[MrCrispy]

There is a seller on ebay (moeny$hark) selling new Asus Chromebox for $129, which is a great deal and the best value for Kodi today. Its not me, just wanted to let people know.

[ikecomp]

@matt, any reason to update the bios to the latest release or is it only small changes? I'm still on 1/29 firmware.

[Matt Devo]

No specific fixes, just keeping updated with the coreboot/SeaBIOS codebases, and trying to avoid confusion when the firmware date doesn't match the script date. If there were notable fixes they would be listed in the change log

[Reb313]

Is anyone working on figuring out why HDMI audio won't work on Windows 8?

I am considering going with Windows 8 over Ubuntu because I want to integrate the metro netflix app into my Kodi.

[Matt Devo]

There's a separate thread for Windows on the Chromebox, but the answer is no

[ToBeFrank]

I'm having a problem with high idle CPU. I notice the wiki mentions it, and the text seems to indicate it wouldn't apply to openelec, but I am running openelec 5.0.2. According to top, kodi.bin is using a steady 30-45% CPU, and I can hear the fan running at a higher speed from across the room. I turned on the tv and receiver without sending any remote commands to the chromebox so I could see what it's doing. It is just sitting there at the epg. Definitely not playing any video. The virtual memory size is 1692m. Any idea what's going on?

[ToBeFrank]

Scratch that. Apparently the EPG takes a lot of CPU. Not sure why, but it does.

[fritsch]

Choose the option: Don't save EPG to database.

[Rrrr]

First of all thanks for your great work here. Thanks to this, I felt comfortable to get the Asus Chromebox yesterday.
Although I did a first time install, I have had many different h/w in the past 10 years using XBMC, recently a few RPI's.

My aim for buying the Chromebox over the RPI2 (and returning the Minix X8-H) was
1) fast UI and content loading (picture slideshows etc); SUCCEEDED
2) the ultimate dedicated quality media player: stutterless butter smooth video 1080p. NOT YET

I have followed the recommended settings , although not all of them as I was unable to locate where to check the 2nd and 3rd screenshot (new version?).

But I am still not happy with video quality, specifically when the screen panning from left to right, I still see jumping lines (with objects in the video like poles, gates, etc)
Now I know this can still depend on many factors like TV quality/frequency/refresh rates, recording/compression quality, etc.

Code:

1920x1080 (0x48) 148.500MHz +HSync +VSync *current +preferred
        h: width  1920 start 2448 end 2492 total 2640 skew    0 clock  56.25KHz
        v: height 1080 start 1084 end 1089 total 1125           clock  50.00Hz

Do you perhaps have a set of samples I can play to further establish why I am not happy and what I could do to improve?

[Stereodude]

You could try downloading these various motion test patterns to see if there are particular content frame rates that are problematic. Be sure to uncheck "Download with sendspace accelerator and get recommended offers."

[AndreaSpooky]

apparently seems theres still no solution to HDMI audio lack in both pure windows and ubuntu (or any other linuxes): the OSes still cant see the hdmi audio device from hdmi...

noob question:

...but what about using Chrubuntu (ubuntu installed over chromeOs core), which already has all the drivers correctly installed?

That way will chromebox output audio through HDMI?

thanks

[Matt Devo]

First of all thanks for your great work here. Thanks to this, I felt comfortable to get the Asus Chromebox yesterday.
Although I did a first time install, I have had many different h/w in the past 10 years using XBMC, recently a few RPI's.

My aim for buying the Chromebox over the RPI2 (and returning the Minix X8-H) was
1) fast UI and content loading (picture slideshows etc); SUCCEEDED
2) the ultimate dedicated quality media player: stutterless butter smooth video 1080p. NOT YET

I have followed the recommended settings , although not all of them as I was unable to locate where to check the 2nd and 3rd screenshot (new version?).

But I am still not happy with video quality, specifically when the screen panning from left to right, I still see jumping lines (with objects in the video like poles, gates, etc)
Now I know this can still depend on many factors like TV quality/frequency/refresh rates, recording/compression quality, etc.

Code:

1920x1080 (0x48) 148.500MHz +HSync +VSync *current +preferred
        h: width  1920 start 2448 end 2492 total 2640 skew    0 clock  56.25KHz
        v: height 1080 start 1084 end 1089 total 1125           clock  50.00Hz

Do you perhaps have a set of samples I can play to further establish why I am not happy and what I could do to improve?

that sounds like shitty processing/frame interpolation from your TV -- turn of all of that crap. Google the model/series of your TV, and I'm sure one of the home theater sites will have a list of recommended settings for your model.

As far as Kodi settings, you probably want to select the option to change the refresh rate to match the video framerate (under Video/Playback - set to 'on start/stop'). The 2nd and 3rd screenshots on the wiki are from the video options accessible via the menu when a video is playing.

Also, you didn't mention what OS/version you are running - that might have an impact as well.

apparently seems theres still no solution to HDMI audio lack in both pure windows and ubuntu (or any other linuxes): the OSes still cant see the hdmi audio device from hdmi...

noob question:

...but what about using Chrubuntu (ubuntu installed over chromeOs core), which already has all the drivers correctly installed?

That way will chromebox output audio through HDMI?

thanks

pretty much all Linux-based distros have full HDMI audio support, just not always the way they are configured out of the box. But that's an issue common to many/all PCs with Intel HDMI audio output. Google should provide you with some answers. If someone wants to write up what's needed to fully configure Ubuntu post-install, I'll be happy to add it to the wiki (and to the script's dual-boot Ubuntu install).

ChrUbuntu doesn't use the ChromeOS kernel anymore, it hasn't since the release of the Haswell-based ChromeBooks (and is much better off for it). But again, there is no kernel/driver issue w/r/t HDMI audio output, it's just a sound subsystem configuration issue. PS - my Ubuntu dual-boot install is just a modified/improved version of the ChrUbuntu script.

Windows is still dead - there is no HDMI audio output, period. And given that one cannot easily troubleshoot the issue due to lack of debug mode or driver source, I'm not going to spend (read:waste) any more time on it.

[AndreaSpooky]

ah, so the hdmi audio works in ubuntu, that's a relief since I ordered one yesterday ^_^'
Is there a particular fix/driver needed?

Since i'm going to wipe it to install ubuntu and all the fixes I've found around (RGB, VAAPI, Gpu hang etc.), i'll be happy to fix some automatic script and post it here, on audio too if needed.

[Matt Devo]

I believe it's just the PulseAudio configuration, but I don't run Ubuntu nor have an AVR that supports HDMI to test.

[morbidz]

I have 2 rips of the same movie with slightly different rip settings, can anyone advise which parameter might be causing the frame skips on chromebox while wdtv plays both perfectly

Not working

cabac=1 / ref=6 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=7 / me-prepass=0 / brdo=1 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=32 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=2 / deadzone=6,4 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=12 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / mbaff=0 / fgo=10 / bframes=16 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / bime=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=2pass / bitrate=11920 / ratetol=1.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=1.00 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.15 / aq=2:0.80

Working

cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=10 / psy=1 / psy_rd=0.80:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=64 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=7 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=150 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=14916 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.70 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=38000 / vbv_bufsize=30000 / nal_hrd=none / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:0.80

So I tried remuxing the problematic file into .m2ts using TSMUXER and the skips are gone!