Cheap way of getting kodi hardware offline for family
#16
For 1080p only content the rpi 3 b + should be fine. However its roughly the same price as something like the ODROID-C4 that will give you more performance than even a rpi4. If you really want to only run kodi the rpi is a pretty expensive option. I do read inventory is going to get better next month so if you are dead set on a rpi you may want to hold out for a few weeks.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/...g-in-july/
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#17
disagree

i installed onto a rpi3b+ and compared to an android box it's painfully slow navigating and i didnt even customize anything or put extra addons

never got to the video playback or remote side of things
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#18
I'm not sure if this will work because I haven't tried it.

Use the PC that you use to rip the disks to the HD, install Kodi, and let it scrape and add the metadata to the HD.

Get a cheap Android TV box with USB ports and connect an external drive to it.

Install Kodi, run it, and then let it scrape the drive getting only local metadata.
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#19
Seem the ODROID-C4 is a good alternative and seems more powerful but that seems just as expensive £100. Or more. But is it better than the pi4 just for Kodi and running the menus smooth.
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#20
good suggestions @monkeylove however most android boxes will not mount external drives formatted ntfs (windows) or ext4 (linux), most have to be exFat if anything and that is not a recommendable formatting

-----

EDIT:

"android boxes" - from the android os
"not a recommendable formatting" - for mass storage
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#21
(2023-06-16, 17:08)meridius Wrote: Seem the ODROID-C4 is a good alternative and seems more powerful but that seems just as expensive £100. Or more. But is it better than the pi4 just for Kodi and running the menus smooth.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=s905x4&s=price-asc-rank

'used' from amazon warehouse - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09GRS6QLZ

just means its a return
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#22
You gotta be careful with the android boxes. some of those ship with 100mb. If it doesn't list 1000mb on the front page it's probably 100mb. For 1080p thats technically fine but when you can get a 1000mb for the same price it seems kinda pointless. Ive bought two boxes from ali exress and both turned out fine.

On the topic of the pi3 it's been a while sense I tried it. Now that you mention it I do think I remember the menues being pretty slow. Can probably speed that up by installing to a external ssd. The sd card read speed in those were terrible.
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#23
i think the goal here is 'as cheap as possible' so if you get stuck with 100mbit it should still be able to handle ~75% of 4k available, i only have a handful of movies that exceed that bitrate which are 4k remux

so if ~75% 4k is covered then definitely 1080p
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#24
Streaming movies isn't the only reason you want 1000mb. Copying stuff across the network is another reason.

Even if price was the main concern I would still go with a 1000mb board like the vontar s905x4 https://www.aliexpress.us/item/325680342...05197982_6

$41.87 I have bought and tested this board as corelec compatible. It's still cheaper than other 100mb boards.

I've also tested the x96 max plus gigabite version https://www.aliexpress.us/item/325680434...05190801_1

It's a few dollars more but would be fine for this use case.
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#25
all very good points, will just have to let meridius decide which

if the content is intended to be on an external usb drive directly connected then it could be just as easy to take it to your desktop to load the content then connect it back to the tv box

i would prefer 1000mbit but im doing just fine with a firetv cube gen3 without a 1000mbit ethernet port - so it is at least usable even if not the best


assuming you can indeed find both and they are within a few dollars of each other the obvious choice to me would be the 1000mbit, but i also use a nas and streaming content so my use isnt really the same
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#26
Yep this device will not be connected to any network or internet as it’s local only storing movies and files on an external drive. I will be adding movies by removing the drive and dumping them on there or taking another external to dump it over. This is for their massive dvd collection onto one device as they have more dvds than Amazon as I have not seen so many discs in all my life in a house lol.

All I want for them is a device that can play 1080p and possibly 4K in the future and uses a simple remote using kodi as the front end and been some and not slow or jerky for them.
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#27
(2023-06-16, 17:15)jepsizofye Wrote:
(2023-06-16, 17:08)meridius Wrote: Seem the ODROID-C4 is a good alternative and seems more powerful but that seems just as expensive £100. Or more. But is it better than the pi4 just for Kodi and running the menus smooth.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=s905x4&s=price-asc-rank

'used' from amazon warehouse - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09GRS6QLZ

just means its a return
Never going to trust a Chinese box even if it’s not on the network to many of them seem very sneaky
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#28
Was looking at this orange pi as well seems very powerful from AliExpress for £70

As Linus has a video explains all the different types of units out there.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uJvCVw1yON...bGludXM%3D

even the orange pi 5 plus seems good specked at £90.

But is it all overkill as the raspberry pi4 is £55 for 4gb ram and £75 for 8gb ram still have the price for the 4gb ram version. Which should run kodi perfectly with that surly.

There’s no rush to get it yet so can wait for the stock to come in but very tempted in the orange pi but not sure if people have used them for this sort of thing.
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#29
(2023-06-16, 19:56)meridius Wrote:
(2023-06-16, 17:15)jepsizofye Wrote:
(2023-06-16, 17:08)meridius Wrote: Seem the ODROID-C4 is a good alternative and seems more powerful but that seems just as expensive £100. Or more. But is it better than the pi4 just for Kodi and running the menus smooth.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=s905x4&s=price-asc-rank

'used' from amazon warehouse - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09GRS6QLZ

just means its a return
Never going to trust a Chinese box even if it’s not on the network to many of them seem very sneaky


(2023-06-16, 20:15)meridius Wrote: Was looking at this orange pi as well seems very powerful from AliExpress for £70


 ....

Address: Room 201, 218-223, Area 2, Block B, Shenzhen-Mingyou Purchasing Certer,Baoyuan Road, Xixiang Street,Bao'an, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China

http://www.orangepi.org/html/aboutUs/index.html

"Orange Pi is an open source product brand of Shenzhen Xunlong Software Co., Ltd; Orange Pi has iterated over 30 products."


.....

i dont follow your logic
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#30
If you can get a rpi4 at msrp it's a great kodi board and I would highly recommend. Especially if you pair it with the Argon ONE V2 Aluminum  case. Anything over msrp you can find a board that performs better. ODROID-C4 is a great example

The Chinese boxes I mentioned above use the same processor (or a slightly different varient) as the ODROID-C4 you just have to flash them. A proper single board computer does feel safer but you also pay more.
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