Which software and video format seems to be the most compatible across devices

[Muadib]

Openelec. It has the right drivers by default.

Ok, next question. I need a remote. Do you prefer Bluetooth, or ir? I'm leaning towards ir, as I would like to be able to use my current harmony, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Ok, next question. I need a remote. Do you prefer Bluetooth, or ir? I'm leaning towards ir, as I would like to be able to use my current harmony, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

I use IR with a Harmony. With a flirc and the flirc setting the lag is very very minimal.

An HP ir sensor with a media extender setting can also work fine.

 

[Muadib]

I use IR with a Harmony. With a flirc and the flirc setting the lag is very very minimal.

An HP ir sensor with a media extender setting can also work fine.

Ok, I'm going to get the flirc then. I need to program it first. Is that right?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Ok, I'm going to get the flirc then. I need to program it first. Is that right?

Actually flirc has a XBMC Harmony profile:

http://blog.flirc.tv/flirc-has-a-harmony-profile/

So all you need to do is map the buttons on the Harmony side.

 

[mvbighead]

I'm assuming deinterlacing is on by default in SPMC/XBMC etc, right?

Looking at it this morning, there is still some pretty significant triangular 'edging' on video. The scroll bar on the news channel this morning was very jagged.

I can't recall, but the other version may have been more jagged whereas this appears to be like stair steps all around certain objects. From a distance it is tolerable, but up close it doesn't look very good. Just want to make sure that deinterlacing is on.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I'm assuming deinterlacing is on by default in SPMC/XBMC etc, right?

Looking at it this morning, there is still some pretty significant triangular 'edging' on video. The scroll bar on the news channel this morning was very jagged.

I can't recall, but the other version may have been more jagged whereas this appears to be like stair steps all around certain objects. From a distance it is tolerable, but up close it doesn't look very good. Just want to make sure that deinterlacing is on.

You might have to turn it on in the video settings in the OSD menu you get during playback. It is off by default I think.

 

[mvbighead]

You might have to turn it on in the video settings in the OSD menu you get during playback. It is off by default I think.

Interesting. I did peruse settings but couldn't find anything. Not exactly sure what I am looking for yet but when I get home I'll look again.

I did use the 'submenu' button for the firetv and it gave me a bunch of stats as far as CPU usage, framerate, etc, but I could not see options for deinterlacing.

Anyhoo, if it is off, that'd explain why it's not all that great.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Interesting. I did peruse settings but couldn't find anything. Not exactly sure what I am looking for yet but when I get home I'll look again.

I did use the 'submenu' button for the firetv and it gave me a bunch of stats as far as CPU usage, framerate, etc, but I could not see options for deinterlacing.

Anyhoo, if it is off, that'd explain why it's not all that great.

Try temporarily hooking up a keyboard and hitting M while playing. Then you should have a video settings option. You can turn on the deinterlacing and set it as the default for all videos.

 

[Muadib]

Actually flirc has a XBMC Harmony profile:

http://blog.flirc.tv/flirc-has-a-harmony-profile/

So all you need to do is map the buttons on the Harmony side.

Nice!!! I have to see if flirc is listed in the harmony database. Can it be that easy?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Nice!!! I have to see if flirc is listed in the harmony database. Can it be that easy?

Should be. The device is XBMC, map the buttons for the activity and you are set.

This stuff has really come together in the last year or so.

I do a custom flirc configuration on one station just to have more button options for non Kodi use (exiting emulators).

 

[Muadib]

Should be. The device is XBMC, map the buttons for the activity and you are set.

This stuff has really come together in the last year or so.

I do a custom flirc configuration on one station just to have more button options for non Kodi use (exiting emulators).

Added XBMC to my remote, and it went smooth. Hopefully the Chromebox gets here early tomorrow, so I can test it out. Thanks again for your help!

 

[poofyhairguy]

You are welcome, have fun!

 

[mvbighead]

Any idea on Chromebox stability and power on functions? I checked it this morning and was getting no signal. Had to hard power down and power up, which required using the button and not a remote. I've had to do this other times as well.

I also have to reconfigure my remote to leave the power alone on the device, as any time it is off requires powering on at the device which is a minor annoyance.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I'm curious to the Chromebox vs. Stream mini. Isn't most of the hardware the same, but with a different BIOS (at least in the HP product sense)?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Any idea on Chromebox stability and power on functions? I checked it this morning and was getting no signal. Had to hard power down and power up, which required using the button and not a remote. I've had to do this other times as well.

I also have to reconfigure my remote to leave the power alone on the device, as any time it is off requires powering on at the device which is a minor annoyance.

Yeah I just leave mine running 24/7 like all my HTPCs. Mine is in my kitchen where it has run for a over a week without me fooling with it. It only reboots/turns off when I force it to for updates to Openelec.

Honestly it is way more stable than my Mini ITX livingroom HTPC. If you are having issues then try to replace the power cord as it should be a little engine that could.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I'm curious to the Chromebox vs. Stream mini. Isn't most of the hardware the same, but with a different BIOS (at least in the HP product sense)?

They are very similar. For Windows I would prefer the Stream Mini, for Openelec I would prefer the Asus Chromebox (it just has a better design with a more quiet fan).

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Hmm, I've been watching some HD video on the Stream mini sitting a foot from me and it is dead silent. In fact, I probably should make sure the fan actually is working.

