread and involves far far too much detail and keeping on top of everything is frankly impossible.

You buy a media player based on audio and video (SDR / HDR) and App features you want working at this very moment. Not on what software it runs.
Make a list of what you actually want to work out of the box would be my suggestion.

There are various Kodi and LibreELEC Kodi development threads you are welcome to self read too:

X86 Kodi Linux:
https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=52

RPi - OSMC and LibreELEC Kodi:
https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=166

AMLogic LibreELEC Kodi:
https://forum.libreelec.tv/board/38-amlogic/

Highly modded 3rd party Fork of Kodi --> MrMC:
http://mrmc.tv/forum/viewforum.php?f=10&...d927756816

[wisdomtooth]

You buy a media player based on audio and video (SDR / HDR) and App features you want working at this very moment. Not on what software it runs.

Right! Exactly my point. But you seem to be taking the shipped firmware into account, rather than presuming the user will simply upgrade it to the latest — right?

Look, I'm not trying to correct you — I'm replacing my 5-yr old HTPC that died, and have just arrived at the Android box scene. So far what I've understood is that the Amlogic boxes are fine, but only if they're running Android 7+ — is that right?

These guys say:

M8 family (M805): Obsolete
S8 Family (S805): Obsolete
S905: Good low-end processor
S912: Slightly better performance compared to the S905 and a good low-to-mid range CPU.
RK3328: Good low-to-mid range.
RK3399: High Performance
NVIDIA Tegra X1: High Performance

Do you agree? You seem to say S905/S912 are just as good if running Android 7+ with LibreELEC, no?