[Dave the Minion]

If you are so well informed you wouldn't be looking to "output proper MVC 3D".

MVC is an encoding scheme for storing 3D video, it is an INPUT to your kodi machine, not an output.

Not a surprise you show up to act high and mighty over others while adding nothing of value to the discussion.

[Cr4z33]

The Answer to that is all in this thread, as the question has nothing to do with 3D:

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=252916

OK thanks.

[nickr]

If you are so well informed you wouldn't be looking to "output proper MVC 3D".

MVC is an encoding scheme for storing 3D video, it is an INPUT to your kodi machine, not an output.

Not a surprise you show up to act high and mighty over others while adding nothing of value to the discussion.

This is a technical forum, terminology is important.

And you're the one who started the personal abuse. Perhaps I should have just banned you for a few days.

[movie78]

New ZIDOO X5 TV BOX S905

Specs

ZIDOO X5

COLOR Silver
Shell Material Plastic
Operating System Android 5.1 Lollipop
CPU S905 Cortex A53 64bit Processor 2.0GHz
GPU Penta-Core ARM Mali-450
RAM 1GB DDR3
ROM 8GB eMMC
Ethernet 10/100M
Video Supported HD MPEG1/2/4,
H.265, 4K-HD, HD AVC/VC-1, RM/RMVB, Xvid/DivX3/4/5/6,
RealVideo8/9/10
Avi/Rm/Rmvb/Ts/Vob/Mkv/Mov/ISO/wmv/asf/flv/dat/mpg/mpeg
4K@60 Hz video decoding 10-bit HEVC and AVS+ codec support; H.264 up to 4K
Audio Supported MP3/WMA/AAC/WAV/OGG/AC3/DDP/TrueHD/DTS/DTS/HD/FLAC/APE

Picture Supported HD JPEG/BMP/GIF/PNG/TIFF

HDMI Port Standard HDMI 2.0@60hz support CEC

Other Interfaces
2*USB,
1*HDMI,
1*RJ45,
1* TF card slot,
1*AV, 1*DC in, 1*SPDIF

[User 309201]

For 3D rips I'm interested in something that can decode HD audio to multi-channel PCM rather than just passing it through as bitstream. Can the HiMedia Q5/Q10 do that? And I gather the R Pi 2 can (right?) but what resolution is the eventual signal (e.g. 24/192, 24/96 etc.?

[noggin]

For 3D rips I'm interested in something that can decode HD audio to multi-channel PCM rather than just passing it through as bitstream. Can the HiMedia Q5/Q10 do that? And I gather the R Pi 2 can (right?) but what resolution is the eventual signal (e.g. 24/192, 24/96 etc.?

The Pi 2 outputs up to 8 channel (i.e 7.1) PCM decoded from DTS-HD MA, Dolby True HD, FLAC multichannel etc. From memory it will output 48/24 as 48/24, 96/24 as 96/24. However it can only output 192/24 at up to 4.0 PCM. However there are only a tiny number (fewer than 10?) Blu-rays with 192kHz 5.1 HD Audio tracks as the bitrate is insanely high, so in reality it isn't an issue. (I think the most famous 192kHz 5.1 release is Akira?)

[3dgeek]

[/align]

Well looking at your "installation" on the pic made me think, you absolutely have to be single (or extremely lucky) - I would love to be able to have a lovely collection like that in my livingroom, but would not survive more than a day :-))

[hdmkv]

New ZIDOO X5 TV BOX S905

ZIDOO X5

Here we go again w/Zidoo & similar pitch as they did with X6... better this time around? Color me skeptical. Notice a 3D icon toward the top of the page, but nothing mentioned in description or specs.

For 3D rips I'm interested in something that can decode HD audio to multi-channel PCM rather than just passing it through as bitstream. Can the HiMedia Q5/Q10 do that? And I gather the R Pi 2 can (right?) but what resolution is the eventual signal (e.g. 24/192, 24/96 etc.?

I believe Himedia Q5/Q10 can decode HD audio & pass as PCM (RAW or PCM options are in their Android settings; also native LPCM 5.1/7.1 already pass fine). But, adding to noggin's reply, go RPi2 instead since you want multi-channel PCM, which is fine for 90% usage/users out there. However, some matrixed metadata in THD & DTSMA tracks get lost w/player doing the decoding (vs. AVR), and you also lose ATMOS & DTS:X.

Well looking at your "installation" on the pic made me think, you absolutely have to be single (or extremely lucky) - I would love to be able to have a lovely collection like that in my livingroom, but would not survive more than a day :-))

I'm happily married with 2 kids . But, I am lucky as my wife is great about it, and doesn't care as long as I don't mess up our family room set-up with TiVo & nVidia Shield w/SlingTV. Also, the pic above is from my basement home theater, with those gadgets hidden behind a closet. Here's my full set-up. My sole hobby is home video gadgets, but I'm budget-minded to extent possible with this hobby, and I'm lucky to get many media boxes for review from manufacturers. But, that'll likely end as I don't give automatic nice reviews just to keep getting more boxes for review.

[User 309201]

For 3D rips I'm interested in something that can decode HD audio to multi-channel PCM rather than just passing it through as bitstream. Can the HiMedia Q5/Q10 do that? And I gather the R Pi 2 can (right?) but what resolution is the eventual signal (e.g. 24/192, 24/96 etc.?

I believe Himedia Q5/Q10 can decode HD audio & pass as PCM (RAW or PCM options are in their Android settings; also native LPCM 5.1/7.1 already pass fine). But, adding to noggin's reply, go RPi2 instead since you want multi-channel PCM, which is fine for 90% usage/users out there. However, some matrixed metadata in THD & DTSMA tracks get lost w/player doing the decoding (vs. AVR), and you also lose ATMOS & DTS:X.

