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+--- Thread: Best Kodi Media Player Options 2024 (/showthread.php?tid=376035)
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - clarkss12 - 2024-03-19
(2024-03-19, 18:43)haxrune32 Wrote: I've been using Odroid N2 for the past years with corelec and previous to that I was using intel mini pc with Kodi.
My Odroid N2 has stopped powering on and I need a replacement device to watch movies.
My requirements
I need something similar to Odroid N2 which will play UHD, DTS HD, Atmos , And all the older codecs
I don't need Dolby Vision as my TV/Projector don't support it.
I require at least 2 spare USB ports as I have all my movies on 1 USB drive and all my Tv shows on another USB drive.
I don't stream anything but like to have the internet for Youtube Trailers.
I need something what will work well with my AV Receiver Denon x2500H and have auto framerate switching and passthrough audios to my 7.1 speaker setup.
From reading through these forums it seems like my Odroid N2 was my best option which I enjoyed all the time it was working.
I don't have much spare money but need something what will work as good as the Odroid N2 while it lasted. I'm thinking about an Odroid N2+ or Mini PC something like N100 or any other recommendation?
Many Thanks
Rune
IMHO, I will still take the TOX3 (Amlogic S905X4) for an inexpensive media player running CoreELEC.
Just as your Odroid N2, it plays EVERYHTING under CE. The nice thing about it, it is sub $50 USD from Aliexpress. It is one of my favorite media players, because it runs cooler than my other Amlogic S905X4 boxes.
It only has one USB3 and one USB2 ports, but it does have a micorSD card slot for CE. The simple remote is IR, but there is a code for it to use under CE. You can also, run CE directly from the internal nand, so NO Android.
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - emveepee - 2024-03-19
(2024-03-19, 01:47)hdmkv Wrote: Ha ha, yes, this hobby is definitely an addiction
. My first media players were Popcorn Hour & WD TV boxes.
My first player wasn't the PCH but I still think the A110 was the best player for the time ever. HD for MPEG, H264, HE-AAC, audio pass etc were revolutionary. Having a look at this thread about XBMC on the PCH http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=40300 brings back fond memories of a great community too. Wish it had happened.
The player marked pretty much changed with other projects like GeexBox, OpenELEC and Pivos for Android (including davilla for keeping it opensource) so props to the entire team supporting XBMC/Kodi on these players too. We continue to buy boxes looking for the greatest player ever but we can't do it or have threads like this without them.
Martin
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - Roby77 - 2024-03-20
Well as owner of Syabas PCH 110 ( I had a clone cross flashed with PCH 110 software), 200 and 500 was the best player for pq and usability but this remembered me that i got banned several times from their forum also If not official cause they don't accept any negative feedback lol ,also crossbanned cause here I post negative feedback
and the fact of not adopting Kodi but keeping it as a secondary project made it end up like Nokia did with Android
What a lost
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - Roby77 - 2024-03-22
Edit.it's not bad setup.but.atv12 bug or a bug of tvquickaction
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - grandpayum - 2024-03-26
i've recently picked up the ugoos box and have been using it for a few days. impressions so far are that it's a fairly good deal for the price. was about $140 during the aliexpress sales a few weeks ago and arrived pretty quick for something from aliexpress.
playback has so far been very smooth sailing with very few gripes. DV content works wonderfully, tv-led mode, cmv4.0, no flicker, etc with the current nightly build. Looks gorgeous on my LG CX. I have not found anything that won't play back correctly in a library of ~50 DV remuxes but tbf people on the coreelec forums have found some issues here and there, it's not perfect by any means. seeking works fine with streaming remux UHD content over gigabit wired connection from NAS. no issues with subtitles of any format including animated .ass subtitles.
the UI browsing is snappy although I haven't tried many skins yet, just the default and arctic fuse, which both were fine.
image quality is excellent. consistently triggers correct image mode on first play, HDR content consistently puts the tv into the HDR profile, DV into the DV profile, etc.
gripes, some (possibly many) of which are likely config issues on my part:
audio passthrough is not passing through atmos metadata. atmos truehd stream plays back on my receiver as just truehd. I assume this is a config issue, or maybe cabling. I also don't have my heights connected at the moment because i'm doing work on the ceiling; i'm not sure if my receiver disables atmos without those connected? that would make sense I suppose. otherwise audio passthrough is perfect and I've tested truehd, dts-ma, dts:x, dts, and several lossy specifically
hdmi-cec is 99% perfect with two major irritations. it won't turn on with cec. turning off with the stack works but turning on does not, I have to turn it on with the OEM remote. I assume this is a config issue because for the most part cec just worked and I haven't dug into the settings for it. the second irritant is specific to my TV, the LG magic remote on screen pointer disrupts cec control and there does not seem to be a way to integrate the magic remote portion into cec control. This is not the boxes fault and there are similar issues when using cec on other devices with the magic remote.
