KIII Pro vs. RPi+USB-tuner

1st Official Post

    Hi,

    After happily using Open/Libre-ELEC in combination with a RPi for a long time, I'm now looking for a solution to add a DVB-S2 tuner as well. During my search I discovered the KIII Pro at the same time I found USB tuners to connect to my current RPi.
    It all makes me wonder: why would I opt for a RPi+USB-tuner combination while a KIII Pro gives me an all in one solution with better specs for roughly the same price as a separate USB-tuner I'd have to buy?

    The only reason I can think of is the much larger community around the RPi, with this device getting much more development and tuning attention compared to the KIII Pro.
    What is your opinion? How stable is the current situation with LibreELEC? Will I actually experience a significant improvement with the improved specs despite a much smaller development community?

    Personally I'd prefer to go for a clean solution, getting rid of Android completely, just having LibreELEC running the show. Will this be possible?

    There's mention of the lack of fbdev Mali libraries at this moment, but is this a matter of time or is there no way of telling if they will get released? Apparently it isn't a problem for the previous generation (S905/S905X), assuming the libraries were released for those as well.

    • Official Post

    Some Amlogic devices suffer from installation quirks/niggles (unique device trees etc.) and some have shitty firmware so there is always a slight gamble to be made, but 64-bit devices from reputable vendors have a lot of promise and we are working very closely with the developers Amlogic contracted to rewrite and upstream 64-bit platform support into the mainline Linux kernel. That effort should be more or less complete around Linux 4.13, although graphics fettling and tuning will take longer - but we already have private test builds working on 4.11 and the video architecture changes needed in Kodi v18 are in process too. So the future is a little way off.. but very visible. Amlogic is not at pi levels of community focus but it's move a long way from the hideous codebase it was 1.5 years ago. I have zero expectations of S912 fbdev drivers so the 'libhybris' wrapper will continue as the only option for S912 devices like the one you mentioned. That hack seems to be holding up, but it's still a gamble.

    I personally would not be buying any AML S912 (KIII Pro) for LibreELEC duties when there are already proven, more stable options available with S905's and S905X's. Ones that do not have GUI graphics tearing.
    Anyone that tries to convince you that LE on a AML S912 is "perfect" does not know what they are talking about.

    Like chewitt said I would not count on proper Linux GPU drivers being released for the S912 anytime soon.

    Stable - LibreELEC inbuilt tuners option are the Wetek Play2 and the KI Plus / KII Pro:
    thread-2722.html

    LE AML S905's will be quicker than RPi's, particularly when run from eMMC Flash memory.
    Honestly you will not notice much difference speed wise between LE running on a AML S905 with Gigabit Ethernet and a S912 with Gigabit Ethernet.

    Edited once, last by wrxtasy (May 2, 2017 at 9:04 AM).

    Quote from wrxtasy


    I personally would not be buying any AML S912 (KIII Pro) for LibreELEC duties when there are already proven, more stable options available with S905's and S905X's. Ones that do not have GUI graphics tearing.
    Anyone that tries to convince you that LE on a AML S912 is "perfect" does not know what they are talking about.

    Like chewitt said I would not count on proper Linux GPU drivers being released for the S912 anytime soon.

    Stable - LibreELEC inbuilt tuners option are the Wetek Play2 and the KI Plus / KII Pro:
    thread-2722.html

    LE AML S905's will be quicker than RPi's, particularly when run from eMMC Flash memory.
    Honestly you will not notice much difference speed wise between LE running on a AML S905 with Gigabit Ethernet and a S912 with Gigabit Ethernet.

    Does the KII pro support dvb-c? :huh:

    Quote from Forage

    Completely off-topic, create a new thread for that (but not according to the specs: KII PRO T2+S2).

    On topic: thanks for the feedback. I took the risk and ordered a Mecool KIII Pro (S912). So count me in as one of the testers soon ;)

    Oh yeah shoot i thought i read kII pro instead of kIII EXCUUUUUUUUSSSSEEE me... :rolleyes: