[zaphod24]

Yes, that is true. The Vero and OSMC can have whatever business model is legal and allowed, but... I would prefer that the choice to get in on the ground floor and help support the development of an OS (OSMC) and a platform (Vero/special custom imx6) by paying about 2x the cost of an equivalent device (Cubox-i2) be one made deliberately and not out of ignorance.

Other than the custom remote and the white case, there is no difference between the Vero and the Cubox-i2 from a hardware/performance perspective. Yes, there is the 3 years of guaranteed support. Perhaps that is very appealing to the non-technical user that the getvero.tv site is geared towards. For anyone else, they can just follow a few fairly easy steps and have all of the benefits of OSMC and Vero at half the cost (minus the snazzy remote and perhaps the good feeling of contributing to future development).

Hopefully the discussion in this forum will allow consumers to make an informed decision.

[jjd-uk]

It's not a custom remote either, just $2 off the shelf one from a chinese manufacturer.

[grey]

oh come'on guys

[zaphod24]

Don't know who they've got making the remotes or what they cost wholesale, but anyone can buy one at https://osmc.tv/shop/ for ~ $35.

[nickr]

I was thinking white=ugly, but then again it is at least a different colour to the black leather sofa.

Anyway, not enough buttons IMHO.

[Sam.Nazarko]

BTW, the Vero is a business, so it makes perfect business sense to not provide an OSMC images for non-Vero IMX'es (there *really* would be no point to buy it, then).

OTOH, OSMC plays fair game and all sources are available. If someone with some knowledge would care enough, it would be trivial to build an OSMC image for whatever Cubox'es...

We will release an iMX6 version of OSMC. We have not done so yet because we also wanted to include other devices (Wandboard, UDOO, Utilite) etc but will soon with a unified SPL U-Boot. We held back on this because we want to support all i.MX6 boards at once. Other i.MX6 devices aren't a threat to the Vero because they don't provide the same experience (IMHO -- but let us worry about that).

On the osmc.tv site it says that eventually they will release an image for generic imx6 devices. I get focusing on the device that some were willing to pay $200 for. Those folks should, after all, get first priority. I'm not sure why they couldn't put a generic imx6 image out there from the start, but... It guess it may have become time consuming if generic imx6 users started having a lot of issues and asking questions.

As it stands, there are easy to follow instructions in the Kodi/XBMC SolidRun forums for loading OSMC onto a Cubox-i or Hummingboard. I followed them and was able to get OSMC working just fine on my i2. It pretty much worked like every other Kodi distro I've tried on my i2 (geexbox, openelec, arch, xbian) except with a new snazzy theme. Most content played ok but my 1080i60 live TV content and some of the test videos from fritsch had some skipping or dropped frames.

It's a free market and you can buy what you like. Being able to buy the CuBox at the price you paid is great, but there's a reason why you're in this situation now where you're not able to use your device to its proper potential. I hope OSMC with the work of the imx6 devs can help improve it for some users and that's what we'll try and do.

It's not a custom remote either, just $2 off the shelf one from a chinese manufacturer.

I'm interested in how you came to that conclusion. Inductive fallacy.

The remote has an OSMC logo on it, which should instantly reveal that it's certainly not obtainable off the shelf. Our graphics team actually designed all of the icons on the remote and put a great deal of time and effort in to making it visually appealing and have a good feel to it. I did the work on the remote codes. I'd love it if we could could grab this remote at this level of quality for $2 (and pass the savings on to the customer), but sadly that's not possible. A good battery that does not die after a month, and is branded (and therefore pertinent to a degree of reliability) is at least $1. The remote itself was subject to tooling fees during development and is subject to minimum order quantities with a long lead time.

Re. China comment. Argumentum ad populum.

You have 'UK' in your name, so you probably know that the UK does not make much anymore and what we do make is not done in a timely manner. Our power supplies which we buy from a UK company (that incidentally also manufacture the official Raspberry Pi power supplies) come with a 24 week lead time and they're still assembled in China. Long lead times are particularly punishing because you have to get demand right.

There's a lot that's been assumed in this thread and this discussion seems to be circular. Ad finitum e silentio!

And that's pretty much all I have to say on the matter.

S

[zaphod24]

It's a free market and you can buy what you like. Being able to buy the CuBox at the price you paid is great, but there's a reason why you're in this situation now where you're not able to use your device to its proper potential. I hope OSMC with the work of the imx6 devs can help improve it for some users and that's what we'll try and do.

Please, please just detail what the differences are (if any) between the Vero device and other imx6 devices like the Cubox-i2.

All of the changes I've seen to improve the experience on imx6 devices have come from wolfgar, smallint and fritsch. Those changes are available in several different "Kodi-specific" distributions like OpenELEC and Geexbox, not just in OSMC. If I missed a contribution from someone on the OSMC team or some specific improvement to imx6 or Vero that is only available in OSMC, please correct me. If not, let's just settle this and say that the Vero is a way to fund further improvements to OSMC and that buying one guarantees 3 years of support and software updates specific to *that* device.

If someone isn't concerned with support for the next 3 years and/or doesn't feel like contributing to OSMC, they can buy another similar imx6 device and get the same experience. That experience can be with OSMC now if they're willing to follow a few manual steps, can be done more easily in the future if/when OSMC releases a generic imx6 image, or can be done today using a number of other Kodi distros.

