Posts by abarylak

Like Klojum listed above there are a lot of cheap Android boxes out there. You really just have to do your own research and then pull the trigger on what you think will be the best bet for your uses. However, in the interest of your original post to get some examples of what works, i'll let you know what i run at my house. I also have a wife that just wants it to work and i also have 2 kids (age 5 & 7) that can use my configuration.

First, i have a main "server" machine which is just a computer always running at my house which runs a Kodi version matching all my TV boxes with the library being stored in MySQL. This is so that i don't need all my low powered devices scanning my media files separately, and i also gain the ability to stop a show on one TV, then move and resume the same show on a different TV.

Secondly, I got lucky and bought 3 Nexbox A95x boxes with a Samsung Evo Select 32GB MicroSD card. I am currently running LibreElec 8.2.3.1 (kszaq build still available on the forums) directly on the MicroSD card. Then i configure the boxes to use a custom remote config so that i can get my harmony to work seamlessly (have the ability to use play, pause, stop keys, etc). Then, i configured it to use the MySQL database for the media library. The entire setup took me a little bit to get right, and I've simplified my steps here for the sake of keeping it short, but this is working flawlessly for me. I have been constantly getting x265 content whenever i can and transcoding things with handbrake when applicable as well. I love the quality and file size of x265 and wish that all releases were done in x265 now that i have these little beasts.

As for the reason i mentioned the kids is because i was able to configure a separate Kodi user on my system using a separate media library database specifically for the kids. It's not the most user friendly to manage what they can see on their profile, but that is for me to deal with on my server. The kids just know that the system starts up to their media immediately and they can watch what they want. Then, i have a button on the remotes which switch the user to the "Adult" profile with a passcode and everything. Very slick and everyone just loves it.

Now, my Nexbox A95x boxes look to be still available from Gearbest, but they still run the S905X chip, and it looks like the S912 is the newest one being developed against. However, like you I don't have any UHD capable TVs, but i do know that the S905X chip can handle some of that as needed. Also, one last comment about the systems: I have them all hardwired to ethernet. The wireless in those small boxes are not very consistent and trying to pull large media over wireless generally causes issues.

Last thing to note about these LibreElec builds, and i'm not sure if they fixed it in future builds yet. When you play x265 content with vertical resolution which is not a multiple of 16, it results in a very dark black horizontal bar below the picture. This doesn't cover up any picture or anything, and depending on how your TV is calibrated, you may not even notice it, but I have been told it is an issue with the x265 decoding driver or something when the vertical resolution is not divisible by 16. I re-calibrated my TVs and now i can barely see it anyway. Don't know if it is fixed yet, but the rest of my family didn't even notice it when I would anyway, so it's not a big deal.

Again, take all this with a grain of salt and do your own research and determine the best option for you. If you want any more details from me let me know (i'm not an expert though, i just know how i configured my setup).

powerserge - I would definitely suggest going with the Samsung Evo Select 32 or 64 GB models. They are slightly cheaper than the Sandisks, and they are rock solid. Also, i hope you are referring to using the USB card reader to write the libreelec image to the disk, then are using the built-in TF (microSD) card reader on your Beelink Mini Mxiii ii. A separate USB card reader being used to boot from a microSD card just adds an additional point of possible failure.

FYI, the Samsung Evo Select 32GB is only $10 on Amazon right now. So i would think that would definitely be your best bet.

powerserge, I'm also new to this, but this kinda reminds me of an issue i was having when i was using some lower quality microSD cards. The basic specs seemed like they would work, but libreelec eventually would fail to boot after a while for me, and i would have to re-image the SD card in order to get it working again (just like you have to do). What brand and model of SD card are you using? I've found that the Samsung Evo Select microSD cards worked the best for me and were the most cost effective. I have 3 separate S905X systems all with the Samsung Evo Select microSD cards now and they all boot every time without any issue.

