Posts by vprheli

Quote from Beluga

Hi,

I use my new Pi4/4GB now since about a week with libreelec 9.2 build for Pi4. So far it works ok. There are still some small glitches to be ironed out, but generally the Pi4 works good and quite stable with libreelec/kodi. It's not as perfect as the Pi 3 builds yet, as it's still a quite new piece of hardware, but the developers at libreelec and kodi do great work. And for just watching movies or listen to music everything works good and is good for daily use.

I switched form a RPi3 B+ to a RPi4 4 / 4GB. Main improvement over Pi3 for me is the USB 3 and the Gigabit LAN, wich speeds up the data transfer significantly.

For Pi4 you don't have to buy the license keys, the CPU is by far strong enough to decode mpeg2 in software mode without problems.

If you decide to buy one, I recommend a good case for Pi4 (best metal with cooling option to avoid heat problems, like the Flirc case or similar) and I recommend explicitly the original power supply from Raspberry Foundation. Many problems and instabillities come from bad or weak power suplpies. As the Pi4 has microHDMI ports I also recommend an microHDMI/HDMI cable. Simple MicroHDMI adapters sometimes make problems. BTW you don't need to buy the 4GB or even the 2 GB version of the pi 4 for libreelec/kodi. But who knows what the future brings and the price difference isn't that big.

But if you want to save some money and don't need the 4K opportunities (and the Gigabit LAN and the USB 3 ports) , you still can be happy with the Pi 3. It runs rock solid with libreelec/kodi 18.5. For Pi 3I recommend buying the license keys for mpeg2 decoding...

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"CPU is by far strong enough to decode mpeg2" it is not true. I cannot play any of my archived MPEG2 videos from my camera. RPI3 is able. The same is if I want see streamed fullhd video. Also not possible, RPI3 is able. So RPI4 has either not enough power to play or wrong decoder is used.

Quote from Klojum

Why does software get a new version number? Because there is a new feature or a bugfix. The same applies to databases.

BTW, Kodi Krypton and Leia use the same video database version. For Matrix, so far AFAIK, there is still the same video database. The music database version has gone from 72 to 73.

We are looking forward to your explanation as to what you have checked and how the checks were done, and how you arrived at your conclusion.

And yes, Kodi is not backwards compatible.

About the database. As I checked, and it must be done every times, new fields are added at the end of of previous version (alter table). You can store somewhere in the database the current database version - it is in Kodi. But it is not reason to build new database image which is not accesible from older one. Older Kodi version will read/write/update only their fields, which understand, rest will be filled with defaults. New Kodi version will be able understand new fields and use it. If you extend table with ratings fields for instance, Krypton can use them. Isengard has no code for ratings, but it is still able to read it's fields.Another situation is if SQL use stored procedures, but not here. Developers must remember, that there is many platforms and updates are not build for each one.(Show me Krypton version for RPI). Does developers try migrate Isengard database to the Leia? It failed. Not all people change version if new release is available. "If something is working - do not touch".

I agree with Zigmund. I used Kodi 15.2 Isengard for near 5 years. I expected, that the RPi4 version will be faster and better. But it isn't. It is not able to play MPEG2 files I recorded by my camera for instance. It is not true, that the processor has enough power that it do not need HW decoder, or there there is decoder speed problem. RPI3 still play it without any problem. It has huge problem with simple HD video played from Internet (PC version is able to play, so the problem is inside RPi). RPi4 many times do not detect IR commands correctly (I use the same receiver).

And what I don't understand, why every version needs new database version. I checked the content and it is really not necessary. This is big problem if store database and metadata in central "server".

vprheli