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START HERE - Pick the Right Kodi Box (updated Dec 2020)
(2018-07-04, 13:47)OceanMan17 Wrote: Hello, very nice guide! I have a Samsung MU6400 4K TV and I am looking to buy a TV Box for 4K HDR Kodi and maybe a little moonlight with nvidia game stream. My budget (90$ max) doesn't support NVidia Shield or the MINIX U9-H unfortunately... From my research I have ended up between Mi TV Box and a DIY Beelink GT1 Ultimate sideloaded with LibreELEC. Which of these two you think will be the best for my requirements? Do you have something else to suggest that suits my budget? Thanks in advance.
 Mi Box TV doesn't handle refresh rate switching (so a terrible choice if you want to watch 24, 25, 50 and 60Hz content without judder) - and the Oreo update appears to be terrible.

You don't side load LibreElec onto Android boxes, you either dual-boot or overwrite the Android install.  The box you suggest looks to be a 912 based device - similar to the Minix U9-H in specs. I've no idea whether it's a good hardware build - others can answer that - but the S912 Krypton builds aren't bad and handle UHD HDR and HD Audio fine.  There don't seem to be (m)any Leia builds around yet though?
After reading this I am now deciding between DIY AMLogic S912 with Libreelec or MeCool M8S Pro...

I would like 4K so the 912 is very tempting... Will logitech harmony remote work with this using a usb media centre adapter? they work on RPi and on windows etc
(2018-07-04, 13:47)OceanMan17 Wrote: Hello, very nice guide! I have a Samsung MU6400 4K TV and I am looking to buy a TV Box for 4K HDR Kodi and maybe a little moonlight with nvidia game stream. My budget (90$ max).
$90 Max - Get an AMLogic S912 box with Gigabit Ethernet and throw LibreELEC on it.. You need Gigabit (1000M) if you want reliable high bitrate 4K HDR streaming of Bluray REMUX's. Otherwise a USB3 > Gigabit Ethernet adapter will need to be used.

I believe the S912 Tanix TX92 / Vorke Z6 has Gigabit. These two also have a decent Android TV ROM available over on the Freaktab forums.

No idea about Moonlight or NVIDIA Game Stream.

Guide - using a Harmony with amlogic devices (click)

Thank you very much I will check them out!
Regarding AppleTV 4K...

some posts ago some fellas reported that Apple TV 4K produces inaccurate colors in 4K.. 

I must say this after further research...

That this was an issue with TV OS prior to 11.3

After 11.3 AppleTV 4K produces colors as they should be... (in movies iTunes, or using MrMC (Kodi fork), or Infuse)

BUT one has to use the following settings to get accurate colors in EVERY 4K TV

Format: 4K SDR.... (YES 4K SDR NO DOLBY VISION, NO HDR)
HDMI Output YCbCr
Chroma 444
Match Range and Frame

YES those are the best settings if you own a 4K TV....

SDR content will be displayed as intended with accurate colors 
and 4K HDR content will be displayed as 4K HDR content with accurate colors..

if in Format you set 4K Dolby Vision there will be unneded processing in the movie with inferior results than those described above... (one can watch many Youtube videos that concur to the settings that i suggest)

Also use Dark mode Smile (it will save your oled screen)

Thats all.. 
Apple TV 4K produces the best image quality and now (with TVos 12) we have also ATMOS...


Enjoy
Nicolas
I'm looking for a stream box to play h.265 HEVC 4K HDR that's also capable of streaming Atmos/DTS:X. I'm also looking to spend as little money as possible (hospital bills are a bitch.) It would be very nice if it does auto refresh switching as well. 

The guide mentions that S905X, even the cheap ones, are capable of doing this. I saw some older threads that didn't seem to be so keen on the cheaper devices, but this thread was updated this month, so have things changed?

Anyway, I found this Superpow T95M 2GB RAM and 16GB ROM box with a S905X chipset. Will this do the trick? Will it be difficult to set up LibreELEC Kodi Krypton on something like this?

Here's the link:

https://www.amazon.com/Android-Superpow-...ogic+S905X


If not, can someone recommend a relatively cheap box that will just work for video/audio playback and auto refresh changes?
(2018-07-16, 15:51)opiumskittles Wrote: I'm looking for a stream box to play h.265 HEVC 4K HDR that's also capable of streaming Atmos/DTS:X. I'm also looking to spend as little money as possible (hospital bills are a bitch.) It would be very nice if it does auto refresh switching as well. 

The guide mentions that S905X, even the cheap ones, are capable of doing this. I saw some older threads that didn't seem to be so keen on the cheaper devices, but this thread was updated this month, so have things changed?

Anyway, I found this Superpow T95M 2GB RAM and 16GB ROM box with a S905X chipset. Will this do the trick? Will it be difficult to set up LibreELEC Kodi Krypton on something like this?

Here's the link:

https://www.amazon.com/Android-Superpow-...ogic+S905X


If not, can someone recommend a relatively cheap box that will just work for video/audio playback and auto refresh changes?
 Installing LibreELEC (or CoreELEC) is not that hard, theres tons guides available. Once set up, these box playback 4K HDR fine, along with DTS X and Dolby Atmos.

I recently bought one, the only thing i'm hating about mine is that the UI performance is meh, like 25fps... It was something i did not give much thought before buying, and i was used to Kodi on my PC running the Ui at a buttery 60fps, so just keep that in mind.
(2018-07-16, 15:51)opiumskittles Wrote: I'm looking for a stream box to play h.265 HEVC 4K HDR that's also capable of streaming Atmos/DTS:X. I'm also looking to spend as little money as possible (hospital bills are a bitch.) It would be very nice if it does auto refresh switching as well. 

