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Fire Tv picture quality Kodi

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phillyman36

Golden Member
Just wondering has anyone compared the Amazon Fire tv picture quality vs an Intel Nuc picture quality with both blu ray and dvd content? Are they close or is one better than the other? (local media mkv files)
 
Kodi on a NUC will be better due to HD audio support, true 24p support, and the fact that a FireTV cannot play VC1 files worth a damn (many Blu Rays use the VC1 codec).

BUT

Does that matter to 90% of people? Hell no. Most don't have expensive speakers that can utilize HD audio, most can't see 3:2 judder, and most people don't rip their own Blu Rays to run into VC1 files (99% of content in the "scene" is x264). So I would argue that for most people the FireTV might be a better option, because then you easily get Kodi, Hulu, Amazon and Netflix on the same box.

Me? I am a purist. Every TV has a Chromebox running Kodi. Any ARM box outside of the Pi2 is unacceptable for me for Kodi use.

But I cannot recommend that for everyone.
 
poofyhairguy said:
Kodi on a NUC will be better due to HD audio support, true 24p support, and the fact that a FireTV cannot play VC1 files worth a damn (many Blu Rays use the VC1 codec).

BUT

Does that matter to 90% of people? Hell no. Most don't have expensive speakers that can utilize HD audio, most can't see 3:2 judder, and most people don't rip their own Blu Rays to run into VC1 files (99% of content in the "scene" is x264). So I would argue that for most people the FireTV might be a better option, because then you easily get Kodi, Hulu, Amazon and Netflix on the same box.

Me? I am a purist. Every TV has a Chromebox running Kodi. Any ARM box outside of the Pi2 is unacceptable for me for Kodi use.

But I cannot recommend that for everyone.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I don't use a receiver but a good amount of my blu rays rips are probably VC1 files. Looks like I will use a Skylake NUC when they come out.
 
phillyman36 said:
Thanks. I don't use a receiver but a good amount of my blu rays rips are probably VC1 files. Looks like I will use a Skylake NUC when they come out.
Click to expand...

Probably? Make sure....

I'd bet they're probably not VC1 and most likely x264.

But if they are, I'm surprised you'd go through the trouble to then not have an actual setup to watch the bluray on.... Pointless to me, but I'm in Poofy's camp of a high end audio setup. However, I can not tell the difference between a high bit rate encode and a blurray rip after much comparison. So I encode to high bitrate and I'm happy as long as it's high bitrate, and HD Audio. HD Audio is the most important to me, I love speakers/sound. I need a house so I can actually use my things lol. Soon!
 
The Pi2 can do VC-1 for an extra dollar or two. Its also a pretty cheap investment to try it out. You can get one from aliexpress with a crappy case for about $40. Not perfect, but very usable.
 
tential said:
Probably? Make sure....

I'd bet they're probably not VC1 and most likely x264.

But if they are, I'm surprised you'd go through the trouble to then not have an actual setup to watch the bluray on.... Pointless to me, but I'm in Poofy's camp of a high end audio setup. However, I can not tell the difference between a high bit rate encode and a blurray rip after much comparison. So I encode to high bitrate and I'm happy as long as it's high bitrate, and HD Audio. HD Audio is the most important to me, I love speakers/sound. I need a house so I can actually use my things lol. Soon!
Click to expand...

I do have a setup to watch my blu rays. I have Dune Smart media players and movies are stored on my Synology 1812 NAS. I had 4 but 1 died on my. Looking for replacement options. Most of my rips are in iso format. Slowly converting them to mkvs
 
Binky said:
The Pi2 can do VC-1 for an extra dollar or two. Its also a pretty cheap investment to try it out. You can get one from aliexpress with a crappy case for about $40. Not perfect, but very usable.
Click to expand...

Very true. You have to pay for the codec, but the Pi 2 is the only arm Kodi device I trust to play VC1 files.
 
phillyman36 said:
Thanks. I don't use a receiver but a good amount of my blu rays rips are probably VC1 files. Looks like I will use a Skylake NUC when they come out.
Click to expand...

Pi2 with the extra $4 for the MPEG-2 and VC-1 licenses will work fine. Skylake would be overkill.
 
phillyman36 said:
Would there be much of a difference between a NUC and a Pi2?
Click to expand...

-The NUC will run the interface on heavy skins smoother.

-A Skylake NUC will be able to play HEVC/10bit content that a Pi 2 can't (mostly matters for 4K and scene Anime)

-HD audio

Edit: Forgot that an x86 box can use some plugins that arm boxes can't use. This is changing fast though.

Otherwise not really. A Pi 2 is a GREAT 1080p Kodi device.
 
Last edited:
On top of what poofy said, there is another difference. On the NUC (or the Chromebox), you can load up your favorite linux distro like Kodibuntu, and then load Kodi AND Plex clients on that. Why you ask? I have no idea. It's far more complicated to do this than just using Openelec.

I personally feel a little constrained on the Rpi2 since I can't install Plex on an Arm device. Not that I need plex. I really don't. I'm just a tweak-whore and I feel a little empty inside when I can't configure something in every possible way even if I have no use for it. I love my Rpi2 though. Its super simple to get running and it works well.
 
When I bought the pi b+ I also bought the MPEG and VC license however with the pi 2 not only does it seem like I don't need it, I don't even see where I would enter in the license.

I use, recalbox or openelec. Do those distros not need the license?

I also do full bluray rips as well for uncompressed video and audio.
 
poofyhairguy said:
-The NUC will run the interface on heavy skins smoother.

-A Skylake NUC will be able to play HEVC/10bit content that a Pi 2 can't (mostly matters for 4K and scene Anime)

-HD audio

Edit: Forgot that an x86 box can use some plugins that arm boxes can't use. This is changing fast though.

Otherwise not really. A Pi 2 is a GREAT 1080p Kodi device.
Click to expand...

Sorry I meant to ask if there would be much of a difference in picture quality. Was a long day yesterday.
 
phillyman36 said:
Sorry I meant to ask if there would be much of a difference in picture quality. Was a long day yesterday.
Click to expand...

No. PQ will be comparable. I suppose if you tried to run something like MadVR to tweak things then the NUC would be better but otherwise, the Pi2 runs everything great. As far as smoothness with some of the heavier skins, I haven't noticed much difference between my Chromebox and the RPi2. I do run the GUI at 720p instead of 1080p but I don't know if that makes much difference.
 
Question i have a 4k Samsung tv. Openelec on the Nuc is defaulting to 4k resolution instead on 1920x1080. The resolution settings are greyed out. How do i fix that?(picture quality is better when i let the tv do the upscaling.
 
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