We hope you've had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
As you may have noticed, we didn't release an OSMC update in November. After a lot of hard work, OSMC's slightly belated December update is here with Debian Stretch and Kodi 17.6. This yields a number of improvements, and is one of our largest OSMC updates yet:
I have lurked on the forums for a long time and finally wanted to thank the OSMC team for their software and OSMC products. You finally got me.
Been using the Crystalbuntu since 2010 and eight years later I still have to use only Sam’s software as everything else just has problems. I updated my Pi to a Vero 4K in November and I have been very happy. So now I bought another one. I upgraded because I wanted 4K and 10-bit H265 support but HD audio and the speed improvements are also welcomed. I never realised how slow my Pi 3 was until I plugged in a Vero 4K.
Only updated a few moments ago, but things seem even faster. HDR is working perfectly now and VC-1 also seems to be fixed. Were there any changes to VC-1 playback as this did not work before?
Can someone tell me how to get Netflix on Vero 4k?
After seeing today’s discount I’ve placed an order for another 5 units and I hope I get them soon
/JT
Hi JT
Thanks for your support. I’m glad you like the Vero 4K and have also found value in OSMC and previous versions of it! I’m also glad you joined the community, you’ve definitely missed out on a lot.
There were indeed VC-1 improvements in this update. All VC-1 content should play as expected on Vero 4K now. If you are unlucky enough to find something that doesn’t play as expected, let me know and we’ll look in to it.
Netflix is available for Vero 4K, but you need to run a Kodi Leia (v18) build. See
and
Keep in mind that Kodi v18 isn’t even alpha status yet. But if you don’t mind potential breakage, then give it a go. It will also give you an idea of what’s to come.
We’ll have that order out for you tomorrow morning with tracking details.
Sam
Just updated but it seems system hasn’t upgraded to stretch
osmc@osmc:~$ cat /etc/debian_version
8.10
Kodi is on 17.6 but it’s crashing as soon play video…will look at logs in a sec
I’d recommend starting a new post outlining your issue with logs. This thread is likely to get crowded, and isn’t really suitable for reporting issues.
You don’t mention which device you’re using either, so it’s hard to advise.
Sam
Thank you for all the hard work and patience with us users who kept on asking when the update would be released. We can be a pain in the ***, when you guys are working hard to get it out as soon as you can…
Big thanks and looking forward to all the great work that will surely be done by you! 
Cheers. This should be a very good year for everyone.
This has been our biggest update in years. I hope it’s well received.
Sam
It has surely not looked like the biggest when it comes to the delay which hasn’t been too long. I remember some much smaller updates having been delayed about the same time.
So, good work and chapeau!
If you look at the activity on GitHub you will see the activity. A lot of that falls under a single point: ‘Preparing OSMC for Debian Stretch’, so doesn’t seem substantial when you look at the release notes. Since the Summer, a lot of us have been working very hard to make this update possible.
We endeavour to release a monthly update but it’s not always possible, or necessary. In the past two years (24 months) we’ve delivered 22 monthly updates on time, so we’re not too far off the mark.
Important updates, such as security updates, are never delayed and always released within 24 hours of CVE exposure and resolution. You can learn more about our update cycle at Keeping your OSMC system up to date - General - OSMC.
For other updates that are unavoidably delayed, we prefer to keep users informed, issue it a few days late, and get it right.
Sam
Oh, wasn’t aware of that. Still impressive. Bigger companies sometimes don’t even deliver on small updates and they have fulltime paid developers that are not in the business of helping users solving their problems at the same time… Big respect to you guys 
Even a monthly update cycle is not to be expected! No worries about some delays that might happen… Especially for such big changes/improvements. Just wanted to say that you guys handled it pretty smoothly and users not keeping track of your GitHub activity - like me until now - wouldn’t have noticed much stress on your side. 
Just wanted to say a big YAY GUYS. Updating my Vero 4K now and looking forward to the smoother playback of HD files. I noticed a few really struggled over the past few months.
Keep up the great work and I would recommend anyone who wants a no nonsense media box to go for the Vero 4K. It just works! What more do you want?
Thanks once again guys…
Cheers!
We have a number of improvements in this update, particularly with some of the higher bitrate files. You should find yourself able to now play even the highest bitrate 4K content on your device. If you have any other problems or issues, give us a shout in a new thread so we can give it a proper lookover.
Sam
“Improved out of the box playback for Vero 4K to reduce buffering and utilise a larger sized cache by default.”
Hey Sam, can I ask you what stats you guys went with for that? Basically, I’m curious if I should delete my advanced settings file or not.
We’ve a couple of patches to buffering in Kodi, and we’ve also changed the advancedsettings parameters that we suggested on the forum a while ago.
See osmc/package/mediacenter-osmc/patches/vero3-advancedsettings.xml at master · osmc/osmc · GitHub for the precise values.
You should now find tweaking buffering settings to be unnecessary
Sam
Hi Sam,
wanna thank you too for all ur work, i really love my vero and with Amazon and Netflix it’s an unbeatable device. And this place here is the friendliest community i’ve ever met,
cu
kid
Hi
Thank you for the kind words. We’re happy you’re enjoying the device and thank you for supporting OSMC and its further development by using Vero 4K.
Let us know if there’s anything we can do for you.
Cheers
Sam
See osmc/package/mediacenter-osmc/patches/vero3-advancedsettings.xml at master · osmc/osmc · GitHub for the precise values.
Thanks, that’s exactly what I was looking for.
Side note, I’m sad to see that the new model of remote no longer has the rewind/fast-forward buttons. They sometimes work better than the seek buttons (the arrows around the OK button), but I could see how some people would prefer the volume buttons! Nice.
This is a really huge, dramatic update. Wow! Thanks so much for your hard work. This is great.
Hi Sam - just ran the update and received the following OSMC Update Error…
Error installing: (unknown package)
Please report this on the OSMC forum.
Please advise what I should do…thanks very much.
Suggest to open a new thread (as the news thread is not for troubleshooting). And then upload logs following this information
To get a better understanding of the problem you are experiencing we need more information from you. The best way to get this information is for you to upload logs that demonstrate your problem. You can learn more about how to submit a useful support request here.
Thanks for your understanding. We hope that we can help you get up and running again shortly.
You can reinstate these buttons by using the Keymap Editor add-on.
However, fast forward and rewind doesn’t work properly in Kodi at this time so we swapped these out for much more demanded volume buttons.
Seeking in Kodi should be pretty robust.
Sam