[wrxtasy]

Hi all,

First of all, sorry for bursting in this really nice technical discussion with my story. I don't even know if I properly introduced myself in the forum, which I normally do.

But I found this thread about the Odroid-C2 right now and I'm really excited about this little device. It might be a good alternative to my current HTPC but I have some doubts which I wanted to pass by you guys.

I built my current HTPC in 2008. Back then Raspberry PI and Chromeboxes and stuff like that either didn't exist or I didn't know about them, so I basically built PC in a small barebone case. It's based on a Intel Core2 Duo Processor E6750, 2GB of DDR2 RAM and a dedicated AMD Videocard (don't remember which one). And I must say, after 8 years, it still runs absolutely perfect with Openelec+KODI. It eats everything I throw at it without breaking a sweat.

The reason I would like to change is mainly because I would like something smaller and much more energy efficient so I can leave it on 24/7. I would like to just turn on the TV and have my KODI there. Also, I like to change for the sake of new technology

So I am looking for something small, energy efficient, 24/7 use that will give me the same performance that I already have. And when I'm talking about performance I am not talking about 4k. My TV and receiver are 4 years old and don't even have the HDMI to handle 4k so it is not a priority to me. On the other hand, I am a bit picky on the performance of KODI itself. I mean the navigation through the screens and the application. This is super smooth at the moment. I can run through a list of movies, updating tumbnails and fanart instantly.

So before getting here, I had two candidates:

* Raspberry PI 3 *

Very nice and small and has a lot of support, but the following things bother me:
- No 1Gbit network. I have all my media on a NAS and 1Gbit cabeling through my whole house and eventhough it might be enough to get the information to the RPI on 100Mbit ethernet, I don't like the idea of getting 30Gb remuxed blurays over 100Mbit when I have 1Gbit capability.
- Only has SDCard to put your KODI Library on and that for me sounds as slow. I think that can be a real bottleneck for smooth navigation.
- The CPU sounds a bit on the slow side to me.

* ASUS Chromebox *

I love the look of this little box and it is a much more capable hardware as a RPI. I was almost decided for this one when I learned it cannot do H265(HEVC) hardware decoding. Like I said I am not in a big need of 4k but I believe that if H265 really kicks in as a standard, everything (not only 4k) will end up encoded in H265 and I like it to be hardware decoded. So that's something that stopped me with going for the Chromebox.

And now I see the Odroid C2 exists. It looks really great, having a decent CPU, HEVC hardware decoding and a eMMC chip for your KODI installation. Perfect! But here are some doubts I have:

1. Many of my children's movies are our old Disney DVD's copied directly to an ISO file and we use them a LOT! I've read that Interlaced DVD .Vob files are not hardware decoded. I don't know if my DVD files are interlace or not interlaced (I don't really know what that means, sorry) but if the C2 won't be able to handle a DVD ISO nicely, that would be an issue for me. Is it really an issue or will the CPU handle the software decoding fine?

2. No Passthrough for 7.1 DTS-HD MA/HRA. I only have 5.1 and my wife will rather kick me out than letting more speaker into my house so I don't really need 7.1 DTS-HD but my receiver can handle it and I do have movies with this audio format. Will the C2 just give me standard DTS 5.1 sound for these files or will nothing sound? As long as it is transformed to 5.1, I'll be fine.

3. I use the Chromium Add-On in Openelec, only to be able to launch the Youtube site because the official Youtube Add-on is more often broken than not. I suppose that is because Youtube is constantly working against these type of plug-ins/addons which filter advertisement and such, but that is another issue. Anyway, being able to use the Youtube site in Chromium is a really important requirement for me. I noticed that watching youtube videos in Chromium is the only time the CPU of my current HTPC needs to work hard (the fan speeds up). Will the Odroid C2's CPU be able to handle this? I can understand this is hard on a system with the Flash technology and all. Not really native Openelec stuff, I know. But I'm pretty confident a Chromebox for example can handle it.

And that's it. For the rest, this sounds like a beautiful little device.

Sorry for the long post and congrats on such a great thread!

Hi, Welcome.

