Cost no obstacle - What's better than a Pi5?

  • Cost being no obstacle, is there currently a better device than a Pi5 8GB for running LE? Or any flavour of Kodi for that matter?

    I have been using Pi4's and 5's for a while now and they are fantastic. The only thing I feel like I am lacking is HDR10+ and DV support.

    So thats the real question then, is there any hardware/kodi combo that enables those and does everything else as well as a Pi5?

    Thanks

  • Nothing running an upstream kernel supports HDR10+ or DV .. but capabilities exist in devices with downstream vendor kernels. The de-facto Team Kodi recommendation for a device that receives regular updates from its vendor and supports everything is an nVidia shield, athough I'm not a big fan of Android and the shield box(es) have been around for aeons now (older ones are dated). Another option would be the latest OSMC vero box as Sam recently figured out how to handle DV media without an HDR10 fallback.

  • If you want DV, Shield Pro and Kodi or some of the devices that run CoreELEC.

    I have had a Shield Pro and my experience was that its dated hardware and underpowered for running Kodi. Not much RAM available by the time AndroidTV is running.

    So far my Pi4 and 5's with basic HDR10 have been a much nicer experience.

    I have been looking at CoreELEC but am struggling to find a good list of the best devices which can run it, that also support DV.

  • Shield Pro 2019 is old but still working fine with Kodi and DV, never uses over 65% RAM , im still quite happy with it, it's almost as snappy as my Pi5.

    And as mentioned Vero V might be ok.

    [TESTING] Vero V: Dolby Vision TV led support
    Overview In February this year, we made testing for Dolby Vision Profile 5 tonemapping available for Vero V devices. This resolved issues playing Profile 5…
    discourse.osmc.tv
  • I got last week a firetv-cube(3. gen) for a fair price. After installing kodi it can handle everything what a pi5 can handle.

    As addon it can handle 4k-AV1-Videos with DV.

    So if you dont care the annoying bloatware it might be worth a try.

  • Rather than picking up another Shield, I have just ordered an Ugoos AM6B Plus. I am reading the CoreELEC team really rate it and have acheived full DV support.

    How is it? now that you've had it a few months....

    I've been on the fence between the Ugoos, or an n100/n97 mini PC. I hear the Ugoos runs really well, but last time I was recommended an android device (Beelink GT1 Utlra) within half a year they quit support for it and for the next 4.5yrs I had it, I had no updates. Rand fine but 3-4 versions of Kodi behind with started to get noticeable with addon support. At least with the N100/N97, if in a few years I have that issue again, I can use the thing for Windows stuff... email, youtube, CNC controller...