Appropriate device...

1st Official Post

    Hello everyone, I'm looking to buy some hardware to run LibreELEC but I'm completely lost... can you help me please? I'm in need of a device who can ouput 4K content at 60 FPS, H.264 and H.265. I've found three potential devices for that...

    - The Vero 4K+ looks good, but it seems it cannot run H.264 2160p60 only H.264 2160p30, so that's out of the question (H.265 does not have this limitation)

    - The Rock64 has the right specs apparently, but it seems many people have had difficulties with LE on this board... Might still go for this one, but is 1GB RAM enough?

    - The Asus Tinker Board, never saw any feedback on it, not sure it can do the trick

    - Something else? (HTPC?)

    Thank you for your help :)

    HDR isn't a priority, if it is supported that's great but I can live without. I'm looking at the NUC right now and it seems very interesting! EDIT: The price though... There are some cheaper alternatives like the Z83 II at 89€ but while it says it supports 4K video I'm not sure it supports 2160p60 H.264...

    I can suggest an Intel Gemini Lake ITX board + a small ITX case + a cheap (used) DDR4 SO-DIMM RAM stick (2Gb will be fine). Should be cheaper than NUC.

    It does play H.264 2160p60 - I just tested with "Sony Sushi 4k Demo" clip, it plays it using VAAPI hw acceleration. HDR support is also on it's way for Gemini Lake (it will be supported in Linux kernel 5.3)

    Quote from smp

    I can suggest an Intel Gemini Lake ITX board + a small ITX case + a cheap (used) DDR4 SO-DIMM RAM stick (2Gb will be fine). Should be cheaper than NUC.

    That's 70€ for the cheapest board alone. Add case, RAM, drive, and power supply... But that will definitely work the way I want. I'd still prefer something that works out of the box to be honest.

    N2 running CE is your best bang for bucks at the moment.

    I just bought a Atomic pi and it makes a decent enough LE machine but its not as high spec as the N2.
    I have always found the Vorke V5 to be an interesting offering with high enough specs


    Shoog

    The Vorke looks decent enough, but pricey. I have no idea what the N2 is? Couldn't find it. But do I really need to go for a full-fledged HTPC for what I want to accomplish?

    Quote from Axymeus

    That's 70€ for the cheapest board alone. Add case, RAM, drive, and power supply... But that will definitely work the way I want. I'd still prefer something that works out of the box to be honest.

    I bought Asrock J4105B-ITX board for ~70€, ITX case: ~25€, 2x2Gb DDR4 SO-DIMM: ~20€. So the final price was around 115€. Power supply (PicoPSU + external 12v) was included with the case.


    Quote from Shoog

    N2 running CE is your best bang for bucks at the moment.

    I don't think so. Price of the N2 board + case/power supply + super expensive shipping. Gemini Lake will eat that N2 for breakfast.

    Edited once, last by smp (June 22, 2019 at 2:34 PM).

    Quote

    I bought Asrock J4105B-ITX board for ~70€, ITX case: ~25€, 2x2Gb DDR4 SO-DIMM: ~20€. So the final price was around 115€. Power supply (PicoPSU + external 12v) was included with the case.

    This board generally costs 2x this amount so would bring in the price at nearer €200.00

    The N2 is the Odroid N2, very affordable if you are in the USA - not quite so everywhere else. Works out at about €120 in the UK with emac, case, power supply and Bluetooth Dongle. Still it is fully supported on CE and is intrinsically better than any S922 Android box for various technical reasons. It has a massive passive cooling solution and an open bootloader which makes recovery from corruption a breeze (not so on Android boxes). The clincher though is its capabilities are far in excess of what is required to run a top performance Kodi box with TVheadend server and file server to the network. If a Gemini Lake is better spec'd (thats a big if) then that extra grunt is totally wasted on a HTPC.

    Shoog

    Edited once, last by Shoog (June 23, 2019 at 2:10 PM).

    The N2 looks quite powerful, surely enough for my use, and I can get the 2GB for 99€ (board alone)... however I'm still unsure about video processing capabilites of any board. I mentionned the Vero 4K+ and found this message from one of the developers

    Quote

    Vero 4K +'s VPU only supports 4K30 for H264 content. 4K60 is supported for HEVC.

    So how do I know this won't be an issue on the N2, or any other board for that matter? Specs usually only say that it supports up to 4K 60Hz... (Right now only the Rock64 is confirmed to be compatible with H.264 encoded 2160p60 but LE support seems limited)

    Quote

    This would be an issue on N2 because s922x SoC supports h.264 4k only up to 30fps. This is from s922x datasheet:

    H.265 HEVC [email protected] up to 4Kx2K@60fps
    H.264 AVC [email protected] up to 4Kx2K@30fps

    So the N2 would half cut it.

    It seems that the only reliable tick all boxes solution would be Intel based. No point buying an ARM board/box without the prospects of support.
    However - when you can demonstrate a real world need for H.264@60fps you might be justified in shelling out the extra.

    Shoog

    Edited 7 times, last by Shoog (June 23, 2019 at 6:14 PM).

    Quote from Shoog

    H.265 HEVC [email protected] up to 4Kx2K@60fps
    H.264 AVC [email protected] up to 4Kx2K@30fps

    However - when you can demonstrate a real world need for H.264@60fps you might be justified in shelling out the extra.

    I don't understand why most chips have this limitation, I don't believe 2160p60 H.264 is more taxing to decode than the H.265 counterpart. And sadly, I have quite a few content encoded along the former specs. As you can imagine I'd rather not have to reencode them. And despite Pine's mail the RK3328 in the Rock64 and the 3399 in the Pro do not support it from what I can tell... So I guess it doesn't leave me with too many options.

    Axymeus

    I have never seen any 2160p60 H.264 content to be honest. All 2160p60 content is HEVC and as far as I know this is the only Codec that is intended for 2160p content. H.264 is an older codec that needs higher bitrates for comparable quality and as 2160p has four times the pixel count as 1080p (where H.264 was meant for) HEVC is the only sane way to go. That is why mostly no device supports H264 with a resolution of 2160p. It is not used by the industry, hence there is no content, thus no need to implement such capability in fixed hardware units.

    Edited 2 times, last by infinity85 (June 24, 2019 at 2:22 PM).