New upgrade PC to support all 4k Playback hardware accel Support Help..
#1
HI all

I have been wanting to upgrade my 15-year-old i3 HTPC running XBMX 12.1 windows 7 to the latest 4K support. I have been looking at the Intel Core 13-1200T or any other CPU that supports built in GPU to be able to support HDMI 2.1 and all the formats that are out there. is this a wise choice ? or a amd CPU. or not to bother and still wait for something that supports all things that i might of missed ?

I am looking to get a 4k AMP and TV this year and wanted to upgrade my system. I Have read i need windows 11 because it supports better HDR and 4K is this true ? 

Am i wasting my time or is there things i need to look out for and which is the better support for kodi for playback all standards.H.264 codec (also known as AVC), VP9 and AV1 hardware support.

thanks all
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#2
(2022-03-26, 09:30)meridius Wrote: HI all

I have been wanting to upgrade my 15-year-old i3 HTPC running XBMX 12.1 windows 7 to the latest 4K support. I have been looking at the Intel Core 13-1200T or any other CPU that supports built in GPU to be able to support HDMI 2.1 and all the formats that are out there. is this a wise choice ? or a amd CPU. or not to bother and still wait for something that supports all things that i might of missed ?

I am looking to get a 4k AMP and TV this year and wanted to upgrade my system. I Have read i need windows 11 because it supports better HDR and 4K is this true ? 

Am i wasting my time or is there things i need to look out for and which is the better support for kodi for playback all standards.H.264 codec (also known as AVC), VP9 and AV1 hardware support.

thanks all

The key codec you'll require for a lot of UHD material is h.265/HEVC - as that is the codec used for UHD Blu-ray, and by a lot of the DRM streaming services (though they may also now be using AV1 on some platforms - though this is a pretty new codec).

HDR10 is the most widespread HDR format (it's the core HDR format that UHD Blu-rays use) - and ideally playback solutions will pass-through and use the static HDR metadata this format supports (though some TVs ignore it)

Dolby Vision is a much trickier HDR format to support (though it can deliver higher quality HDR than HDR10) - and really still only relevant for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV+ DRM services etc., and Dolby Vision UHD Blu-rays played on a UHD Blu-ray player, though those services and discs will fall back to HDR10 if you don't have DV.  

HLG is used mainly by TV broadcasters (all the BBC iPlayer UHD HDR stuff is in HLG for instance).  

HDR10+ is an improved version of HDR10 that offers some of the dynamic data benefits of Dolby Vision (but not a lot of the other DV benefits)

Almost all Kodi platforms that support UHD HDR are limited to HDR10 (and some have HLG support and HDR10+). Some platforms people run Kodi on will support Dolby Vision outside of Kodi - and one or two support some limited DV formats within Kodi.

A lot of us moved away from HTPCs when UHD & HDR arrived, and started using smaller, cheaper, quieter ARM-based SBCs and TV boxes that could run LibreElec or CoreElec (which are Linx OS distributions optimised for Kodi use) that run silently and support HD and UHD hardware decoding of the main formats (h.264/AVC, h.265/HEVC, MPEG2, VC-1 etc.) along side both HD Audio bit streaming (including Atmos) or lossless decode to mulitichannel PCM.  These boards and boxes are in the <$200 and in some cases <$100 area - and offer pretty much all the video playback that HTPCs do (and support HDR10, HLG, SDR etc. switching and metadata in ways that Windows doesn't as easily do so).  You end up paying less for the entire ARM system than you would pay for for just an Intel CPU, or motherboard or GPU or in some cases PSU and Case, and you avoid any fans.  (A lot of us store our media on servers connected to our players over a network connection, with the noisier server located away from our viewing environment)

Linux driver support for HDR on Intel CPU/GPUs is lagging behind the ARM stuff too - though some improvements have been made in this regard.  Windows support for HDR does exist - but it's a much more complex proposition for Windows to cope with HDR than LibreElec or CoreElec on ARM.

Where Intel (Windows and Linux) platforms and HTPCs do still often have the edge is in super slick UI response and CPU-intensive skins, as well as the option to use your PC for CPU-intensive stuff like retro game emulation.  However for pure media playback duties with a relatively straightforward skin - ARM boxes or boards have definitely started eclipsing HTPCs for many.
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#3
Thanks for that. I  Forgot all about atmos as that’s important to  and It will be used mainly for just media. So what ARM box is the best to get to support all formats like atmos. Hdr and 4K ?  So what happens if you wanted a gaming pc later on is the windows pc htpc now dead and not good for all new 4K hdr atmos playback And will not be supported in the future and what hardware would be best if I am considering it. 

thanks.
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#4
(2022-03-26, 10:39)noggin Wrote: <snip>

Where Intel (Windows and Linux) platforms and HTPCs do still often have the edge is in super slick UI response and CPU-intensive skins, as well as the option to use your PC for CPU-intensive stuff like retro game emulation.  However for pure media playback duties with a relatively straightforward skin - ARM boxes or boards have definitely started eclipsing HTPCs for many.