i am migrating from jellyfin - I used kodi for ages then migrated to plex for a short while then jellyfin. migrating back to kodi now because this was the best (and really only) option I could find for proper DV playback with audio passthrough. I kept the jellyfin server because I like having a central administration point for managing metadata and giving the option of my family to access the media library from their devices. That said, the jellyfin for kodi plugin currently has a bug that makes importing the movies library from a jellyfin server into kodi result in an empty library. you can still view movies if you just don't import them and view the library through the plugin but this is less than ideal and not as nice as having them imported and being able to browse the library natively. Only an issue for those who use jellyfin (and maybe plex, the bug impacted their plugin too but not sure if they've fixed it?). A fix was pushed but it did not fix the issue for me, hopefully that gets resolved eventually.
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - noggin - 2024-03-26
(2024-03-26, 09:27)grandpayum Wrote: audio passthrough is not passing through atmos metadata. atmos truehd stream plays back on my receiver as just truehd. I assume this is a config issue, or maybe cabling. I also don't have my heights connected at the moment because i'm doing work on the ceiling; i'm not sure if my receiver disables atmos without those connected? that would make sense I suppose. otherwise audio passthrough is perfect and I've tested truehd, dts-ma, dts:x, dts, and several lossy specificallyMy guess is that the Atmos issue is your receiver disabling Atmos if you can't listen in Atmos (i.e. no height speakers connected).
If you are getting True HD to your AVR (rather than PCM multichannel or Dolby Digital) then the Atmos extensions should be hitting it too (as they are part of the same data stream and the fact your receiver indicates True HD means you have HD Audio passthrough working).
It won't be the cable - HDMI audio is carried on the same data pins as the video signal (it sends the audio in the blanking period of the video signal)
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - grandpayum - 2024-03-26
(2024-03-26, 10:06)noggin Wrote:that makes sense. work on the ceiling will be continuing for at least another week unfortunately (hvac issues, ugh) but maybe I'll hook up some speakers to receiver just to test in the meantime(2024-03-26, 09:27)grandpayum Wrote: audio passthrough is not passing through atmos metadata. atmos truehd stream plays back on my receiver as just truehd. I assume this is a config issue, or maybe cabling. I also don't have my heights connected at the moment because i'm doing work on the ceiling; i'm not sure if my receiver disables atmos without those connected? that would make sense I suppose. otherwise audio passthrough is perfect and I've tested truehd, dts-ma, dts:x, dts, and several lossy specificallyMy guess is that the Atmos issue is your receiver disabling Atmos if you can't listen in Atmos (i.e. no height speakers connected).
If you are getting True HD to your AVR (rather than PCM multichannel or Dolby Digital) then the Atmos extensions should be hitting it too (as they are part of the same data stream and the fact your receiver indicates True HD means you have HD Audio passthrough working).
It won't be the cable - HDMI audio is carried on the same data pins as the video signal (it sends the audio in the blanking period of the video signal)
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - Theetjuh - 2024-03-26
(2024-03-26, 09:27)grandpayum Wrote: That said, the jellyfin for kodi plugin currently has a bug that makes importing the movies library from a jellyfin server into kodi result in an empty library. you can still view movies if you just don't import them and view the library through the plugin but this is less than ideal and not as nice as having them imported and being able to browse the library natively. Only an issue for those who use jellyfin (and maybe plex, the bug impacted their plugin too but not sure if they've fixed it?). A fix was pushed but it did not fix the issue for me, hopefully that gets resolved eventually.
I have no issues with the plugin with Kodi 20, or do you mean with Kodi 21?
There has been a new version, I think version 1.0.0 even, that has Kodi 21 fixes what I read from the changelog.
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - grandpayum - 2024-03-26
(2024-03-26, 18:02)Theetjuh Wrote:kodi 21, the fixes for kodi 21 aren't working for me. I posted about it and my logs on the github and others have as well, hopefully it gets fixed.(2024-03-26, 09:27)grandpayum Wrote: That said, the jellyfin for kodi plugin currently has a bug that makes importing the movies library from a jellyfin server into kodi result in an empty library. you can still view movies if you just don't import them and view the library through the plugin but this is less than ideal and not as nice as having them imported and being able to browse the library natively. Only an issue for those who use jellyfin (and maybe plex, the bug impacted their plugin too but not sure if they've fixed it?). A fix was pushed but it did not fix the issue for me, hopefully that gets resolved eventually.
I have no issues with the plugin with Kodi 20, or do you mean with Kodi 21?
