[looun]

thanx @hdmkv: been reading a while and never realised that! with zidoo that is NOT the case as kodi-fork image is much inferior to native zidoo player...interesting

please tell me, or try at least

1- do you think we will soon see a STABLE kodi 17 for hisilicon/pro q ? zidoo is working on their fork, and minix with U9 has already a very stable release....so

I can answer some of these....and provide general info...

Reality check !

Firstly lets not get carried away with the word "very Stable" until proper serious testing has been done across a wide range of Video and Audio codecs for the shiny new U9. If you want relatively stable Kodi (compared to Android) use LibreELEC Kodi. There will be some nice surprises in store for LibreELEC Kodi v18 ;-)

kodi 17 is stable with hisilicon box , not crash o any issues , but the is two limitation:

1) new IEC61937 API for Audio passtrought not work ,output Audio is 2.0 PCM, we try push many times to fix this....
kodi 16/SPMC work RAW for DD and DTS.

2) permission problem for HI-Frequency Switcher http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2463399 , but there is a work-round.

2- for kodi 18 and 19 (yes we are way off....), which soc will most likely be future proof between amlogic s912/hisilicon v200 and realtek 1295 ? (i know ideal would be intel/amd pc with w10!)

Future proofing has got to involve DolbyVision - and that will all depend on Firmware support and Dolby Licensing - especially if a Firmware upgrade can enable DV metadata extraction by just using the media players CPU.
Even though SoC's may support DV, you still need to the Firmware support to enable such features. And Software to enable use of this.

no more need special chip for dolby vision can be done by software https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/25/dolb...-software/

you see i am still undecided between zidoo/himedia q pro and minix U9....and this is a serious criteria....
3- which of the 3 players (minix u9 is recent, but based from your knowledge on amlogic s905...) offer the better interlaced upscaling for live tv ?

hardware interlaced and upscaling work very i use THX WOW! for test.
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2450203