Great post! I'd only add that as the OP mentioned getting a new TV, he may not even need to get a standalone Kodi box. My Sony 55A80J runs Kodi flawlessly, including HDR and 4K playback. I also no longer use my Apple TV for Netflix and other apps as the TV apps are just as good. I was very pleasantly surprised by all this. The A80J runs Google TV, and maintaining my Kodi installation is just like maintaining a Chromecast with Google TV - turn on developer options and use adb.

OTOH, as you said, nothing compares to a PC WRT UI performance. The A80J and CCwGTV are very slightly slower to do things like load movie icons when I enter "wall" view and update/clean libraries, but it's essentially negligible and so worth it to get out of the PC business for running Kodi. Android on these devices has given me flawless playback, while PCs have had little occasional video glitches for me going back years. That said, people with large libraries will have to do something about the thumbnails, as these devices typically don't have enough storage. I've moved the whole .kodi folder onto an SSD as I have a rather large library, though I expect a thumb drive would have served just as well, while all my media is on my file server.
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#5
(2022-03-26, 19:42)crawfish Wrote:
(2022-03-26, 10:39)noggin Wrote: <snip>

Where Intel (Windows and Linux) platforms and HTPCs do still often have the edge is in super slick UI response and CPU-intensive skins, as well as the option to use your PC for CPU-intensive stuff like retro game emulation.  However for pure media playback duties with a relatively straightforward skin - ARM boxes or boards have definitely started eclipsing HTPCs for many.

Great post! I'd only add that as the OP mentioned getting a new TV, he may not even need to get a standalone Kodi box. My Sony 55A80J runs Kodi flawlessly, including HDR and 4K playback. I also no longer use my Apple TV for Netflix and other apps as the TV apps are just as good. I was very pleasantly surprised by all this. The A80J runs Google TV, and maintaining my Kodi installation is just like maintaining a Chromecast with Google TV - turn on developer options and use adb.

OTOH, as you said, nothing compares to a PC WRT UI performance. The A80J and CCwGTV are very slightly slower to do things like load movie icons when I enter "wall" view and update/clean libraries, but it's essentially negligible and so worth it to get out of the PC business for running Kodi. Android on these devices has given me flawless playback, while PCs have had little occasional video glitches for me going back years. That said, people with large libraries will have to do something about the thumbnails, as these devices typically don't have enough storage. I've moved the whole .kodi folder onto an SSD as I have a rather large library, though I expect a thumb drive would have served just as well, while all my media is on my file server.

Ah - does Sony Android TV now support refresh rate switching in Android apps?  My Sony Android TV runs all Android apps at a fixed 59.94Hz (or possibly 60Hz) - just like the CCwGTV does - so 25/50Hz stuff judders really badly, and 23.976fps stuff has 3:2 (though you can remove this with some MotionFlow settings - though I have Motion Flow fully disabled on my TV).  

Hbbtv apps run fine at 50Hz though on my TV - so iPlayer is great.
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#6
(2022-03-26, 23:49)noggin Wrote: Ah - does Sony Android TV now support refresh rate switching in Android apps?  My Sony Android TV runs all Android apps at a fixed 59.94Hz (or possibly 60Hz) - just like the CCwGTV does - so 25/50Hz stuff judders really badly, and 23.976fps stuff has 3:2 (though you can remove this with some MotionFlow settings - though I have Motion Flow fully disabled on my TV).  

Hbbtv apps run fine at 50Hz though on my TV - so iPlayer is great.

No, the apps are all still fixed at 60 Hz. The 3:2 pulldown is done by Cinemotion, and I have it set to "Low", which works great for 24 Hz. My understanding is you should have it set to "High" for 50 Hz, but I don't have any experience with that. MotionFlow is all about frame interpolation and black frame insertion.
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#7
Any recommendations on ARM or pc based intel,nvidia or amd.
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#8
so no help on this at all then ?
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New upgrade PC to support all 4k Playback hardware accel Support Help..0