There has been a new version, I think version 1.0.0 even, that has Kodi 21 fixes what I read from the changelog.
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - hdmkv - 2024-03-27
@grandpayum, I concur with your assessments on Ugoos AM6B+. Been running tests for 2 days & I'm impressed with CoreELEC performance with (like you noted) DV TV-led, Profile 7, CMv4.0, no flicker (only tested 'Saving Private Ryan' UHD intro for now) working well. Haven't done install to internal eMMc storage yet, but I expect that'll make the box even snappier. ATMOS & DTS:X is working fine for me, with height effects intact. This may well become my primary 2D media player going forward... only missing feature (other than 3D MVC) is Dolby VS10 processing.
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - ashlar - 2024-03-27
(2024-03-27, 01:45)hdmkv Wrote: @grandpayum, I concur with your assessments on Ugoos AM6B+. Been running tests for 2 days & I'm impressed with CoreELEC performance with (like you noted) DV TV-led, Profile 7, CMv4.0, no flicker (only tested 'Saving Private Ryan' UHD intro for now) working well. Haven't done install to internal eMMc storage yet, but I expect that'll make the box even snappier. ATMOS & DTS:X is working fine for me, with height effects intact. This may well become my primary 2D media player going forward... only missing feature (other than 3D MVC) is Dolby VS10 processing.How smooth is it with skins more complex than Estuary? Compared to Vero4K, for instance.
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - hdmkv - 2024-03-28
I'm using Arctic: Zephyr - Reloaded. Quite smooth. Smoother than Vero 4K/4K+ & V. Fire Cube 3 still has edge in being the snappiest performer for me, but Ugoos w/CE is a close second.
Edit: Didn't know CE can't be installed to the internal flash storage (eMMc) with DV-capable boxes, but even using mSD card, performance is still snappy.
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - grandpayum - 2024-03-28
(2024-03-28, 02:54)hdmkv Wrote: I'm using Arctic: Zephyr - Reloaded. Quite smooth. Smoother than Vero 4K/4K+ & V. Fire Cube 3 still has edge in being the snappiest performer for me, but Ugoos w/CE is a close second.hopefully one day the emmc install is possible
Edit: Didn't know CE can't be installed to the internal flash storage (eMMc) with DV-capable boxes, but even using mSD card, performance is still snappy.
I was using arctic fuse and found it to be quite responsive; the only time I really see issues are during initial boot during the jellyfin plugin load (which is brief) and occasionally when loading very large media the UI becomes unresponsive for a moment. Plan to test more skins this weekend.
also fwiw I was able to get movies to load with jellyfin for kodi by inserting a value into the videoversiontype table with "INSERT INTO videoversiontype ( itemType, owner, name, id ) VALUES ( 0, 0, 'Standard Edition', 40400 );" on the MyVideos db. this a temporary fix for the issue mentioned in the github prior to the 1.0.0 release and it appears to still work as a workaround for kodi 21 with jellyfin for kodi 1.0.0. It's a hacky fix that make all movies the standard edition regardless of how they are tagged but they will at least appear and then the plugin works normally, scans for added movies and adds them as needed, etc.
edit: alternatively it appears an actual solution is to just ssh in and delete the myvideos db, reboot, and then repair libraries with the jf plugin. this repopulates the videoversiontype table as it should be (and possibly any other potential db creation issues that may be lingering in there)
overall after watching media on this for several days now I'm liking it more and more. my only issue really is I still can't get it to turn on and display image with HDMI-CEC. It does turn on but the tv says no signal despite both the tv and avr inputs saying coreelec. I can also use the tv remote to navigate and hear kodi UI sounds so maybe it's a handshake issue? powering it off and on with the device remote resolves it and image comes back. tbf I haven't really looked into it all that much yet. will dig into that more this weekend as well
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - hdmkv - 2024-03-29
So, in the same CE thread I linked, someone suggested dual boot option to eMMc, which does work. Box does feel a bit snappier.
RE: Kodi Media Players State of the Union: Best Options in 2024 - grandpayum - 2024-03-29
interesting, were you able to do it entirely through ssh? i had seen some instructions that involved flashing the box with the dual boot firmware from ugoos and then updating coreelec back to the current version so I held off because that seemed like a headache but if its as simple as rebooting and writing the SD to the nand I might as well give it a shot
some discussion on the coreelec forums about the CEC issues are that that it's potentially an issue with CEC commands not being received when the device is suspended. this is normally fixed by injecting the BL301 blob into the boatloader in coreelec setting but ugoos has locked the boot loader unfortunately. Some people on the forum have reached out to ugoos to see if it can either be unlocked or if a new firmware can be issued with the blob pre injected but I wouldn't put much hope in that one as they haven't issued a new firmware for this thing in ~2 years