Possibly I should clarify why this is important.

In the long term I probably will invest in a decent audio processor, one that supports Atmos and DTS:X; but with all the new formats buzzing around I'm not sure the market is quite settled enough to spend a lot of money on that just yet. (Some years ago I shelled out several thousand on a Bryston SP1.7 which sounded great compared to its rivals at the time, but became essentially obsolete when DTS-MA and Dolby True-HD came along).

So, for the moment, I'm using my Oppo 105D blu-ray player as a sound source. It sounds very good, and it has HDMI inputs so you can use it as an audio processor for external sources. But it has two weaknesses. The first is that, while it can itself function as a media player for just about every other type of file, it can't stream MVC 3D - it can play a .mkv file containing MVC, but only as 2D, and it can't handle .iso images.

My first idea to get round this was to acquire a Mede8er MED600X3D. This isn't a Kodi device, of course, but it does a pretty good job of playing back MVC stuff in video terms; but there's a slight problem with the audio. The Mede8er can pass through any audio track as bitstream, and this works fine for plain DD or DTS; but the Oppo is unable to handle DTS-MA or Dolby True-HD on its HDMI inputs. (It handles them fine when it's doing its own streaming or playing a disk, but not when it's coming from an external device).

The Oppo HDMI inputs can apparently support multi-channel PCM input - either 6x192kHz or 8x96kHz. The Mede8er has an option to output "multi-channel LPCM", and I was hoping setting it to that would make it decode the movie sound track and output the result as 5.1 or 7.1 PCM; but apparently the only time this actually works properly is if the original video soundtrack is already in multi-PCM format - for DTS, etc. the PCM output is downmixed to stereo.

So, the fact that a media player can output multi-channel PCM is not in any way a guarantee that it can decode DTS-MA and output the result as multi-channel PCM.

If the Q5 definitely can decode DTS-MA, then it might well do me as a substitute for the Mede8er; but I'd like to be sure about its capabilities before investing in one.

The Raspberry Pi 2 is an interesting option, but I'm worried by the comment at the start of the thread about it dropping frames and having problems with high bitrates.

[noggin]

The Raspberry Pi 2 is an interesting option, but I'm worried by the comment at the start of the thread about it dropping frames and having problems with high bitrates.

If you are playing conventional Blu-ray stuff you'll almost certainly be OK. The Pi 2 is pretty close to perfect with Blu-ray content (including 3D MVC - though a couple of ISOs may need remuxing to MKV) Most frame drops are caused by WiFI, Powerline networking or otherwise throttled network connectivity, though NFS is usually preferable to SMB, and local storage ideal.

[dylantje]

mmmm

What is the best hardware to run Kodi?? [ i want to buy one/... ]
I want a very fast system AND stable system.......


What is the best OS?
Linux or Android?
Or are there no different?

[noggin]

mmmm

What is the best hardware to run Kodi?? [ i want to buy one/... ]
I want a very fast system AND stable system.......


What is the best OS?
Linux or Android?
Or are there no different?

You need to give us a better idea what you want to use Kodi for, and whether you need other stuff like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video etc.
Different platforms have different strengths and weaknesses.

What material will you be playing?
What sources ?
Do you need Live TV ?
Do you need to run a TV backend ?

Do you need HD Audio?
Do you need 3D?

[User 309201]

The Raspberry Pi 2 is an interesting option, but I'm worried by the comment at the start of the thread about it dropping frames and having problems with high bitrates.

If you are playing conventional Blu-ray stuff you'll almost certainly be OK. The Pi 2 is pretty close to perfect with Blu-ray content (including 3D MVC - though a couple of ISOs may need remuxing to MKV) Most frame drops are caused by WiFI, Powerline networking or otherwise throttled network connectivity, though NFS is usually preferable to SMB, and local storage ideal.

I would be using wired Ethernet. (My BT Home Hub 5 isn't the best Ethernet router/switch in the world, but it's okay. Supports gigabit Ethernet, anyway.) Setting up NFS folders isn't a problem - I've had to do that to feed the Mede8er already. Remuxing to .MKV is usually not a problem - in fact I prefer it to raw .ISO as it takes up less space. But I haven't yet had to deal with a disk that makes serious use of seamless branching; I'm not sure how complex that will be.

As for "conventional blu-ray stuff", I don't know: I would be using it exclusively for 3D blu-ray rips - anything else my Oppo 105D can stream all by itself (and play HD audio without any trouble).

[noggin]

Think the only possible issue you may have with any 3D solution is possibly 3D subtitles (Avatar?) - as this still appears to be a WIP on all Kodi platforms? (Subtitles are rendered in 2D - so can cause depth issues on some content?) You may have to increase the GPU RAM allocation a bit - and some BD ISOs have occasional pixellation, but the same content remuxed as an MKV appears to be fine apparently. You may find you get some buffering on skips forward and back etc. and have to pause to let the system catch-up. Once you are playing you should be OK.

I was watching a bit of Gravity this afternoon on my Pi 2 and it was fine.

*** EDIT : I may have misreported this. 3D Subtitles may be OK on the Pi ***

[User 309201]

Think the only possible issue you may have with any 3D solution is possibly 3D subtitles (Avatar?) - as this still appears to be a WIP on all Kodi platforms? (Subtitles are rendered in 2D - so can cause depth issues on some content?)

Hmm. Subtitles are quite a big deal for me. I'm partially deaf, so I usually have them switched on all the time.