[wrxtasy]

Hello!

It's been a week now that I've been looking into the iptv and media players thing, and I can't get to a conclusion. I finally found this forum and it seemed the most appropriate place to ask, I hope you can enlighten me...

By the way, this thread is growing so long that it's virtually impossible to read every post in details, so I started in the first post and then sampled the rest looking for some keywords. Sorry if I missed something important.

What I have now is:

1. An old 42" 1080p LCD TV (LG 42LG50).
   
2. About 350 movies (and counting), between DVD's and BD's (roughly 2/3 and 1/3 respectively), ripped into ISO images and stored in a couple of NAS's (Zyxel NSA310, arm-based, CIFS, NFS, Twonky - no Plex).
   
3. One RPi B running Openelec, does a decent job playing DVD ISO's but can't handle BD ISO's well. I have it set up with a hard disk, powered USB hub, and a USB to gigabit ethernet adapter (this will have to be replaced by a wifi adapter). Remote is on the way (Adesso).
   
4. One RPi 2 that could be re-purposed as a media player (and the RPi B would then be turned into an audio player or something else).
   
5. A decent DVD player and a decent BD player (both Pioneers from 2009, still working good).
   
6. Two 10-month olds but only one wife... so I need to help her a lot with the babies and that leaves me very little time for playing with my own toys (main reason why #4 hasn't been done so far).
   

What I think I need now is:

1. Watch free iptv (I mean legally free).
   
2. A streaming solution for "casual" movie watching (for "serious" watching I can always pull out the discs and use the standalone players - besides, due to #6 above, I doubt I'll find the time for "serious" watching in the next 2 years or so). Streaming from the NAS's. Compatible with DVD and BD ISO's.
   
3. Youtube, Netflix, etc. (HD is desirable but I can live without it).
   
4. H.264 and H.265 hardware decoding.
   
5. Lossless audio pass-through or decoding to LPCM (DTS HD-MA and Dolby True HD).
   
6. Open architecture. I want some flexibility.
   
7. Wife-friendly interface.
   
8. Something that I don't need to put much effort on in terms of updates, re-configuration, etc., i.e., I'd like to set it up once and forget it.
   
9. Up to CAD $100 (might stretch that a little bit if there's a good reason).
   
10. Preferrably a standard Kodi version, not a fork.
    
11. A device with a reasonable lifespan (I'd say 2 years minimum - for anything over $100, 3 years minimum).
    
12. A device with decent support and the due respect to the Kodi team (I was about to take the plunge on a T***smart when I read about the GPL "circumvention").
    

What I think I don't care about at this time:

1. 3D.
   
2. Hi10P.
   
3. DD Atmos.
   

I'm in Canada, so I have somewhat limited options. The Openelec in the RPi works great for me, and I guess it would be the obvious solution (I mean, after upgrading to the RPi 2). But it's not very wife-friendly, I think. And I'm not sure how it will hold up to continuous, every-day-use. I'd hate to have to rebuild the installation from scratch if it crashes. I'd rather have a ROM-based firmware.

So I'm looking into the devices I can buy from Amazon, and there's zillions of them, so it's very hard to make a decision. I'm trying to narrow down the list by the chipset - only S905 devices and Android 5. So I found the Zidoo X5 (it now says "Based upon Kodi 15.2" in the description, is that a sign of them wanting to come clean about GPL?), the Goobang Doos (suspicious descriptions), and the Matricom G-Box Q2 (more than $100). Still can't find a winner.

There are also the older models based on S805, S812, etc. that run from $50 to $80, or even $100 in case of this "Kodi TV box" sold by C-Mall (also suspicious description, but attractive specs, except for Android 4.4). I might take one of them if I can't find what I want in the newer models, just to get going for a year or so, until I find a definitive solution. At least I won't spend too much.

Any input is welcome. Thanks!

VMat

- Fire TV2 using the Firestarer solution to install Kodi, you may want to check about HD Audio to LPCM decoding when using Kodi. It will do H265 hardware decoding and give Dolby Digital 5.1/7.1 audio from the Android some Apps. Android Apps will be wife friendly.

- or at the price you are looking at - the WeTeK Core, only 2.0 Audio and the Android Apps are not as remote control friendly. Remote friendly Android TV OS launcher versions of Netflix and YouTube can be used however. A lot more of an open platform, and better support than the FireTV2.
Custom version of Kodi Jarvis, but this is pre installed and updates OTA whenever Firmware is updated. It's all pretty easy. Set and forget.
Some concert and documentary DVD ISO's will have issues, movies will likely be fine once deinterlacing is permanently disabled when software decoding.