[jepsizofye]

@ontap the lack of gigabit in your instance not using streaming services would indeed affect you because this would be used for accessing your 4k bluray rips on your local nas - assuming thats how you have your media

[calev]

...What is nuts is that you can get an S905X4 box with Gigabit Ethernet (though it takes a bit of searching) that runs CoreElec for less than £50.

I just stuck coreelec on a S905X3 box I bought a while back for 46$. Has 64 gig emmc,4 gigs of ram, gigabit ethernet. And it works really really well. Basically better than a raspberry pi 4 in every regard atleast in my opinion. Plays everything I throw at it. Auto configured with a mce remote with the shippped ir receiver and works with cec. 

Another thing I like about these coreelec boxes is you can install docker. I point my docker images storage location to a sd card for cheap storage and can have it do server duties at the same time. 

Mean while people are paying 200$ for raspberry pi 4's when they could probably just get a cheap android box and slap coreelec/librelec and have it do the same stuff.

[jepsizofye]

you cant leave us with a cliffhanger @calev ... what device? got a link?

[calev]

you cant leave us with a cliffhanger @calev ... what device? got a link?

I got this one,x96 max plus 4gb ram, 64gb emmc, gigabite ethernet varient. I have no idea how this ranks to other cheap boxes. So I can't say which is best. (Some people said this box has poor thermals but I have not noticed) I don't think it supports hdr although i'm not sure. I know it does 4k h.265 60fps fine. I got it because I thought it looks nice and it was cheap. I wanted a box under 80$ and without google play ads. Took like 2 months to arrive from ali express. As long as these kind of boxes are available I see no reason for anyone to get a rpi4 if they are only planning to use kodi as this runs kodi probably better and cheaper. rpi4 is better for desktop linux and using a web browser. So that could be a reason but not really related to kodi. 

Basically I set up a sd card with the insturctions from coreelec. Booted it up with that in the device while holding a hidden button in the a/v port. Took a few tries to time it right. And my sd card was done wrong the first few times (so that had to be corrected. I forgot the correct extension). Then I ran a coreelec tool  to copy the sd card over the the internal emmc and it just runs like a tank now. I put it upstairs on my older dumb 1080P tv. It renders my 4k files over the network fine. I even play them over wifi but it's really close to a wifi router.

[jepsizofye]

right on
i buy devices all the time just to solve my boredom (take them apart, dissect their software, learn new things) and this may actually be interesting for trying out coreelec and at a cheap price even

[ontap]

@jepsizofye Have 4TB of content , but none is higher than 1080p. Fortunately 

[jepsizofye]

then you'll be fine @ontap ...

-----

otherwise for everyone following along, i ordered a cheap android so ill be able to test some things and report my findings

Specs:

Brand/Model: HK1 Rbox
CPU: S905X4
GPU: Mali-G31 MP2
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 64GB

Debatable Specs (that I will have to verify):
Ethernet: 1000M
USB: 1x 2.0, 1x 3.0

Other:
Price: $65
Not Google Certified - So no widevine stuff (probably)
Rootable via Settings (probably)
TF Card Slot (maybe for coreelec to install to)

Heres a review video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52uAD1JnYj8

Intention: play around with the pre-installed android until i get bored then install coreelec and play with that until i get bored. report anything interesting back here such as verified questionable specs and actual use performance.

i also ordered an extra 64GB microsd for it so itll have 128GB

[ontap]

Do you see any noticeable difference in running CoreELEC on the box internally  rather than from the SD card ?

[jepsizofye]

Do you see any noticeably in running CoreELEC on the box internally  rather than from the SD card ?

we will find that out, i was only hoping to go external storage for it to avoid wiping the internal storage and thereby avoiding having to backup the internal storage first

EDIT:

on reading the actual directions it seems it is only intended to run from an sdcard and not from internal storage. this should be interesting

[ontap]

Unless I am reading it wrong , it looked to me that @calev above was saying that he had installed it from his USB drive onto the internal emmc ?

[jepsizofye]

i saw the same thing. maybe after initial boot it installs to internal.

https://discourse.coreelec.org/t/how-to-...reelec/677

[calev]

Unless I am reading it wrong , it looked to me that @calev above was saying that he had installed it from his USB drive onto the internal emmc ?

Yes. coreelec comes with a Propriatary tool to copy the sdcard to the internal memory. Once you manage to boot from the sdcard you just ssh in and run,

ceemmc -x

That will copy the sdcard to the internal memory.

I personally did not notice a huge performance increase from going from sdcard to internal memory though I suspect it does run a little faster. I'm just not sure how to measure it in a meaningful way. 

I was never planing to use the android os and felt it was just a waste of storage to leave the emmc unused. And that also free's up the sdcard slot to use for extra compact storage so why not?

[jepsizofye]

perfect. thanks calev.

[jepsizofye]

ive got this partially setup and working, so far not unimpressed

skipped the android experience on this device and went straight to coreelec

verified 1000M lan
wifi isnt up for 4k bluray remux, not that its at all surprising

dolby atmos passthrough is working but it has a delay after video start, no audio for 2-3 seconds but it could be due to anything in my setup
dts-hd ma 7.1 passthrough is not working
cec control is working

i was able to pair my old firetv cube remote to it in coreelec via bluetooth relatively easy
the remote that came with it does not work out of the box with coreelec, there should be some easy config to do
since i had to do something anyway i just went for my old one as its more comfortable to me anyway

a dolby vision movie is showing HDR+ on my tv
color tones look good on a dolby vision but im still trying to find an accurate way to differentiate HDR+ and DV
irregardless whether its actually displaying DV on my TV i still want to know if its being delivered like i can see on the gen3 cube

there is a nice aesthetic to having full root access and ssh

lsusb reports both a 480M and a 5000M USB present so the USB 3.0 port is confirmed
i tested it with a seagate portable 5TB and it surprisingly worked perfectly though the low power 5v power supply i might not recommend powering a portable drive from the port

other notes

the paired remote does not turn the box on/off so only the original remote works atm for powering up
definitely need a usb keyboard on hand for initial setup and its better to have a generic one, i tried an expensive one first and it didnt work with coreelec, a $15 one from the bottom drawer worked perfectly


once tested i connected it to the firetv gen3 hdmi input and so far im still getting audio passthrough (HK1->Cube Gen3->Soundbar)
and cec from the 3rd gen is working to control the HK1 so itll be good for an in-cabinet installation

im going to test awhile longer and see how it goes
this so far indicates to me that the coreelec team has done some wonderful work on the hardware side to allow team kodi's hard work to shine

i am testing with coreelec image "CoreELEC-Amlogic-ne.arm-20.1-Nexus_nightly_20230219-Generic"

[ontap]

So when you say CEC is working but the FTV remote you are using isn't turning off the box , is it turning off the TV ? That would be OK for me I assume the box will go into low powered sleep mode anyway ?