Popular streaming services on Vero4K+

General Discussion
1

I’m debating myself on whether go for a Nvidia Shield or a Vero4k+ for OSMC.

As far as I can tell, the Vero has supposedly the best OSMC experience, while the Shield has some problems with it.
The Shield offers game streaming to play on TV (not imprescindible at all for me, but a welcome feature nevertheless) and because of being an Android device, it has no problems with its typical apps, like Youtube, Twitch, Netflix and such. I know that Netflix is coming to the Vero, and that both YT and TW have addons for OSMC, but I’ve been using them for a while on mi Pi2 and I’ve been having a lot of problems with them. Some days they work, others don’t. Some days I can play 1080p videos, others just 480p or 720p. The Pi isn’t powerfull enough for 1080p@60fps, but I guess that’s not a problem with the Vero. Although the YT integration into Android is so much better even without the addon issues (and much more confortable and useful with my phone app) the Vero has so many good things too.

The question is if would I be able to make use of these streaming platforms without issues on the Vero, since that’s my main use of the Pi right now. Thanks for the attention.

2

Those addons will work today.

We are working on an android release and we are still working on getting Moonlight to work; which would enable game streaming.

So things should meet your requirements today.

The Shield has some issues with colourspace switching; so we don’t recommend it if you plan to watch 4K HDR content in the future. It’s entirely possible they will address that in the form of a software update; however it has been some time.

Hope this helps

Sam

3

Also about chroma subsampling. I have some videos with 4:4:4 subsampling (1080p H.264) and when I try to play them I can hear the sound without problems but the screen is just black. I don’t know if this is the Pi fault, OSMC’s or my TV.
If it’s not a TV problem then would the Vero have any problem with them?

4

No – it should be OK.

If you have some doubts you can share a small sample with us and we will test here.

Sam

5

Since you mentioned twitch it’s used almost daily in our household on my vero 4k+ and i have to say it works flawlessly even when the streamers use funny resolutions or refresh rates. It’s doing 1080p@60fps without any problems if the streamer is streaming at that resolution if they aren’t it’s not veros fault of course

1 Like
6

Speaking purely for myself, and offering what is purely my own personal opinion…

First, if you value your sanity, don’t buy an Nvidia Shield TV. It’s an absolute train-wreck of a device. Netflix, in particular, is badly broken.

Realistically speaking, if you want to use Internet streaming services, the Vero 4K+ may not be a good choice either.

It can play YouTube videos, but currently maxes out at 1080p/60; it’s not possible to play 4K or HDR stuff on YouTube. (It’s possible that it will eventually be able to play 4K YouTube, but I’m not aware of any announced time-frame for that).

For Netflix you are effectively limited to 720p resolution; it will play 1080p video, but it’s horribly jerky - not remotely watchable. It’s possible that it will eventually be able to handle 1080p Netflix, but this is certainly not guaranteed, and I don’t think there are any plans to even attempt higher resolutions than that.

I believe similar restrictions apply to Amazon video as to Netflix.

It does a fairly good job of BBC iPlayer, including playing the experimental 4K streams (although currently not in HDR - that’s being worked on).

Twitch, I don’t know about.

The Vero 4K+ does a very good job as a local media player - streaming locally stored files across the LAN - but it’s not really designed for Internet streaming. If you want a device that can do a good job of both Internet and local streaming then the Apple TV 4K is probably what you want. (It can’t handle 4K YouTube, and also can’t bitstream audio, meaning it can’t deal with Dolby Atmos or DTS:X sound-tracks, but it does most other things pretty well).

If you primarily want something for local streaming, then the Vero 4K+ is a good option.

7

Just for some background: I looked in to this. The limitation is inputstream.adaptive which doesn’t handle VP9 yet (which >=1440p streams come in).

Once that’s resolved; YouTube 4K will work just fine. The SoC supports hardware acceleration of VP9 content.

BBC iPlayer uses HLG; which we will add support for shortly.

Sam

8

We have a “Amazon Fire TV” stick here, and very honestly anyone in the family thinks it is sluggish (even though the remote is Bluetooth based). It is just that that device is slow.
When going back to Vero 4K/4K+ the difference is amazing. It’s sleek, responsive etc.
It came to the point that the kids first check if we have the episodes on the NAS (We have loads of ripped TV Shows from DVDs) before switching over to the Fire TV Stick. shiver
Very honestly, if Netflix, Amazon and the other streaming providers would let the community stream (I mean, we stream with login/pwd etc.) I’d put that Fire TV STick to the trash immediaty.

9

Purely as a matter of nomenclature, incidentally, I think you’re confusing “OSMC” and “Kodi”. Kodi is the application; OSMC is a package that includes the Kodi application plus a cut-down distribution of the Linux operating system that is intended to support Kodi (and not do much else).

So the Shield can’t run OSMC at all. It can run the Android version of Kodi. It actually doesn’t do too bad a job of that if you install the latest beta version of Kodi v18 (“Leia”), but the Vero 4K+ is still better in most respects.

10

OSMC is an operating system; rather than a package.
More details: Frequently Asked Questions - General - OSMC

Actually – we base it on Debian so you can install many other (50,000+) packages via the command line and customise the system if you want to. But if you just want a media center; then you have that option too.

11

I was actually in the same position as you around a year ago, looking to upgrade my current setup and narrowed it down to a Vero 4K or Shield.
Both devices are good and the Shield offers a couple of other features that you’ve mentioned above.

In the end, the lack of color space switching made it an easier decision, this had been a big gripe for alot of Shield owners and I didnt want the hassle of manually changing this to suit my content.

In my opinion, the Vero 4K is a media player first and everything else second, where as the Shield is a great all round device. Since buying the Vero 4K, I’ve seen a lot of comments raised on here, bug’s being listed and Sam is doing a great job in meeting the demands of the community, where as the Shield owners have been left if they’ll ever get an answer to the color space switching!

Im glad i’ve bought into this community…

2 Likes
12

Good to know. But am I right that we don’t have any sort of stated time-frame for when that might be working? (Or have we?)

Did you say somewhere you’re hoping to have that working by the end of the year, or did I imagine that…?

13

Sorry, that was sloppy use of the word “package”; I meant something like “bundle” or “combined distribution”

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I said that today, yes.

Unfortunately no ETA for YouTube 4K. It depends on an upstream component. I don’t know enough about the limitations upstream yet. It could be as simple as needing to request the VP9 stream; which isn’t being done currently.

15

I understand it perfectly, but just wrote it incorrectly. I meant to say Kodi.

1 Like
16

I have both devices in my house and each box excels at different things. The Vero 4K, as someone has already mentioned, is the device to use for local media and anything 4K as the shield is garbage, right now, at local content. The Vero 4K sips minimal power and just flat out works 99.999% of the time. The downsides to the Vero are that it can’t really handle CPU intensive skins like Aeon MQ7 very well as it takes a long time to refresh the box covers while moving from one pane of content to another. I understand this is a computational task and it really shows how slow this box is compared to a NUC or even the Shield TV. The wife and I have learned to live with it thou.

The Shield TV excels at playing online content period. The android TV version of YouTube is so smooth and lightning fast it’s pretty incredible and it’ll play anything you throw at it resolution wise on YouTube. Other content providers Netflix and Amazon are butter smooth at 4K even thou the color is off and that’s the biggest gripe with these things. Users here have already posted about the colorspace issues and auto resolution switching. My wife loves the thing thou because it’s super fast, has only a couple of buttons on the remote, and the GUI is easy to navigate. … before I forget SMB v1 for file sharing… omg seriously.