S912 box with LibreElec or CoreElec will allow you to spend as little as possible to get 4K HDR with auto frame rate and colorspace switching
(2018-07-17, 00:06)drpizznock Wrote:
(2018-07-16, 15:51)opiumskittles Wrote: I'm looking for a stream box to play h.265 HEVC 4K HDR that's also capable of streaming Atmos/DTS:X. I'm also looking to spend as little money as possible (hospital bills are a bitch.) It would be very nice if it does auto refresh switching as well. 

S912 box with LibreElec or CoreElec will allow you to spend as little as possible to get 4K HDR with auto frame rate and colorspace switching 
Does the S905X not support auto framerate?
It doesn't do HDR or 10bit without dither

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=332180
(2018-07-17, 00:25)drpizznock Wrote: It doesn't do HDR or 10bit without dither

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=332180
 Oh, wow. Missed that thread. Thanks for the information!
(2018-07-17, 00:25)drpizznock Wrote: It doesn't do HDR or 10bit without dither

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=332180
 HDR EOTF signalling is independent of colour space.
10-bit dither/band applies to S912 as well, but regs are different.

GXL on OSMC should be fine.
Not sure what kernel @wrxtasy or CE are using these days. 

There is a lot of confusion regarding S905X/D capabilities vs S912.  I hope to clarify these in the coming days. 

S
(2018-07-17, 00:25)drpizznock Wrote: It doesn't do HDR or 10bit without dither

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=332180
 wesk05 (who does full analysis of HDMI outputs using high-end HDMI test equipment) has posted that the Vero 4K appears not to have the 8bit+dither issue that other S905X platforms have - so this may be a kernel issue.

It's also important to remember that HDR EOTF (which is just a flag in the HDMI stream with some metadata in some cases), Colour space and Colour gamut are all independent of each other - though can be linked.  You also have bandwidth limitations on some devices that can be an issue.  This is a complex area, made more difficult by poor quality/incomplete documentation by SoC manufacturers it seems.

Bit depth can be : 8 bit, 10 bit and 12 bit (16 bit is also supported in standards)  Not all bit depths are supported at all frame rates / resolutions / colour spaces.

Colour space can be : 4:2:0 YCbCr, 4:2:2YCbCr and 4:4:4 YCbCr using Rec 601, Rec 709 or Rec 2020 YCbCr<->RGB matrices or RGB (which is 4:4:4).  The relationships between YCbCr and RGB are different in all three colour spaces - so you have to be careful not to treat Rec 601, Rec 709 and Rec 2020 YCbCr in the wrong way. Not all colour spaces are supported at all bit depths and frame rates - and supported combinations change with frame rates (<=30 vs >30).   (There are also non YCbCr standards appearing too - ICtCp is one which is nearer constant luminance. Dolby seem to be investigating it... YCbcYCrc is a constant luminance version of YCbCr but doesn't seem to be going anywhere?)

Colour gamut can be : Rec 601, Rec 709 or Rec 2020 - and is independent of the Colour space chosen to carry the signal. These define what actual colours the R, G and B primaries are in each system.  (Rec 601 and Rec 709 are essentially identical but Rec 2020 is very different and much wider- hence Rec 2020 often being called WCG - Wide Colour Gamut) You can map Rec 709 content accurately and essentially losslessly into Rec 2020, but you can't map full Rec 2020 into Rec 709 without losing information, using techniques like tone-mapping to work out how to cope with colours that are valid in Rec 2020 but which are outside the space that Rec 709 can carry.  

EOTF can be : unflagged (so default to SDR gamma), flagged SDR (so force to SDR gamma - BT.1886), flagged HLG (which is backwards compatible with SDR and uses ARIB STD-B67, also present in Rec.2100 EOTF), flagged HDR10 (which isn't backwards compatible with SDR, and uses a PQ ST.2084 EOTF (also part of Rec.2100) with static metadata using ST.2086 for things like max and average light level etc., plus white point mastering colour temperature etc) plus Dolby Vision and HDR10+.

(Some people use Colour Space to include both YCbCr representation and colour gamut - but it is helpful to remember colour gamut is a separate issue, and I know in broadcast circles gamut is used to describe the Rec 709 vs Rec 2020 difference)

Also you will often see people talk about 444 10bit support and HDR content - but 444 10bit doesn't exist at 2160p50 or 2160p60 in the HDMI 2.0/2.0a standards .

444 10 bit only exists at 2160p30 and below (so fine for most UHD HDR movies which are 23.976p- but not for HDR TV or HFR movies like Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk which are 50p or 59.94p). There is no official HDMI 422 10 bit standard at 2160p resolutions either. When people talk about 422 10 bit they are usually describing a 422 12 bit signal with no content in the 2 lsbs (so its 10 bit data carried in a 12 bit signal)

For 2160p at <=30Hz you have RGB and 444 support at 8, 10, 12 and 16 bit in the HDMI standard, and 422 support at 12 bit only.
For 2160p at >=50Hz you have RGB and 444 support at 8 bit only (so not really suitable for HDR), and 420 support at 8, 10, 12 and 16 bit (420 8 bit at 2160p50 and 60 squeezes into HDMI 1.4b bandwidth), and 422 at 12 bit only.
Updated Vero 4K+ has been announced.
Looking forward for the full characteristics (should be today).
Veron4k+
Features same processor faster emc storage, higher clocked gpu, larger heatsink.
Gigabit ethernet.

So s905x still
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