[gokudo]

My old HTPC is getting quite old, too weak for 4K and has always been too loud, so I thought it's time to invest in a new Kodi device. I came here to ask if someone could give me a nudge in the right direction, since before I had a self-built linux HTPC but after a lot of reading around here this doesn't necessarily seem to be the right option anymore. 

My preferences:

• 4K 24fps playback, HDR if possible but all other features are more important
  
• 1080p Hi10P playback since I'm often watching anime
  
• HD-Audio passthrough
  
• Netflix streaming, 4K would be nice but not a musthave for now
  
• No gaming, just watching videos in the highest possible quality (except HDR and Netflix 4K)
  

I have no preference for either those complete mediaplayer boxes or an oldschool DIY x86_64 PC. I even was about to buy a Vero 4K+ but then I read "1080p 10bit H.264 aka Hi10P Anime will not playback." (I almost missed that since it's written under 'The good' of all things..that's a big reason why I'm  asking here now before buying since I fear I might still miss something important.) And "AMLogic S912 devices are mentioned a few times in this post, but be aware these devices will likely not work with LibreELEC or CoreELEC Kodi when Kodi v19 M comes around in over 1 years time. Android Kodi should, however continue to work.", I want to make sure not having to buy a new device with Kodi 19 and I really don't want to use Android.

The nvidia shield seems to have too many problems like broken FLAC playback, 1080p scaling etc.

Next I was reading about IntelNUC KabyLake devices but then read "No HD Audio Passthrough when using Intel Apollo / Kaby Lake". Which leaves me clueless to where to look next.

At last a question especially to anime geeks, what setup do you use?

[noggin]

My old HTPC is getting quite old, too weak for 4K and has always been too loud, so I thought it's time to invest in a new Kodi device. I came here to ask if someone could give me a nudge in the right direction, since before I had a self-built linux HTPC but after a lot of reading around here this doesn't necessarily seem to be the right option anymore. 

My preferences:

• 4K 24fps playback, HDR if possible but all other features are more important
  
• 1080p Hi10P playback since I'm often watching anime
  
• HD-Audio passthrough
  
• Netflix streaming, 4K would be nice but not a musthave for now
  
• No gaming, just watching videos in the highest possible quality (except HDR and Netflix 4K)
  

I have no preference for either those complete mediaplayer boxes or an oldschool DIY x86_64 PC. I even was about to buy a Vero 4K+ but then I read "1080p 10bit H.264 aka Hi10P Anime will not playback." (I almost missed that since it's written under 'The good' of all things..that's a big reason why I'm  asking here now before buying since I fear I might still miss something important.) And "AMLogic S912 devices are mentioned a few times in this post, but be aware these devices will likely not work with LibreELEC or CoreELEC Kodi when Kodi v19 M comes around in over 1 years time. Android Kodi should, however continue to work.", I want to make sure not having to buy a new device with Kodi 19 and I really don't want to use Android.

The nvidia shield seems to have too many problems like broken FLAC playback, 1080p scaling etc.

Next I was reading about IntelNUC KabyLake devices but then read "No HD Audio Passthrough when using Intel Apollo / Kaby Lake". Which leaves me clueless to where to look next.

At last a question especially to anime geeks, what setup do you use?    

I suspect your 1080p Hi10 10-bit H.264 playback requirement may be the fly in the ointment. That will require CPU decode - as 10-bit H.264 (unlike 10-bit H.265) is not a standard consumer format and thus isn't hardware accelerated.

ARM platforms are a good solution for UHD HDR playback with HD Audio passthrough - but you will need to be sure that they do software decode of your H264 10-bit content.  

The Apple TV 4K has a very powerful ARM SoC CPU - and is a great solution for Netflix UHD HDR. However it doesn't bitstream HD Audio (it losslessly decodes True HD and DTS HD MA it to PCM 5.1/7.1 and downsamples >48kHz content to 48k I believe), and you have to run MrMC (A Kodi fork) rather than Kodi (for Apple AppStore reasons) unless you get into side loading.  If any ARM platform can handle Hi10 H264 1080p I'd imagine the Apple TV would be.

The ODroid C2 is S905-based (so UHD but not HDR) and can be overclocked and is a pretty powerful solution. @wrxtasy can probably advise on Hi10 H264 software decode capabilities?  It won't do Netflix UHD, but will decode UHD H.265 10-bit (output at 8-bit) - though won't handle HDR->SDR conversion AFAIK (and most UHD movie content is HDR).  It will do HD Audio bit streaming.

[wrxtasy]

I suspect your 1080p Hi10 10-bit H.264 playback requirement may be the fly in the ointment. That will require CPU decode

That is definitely going to be the limiting factor. You need a decent ARM CPU package like a Shield or the more modern and more powerful Apple TV 4K or...
If you also want Windows HDR - Kaby Lake onwards Intel or recent AMD Ryzen architecture.

The easiest Plug n Play is the Apple TV 4K, you need to run MrMC on it.
And really the only limiting HD audio is no Atmos because that needs working passthrough. Everything else is decoded to 48kHz LPCM.
Read the ATV 4K review.

[gokudo]

Thanks for the tips. Well I'll look into Apple TV, but for DIY AMD Ryzen sounds good then (Funny that the newer intel based boxes have no HD audio passthrough while my old self-assembled linux based core i3 with kodi leia has no such problems.....). So that Hi10 is a real showstopper for the cheap embedded systems, I should've guessed...

Edit: Just read that the ATV 4K has no USB. Wow. Well, then I really should look for a Ryzen based setup.

[noggin]

Edit: Just read that the ATV 4K has no USB. Wow. Well, then I really should look for a Ryzen based setup.

  
Not really that 'Wow'. There is no real end-user use-case for Apple to put a USB port on the Apple TV, so they haven't. (The Apple TV 4 had a local USB Type C for DFU/developers, but this was moved from the Apple TV 4K)

For many of us GigE connectivity is how we access our media (from NAS/unRAID servers etc.) - so lack of USB is a non-issue.