[Koying]

I'm interested in how you came to that conclusion. Inductive fallacy.

The remote has an OSMC logo on it, which should instantly reveal that it's certainly not obtainable off the shelf. Our graphics team actually designed all of the icons on the remote and put a great deal of time and effort in to making it visually appealing and have a good feel to it. I did the work on the remote codes. I'd love it if we could could grab this remote at this level of quality for $2 (and pass the savings on to the customer), but sadly that's not possible. A good battery that does not die after a month, and is branded (and therefore pertinent to a degree of reliability) is at least $1. The remote itself was subject to tooling fees during development and is subject to minimum order quantities with a long lead time.

Well, excuse us if we are wrong, but the Vero remote looks pretty darn similar to http://german.alibaba.com/product-gs/13k...55823.html

[jazzbo]

Other than the custom remote and the white case, there is no difference between the Vero and the Cubox-i2 from a hardware/performance perspective.

One thing that surprised me about all this is that there was one clear design flaw with the Cubox-i form factor and that was the size of the spdif port, which people have complained about since it was released. Lo and behold there are complaints on the Vero forum about the same thing -- trying to fit standard cables in the port. If there were going to the trouble to replicate the box, and get it in a different color, why not ask for that to be fixed too? (That wouldn't be worth the price different, but would have been a nice start.)

There are some attractive things about the osmc software, like having the debian packaging system (but that is more my tinkering nature than the virtue of a plug and play system). But overall I don't feel bad about buying a cubox-i (which I did months before the vero was released) and following the Vero saga has just made me more appreciative for what the relatively small number of imx6 developers have accomplished to this point.

[zaphod24]

Yep, definitely some great work by the imx6 devs, especially the complete rewrite of deinterlacing. Unfortunately they seem to have squeezed about all they're going to out of the platform.

I too was amused to see the same Cubox-i type complaints about the SPDIF port and some users taking a knife to one end of their (sometimes expensive) cable to get it to fit. I also wonder why the dual core model was chosen instead of 4 cores, though that has partially been answered that the GC2000 had some issues and the GC880 did not at the time.

[zaphod24]

Well, I guess I stirred up too much trouble in the OSMC forums because now I've been banned.

"You can't log in until n 10, 2289. The reason you were suspended"

I don't think you'll find any personal attacks in any of my posts, just a desire to get the facts out in the open.

[Soli]

I'm interested in how you came to that conclusion. Inductive fallacy.

The remote has an OSMC logo on it, which should instantly reveal that it's certainly not obtainable off the shelf. Our graphics team actually designed all of the icons on the remote and put a great deal of time and effort in to making it visually appealing and have a good feel to it. I did the work on the remote codes. I'd love it if we could could grab this remote at this level of quality for $2 (and pass the savings on to the customer), but sadly that's not possible. A good battery that does not die after a month, and is branded (and therefore pertinent to a degree of reliability) is at least $1. The remote itself was subject to tooling fees during development and is subject to minimum order quantities with a long lead time.

Well, excuse us if we are wrong, but the Vero remote looks pretty darn similar to http://german.alibaba.com/product-gs/13k...55823.html

In their defense, the minimum quantity is 1000 pieces. It could total to maybe 4$ each, including taxes, shipping, batteries, tooling etc. Anyways, I don't really care what the wholesale cost is, it's not better or worse than anyone else, it is what it is. I have friends that specialize on logoed pens and other small articles to companies, and they get all their stuff made in China too, and they make good money. We have to respect they are not in it for charity.

What I do care about, is the perceived value of an end product. I do think the remote looks pretty OK, with enough set of buttons for "normal use", logical layout. (Although I can't comment on the physical quality). I'd probably say my perceived value of it is maybe 10 to 15$, but certainly not 35$, with 7$ for shipping on top of that.
Espescially when everyone could just get the xbox one remote for less than half of that.

Btw they sell a usb nano wifi receiver too, it will cost you 20usd including shipping. The same usb receiver can be bought for 2usd on ebay incl shipping. In fact it works pretty good. I got 9MB/s under ideal conditions, if I remember correctly.

[Karnagious]

Well, I guess I stirred up too much trouble in the OSMC forums because now I've been banned.

"You can't log in until n 10, 2289. The reason you were suspended"

I don't think you'll find any personal attacks in any of my posts, just a desire to get the facts out in the open.

I don't know squat about the Vero and I didnt ban you, but I TOLD YOU you were acting like a troll, and then you immediately went ahead and stupidly repeated the same post over and over again.

Trolls get banned. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You will NEVER buy a Vero because I dont think anyone WANTS you to buy one.

Quite frankly, you are a time waster and I doubt that many people who deal with you can stand to be around you for a prolonged period of time. You are most definitely one of THOSE consumers.

You certainly aren't what you obviously think you are; some sort of a heroic campaigner for social and economic justice.

Get a life. Or at the very least, move swiftly on to your next commercial victim. I recommend Apple.

[zaphod24]

All someone needed to do was to either explain how the Vero isn't just a Cubox-i2 in a white case or to admit that it is. I'm not sure how asking for some honesty is trolling.

I have been accused of being a little too idealistic...

[Karnagious]

PersonX~ "All I did was walk on the street behind her, Your Honour, surely It's not illegal to just walk along the street."

Judge ~ "That is true. But you did it every day for 3 years. Even AFTER she changed Elementary schools to get away from you."