I'm pretty sure there was a post somewhere around here about it that i found once before, but I can't find the link right now. IIRC it basically has to do with the random small file read/write performance of the microSD card. A lot of the cheaper models and brands seem to have good "speed" for linear reads/writes, but the small file random read/writes they tend to fail and then corrupt the data. If someone else can help with providing the link to the SD card selection post, that may help as well.

Hopefully this helps.

Actually, i think i just found it as part of this post: Choosing a S905 / S905X / S905D / S905W / S912 box guide

Quote

Have you got a slow LE Kodi setup ?

NOT all microSDHC card are created equal.

Do not base your purchase decision on sequential speeds, Its Random 4K Read / Write performance that is the most important for Kodi and LibreELEC speed. Bang for the buck - Samsung EVO(+), Samsung EVO Select and Sandisk Class 10 U1 microSDHC's work well with AML Hardware.

The Best microSD Cards (click)

Quote from renzz

Yes, I've seen this as well, also on SD material encoded with x265. I think it's a decoder bug caused by the vertical resolution not being mod 16 (ie not being divisible by 16 exactly). In your case 804 divided by 16 is 50.25 - I've found that if you encode so the height is 800 or 816, the bar disappears.

Not sure if anything can be done to fix this, especially as work on this particular build has finished. Might be worth trying it on the Leia build to see if it's been fixed there, or can be fixed.

That's good to hear that others are seeing the same issue. It is strange that it is somehow a darker black than the letterbox bars.

Can anyone point me in the direction to enable full color range output on this build or if that is possible? I'd like to find out if using full color range (full rgb) will make this extra black bar just blend in with everything else. Thanks in advance.

I've got a possibly strange issue, and i don't know what could possibly resolve this. I have noticed that when watching x.265 media at 1080p and specifically at 1920x804 resolution, i get an extra really dark black bar under the video but on top of the normal black bars for this type of resolution. Somehow this is an extra dark bar about 5/8" tall on my 60" TV. I have not noticed this in the past with my previous Kodi systems, and it doesn't show up when i watch a 1920x804 media using x.264 on this same machine.

So, i was thinking that it may be that my TV can handle full RGB signal and this black bar is full color, but the other space is not. Or, this could be an image placement issue because the regular black bars on the top and bottom are the same size, this 5/8" bar is purely extra and the video plus this extra bar is centered vertically on my TV.

Therefore, I'm wondering if I can switch to Full RGB output on my s905x system and that would fix this issue (I haven't been able to find any information yet on how to actually change this yet). Or, if there is some setting or config file that i need to change in order to space this 1920x804 resolution x.265 video better on my screen in order to eliminate this extra black bar. I'd be happy to provide any additional debug logs if needed.

Please let me know what i can do to help fix this issue. Just because this sounds like i'm extremely picky or just confused, I have taken a picture with my phone and pointed out the extra black bar. Let me know if anyone can think of anything. Thanks.

Thanks for that information about disabling lirc. I will try that out the next time i upgrade the device and will post back. I'm sure that if this was documented that it will fix it. Sorry, i didn't read all the release notes for every version between my old version and the new one.

Thanks for pointing me towards this.

Hi, I first noticed this when trying to upgrade to 8.2.1, and i just upgraded to 8.2.2 today and it does the same thing. Almost every time i press a button on my MCE remote, it registers as multiple button presses in the system. This makes the system unusable for me. This is my family's primary system, so i can't leave it like that. Therefore, both attempts to upgrade have resulted in me having to roll back to 8.0.2.

I'm using the generic Intel/Nvidia build on an Xtreamer Ultra system. The last time i attempted the upgrade to 8.2.1, i did change some settings in advancedsettings.xml file to control some timing or something, but it wasn't very reliable either. My remotes work perfectly on 8.0.2, so this is very frustrating that the simple navigation doesn't work in the new version. If there is anything i can do to help diagnose this issue further, please let me know. I can only upgrade to the newer version for a few hours at a time until this is fixed though.

Let me know what you think. Thanks.