Both the RPi3 and Chromebox's are fine pieces of Kodi Hardware with excellent support particularly when it comes to a modern Linux Kernel that supports all sorts of usb dongles and extra attached Hardware. HD or lossless Audio is pretty well catered for on both as well, even if its only HD Audio to Multichannel lossless PCM decoding on the RPi3.

A SSD equipped Intel Chromebox will be the fastest of the lot, but really for media playback duties only, running a lean Linux OS like OpenELEC or LibreELEC that does not matter so much as you really are not doing a lot of Write operations to storage all the time anyway.

Yes the C2 does now run rather well on LibreELEC 7.0.0 / Kodi 16.1 Jarvis. Its nice and quick especially with eMMC storage on a 64bit ARM device.

So to answer your questions:

1) I personally fixed Interlaced DVD video playback, when running LibreELEC on the C2. It now does high quality full motion YADIF x2 deinterlacing, which is virtually as good as the excellent Hardware deinterlacing on the C2 for mpeg2 / H264 TV viewing. DVD ISO playback is no longer an issue.

2) AC3 / DTS 5.1 Audio works just fine without any stutters, drops or issues. This is over HDMI only, as most USB to S/PDIF adapters are untested and may not work. When playing 7.1 DTS-HD MA/HRA you will get the DTS 5.1 Core Audio on the C2.

3) The Chromium Addon Web Browser for OpenELEC / LibreELEC is for Intel machines only. It does not work on ARM devices like the RPi's and C2.

So the heart of the issue is YouTube, which is much easier these days to use with a remote control on a Smart TV anyway. Or a box running the Android TV launcher version of YouTube. Which a lot of cheap Android Lollipop - Kodi devices can do now as well.

You are going to need at least a Chromebox for Chromium. The Chromebox and Intel i series of machines can now Software decode low bitrate 8/10bit HEVC as well using ffmpeg. There will be a HEVC Software decoding limit there somewhere, especially with 10bit.
Intel SkyLake onwards supports 8/10bit Hardware HEVC decoding.

[Eneko]

Hi, Welcome.

Both the RPi3 and Chromebox's are fine pieces of Kodi Hardware with excellent support particularly when it comes to a modern Linux Kernel that supports all sorts of usb dongles and extra attached Hardware. HD or lossless Audio is pretty well catered for on both as well, even if its only HD Audio to Multichannel lossless PCM decoding on the RPi3.

A SSD equipped Intel Chromebox will be the fastest of the lot, but really for media playback duties only, running a lean Linux OS like OpenELEC or LibreELEC that does not matter so much as you really are not doing a lot of Write operations to storage all the time anyway.

Yes the C2 does now run rather well on LibreELEC 7.0.0 / Kodi 16.1 Jarvis. Its nice and quick especially with eMMC storage on a 64bit ARM device.

So to answer your questions:

1) I personally fixed Interlaced DVD video playback, when running LibreELEC on the C2. It now does high quality full motion YADIF x2 deinterlacing, which is virtually as good as the excellent Hardware deinterlacing on the C2 for mpeg2 / H264 TV viewing. DVD ISO playback is no longer an issue.

2) AC3 / DTS 5.1 Audio works just fine without any stutters, drops or issues. This is over HDMI only, as most USB to S/PDIF adapters are untested and may not work. When playing 7.1 DTS-HD MA/HRA you will get the DTS 5.1 Core Audio on the C2.

3) The Chromium Addon Web Browser for OpenELEC / LibreELEC is for Intel machines only. It does not work on ARM devices like the RPi's and C2.

So the heart of the issue is YouTube, which is much easier these days to use with a remote control on a Smart TV anyway. Or a box running the Android TV launcher version of YouTube. Which a lot of cheap Android Lollipop - Kodi devices can do now as well.

You are going to need at least a Chromebox for Chromium. The Chromebox and Intel i series of machines can now Software decode low bitrate 8/10bit HEVC as well using ffmpeg. There will be a HEVC Software decoding limit there somewhere, especially with 10bit.
Intel SkyLake onwards supports 8/10bit Hardware HEVC decoding.

Thanks Wrxtasy for the quick reply!

But you kind of stepped on y dreams (just kidding ) with the comment about Chromium only being for Intel machines! I didn't know that and it is good to know. That pretty much disqualifies anything that is not an Intel based machine. My TV is a 4 year old Sony and it is not really SMART It doesn't do Youtube and I really want to stick to Openelec/LibreElec and going for an Android device with KODI on it is not something that sounds good to me. I want to do everything from within KODI, not having to leave KODI for watching Youtube videos.

But sticking to Intel gives me the HEVC issue. Indeed, the Skylake Intel processors started doing it but I don't see any low cost/low energy solutions such as the Chromebox being based on Skylake or newer Intel processors any time soon.

Well, thanks for the info! Very informative.

[wrxtasy]

The fourth option is going for a Dual boot - OpenELEC / Android Lollipop system like the WeTek Core or the upcoming WeTek Hub.
Stay with OE / LE for all your media playback duties and reboot (easily with the remote) if you need a bit of YouTube Viewing.
The remote control friendly Android TV OS version of YouTube works on both WeTek devices, in fact it comes packaged with the devices.

BTW: Android Apps like YouTube can be added as favourites when running Android Kodi on any Hardware. Exit YouTube and it Autoswitches seamlessly back into Kodi.

[Eneko]

The fourth option is going for a Dual boot - OpenELEC / Android Lollipop system like the WeTek Core or the upcoming WeTek Hub.
Stay with OE / LE for all your media playback duties and reboot (easily with the remote) if you need a bit of YouTube Viewing.
The remote control friendly Android TV OS version of YouTube works on both WeTek devices, in fact it comes packaged with the devices.

BTW: Android Apps like YouTube can be added as favourites when running Android Kodi on any Hardware. Exit YouTube and it Autoswitches seamlessly back into Kodi.

You just made me happy again with this idea! Ofcourse, Dual Boot...so smart! I actualy had a dual boot for a long time with Openelec as a default but with the possibility to get into Windows XP when I didn't know about Chromium. I only removed the dual boot when I realized I only entered in Windows for using the browser which was covered by Chromium.

Anyways, I don't want to get off topic, since this is a Odroid C2 thread so I'll get to the point. I don't see myself with an Android KODI, I'm more comfortable with the dual OE/LE - Android boot. Do you think the Odroid C2 would be the device for that, or do you recommend the WeTek boxes? The WeTek Hub looks very promising and it seems it might come with the dual boot we mention already pre-installed. Any experience with dual boot on the C2?

A question that pops up in my mind: Won't the 8GB storage be a bit scarce? How much does a Android installation take? On my phone it takes about 4GB and on my Tablet even more The good thing about the C2 is that you can get a 16GB eMMC. The WeTek's I'm not so sure you can upgrade the 8GB they have.

[MidnightWatcher]

wrxtasy, great work. Will the C2 decode Dolby TrueHD audio? If so, will it only output the core AC3? Are there plans for the C2 to output DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD as lossless PCM like the RPi2/3 as in interim solution until passthrough functionality is ironed out?

[wrxtasy]

Current Audio support is detailed in Post #2 of this thread.
Basically this passthrough works already:
- Dolby TrueHD
- the 5.1 Core of DTS-HD MA
- DTS
- AC3 / DD

@Eneko, Dual Boot on WeTek Core / Hub will be Android in the NAND/eMMC and then OpenELEC on a Plug in micro SDHC card. Which can be left permanently in the device.

[Draghmar]

Ok...that is probably something already answered somewhere but I have to ask...
I really like the idea of this device with LibreELEC. I already know from where can I buy it. But I'd like to know what kind of problems will I get trying to watch my library? Especially what about sound? I see in first posts that there is audio support. But what that means? All I want is passthrough. I don't care for decoding capabilities - I have AV receiver for that. And what about picture? Will I get problems with formats (mov, wmv, avi etc.)? And codecs? Are there any issues with that?

[sw4y]

any news on nightlies?

[wrxtasy]

I'm not sure how much more I should repeat myself but any limitations are listed in Post #2 of this thread, otherwise stuff just works.

Limitations being - VC1 Bluray Rips stutter and there is no support for H264 HiP10 Anime.
Major Audio limitation for passthrough is 7.1 DTS-MA comes out as only 5.1 DTS only. This has been repeated numerous times already.

