• 1
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64(current)
  • 65
  • 66
  • 96
Pick the Right Kodi Box (UPDATED FEB 2015)
(2015-07-29, 16:09)CeeJayDee Wrote: With no HDMI port and so many 'bits and pieces' to purchase in addition, it takes the price up somewhat.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, the only required extra is the DP -> HDMI adapter which costs £4. The SATA cable adapter is only required if you want to add an internal HDD, is that even possible on the chromebox?

I'm not going to discuss aesthetics as those are very personal and only you can say if they are worth the £70 premium.
@oWarchild. I feel I was perhaps too hasty in both my reading of the thread and my criticisms. Mainly I was thinking of the lack of wifi card but of course I can use the usb dongle from my HTPC. The HDMI adapter should fit the bill and then I will be up and away. I am waiting for an offer from Flubit and will put in an order. Incidentally, how do I output sound to my non-HDMI AVR. At present I am using an optical SPDIF cable.

Thanks for your patience.
(2015-07-29, 17:09)CeeJayDee Wrote: Incidentally, how do I output sound to my non-HDMI AVR. At present I am using an optical SPDIF cable.

Two options really.

1. USB Audio card with optical output.
2. HDMI Audio extractor (which will strip out the audio from the HDMI feed and output it as Toslink, passing through the video to your TV) with optical (or coax if that is suitable) output. You need to make sure you have an extractor with 5.1 support if you want more than stereo. (They send extra EDID information to convince the PC to send Dolby Digital when otherwise it might not)
Looking for suggestions on a Kodi capable box or two. Could care less about 4K but want something that can:

1) Handle h.265 encoded 720p/1080p files. (Should hardware decoding of h.265 be a must have feature I look at?)
2) Doesn't need to support 5.1 or any fancy sound gear.
3) Needs to have Bluetooth
4) Needs to support 802.11AC
5) Small, like a NUC
6) Quiet, like a NUC
7) Must be OpenElec/Windows friendly. Don't want anything Android related.

Guess I should just buy another NUC? My wife has a NUC5I3RYH that she uses as her main PC. When I played some h.265 files on it, this was the result

H.265 file 1 was 720p and on her i3 NUC, the CPU went up to about 15-20% and the video played back perfectly. The 2nd H.265 file had a .265 extension and wasn't seen by Kodi and when I tried playing it in VLC, VLC CPU usage jumped to about 80% but nothing happened, just a black screen. I tried the nightly build of VLC (3.0.0) and same result. Guess the .265 extension just isn't ready for Kodi/VLC!?
.265 is not a valid extension seeing as its a codec and not a File container. AKA the extension should be something like .mkv or .mp4 or .avi it should never be .264 or .265.
(2015-07-30, 02:01)gene0915 Wrote: H.265 file 1 was 720p and on her i3 NUC, the CPU went up to about 15-20% and the video played back perfectly. The 2nd H.265 file had a .265 extension and wasn't seen by Kodi and when I tried playing it in VLC, VLC CPU usage jumped to about 80% but nothing happened, just a black screen. I tried the nightly build of VLC (3.0.0) and same result. Guess the .265 extension just isn't ready for Kodi/VLC!?

As Topken said, your file shouldn't be xxxx.265 since h.265 is a codec. Files should end with the container type, .mkv, .avi, .mp4, etc. and video files are represented as container/codec MKV/h.265.
Forum Rules (wiki) | Banned add-ons (wiki) | Wiki (wiki) | Quick start guide (wiki)
(2015-07-30, 02:58)Tinwarble Wrote:
(2015-07-30, 02:01)gene0915 Wrote: H.265 file 1 was 720p and on her i3 NUC, the CPU went up to about 15-20% and the video played back perfectly. The 2nd H.265 file had a .265 extension and wasn't seen by Kodi and when I tried playing it in VLC, VLC CPU usage jumped to about 80% but nothing happened, just a black screen. I tried the nightly build of VLC (3.0.0) and same result. Guess the .265 extension just isn't ready for Kodi/VLC!?

As Topken said, your file shouldn't be xxxx.265 since h.265 is a codec. Files should end with the container type, .mkv, .avi, .mp4, etc. and video files are represented as container/codec MKV/h.265.

I tried renaming it to .mkv and it made no difference. VLC loaded and just sat there with a black screen.
There are some encoding processes that produce .265 (or .264) files as part of the process, and those are usually raw video files, no audio so don't really need a container as such.

But yeah, the finished product usually includes audio, which requires a container, and should have a proper extension.

Windows is very focussed on the extension to identify file content. Linux and OSX less so. A linux media player like mplayer will pay a file, no matter what extension it has, as it probes the file to reveal what is inside instead of just stopping if it doesn't recognise the extension.

Kodi relies on extensions, and in doing so it doesn't have to probe every file ot see if it should be listing and scraping it. However I am pretty sure you could add .265 as an allowed extension somewhere in advancedsettings.xml.
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
Demuxing will produce something like that if you extract just the video file, but it will usually be .h264 or .h265.

You can't just change the extension, again .mkv is a container and if as nickr said, you are dealing with a raw file you have to mux into a container.

Just download one of the h.265 files from somewhere like here: http://www.elecard.com/en/download/videos.html if you're wanting to test HEVC capabilities.
Forum Rules (wiki) | Banned add-ons (wiki) | Wiki (wiki) | Quick start guide (wiki)
(2015-07-30, 09:47)Tinwarble Wrote: Demuxing will produce something like that if you extract just the video file, but it will usually be .h264 or .h265.

You can't just change the extension, again .mkv is a container and if as nickr said, you are dealing with a raw file you have to mux into a container.

Just download one of the h.265 files from somewhere like here: http://www.elecard.com/en/download/videos.html if you're wanting to test HEVC capabilities.

That's the exact site I downloaded one of my test files from and it came over with the .265 extension and won't play in VLC. I think they have a player on there but it's $40? Rather not spend $40 just to test 265 decoding performance.
Well I decided to buy the HP 260 G1 for £88.16 via Flubit this morning and have just received an email saying that it has been despatched. How quick is that! Wont be bothering with Windows 8.1 and will keep the 32GB SSD and do a clean install of OE as all I want it for is to stream with Kodi. Will plug in a USB Wifi Dongle for starters but may well install a WiFi/BT card later.

Cant wait to set it up but is there an 'idiots guide' to install OE on the G1? (similar to that for the ACB).

Special thanks to oWarchild for nudging me in the right direction and saving me some hard earned cash. Smile
Smart move Wink
Further questions in the obvious HP 260 G1 thread...

(2015-07-30, 16:27)wrxtasy Wrote: Further questions in the obvious HP 260 G1 thread...

I agree.
(2015-07-30, 13:49)gene0915 Wrote: That's the exact site I downloaded one of my test files from and it came over with the .265 extension and won't play in VLC. I think they have a player on there but it's $40? Rather not spend $40 just to test 265 decoding performance.

But did you download one of the MPEG 2 TS formatted files or the HEVC elementary files?

If you downloaded a MPEG2 TS then it should download as a .ts file, if it didn't then it didn't download correctly. You can also try muxing the file to mkv using MKVtoolnix.
Forum Rules (wiki) | Banned add-ons (wiki) | Wiki (wiki) | Quick start guide (wiki)
I am considering the zotac c5 with an Intel i5.
  • 1
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64(current)
  • 65
  • 66
  • 96

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
Pick the Right Kodi Box (UPDATED FEB 2015)26