Real world compare? Shield 2019 vs ODROID-N2
#16
(2020-05-20, 21:25)ozkhan1 Wrote: What are the android (lineage OS) limitations for Kodi on N2? Does HDR work?

Yes HDR works.
As I previous wrote over in the Android Kodi thread...

I've used the following Lineage - Android TV OS 9.0 image (click) on the N2...some notes....

- It's snappy (eMMC only)
- Regular Android TV Apps work fine
- Android Kodi mostly works and is snappy.
- Very easy to Root via a simple Android TV GUI setting
- Use the free Etcher PC / Mac App to flash .ing.zip file to eMMC / SD card.

Limitations:

- there is no WideVine L1 DRM or HDCP - which means nothing greater than 540p for subscription video streaming services. eg. Netflix.
- the ODROID App is used to change some settings and very annoyingly it reboots the OS every time you want to manually change Android Display Resolutions or Hz.
- You MUST run Android from eMMC otherwise expect a snail slow bootup and general slow Android OS
- Android Kodi is limited to 2.0 PCM, 5.1 AC3/DTS audio only.
- Deinterlacing for OTA TV PVR usage is half motion 25i=25fps or H264 interlaced content stutters
- The is no auto Resolution Switching like you get with CoreELEC or a Shield.
- Auto Refresh Switching has to use a special N2 - AFRD helper App from HERE (click)
- The Android OS has to have it's Root switch toggled in Developer Settings (easy to do), watch YouTube - link found over Lineage ATV OS HardKernel thread to use that AFRD App.

Oh and you had better know how to ADB connect from a Mac or PC to get the Android ROM - Google registered to get Google Playstore working.



There has been an interesting development over in Nvidia land with Nvidia GeForce Now app adding support for a wider selection of
Android TV devices (click)

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#17
My 5 cents contribution to this discussion
I've a Sony Android TV mainly for Android Apps (Prime, iPlayer, Netflix) + Odroid N2 CE for Kodi (amazing!!)
If you're after the combination of the two - I would still go for CE Odroid for local library with 4K HDR quality, however rather than the Nvidia (unless you're into games...), Google is about to go out with an Android TV player having a remote and a full ATV interface - Sabrina
If you have some patience you can get the best of the two:
- Google 'pixel' like experience with the latest version as early as can be (way before Nvidia)
- Kodi with CE for probably the best combination you can get out there in the market for local library
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#18
Sounds like a sensible choice of combos. Smile

Google's Sabrina dongle should be real interesting - I'm expecting it to launch with Android TV OS v10.0 "Q"
Some Mecool Android TV devices are being upgraded to Android TV v10 Q (click)

TiVo Stream 4K even shows great promise because they are actually actively collating Bug Reports and their devs. are acting upon them if you head over to Reddit and TiVo Forums and see what is happening.

I would also add that really only the Sony 2018 Master Series, 2019 - X85G, X95G, A9G and the 2020 Sony's have powerful enough MediaTek chipsets in them to run snappy implementations of Android TV (Pie) Apps.

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#19
(2020-06-11, 00:09)hdmkv Wrote: I was getting ready to eBay off my 2017 Shield, but decided to keep it for playback of certain videos Vero 4K & ODROID-N2 w/CE can't play (or do so well). My Zidoo Z9S gives me a 'cannot play' error. No issues on Shield.

Here's a sample of one, a MPEG4 4:2:2 C-Band satellite capture w/31 Mb/s bitrate. Here's a different sample, also 4:2:2, at 35 Mb/s, previously shared by another Kodi user.

If you haven't bugged Sam about it, do it ... he maybe has a solution for it.
LG 77G1 • Onkyo TX-RZ70 • Q Acoustics F:2050i C:2000Ci R:2020i A:QI65C • 2x BK Elec XXLS400-DF
Vero V (OSMC) • Nvidia Shield TV Pro (2019) • Sony UBP-X800M2 • Sony PlayStation 5
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#20
I have both the Shield 2019 and the Odroid N2.

I actually purchased the N2 first because it has USB 3, when I upgraded from the Odroid C2. But I also wanted Netflix (and then later on Disney+). I'd use my old PS3 for Netflix use.

When the 2019 Shield came out, I jumped on it since it does everything I've been wanting for years: HD/Surround sound Netflix, Kodi, and the ability to transfer movies over the network. At the time, Disney+ wasn't 'officially' supported on the Amazon devices so that's why I ended up with the Shield instead. It was like 3 weeks after I got the Shield is when D+ went onto Amazon.