[Draghmar]

OK, ok. It just confusing for me when you're saying "ODROID C2 LibreELEC HDMI Audio support list" because I wanted to be sure we're not talking about decoding audio by ODROID. But maybe it just my fault for using passthrough and bitstream interchangeable...And I think I'm looking for bitstream so audio would be decoded in AV Receiver and not by ODROID.

Anyway sorry for forcing you to repeat.

[wrxtasy]

Ah yes I see you point, I will amend Post number #2 and make it clearer that I'm talking actually about passthrough Audio.
Cheers

[infinity85]

I'm not sure how much more I should repeat myself but any limitations are listed in Post #2 of this thread, otherwise stuff just works.

Limitations being - VC1 Bluray Rips stutter and there is no support for H264 HiP10 Anime.
Major Audio limitation for passthrough is 7.1 DTS-MA comes out as only 5.1 DTS only. This has been repeated numerous times already.

Hi wrxtasy

glad to see how the C2 develops thanks to you! Still this question seems a bit not answered for me. Regarding the DTS-HD capabilities... do you know whether it is some kind of WIP to get "passthrough" or will it probably stay as it is without DTS-HD capability?

I mean... there are the options:
1. that it is worked on in the background and may be promising
2. it is not being looked at it anymore as this is not possible because of hardware limitations or
3. licensing issues
4. or may be the developers favourise to implement some kind of pcm decoding similar to the RPi2 and RPi3...


I think because this is unclear or unmentioned/unanswered, this is the reason for so many questions about this specific topic.(if nobody mentions a WIP, people have the hope and ask about it)

And I have also another question:

Will there be a Full-HD MVC 3D possibility like on Raspberry, or is this not on a work in progress list? I read something about half-res is working, but what especially about FULL-res?

Wish you a great weekend

[MidnightWatcher]

How does the video quality output of the C2 compare with the RPi2/3? Is there any ability to sharpen or enhance the video on the C2?

[wrxtasy]

any news on nightlies?

Yes, most likely the last major Jarvis update as Krypton development is now underway.

- A new AML Hybrid HDMI CEC driver from gdachs and Raybuntu. Better compatibility with a number of problematic TV's, like LG and other HDMI CEC hardware.
You can also turn off LibCEC completely in Kodi and revert back to AMLogic's CEC implementation which emulates a keyboard.
Really excellent work from these two LibreELEC guys !!!!

- Been Cherry picking Koying's GitHub for a nice patch to speedup thumbnail loading when scrolling through long file lists (works well).

- Tweaked the Hardkernel IR remote control for better functionality and usability.

- Backported an important PVR EPG Search fix from Krypton that has been broken in Jarvis for a while.

- Compiled and plugged in the 64bit LE Addons Repository

- Patched Hyperion and Boblight and activated the Kernel amvideocap for those DIY Kodi users that like a bit of Flashy Bling.

- Went spelunking inside the AML S905 Audio drivers and came up empty handed

- Drank quite a bit of Beer whilst yelling at the TV, watching my team play Aussie Rules Footy ! (C'mon the Hawks)

LibreELEC-Odroid_C2.aarch64-7.0.0.Bling.tar

---

In regards to video and picture quality. I would say its excellent. No washed out colors, everything is sharp, scaling is good.
There really is virtually nothing to configure and tweak with AML devices as everything is done in the GPU/VPU. The only adjustments I can find are brightness and contrast when playing DVD's and Software decoding.

I hoping AMLogic themselves bring out a Kernel patch for proper 10bit video output. Kodi has nothing to do with this as AMLogic devices do bypass video rendering.
No idea if 3D MVC will ever make it to AML devices, DTS-HD will likely get fixed I hope as I know it works when running Android Lollipop on other manufacturers S905's. Its not a Hardware or Licensing issue.

[Stimmenhotel]

I am following this thread for a whole time now, since I search a new player.
No questions for that right now, but may I could throw a little off topic question here?
Reading 10bit output every time makes me wounder ...
What does my TV need to be suitable for 10bit? Y is there a difference between h265 10bit and h264 10bit (anime)?

I was playing with the madvr on my pc a while ago. My lcd is really old (HPw2207h) but I have seen a difference between normal render and madvr.
Would there be a "improvement" for a normal fullhd tv screen to? (I don't think it really uses 10bit since it is from 2011-12)