Kodi Community Forum
Intel NUC - Haswell (4th Generation CPU) - Printable Version

+- Kodi Community Forum (https://forum.kodi.tv)
+-- Forum: Discussions (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=222)
+--- Forum: Hardware (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=112)
+--- Thread: Intel NUC - Haswell (4th Generation CPU) (/showthread.php?tid=176718)



RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - IBTB - 2013-11-14

Hi!

I've read through this entire post now and picked up alot of good information, but I do have one question that I am having trouble finding an answer to.
I bought this NUC to replace my mediaplayer(s) (haven't found any player good enough to replace the needs I got from my noicy original Xbox with XBMC witch got put away around 6 years ago), I want to go back to XBMC!

When I ordered the NUC, I quickly read about XBMCbuntu and thought that would be the installation for me (the sole purpose for this unit is to run XBMC), but when I read this topic I see many of you use the OpenELEC installation.

So, my question (it is accually a bit off-topic, but it is on a NUC! Tongue): What is the main differences between a XBMCbuntu installation compared with an OpenELEC installation?
Is there put so much extra work into the OpenELEC that it should be better?

And while I am writing a post here, I do need a remote to go with the unit, does anyone have any to recommend?

Thanks
//IB


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - 00b5 - 2013-11-14

(2013-11-14, 19:40)IBTB Wrote: Hi!

I've read through this entire post now and picked up alot of good information, but I do have one question that I am having trouble finding an answer to.
I bought this NUC to replace my mediaplayer(s) (haven't found any player good enough to replace the needs I got from my noicy original Xbox with XBMC witch got put away around 6 years ago), I want to go back to XBMC!

When I ordered the NUC, I quickly read about XBMCbuntu and thought that would be the installation for me (the sole purpose for this unit is to run XBMC), but when I read this topic I see many of you use the OpenELEC installation.

So, my question (it is accually a bit off-topic, but it is on a NUC! Tongue): What is the main differences between a XBMCbuntu installation compared with an OpenELEC installation?
Is there put so much extra work into the OpenELEC that it should be better?

And while I am writing a post here, I do need a remote to go with the unit, does anyone have any to recommend?

Thanks
//IB

The short and sweet answer is;

OE is a very striped down linux install with XBMC preinstalled and configured to run. Its very small, very minimal, and usually works really well, even off a decent flash drive. Its very appliance like. It ONLY runs XBMC.

XBMCbuntu is the actual linux distro, just tailored to run XBMC. You can still (i assume) do all sorts of other things that linux allows (web browser for example) outside of xbmc, i think its just configured to boot and start xbmc for you.


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - Platypus2 - 2013-11-14

(2013-11-14, 18:45)cecemf Wrote:
(2013-11-14, 17:55)Platypus2 Wrote:
(2013-11-14, 16:26)cecemf Wrote: I'm glad it's not out in the UK

For you or anyone else in the UK, this is my dabs order atm (looking hopeful Cool )

Quote:This item is currently being picked by our warehouse team.

Yes but they don't have stocks

They don't have stocks for orders at the moment no, but if you pre-ordered they got got stock yesterday or today. Eitherway mine has been shipped Big Grin


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - Selene - 2013-11-14

Maybe my eyes are crappy; I need to test the black levels.


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - Selene - 2013-11-14

(2013-11-14, 19:17)lmyllari Wrote:
(2013-11-14, 15:16)voip-ninja Wrote: The most likely problems for bad PQ would be that the display driver on NUC is not matching with TV for black levels (16-255 vs 0-255) or color depth.

These are very easy things to mess up.

If you set the color and black levels to what matches BD content (which is not full RGB by-the-way) it should look correct.
That's how I'd also expect it to work, but I am unable to get the levels exactly right.

My preferred configuration would be 0-255 output from HDMI, 16-235 level from the decoder (no range conversion in colorspace conversion) and monitor set to 16-235 level input. This would allow for blacker-than-black and whiter-than-white (no clipping) and no banding. I used to have this setup with VDPAU.

