3 ms·

Mmm. I have an RPi 4 but misclicked when ordering and ended up with a 1GB model. The Kodi performance on it is unacceptably bad; which is surprising considering

Mmm. I have an RPi 4 but misclicked when ordering and ended up with a 1GB model. The Kodi performance on it is unacceptably bad; which is surprising considering that codebase used to run on an Xbox 1 with one core and 64MB.... so it became a Volumio machine instead, once I got an external USB DAC that didn't suck as much as the onboard sound does. (Talk about electrical noise, ugh). The reason I wanted to see if I could get that Sony hardware running on some other screen (besides the re-use angle) is because Android TV gets you access to the first party Netflix and other streaming services with the proper UI. Netflix-via-Kodi is not really a very good user experience presently. You mention open source Android TV - is that something I could run on other kinds of devices? Can you get the Netflix etc. apps on it?

zamadatix 6y ago
Yeah 1 GB will limit you out of running Android TV on it straight out, I think it requires 2 GB minimum. If you go fully open source on any device (Android TV or not) you lose full levels of Widevine (or whatever DRM) support. Apps like Netflix work on open source builds of Android TV but you won't get high quality streams as a result. I think Disney+ was one that refused to work at all, the rest seemed to run. So if you're doing "open source" for purity reasons those are the types tradeoffs you have to make regardless of the hardware or software you choose. OTOH if you're just looking for a decent unrestricted first party external Android TV box that gets updates (old model is 6 years running on updates now) and has full play store/app support the Shield TV is $150 new and will run all of the apps at 4k 60 HDR out of the box. It can even be officially unlocked and rooted but again some apps will stop working (e.g. Disney+) if you do that. Shield TV Pro is $200 if you want additional RAM and built in app storage. Comes with a nice remote too.
boring_twenties 6y ago
> external USB DAC that didn't suck as much as the onboard sound does Shouldn't it output digital audio over HDMI?
- m463 6y ago
  That's an interesting thought. Is it easy to extract this in another form? Like coax spdif? Or do you need a home theater amp with hdmi in?
  - boring_twenties 6y ago
    Personally I'm using the latter, I forgot all about SPDIF. There are splitters on Amazon that take HDMI in and output HDMI video plus SPDIF audio, but they seem to all be in the $25 range, so may not be worth it.
- core-questions 6y ago
  Sure does, but my beautiful-but-old amplifier does not have HDMI. I use SPDIF a lot, but haven't found a good cheap USB-to-SPDIF sound card yet. Plenty of pricier ones, but the point here is to find some use for something I already cheaped out on in the first place.
  - boring_twenties 6y ago
    I guess $25 might not be cheap enough either, but there are some HDMI->(HDMI+SPDIF) splitters on Amazon for that price.
crtasm 6y ago
> The Kodi performance on it is unacceptably bad Under Raspbian? It seemed to need a lot of fiddling to be usable so I went with the OpenElec image. Later switched to OSMC, still working great on a 1gb RPi 2.

zamadatix 6y ago

Yeah 1 GB will limit you out of running Android TV on it straight out, I think it requires 2 GB minimum. If you go fully open source on any device (Android TV or not) you lose full levels of Widevine (or whatever DRM) support. Apps like Netflix work on open source builds of Android TV but you won't get high quality streams as a result. I think Disney+ was one that refused to work at all, the rest seemed to run. So if you're doing "open source" for purity reasons those are the types tradeoffs you have to make regardless of the hardware or software you choose. OTOH if you're just looking for a decent unrestricted first party external Android TV box that gets updates (old model is 6 years running on updates now) and has full play store/app support the Shield TV is $150 new and will run all of the apps at 4k 60 HDR out of the box. It can even be officially unlocked and rooted but again some apps will stop working (e.g. Disney+) if you do that. Shield TV Pro is $200 if you want additional RAM and built in app storage. Comes with a nice remote too.

boring_twenties 6y ago

> external USB DAC that didn't suck as much as the onboard sound does Shouldn't it output digital audio over HDMI?

m463 6y ago
That's an interesting thought. Is it easy to extract this in another form? Like coax spdif? Or do you need a home theater amp with hdmi in?
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  Personally I'm using the latter, I forgot all about SPDIF. There are splitters on Amazon that take HDMI in and output HDMI video plus SPDIF audio, but they seem to all be in the $25 range, so may not be worth it.
core-questions 6y ago
Sure does, but my beautiful-but-old amplifier does not have HDMI. I use SPDIF a lot, but haven't found a good cheap USB-to-SPDIF sound card yet. Plenty of pricier ones, but the point here is to find some use for something I already cheaped out on in the first place.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  I guess $25 might not be cheap enough either, but there are some HDMI->(HDMI+SPDIF) splitters on Amazon for that price.

crtasm 6y ago

> The Kodi performance on it is unacceptably bad Under Raspbian? It seemed to need a lot of fiddling to be usable so I went with the OpenElec image. Later switched to OSMC, still working great on a 1gb RPi 2.