Does anyone knows of a device irregardless of it being sbc/mini-computer/arm/x86… that is capable of running 4k video.
I got a TV with androidTV or (GoogleTV whatever it is called these days but i really do not like the OS and want to use a media center with Libreelec.
Currently i had a raspberry pi 3+ laying around and gave it a go, it does everything i need, can access SMB, netflix is working, youtube without ads, old NES/SNES roms etc… the only thing is that it does not play 4k videos, actually it does not even play 1080p properly which is a bummer but totally expected.
The BananaPi M5 seems to not be up to the task according to this review but i wonder if any of you have such a device as a media center and can provide feedback
Doing a bit of investigation the youyeetoo X1 seems like a good fit, specifically due to this review it might be a bit more than 100€ specially if it is the 8Gb/16Gb version but so far it seems the less expensive option, maybe i wait a couple of months in the hopes that the price drops
Do you have a setup that works properly with 4k specifically on the budget side? i would love some input on this
Edit: personal experience with the device it would be a plus
I have been using a Odroid N2+ running CoreELEC with the Jellyfin plugin ever since it released. Plays absolutely everything you throw at it, even 4k60 with HDR.
https://coreelec.org/
If you need Dolby Vision, you will need one of the supported devices, the Odroid N2+ is not one of them.
The Odroids are little beasts, I had the X2 (?) for like 2 years, and then I decided to hook it up to my parents network as a VPN server… and when I came back a few months later it was dead 😕
They use Samsung Exynos CPUs IIRC instead of the Broadcom chips that the Pis use, so some software support is lacking, but it’s generally really good since most ARM distros work fine on them.
Didn’t know there were Odroids with Exynos CPUs.
The N2+ has an Amlogic S922X, CoreELEC is also a fork of LibreELEC but only for Amlogic processors.
There are newer Amlogic chips nowadays but I never looked into them.
I haven’t used one in like 8 years, IIRC the X2 or X3 had an 8 core Exynos, they’ve obviously changed it since then.
I looked into those they are affordable even though a bit old, but i got the impression they only played 4k video properly on androidTV and that is something i do not want to run, on and this live test really threw me off. But it is a 3 year old video, drivers and software might worked some magic along the way like corelecc which was a novelty to me, thanks for the hint
CoreELEC is especially built with Amlogic chips in mind, it includes all the drivers necessary to GPU decode all codecs it can.
The live test you posted runs on CPU, there’s no mobile ARM chip out there that can smoothly CPU decode anything above 1080p so using GPU decode is crucial.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
this live test
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
How does storage look/work with a SBC? Do you have to boot off of an SD card? Any support for sata drives?
That depends on the SBC.
Most of them boot from SD so you will want to get an enterprise SD card or one for cameras.
The Odroids have an eMMC slot for storage. Most boot from USB as well.
There are now SBC with SATA ports and even some with M.2 or PCI-e slots.
That’s cool! I’ve used enough raspberry pi’s over the years to know that SD cards, even if industrial grade are likely to fail at some point so I try to avoid booting from them. eMMC would be much better but sometimes a pain to flash depending on the tooling available. Having a SATA port would allow to use HDDs which provide a lot of capacity for cheap. I guess the processor needs to be an Amlogic for the best media experience?
If you want to use CoreELEC, yes. It only supports Amlogic.
They also support flashing a lot of different TV android boxes and some can be had for cheap so also worth looking there.