I am currently having two problems with this. The HDMI output should have range information in the AVI infoframes (see http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/intel-gfx/2013-January/023643.html), but it doesn't seem to be working (even if it was, I'd still need to patch it to allow signaling limited range while outputting without range conversion).

Working around this by setting full range with xrandr, using 16-235 levels from the decoder and setting the monitor input levels manually I am still seeing banding (and I think the levels are off). This suggests that even with full range the output is not 1-to-1. When I have more time, I'll recheck this with RGB images to eliminate the colorspace conversion.

An alternative configuration (if the level signaling can't be fixed) is to use full range output. In this case, the colorspace conversion should use higher precision and dithering to avoid banding. I checked xbmc, vlc and mplayer opengl renderers, and I don't think any of them support this yet.


I've been using avshd709 from http://w6rz.net/avshd709/MP4-2c.7z to test.

(2013-11-14, 14:21)alex84 Wrote: Hi mate i tried the above autostart.sh script. It fixed my gray/blacks back to normal but i still cant use my remote.
If i ssh into my box and enter the commands it starts to work but after a reboot it stops again. Can it be something wrong running the commands in autostart.sh under latest openelec?

Please advice
After rebooting try running the script instead of typing in the commands. This will tell you if the script is ok.

I assumed you tried doing this already?

http://www.openelec.tv/forum/67-display/62342-dark-picture-with-intel-ivy-bridge-system?start=90#74323


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - lmyllari - 2013-11-14

(2013-11-14, 21:26)Selene Wrote: I assumed you tried doing this already?

http://www.openelec.tv/forum/67-display/62342-dark-picture-with-intel-ivy-bridge-system?start=90#74323
No, I want to find a more accurate solution. When I have time to look into this more, I'll test using RGB patterns (and maybe try to get the latest Intel drivers running) to make sure the basics are ok - or get usable bug reports to the driver devs.


edit: reading further, maybe I should test with the deinterlacing test build to see if anything is different there


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - Crssi - 2013-11-14

@Selene:
The post on openelec forum you are referring is referred from my post at:
http://www.openelec.tv/forum/67-display/62342-dark-picture-with-intel-ivy-bridge-system?start=75#73205

with followed update at:
http://www.openelec.tv/forum/67-display/62342-dark-picture-with-intel-ivy-bridge-system?start=75#73491


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - Selene - 2013-11-14

(2013-11-14, 21:45)lmyllari Wrote:
(2013-11-14, 21:26)Selene Wrote: I assumed you tried doing this already?

http://www.openelec.tv/forum/67-display/62342-dark-picture-with-intel-ivy-bridge-system?start=90#74323
No, I want to find a more accurate solution. When I have time to look into this more, I'll test using RGB patterns (and maybe try to get the latest Intel drivers running) to make sure the basics are ok - or get usable bug reports to the driver devs.


edit: reading further, maybe I should test with the deinterlacing test build to see if anything is different there

Are you running nightly's of gotham? fritsch indicates it comes standard in gotham

Edit: It's not forked in yet.


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - voip-ninja - 2013-11-14

(2013-11-14, 21:45)lmyllari Wrote:
(2013-11-14, 21:26)Selene Wrote: I assumed you tried doing this already?

http://www.openelec.tv/forum/67-display/62342-dark-picture-with-intel-ivy-bridge-system?start=90#74323
No, I want to find a more accurate solution. When I have time to look into this more, I'll test using RGB patterns (and maybe try to get the latest Intel drivers running) to make sure the basics are ok - or get usable bug reports to the driver devs.


edit: reading further, maybe I should test with the deinterlacing test build to see if anything is different there

Very interested to see if you find a solution. I am extremely nit-picky about PQ which is why I was going to get a Haswell NUC in the first place (for proper 23.976 playback without glitches).... but it seems Intel still has driver/PQ issues which is extremely disappointing.


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - Crssi - 2013-11-14

OK... just being testing the last hour or so.

I am sorry (also for myself) but PQ is crap and this is all due to Intel ignorance to support Linux distros.

