[bla.blub]

Hi,

i hope this is the correct place for this question

i want to change my current setup since i have finally a 4k tv ( Panasonic TX-65FXW784 https://www.panasonic.com/de/consumer/fl...xw784.html )

TV: 4k, 100hz Panel, HDR(+) / HLG

my current setup:
CPU/GPU i3 6th gen  + pulse8 hdmi/cec adapter
OS: win10 + kodi beta
Sound: FiiO E10K (USB Amp) + BD 1990 Pro Headphones (250 ohm)
storage 6x 6TB WD RED 
media: lokal media files only: x264(mkv/mp4) x265  8-12bit   PAL & NTSC     / some twitch and youtube

my plan was to keep the pc as nas (9w idle power consumpion), and get a deticated mediaplayer NUC NUC8i3BEK or i5 or ryzen apu.

should i prefer the nuc over the ryzen, or is there something else ? (mediadb backup is currently ~14gb)

[utsc]

I am looking for an inexpensive but responsive STB to play a very large  m3u playlist. 

I currently use MAG 254 STB and have  added m3u playlist to the IPTV channels in MAG254.
However MAG 254 is very slow and the home menu (channel list) takes forever to load. 

The X88 PRO box can be purchased US $ 30 including shipping.  However there are negatives views posted in this forum  about  poor support / fw updates and source custom coding used in RK chips.

Any recommendation for an inexpensive but responsive stb  to  play a very large m3u playlist

[auren]

Should Wetek still be on the list? Both the Wetek Hub and Wetek Play 2 looks like abandoned products already. Even their newly launched Wetek Air also looks abandoned. No support or response team on their forums.

[wrxtasy]

Should Wetek still be on the list? Both the Wetek Hub and Wetek Play 2 looks like abandoned products already. Even their newly launched Wetek Air also looks abandoned. No support or response team on their forums.

I really need to do a bit of a cleanup of post #1 for Kodi Leia. As Android OS device yes they are discontinued and there are better options these days....

WeTek Hub / Play2 are still decent SDR - Android Kodi Leia devices if you can get them cheap, because they are one of the few that does auto Android Kodi Frame Rate Matching and has legit HDCP 2.2 / Widevine L1 DRM - for 1080p (and 4K) streaming, when using the Kodi Leia Netflix Addon.

Plus inbuilt Gigabit Ethernet is great especially if you are dual booting and running the well sorted CoreELEC Kodi Leia release.

[wrxtasy]

I am looking for an inexpensive but responsive STB to play a very large  m3u playlist. 

I currently use MAG 254 STB and have  added m3u playlist to the IPTV channels in MAG254.
However MAG 254 is very slow and the home menu (channel list) takes forever to load. 

The X88 PRO box can be purchased US $ 30 including shipping.  However there are negatives views posted in this forum  about  poor support / fw updates and source custom coding used in RK chips.

Any recommendation for an inexpensive but responsive stb  to  play a very large m3u playlist

You might want to look at the new, reasonably snappy AML S905X2 chipset and get an all in one, Google certified Mecool KM3 (click)

However if any of your IPTV content contains Interlaced material then you need to run a Linux based OS like CoreELEC to do proper deinterlacing of that type of video content.
Excellent bang for the buck for that is a cheap, pretty powerful $30 AMLogic S912 device (click) and run the CE OS (click) from a Class 10 U1 microSDHC card on that.
A well proven Kodi combo.
I must admit these S912's are getting cheap damn these days.

The Amazon FireTV Stick 4K is also great value too and is pretty snappy, reasonably well sorted device for the price paid.

Stay away from cheap Android Rockchip devices, they have neither the flexibility of the AML S9xx range for easy dual boot OS setups and virtually stuff all support presently.

[auren]

Should Wetek still be on the list? Both the Wetek Hub and Wetek Play 2 looks like abandoned products already. Even their newly launched Wetek Air also looks abandoned. No support or response team on their forums.

I really need to do a bit of a cleanup of post #1 for Kodi Leia. As Android OS device yes they are discontinued and there are better options these days....

WeTek Hub / Play2 are still decent SDR - Android Kodi Leia devices if you can get them cheap, because they are one of the few that does auto Android Kodi Frame Rate Matching and has legit HDCP 2.2 / Widevine L1 DRM - for 1080p (and 4K) streaming, when using the Kodi Leia Netflix Addon.

Plus inbuilt Gigabit Ethernet is great especially if you are dual booting and running the well sorted CoreELEC Kodi Leia release.

Good point :-)

[CraigHB]

Is there any Android TV box (chromecast, kodi, netflix...) with refresh rate working and good upscaler for SD /720p content ? (1080p output tv)

Guess the best solution for now is to keep Kodi running on my rpi, and buy a cheap MiBox for Netflix, MyCanal and chromecast (with the refresh rate by application utility)

For what it's worth, my wife insisted we get a Netflix sub the other day so I went and installed the Netflix add-on to my Odroid-N2 running CoreELEC 9.0.3.  i got the addon from here (https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=329767).  It was a bit complicated to set up, but I got it going no problem.

In that thread I mentioned I was only getting 720p, but it's varying depending on the selection.  I just watched a movie on Neftlix that was coming down the pipe at 1080p.  Of course I don't get HW acceleration, but with the N2's powerful processor CPU utilization didn't get past 30% and it didn't even get warm.  Picture quality was perfect with audio passthru decoded by my AVR. 

The N2 is doing the scaling for Netflix content that is not 1080p (TV is 1080p) and it seems to do a good job.  All in all I'm a pretty happy Netflix user.