If I would have known that, I'd probably would have stuck with the N2 for Kodi and a Fire Cube for Netflix/D+
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#21
Hey @wrxtasy, that Android TV 10 video you linked to is for MeCool KM3. Know if it works on KM1, and which of these boxes is better?

To answer my own question, KM1 looks newer and has Amlogic S905X3 vs. S905X2 on KM3. Don't know if CoreELEC is possible.
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#22
Guys, this just came out... https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2plus/

... maybe LibreELEC on this?
I'm not an expert but I play one at work.
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#23
(2020-06-20, 22:28)Livin Wrote: Guys, this just came out... https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2plus/

... maybe CoreELEC on this?
It's x86 so would be Libreelec rather than Coreelec.
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#24
(2020-06-20, 22:32)FXB78 Wrote:
(2020-06-20, 22:28)Livin Wrote: Guys, this just came out... https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2plus/

... maybe CoreELEC on this?
It's x86 so would be Libreelec rather than Coreelec.
sorry, corrected
I'm not an expert but I play one at work.
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#25
(2020-06-11, 00:09)hdmkv Wrote: I was getting ready to eBay off my 2017 Shield, but decided to keep it for playback of certain videos Vero 4K & ODROID-N2 w/CE can't play (or do so well). My Zidoo Z9S gives me a 'cannot play' error. No issues on Shield.

Here's a sample of one, a MPEG4 4:2:2 C-Band satellite capture w/31 Mb/s bitrate. Here's a different sample, also 4:2:2, at 35 Mb/s, previously shared by another Kodi user.


4:2:2 stuff isn't hardware accelerated on almost any platform - so it's a CPU software decode AND deinterlace if it's 1080i content. 4:2:2 h.264 stuff just about plays OK (there was a chroma deinterlace bug ISTR) on the Apple TV 4K as that SoC is fast enough to do 1080i25 h.264 4:2:2 decode AND a decent Weston 3-field deinterlace to p50.  I've not tried the Shield TV.  From memory the AMLogic stuff isn't quite powerful enough.  (About 6 years ago you needed a Core i5 or similar...)
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#26
Think @wrxtasy had linked to a post on how to set-up DSPlayer I think for s/w decoding certain types of files types/codecs? Could be mis-remembing. Can someone point me on the how for s/w decode?

Never mind, found it. Smile But, is there a way to have Kodi only s/w decode certain types of videos? Like say MPEG2 and MPEG4 4:2:2 type only?
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#27
I've just tried some 38Mbs MPEG2 4:2:2 1080i25 on my Shield TV Pro (2019) with software deinterlace in both Kodi and MrMC and it doesn't play it anywhere near as well as my Apple TV 4K does with MrMC.  No deinterlacing and lots of dropped/skipped frames by the look of it.  Certainly not watchable.

When I get a chance I'll try some similar bitrate 4:2:2 h.264 1080i25 stuff.
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#28
Thanks for testing. I only have a couple of 4:2:2 videos, and started re-encoding them to 4:2:0.
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#29
(2020-06-22, 19:34)hdmkv Wrote: Thanks for testing. I only have a couple of 4:2:2 videos, and started re-encoding them to 4:2:0.

Yes - that's my solution for viewing on consumer devices. I also do a w3fdif deinterlace at the same time to retain some of the vertical chroma resolution (4:2:0 1080i25 has half the vertical chroma resolution of 4:2:0 1080p50) - though I think many (all?) Kodi platforms run with a 4:2:0 footprint on playback so may not benefit from it.  I use HEVC/h.265 these days - which is much better with progressive sources than interlaced - hence I deinterlace prior to encoding. (Unlike h.264, h.265 has no PAFF/MBAFF interlace optimisations and just treats interlaced fields separately as if they were progressive frames)

If you don't deinterlace beware the chroma issues of 4:2:2 1080i to 4:2:0 1080i in ffmpeg if you don't deinterlace, as you will need a -filter:v scale=interl=1 or similar to avoid the chroma being treated as p25 rather than i25 (and saturated areas of colour juddering on your re-encode). This is because there IS effectively a vertical scale for the chroma when going from 1080i25 4:2:2 (1080 lines of chroma) to 1080i25 4:2:0 (540 lines of chroma) and that scale needs to be interlaced-aware.
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#30
Very helpful, thanks. I have an older i5 desktop, so x265 encoding takes many hours. Using Intel's Quick Sync h.264 instead with Handbrake, which is pretty fast. But, had left all settings at default; will try the deinterlacing suggestions (looks like 'Decomb' is the preferred option).
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Real world compare? Shield 2019 vs ODROID-N20