Introducing the new Vero 2

News
21

Hi Sam,
the all new Vero 2 looks great! :+1:
You took the community feedback serious and developed the device from the scratch.
Short questions in terms of loyality, is there a coupon code for Vero1 users?

Regards

1 Like
22

Does Vero 2 include bluetooth or do I need the dongle for that?

23

Hi nordor,

The Vero 2 doesn’t include Bluetooth. If you leave a comment on your order, I’ll include a dongle for you.

Sam

24

Limited Android app availability or full blown play store / amazon prime video / etc available?

Is the netflix standard def streaming limitation for all netflix or just where regionally restricted to sd?

25

Great! I will!

26

Will miracast be part of osmc?

27

Will the Vero 2 support HD audio formats such as DTS-HD and TrueHD?

I was about to buy a Vero 1 in part based on this feature, but when it was discontinued I ended up buying a Cubox TV instead.

28

As it has a HDMI 1.4 output which supports outputting 4K up to 30Hz which is enough for movies does its chipset support 4K decoding of H.264 and/or H.265?

29

Hi

Miracast is included in Vero 2, but not on other devices as they are not compatible. If in the future, things are possible, we’ll add support.

Vero 2 cannot stream HD audio formats at the moment, however the core is always passed through. We have a couple of kernel patches that permit this, and at the very least, permit bit-perfect decoding of these streams (up to 7.1) via HDMI. This will guarantee the same level of audio quality as bitstreaming HD audio would, but you won’t see the pretty HD audio light on your AVR.

As I have said elsewhere, Vero 2 can output 4K resolution, but can’t decode 4K content. This isn’t as much of an issue as you may think:

The new Vero doesn’t support 4K. In all honesty, this wasn’t a huge
concern, as there’s not a lot of content in 4K. I can’t anticipate this
changing for a while given the availability of broadband connections. I
think that 4K’s best chance will be via optical format. We’ll
re-evaluate 4K when there is more demand and content available for it.

Sam

30

You can install any ARM Android applications. The device is not locked down, so you can also install ‘apks’ if you wish.

Currently negotiating Widevine level 1 licensing. Once that occurs, DRM won’t be an issue.

31

Thanks for the quick reply Sam!
I wonder what the problem with bitstreaming is? Technical or licensing/DRM?
I haven’t tried enabling decoding on my Raspberry Pi 2 bit I guess it’s performant enough to also do it.
In that case upgrading to the Vero 2 doesn’t offer any benefits.
4k content is already available via streaming (Youtube, Netflix,…) and will become more over the next years.
As it will be supported for 3-5 years I want a future proof solution and no throw away hardware that increases the worlds garbage piles.

32

Hi

Technical – but I’ve seen proper output using Android kernels, so it is certainly achievable, but as it stands, it’s not supported.

Netflix’s 4K content is quite limited. It’s also not really 4K.

  • 1080p Blu-ray is 40Mbits H264 on average
  • 4K is 4x 1080p resolution. So let’s say you will need 160Mbits
  • HEVC brings you the same efficiency, at half the bitrate of H264 (in theory)
  • This mean you need 80Mbps to deliver 4K content if encoded with H265, assuming this specification is true.
  • Netflix’s 4K content is 15Mbps H265. If you believe H265 is delivering on its 1/2 size, same quality promise (I’m sure it will eventually, but not yet), then that’s equivalent to 30Mbps H264, which is a lower bitrate than a 1080p Blu-ray disc.

Any 4K hardware now will push 4K30 video at best, but will fall short on things like gaming. We opted for 1080p because Vero 2 will handle everything at 1080p well. Other chipsets may run some things at 4K reasonably well, but I suspect they’ll struggle as 4K really develops. I personally don’t believe that devices today are truly 4K proof. We’re already seeing some 4K TVs aren’t. I’d rather not sell a product on something it may one day do, but rather, on what it does now.

Sam

1 Like
33

A very interesting device !!

Is the bootloader unlocked ? You said that it will be support for 3 years, will I be able to install another version of Debian on it after this time ?

And how works Android ? Is it integrated in OSMC distro or it’s a fully os install in dual boot with Debian ?

34

The bootloader is unlocked. You can load any OTA packages via recovery. ADB debugging and sideloading is also permitted.

If you wish, you can indeed install another OS on the device. It’s your device – if you pay for it, you should be able to use it as you wish.

It’s dual boot. OSMC sits on the NAND, Android on your SD. You can reboot from Kodi and boot to Android and vice versa.

Sam

35

Thanks for your prompt answer !

So if I want completly format the nand to install a new version of OSMC from scratch, I can do that ? I can put a USB key with osmc and install it on the Vero 2 like a Debian on a PC ?

And where can I download Android install ? It will be available on GitHub ?

You are talking about the bootloader, OTA package via Recovery so if I understand, the bootloader is an Android bootloader which launch OSMC sitting on the nand right ? In fact, I’m afraid about the 3 years support oO

The last question (^^), Do you ship this device to others countries like France for instance ? :smiley:

36

3 Questions:

Will a smooth change from osmc to android and vice versa be possible? Like without switching around sd cards or powering the vero 2 on and off? Maybe even the two operating systems on the internal storage?

Can you be more detailed on the processor/soc? Like which company will provide them?

Will heat be an issue running osmc under full load on vero 2? What’s the temparture under full load and how is it cooled (fan,heat sink)?
-I have a hummingboard from solidrun and had to install a fan (in addition to an existing heatsink) otherwise it would overheat running kodi and crash (even without any housing)…and I’m really not looking forward to do that again =)

37

Ok forget first question, now I saw it was asked during I wrote. btw. nice vice versa usage :grin:

38

Why does bitstreaming from Ubuntu work with my PC (Nvidia blob)?
Does the SoCs Linux driver not support it so far?
Any wouldn’t it make more sense to run Kodi on top of Android instead of rebooting to switch to Debian?

39

Our SoC is based on AML S805.

Not at all – and we’ve actually managed to get a slightly higher clock speed than planned for.

Sam

40

You can format the NAND, but you’d need to image it off an SD card.

It will be available on Download - OSMC or via the official OSMC installer, with all of our other images.

We said we’re supporting it for at least three years, so we will. Keep in mind we have supported Apple TV, a device we don’t produce, for 8 years now. If you wish, you can always compile and swap out the OSMC bootloader with your own, as it’s U-Boot based, which is a popular and maintained open source project.

It ships to anywhere in the world.