[carmik]

All AML S905 (minus the S905X) can decode regular 10bit HEVC and output that as 8bit color depth, which still looks just fine to my eyes.

This is what I was looking for, thought that HDR10 is the same as regular 10bit. What comes as a shock is the following though:

There is no 10bit H264 Anime Hardware decoder on any platform.
If 10bit Anime is re-encoded as HEVC (H265), then that can be hardware decoded and output as 8bit.
The best you will get out of AMLogic platforms is 720p H264 10bit Anime - Software decoding only.

Yes its confusing !

It's a pc-dominated world after all It definitely is! Especially considering that I don't care about 10bit at all It's just that I've bumped into 10bit-only releases...

HDR10 HEVC clips will hardware decode and play on S905, but the color output presents as looking faded and washed out as its 8bit only color depth being output to the TV.

Quite interesting; I'd definitely like to see what the output looks like. To get back to my original worries though, C2 seems like a much, MUCH better platform for media than RPi2/3 (even though I hate the power connector) ... Bad thing is that a C2 with case, EU power supply, a 16Gb eMMC memory module and an HDMI cable will set you around $100, including shipment.

Are any of the Wetek offerings better and/or comparable (they seem to offer S/PDIF, perfect for those with old amps).

@noggin: Holy cow mate! Thanks for taking the time to write this ton of info! I've now clarified that HDR10 is another beast altogether and also that things will change in the video arena once more in a huge way.