I looked into those they are affordable even though a bit old, but i got the impression they only played 4k video properly on androidTV and that is something i do not want to run, on and this live test really threw me off. But it is a 3 year old video, drivers and software might worked some magic along the way like corelecc which was a novelty to me, thanks for the hint
Comment on Media center under 100€ capable of 4k video
domi@lemmy.secnd.me 8 months ago
I have been using a Odroid N2+ running CoreELEC with the Jellyfin plugin ever since it released. Plays absolutely everything you throw at it, even 4k60 with HDR.
If you need Dolby Vision, you will need one of the supported devices, the Odroid N2+ is not one of them.
BinaryUnit@lemmy.world 8 months ago
domi@lemmy.secnd.me 8 months ago
CoreELEC is especially built with Amlogic chips in mind, it includes all the drivers necessary to GPU decode all codecs it can.
The live test you posted runs on CPU, there’s no mobile ARM chip out there that can smoothly CPU decode anything above 1080p so using GPU decode is crucial.
beeb@lemm.ee 8 months ago
How does storage look/work with a SBC? Do you have to boot off of an SD card? Any support for sata drives?
domi@lemmy.secnd.me 8 months ago
That depends on the SBC.
Most of them boot from SD so you will want to get an enterprise SD card or one for cameras.
The Odroids have an eMMC slot for storage. Most boot from USB as well.
There are now SBC with SATA ports and even some with M.2 or PCI-e slots.
beeb@lemm.ee 8 months ago
That’s cool! I’ve used enough raspberry pi’s over the years to know that SD cards, even if industrial grade are likely to fail at some point so I try to avoid booting from them. eMMC would be much better but sometimes a pain to flash depending on the tooling available. Having a SATA port would allow to use HDDs which provide a lot of capacity for cheap. I guess the processor needs to be an Amlogic for the best media experience?
domi@lemmy.secnd.me 8 months ago
I guess the processor needs to be an Amlogic for the best media experience?
If you want to use CoreELEC, yes. It only supports Amlogic.
They also support flashing a lot of different TV android boxes and some can be had for cheap so also worth looking there.
pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The Odroids are little beasts, I had the X2 (?) for like 2 years, and then I decided to hook it up to my parents network as a VPN server… and when I came back a few months later it was dead 😕
They use Samsung Exynos CPUs IIRC instead of the Broadcom chips that the Pis use, so some software support is lacking, but it’s generally really good since most ARM distros work fine on them.
domi@lemmy.secnd.me 8 months ago
Didn’t know there were Odroids with Exynos CPUs.
The N2+ has an Amlogic S922X, CoreELEC is also a fork of LibreELEC but only for Amlogic processors.
There are newer Amlogic chips nowadays but I never looked into them.
pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I haven’t used one in like 8 years, IIRC the X2 or X3 had an 8 core Exynos, they’ve obviously changed it since then.