BTW, what exactly is better in the design of the Chromebox (curious)?

 

[mvbighead]

Well, I got some time this weekend to really mess around.

Some simple observations confirm what poofy suggested... the Chromebox is by far a better option than the FireTV. I basically put both on the same TV for 5-10 min at a time while watching a college basketball game (I figure HD sports content is some of the sharper higher movement content out there).

There seemed to be more pixelation and poorer picture quality on the FireTV overall. From a distance it wasn't terrible, but up close it wasn't good.

I've noticed that the HDMI controls on a new TV I purchased worked quite well on the FireTV, almost enough so that I don't need to configure my harmony remote. We'll see if that lasts.

I have to toggle deinterlacing on and off depending on content with the FireTV. Had some DVD rips where when it was enabled, the image was shaking vertically. TV content seems to need it as otherwise I see a lot of issues. Not sure if i was seeing the same on the ChromeBox.

All in all, the FireTV is passable for the bedroom, but I'll be getting another ChromeBox for sure for a second TV. I really appreciate the help here. Getting closer and closer to cutting my ties with DirecTV. Just need to clear that DVR.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Hmm, I've been watching some HD video on the Stream mini sitting a foot from me and it is dead silent. In fact, I probably should make sure the fan actually is working.

BTW, what exactly is better in the design of the Chromebox (curious)?

The cooling is very well designed, very quiet and reliable.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I ripped a DVD set of a TV show, and one episode ended up in some weird stretched widescreen? I figured somehow it's AR flag didn't get applied, so used Yamb to make it 4:3 but it's still stretched, just not as much, so I don't know what happened? And it's that way on the original rip before encoding/compression too, so it wasn't any of the settings on that.

Oh and anyone been trying out h.265 encoding? I'm doing a test run to see how the quality and speed turns out on that after seeing some pretty good quality encodes that even with 720p were smaller than similar length (of the content) sub-480p ones with h264, and MPC-HC was having no problem playing them back smoothly for me (even while my CPU use was pegged doing an encode) on a Phenom II X2. With most mobile platforms adopting decode hardware for it, seems like it would be excellent for that as well, to the point I'm cringing at all the 264 encoding I've been doing. I don't currently have any media players so don't have to worry about support on those (can just make sure to get one that includes support for 265 decode). Encoding is definitely slower (shudder to think how long trying to encode a Blu-ray rip on this system).

 

[Aikouka]

Oh and anyone been trying out h.265 encoding?

I haven't paid much attention to it because there's so little hardware support right now. The only device that I own with full h.265 decode support is my GTX 960-equipped HTPC. Earlier Maxwell devices only have partial h.265 decode support. NVENC already supports h.265 encoding, but QuickSync and AMD's VCE do not. (Intel and AMD's decoding engines also do not support h.265.)

 

[darkswordsman17]

I haven't paid much attention to it because there's so little hardware support right now. The only device that I own with full h.265 decode support is my GTX 960-equipped HTPC. Earlier Maxwell devices only have partial h.265 decode support. NVENC already supports h.265 encoding, but QuickSync and AMD's VCE do not. (Intel and AMD's decoding engines also do not support h.265.)

I figured it would be more of a problem than it is. I guess I shouldn't be shocked that at 720p30 it's not a big problem for software decoding, but was still somewhat surprised (although there definitely is a big hit, does seem to keep my CPU in the 20-40% range even then, where it basically uses 3-10 for 720p 264 content). Obviously 1080p and 4K would be much more of an issue. But I think if you're doing encodes and either care about quality or file sizes and aren't limited by what your devices can handle then I'd probably completely switch over. I might be overstating the file size reduction though.

Definitely hardware support would help a lot though (and would be basically required for 4K I'd guess right now), and yeah depending on device you could be really limited in support for it.

Encoding did take a lot longer but then my CPU sucks for that anyway. Curious how people with newer CPUs fare.

 

[mvbighead]

Ok, anyone with an idea on why some ripped DVDs have green lines under them when viewed from the Chromebox Kodi platform, and not from the FireTV?

I tried a number of video settings but nothing seems to make a difference. I even see a green line under the video of videos where there is a black bar on top and bottom, and the line begins where the video ends, so it isn't always at the very bottom of the TV.

I did get this updated, and followed the Kodi wiki for this platform, but I am not seeing why i have this problem. The green line flashes quite a bit, and can come and go at times, but is mostly there.

Thoughts? I also see this is videos recorded by MythTV, but not all of them.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Ok, anyone with an idea on why some ripped DVDs have green lines under them when viewed from the Chromebox Kodi platform, and not from the FireTV?

I tried a number of video settings but nothing seems to make a difference. I even see a green line under the video of videos where there is a black bar on top and bottom, and the line begins where the video ends, so it isn't always at the very bottom of the TV.

I did get this updated, and followed the Kodi wiki for this platform, but I am not seeing why i have this problem. The green line flashes quite a bit, and can come and go at times, but is mostly there.

Thoughts? I also see this is videos recorded by MythTV, but not all of them.

What codec are they using? Hit O on the keyboard for video info.

 

[mvbighead]

What codec are they using? Hit O on the keyboard for video info.

Best I can tell:

Last of the Mohicans: h264(main), yuv420p,(tv,smpte170m)

Ice Age: Looks the same as the above.

Both say omx-h264, but every video I check shows the same things. So maybe I am not looking at the right thing.