Newbie to OSMC starting with a Vero 4k+ box - some feedback

[wylaryzel]

Hi there,

based on recommendations and as I start to build my own media-network at home I ordered 2 Vero 4k+ boxes which arrived yesterday I hope you don’t mind if I use this opportunity to provide some feedback (and may get some guidance).

I currently own 2 Barebones already but as one of them is already a bit older and the other one has some needed quirks to get it running with the other equipment I wanted to test out alternatives.

Initial unboxing, plug into the TV and startup is a very smooth experience. You more or less have already an up-and-running Kodi setup.
The purpose of the boxes is to be used to stream from my NAS (Emby) local media, LiveTV from TVHeadend (DVB-S) and stream from Amazon/Netflix and other online platforms.

My 2 Barebones fulfill those requirements already but I need to extend the number of boxes (for the kids), hence testing new ‘cheaper’ boxes dedicated to that job.

As Kodi Leia is needed for the online-streams, I immediately went ahead updated to the nightly build. due to the excellent description in this forum, it went flawlessly. As afterwards Netflix had some problems with the login, I incorporated the phyton functionality as well as described in the forum here and Netflix was running.

The rest of the setup is easy as well as it is handled within Kodi anyway.

After that was done (took not even half an hour and will be for sure more easy in the future once a stable Leia version is released) I want ahead and tested the performance of the Vero (for comparison).

The following perception are maybe due to the fact that I use a version which is currently in development. Please keep this in mind.

GUI: I don’t use the OSMC-Skin as I wanted to have a uniform look and feel for all the boxes and for the structure I need another one was better suited. But what I identified is that at the startup of the box it is not responsive for 2-3 seconds after the skin is loaded. Seems like that some addons are still loading or connecting to their services. Minor, for sure I can tune in after being on a stable version. Also, the GUI-response is sometimes not really fluid. It is that I may use a skin which is not really optimized or there are background services which are working. I will see and make a final judge on this topic once the the stable-version containing Kodi Leia will be available.

When I went into the addons to install the ones I wanted I saw that alot of addons were already installed but deactivated (e.g. the PVR’s) or the language files… if they are not custom to OSMC tbh I would prefer to load them as needed as I like clean systems. On the other hand, the don’t really create a lot of additional burden, so it is more a minor thing related to myself

Now to the most critical part - performance:
I tested a few different types of of media, 576, 1080p from local media - no problem. UHD stream from the test channel from astra - flawless
Netflix & Amazon - as they are decoded via software this was interesting. 720p without a problem but at 1080p I identified that the sound seems to runaway slightly compared to the picture. After a while there is a catch-up mechanism kicking in. Then they are synchron for a while. I don’t know if this means 1080p transcoding is a bit too much for the box, but I have good hopes that with the final and stable version of OSMC with Leia this gets maybe solved. It looks like it may only need a small performance boost to be perfect.

Final thoughts:
Overall a very nice box tied with a good OS and flexibility. Performance with HW transcoding is without flaws. Once the stable version of OSMC contains Kodi Leia I very likely can recommend the Vero 4k+.
And I hope that the stable version contains already all necessary libraries out of the box (e.g. samba) which are core settings in Kodi.
Btw, I really like the remote for the box, but for those of us that have already one or more boxes an option to buy a Vero 4k+ without a remote control for a bit cheaper price would be great.

Keep up the work - hope I can contribute a few reports during the development of OSMC now that I have the box.

Thanks for reading
Joe

[sam_nazarko]

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to feedback with your experience.

@wylaryzel

But what I identified is that at the startup of the box it is not responsive for 2-3 seconds after the skin is loaded. Seems like that some addons are still loading or connecting to their services. Minor, for sure I can tune in after being on a stable version. Also, the GUI-response is sometimes not really fluid. It is that I may use a skin which is not really optimized or there are background services which are working. I will see and make a final judge on this topic once the the stable-version containing Kodi Leia will be available.

I can think of one patch that is missing in Kodi v18 that would cause the slower start. When I rebase for v18 officially; this should be improved.

Make sure that you are running the GUI at 1080p for best performance.

@wylaryzel

When I went into the addons to install the ones I wanted I saw that alot of addons were already installed but deactivated (e.g. the PVR’s) or the language files… if they are not custom to OSMC tbh I would prefer to load them as needed as I like clean systems. On the other hand, the don’t really create a lot of additional burden, so it is more a minor thing related to myself

Over the years, Kodi’s taken a modularised approach which means that almost everything is now an add-on. If these add-ons aren’t activated; they won’t be using any resources, beyond a small amount of disk space.

@wylaryzel

It looks like it may only need a small performance boost to be perfect.

Indeed – there is already some promise here. There has also been some progress with Widevine, which means that in the future it may be possible to play some streams with hardware acceleration; which would negate the need for improved software performance entirely.

https://twitter.com/david3141593/status/1080606827384131590

@wylaryzel

And I hope that the stable version contains already all necessary libraries out of the box (e.g. samba) which are core settings in Kodi.

Yes – it will

@wylaryzel

Btw, I really like the remote for the box, but for those of us that have already one or more boxes an option to buy a Vero 4k+ without a remote control for a bit cheaper price would be great.

The problem with this would be the addition of another SKU (which is always painful). We also have a number of users that expect a remote controller to be bundled with the device. This could cause some disappointment. The goal is to provide everything needed out of the box.

Cheers

Sam

[gb160]

@sam_nazarko

Indeed – there is already some promise here. There has also been some progress with Widevine, which means that in the future it may be possible to play some streams with hardware acceleration; which would negate the need for improved software performance entirely.

twitter.com

Dаvіd Вucһаnаn (David3141593)

Soooo, after a few evenings of work, I’ve 100% broken Widevine L3 DRM. Their Whitebox AES-128 implementation is vulnerable to the well-studied DFA attack, which can be used to recover the original key. Then you can decrypt the MPEG-CENC streams with plain old ffmpeg…

11:28 PM - 2 Jan 2019 2.1K 830

This is excellent news…would I be right in thinking that with this progress, 4k Netflix could also be a possibility on the Vero 4k+?

Im using the Netflix app in my TV to get 4k and 1080p atm, would be excellent to have this working with Kodi.

[sam_nazarko]

No – 4K is L1.

[gb160]

Damnit!

[angry.sardine]

Well, even 1080p Netflix would be a big step forward.

[wylaryzel]

If you hope for HW playback for 1080p from Netflix (or Amazon), I agree, would be nice as alot of boxes can handle HW playback for 1080p quit well.

What will not happen is that with (even if the system would be able to play) L3 to get all the videos in 1080p. This depends on the content provider and is the reason that some videos are only available in 720p or lower resolution in the app.