[wrxtasy]

You will find now with various Linux Kodi devices, such as when video is being Software decoded with the Leia Netflix Addon...

You can select, from the OSD > Video Settings - Lanczos3-optimised upscaling to noticeably sharpen up SD video output all thanks to a recent GLES patch by @kszaq (click)

Be aware when using Linux Kodi Leia & the Netflix Addon, there seems to be movies (eg. The Meg) - which are not Netflix originals - that will only streaming in a Max. 960x540p resolution, no matter what you do.
Android Kodi Leia & the Netflix Addon used on devices with legit Widevine L1 baked into Firmware will stream the same content in 1080p

[ozkhan1]

Question about firestick 4K. What are it’s biggrst limitations besides lack of gigabit Ethernet? I went through the threads but they are so long I couldn’t find this exact info. Can someone please summarize here? Thx.

I am of course thinking about playing high bit rate files (hd and ultrahd)

[JavaLawyer]

I hope someone can help...

I am looking for a prefab Kodi box with the following attributes:

1. Boots to Kodi
2. Internal HDD

Most off-the-shelf products don't have an internal HDD (or only support external storage).

Can someone point me in the right direction for options?  Preferably not something too expensive.  Also not looking to build from scratch.

[Zoltrix]

Hi all,

Quick question, I've got a fairly old HTPC with an Intel i7 CPU, etc. Looking to add 4k playback. Could I just add a new video card to achieve this, without upgrading the motherboard and CPU?

Cheers,
Zolt

[Cinephile]

Hi all,

Quick question, I've got a fairly old HTPC with an Intel i7 CPU, etc. Looking to add 4k playback. Could I just add a new video card to achieve this, without upgrading the motherboard and CPU?

Cheers,
Zolt

Sure, if you leave hardware acceleration enabled.

[HarlequinMKD]

Hi guys,

About to buy my first android box, so I guess I'm newbie. I went around the forum, did some reading, and I was about to buy the Minix Neo U9
I understand its two years old, so I wanted to check with you if I can get something similar within the price range 50-70$, which is same or even better than the U9-H?
I will use it only for IPTV and perhaps Kodi. No games no apps other than those two.
Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

[wrxtasy]

Hi guys,

About to buy my first android box, so I guess I'm newbie. I went around the forum, did some reading, and I was about to buy the Minix Neo U9
I understand its two years old, so I wanted to check with you if I can get something similar within the price range 50-70$, which is same or even better than the U9-H?

If you need an Android device with Kodi Leia auto Frame Rate Matching for properly smooth video playback & HD audio pass through then choices are really limited.
The mainstream Android devices for that are the Nvidia Shield, Mi Box and the MINIX U9.

I will use it only for IPTV and perhaps Kodi. No games no apps other than those two.
Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

Why not get a microSDHC card (& adapter) then and simply flash CoreELEC Kodi Leia to it ?
It will be better vs using Android Kodi for out of the box easy, slick Kodi usage.

Kodi has its own IPTV Simple Client addon you can easily add m3u lists to.

The MINIX U9 works nicely for CE usage, I can also dual boot easily into Android.

---

There is the reasonably cheap Mecool KM3 about that is running a snappy version of Android TV OS Pie 9.0 that will run Kodi OK if auto Frame Rate matching or HD audio are not really that important.
See the Chigztech KM3 YouTube review (click)

If the IPTV App is a regular tablet/touchscreen App you will need an Air Mouse remote to be able to control it properly. The MINIX A2 lite works well for that. Android TV OS devices do not come with Air Mouse remotes.

Be aware the Android TV OS and the regular tablet/phone Google Playstores are separate. Their Apps also have different remote control requirements as well.

[HarlequinMKD]

Hi guys,

About to buy my first android box, so I guess I'm newbie. I went around the forum, did some reading, and I was about to buy the Minix Neo U9
I understand its two years old, so I wanted to check with you if I can get something similar within the price range 50-70$, which is same or even better than the U9-H?

If you need an Android device with Kodi Leia auto Frame Rate Matching for properly smooth video playback & HD audio pass through then choices are really limited.
The mainstream Android devices for that are the Nvidia Shield, Mi Box and the MINIX U9.

I will use it only for IPTV and perhaps Kodi. No games no apps other than those two.
Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

Why not get a microSDHC card (& adapter) then and simply flash CoreELEC Kodi Leia to it ?
It will be better vs using Android Kodi for out of the box easy, slick Kodi usage.

Kodi has its own IPTV Simple Client addon you can easily add m3u lists to.

The MINIX U9 works nicely for CE usage, I can also dual boot easily into Android.

---

There is the reasonably cheap Mecool KM3 about that is running a snappy version of Android TV OS Pie 9.0 that will run Kodi OK if auto Frame Rate matching or HD audio are not really that important.
See the Chigztech KM3 YouTube review (click)

If the IPTV App is a regular tablet/touchscreen App you will need an Air Mouse remote to be able to control it properly. The MINIX A2 lite works well for that. Android TV OS devices do not come with Air Mouse remotes.

Be aware the Android TV OS and the regular tablet/phone Google Playstores are separate. Their Apps also have different remote control requirements as well. 

First of all, thx for your prompt reply.
The world is a better place, with forum members like yourself.

As much as I love to play around with tech, I'm not sure I can do the method you suggested, with the sdhc card.
I guess the choice comes down to Mecool K3 / U9-H (double the price of k3) or the Mi Box, since the Shield is way too expensive for me.
HD audio is not priority.

So all in all, is the K3 best bang for busk or not?