Using Full RGB is way off.
Using Limited RGB is washed picture or like you would watch TV over cigarette smoke. But dark areas also does not have details which could be calibrated with contrast setting if there was any.

Thats not all unfortunatelly. Comparing the same movie frame or static picture between NUC/OE/XBMC and XtreamerPro reveals that picture on NUC is blured.

I will have to wait about a week to get SSD, then I will try the same on Windows.

But in the mean time I would say dont buy NUC for this purpose, since Intel does ignore this problem from the begining of the HD GPU series and I would say that that suggest Intel will continue to do so in the future.

And believe me, I would really like to be wrong here, since I think NUC would be really the best way to go XBMC at the moment.

About fan. It is silent when playing movies, but in idle/gui it is not (running confluence, and I havent even try AeonNox). This I would say is the problem of XBMC. I hope Gotham will sort something out here.


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - Selene - 2013-11-14

(2013-11-14, 23:08)Crssi Wrote: OK... just being testing the last hour or so.

I am sorry (also for myself) but PQ is crap and this is all due to Intel ignorance to support Linux distros.

Using Full RGB is way off.
Using Limited RGB is washed picture or like you would watch TV over cigarette smoke. But dark areas also does not have details which could be calibrated with contrast setting if there was any.

Thats not all unfortunatelly. Comparing the same movie frame or static picture between NUC/OE/XBMC and XtreamerPro reveals that picture on NUC is blured.

I will have to wait about a week to get SSD, then I will try the same on Windows.

But in the mean time I would say dont buy NUC for this purpose, since Intel does ignore this problem from the begining of the HD GPU series and I would say that that suggest Intel will continue to do so in the future.

And believe me, I would really like to be wrong here, since I think NUC would be really the best way to go XBMC at the moment.

About fan. It is silent when playing movies, but in idle/gui it is not (running confluence, and I havent even try AeonNox). This I would say is the problem of XBMC. I hope Gotham will sort something out here.

That sucks. I will now have to go home and do a frame by frame myself..


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - lmyllari - 2013-11-14

(2013-11-14, 23:08)Crssi Wrote: But in the mean time I would say dont buy NUC for this purpose, since Intel does ignore this problem from the begining of the HD GPU series and I would say that that suggest Intel will continue to do so in the future.
Filing detailed bug reports with clear steps to reproduce on bugs.freedesktop.org will probably get these issues sorted out.


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - arokh - 2013-11-14

OpenELEC boots fast and is easy to install. It also makes upgrading a breeze, it's built like an appliance tailored to run XBMC and nothing else. That's a good thing if all you want is run XBMC, but personally I like to install any emulator I want or use a browser with my wireless keyboard. These things can be done in OpenELEC, but the only way to extend it is through custom add ons made by the community. I'm running Arch because it's a rolling release which allows me to follow the bleeding edge if I want and be able to do tons more.

As for a remote, I didn't get one but found an old white Apple remote I had and it works great with Linux (had to do the trick with nuvoton_cir mentioned in this thread). In addition you can use the Smart IR Remote from the Google play store, some of the MCE controllers work with the kernel/xbmc keymaps out of the box. Just because I can, I also got my PS3 Sixaxis hooked up through Bluetooth. Actually makes for a lot more responsive controller than IR.

EDIT: Below is my keymap for the old white Apple IR remote using NEC protocol:
Code:
0x77e1d02b KEY_UP
0x77e1e02b KEY_RIGHT
0x77e1b02b KEY_DOWN
0x77e1102b KEY_LEFT
0x77e1202b KEY_ENTER
0x77e1402b KEY_BACKSPACE



RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - Selene - 2013-11-14

redacted


RE: Intel NUC - HTPC (Haswell Late 2013 edition) - -DDD- - 2013-11-14

(2013-11-14, 23:33)arokh Wrote: I want or use a browser with my wireless keyboard. These things can be done in OpenELEC, but the only way to extend it is through custom add ons made by the community.
Opera Addon for OpenElec: http://openelec.tv/forum/90-miscellaneous/28474-so-i-got-opera-webbrowser-running-with-flash-but