A few weeks ago, I purchased a Shield TV 2019 tube version, but it has been giving me a lot of problems. If it works, it works very snappy and smooth, but mostly it has been giving me problems with 4K HDR with HD audio videofiles, which sometimes makes the Shield UI be very slow and unresponsive with choppy playback where the video has to catch up to the audio, even after I increased kodi’s video cache and readfactor and it’s connected through ethernet on a 1Gb/s cable. Other issues are that when the problems with 4K HDR files occur, the Shield remote randomly stops working while sometimes my TV’s remote with CEC does still work, or that kodi crashes back to the main menu of the shield, or that the entire Shield has to be restarted.
I’m getting pretty fed up with this since I just can’t get it to work smoothly 99-100% of the time. I can still return it free of charge, so I was thinking of switching to the Vero 4K+. Ofcourse, I would then lose the Android TV os and its apps, which isn’t that much of an issue since those apps are also available on my LG tv and I’d gladly exchange that for a smooth and working Kodi.
What I would want in a media player device:
completely smooth playback of video files up to 4K HDR10 on Kodi
passthrough of HD audio like TrueHD (Atmos) or DTS-HD/X
a fast and snappy UI which doesn’t lag, freeze up or crash
wake on hdmi CEC, so when I select the correct hdmi input on my LG TV, the Vero automatically starts (so no 2nd remote is necessary and so the Vero can be completely out of sight in a cupboard)
Being able to map more buttons (like red/green/yellow/blue) with CEC to functions like play/pause/etc
Could someone confirm to me that the Vero 4K+ would do what I want? And this is probably not the place to ask here, but is it known that the Shield is kind of buggy/laggy when it comes to 4K HDR playback or losing connection with its remote? I doubt it has to do with my local network since it’s consistently around 900-1000 Mb/s. I just wouldn’t want to switch it out for the Vero 4K+ to find out it gives me the same problems.
Shouldn’t have any issue with this as long as your using recommended settings and your file source is up to the task.
The Vero supports both although there are some issues with some movies that are still waiting to be patched by team Kodi. AFAIK these issues are with all Kodi devices on all hardware. If you need additional info about this there are posts dedicated to the topic you can read.
The UI is fast for the form factor but this is a bit subjective and dependant on the skin and the size of your library and what your doing with it. It is about as fast as a RPi 3b+ in the UI if that is a useful point of reference. The system is very stable in it’s stock config. If you run test builds, doggy skins, add-on, etc. then it is possible to make it less stable, but that is true for any system that allows for customization.
The Vero is an always on device so there is no startup on CEC needed. It can be controlled via CEC.
You can modify the CEC keymap on a Vero the same way as any other device. The limiting factor here is actually your TV and what commands it forwards from the remote. With your LG you will probably find the keys available (and their key id’s) to be as follows…
up 166
down 167
left 169
right 168
select/ok 11
back 216
exit 216
stop 224
<< 221
>> 223
play 234
pause 230
red 251
green 252
yellow 253
blue 254
So currently I have the Shield, and I can use my LG’s remote with CEC to control it, but I can only use the arrow buttons, select/ok and back. I don’t have the play/pause button on the remote, but the 4 red/green/yellow/blue buttons do get recognized by the shield, they just perform other functions like favourites, etc. And I’d like to be able to remap those to play/pause or >> and <<. And I cant do that on the shield, so it is possible on the vero?
I’ve never touched a shield or spent any time with Kodi on any Android device so I can’t really respond directly to that. As for the LG that list is what I was able to discover was forwarded by my 2019 LG TV (I think there is one or two commands there I pulled from Harmony that are not on my stock remote). Not all of those buttons are mapped, or mapped to the correct thing out of the box. Kodi is actually quite flexible on how you map the keys. You can install an add-on called “Keymap Editor” in Kodi to do most basic remapping. You can learn more about Kodi keymaps at Kodi’s wiki and forum to perform more advanced tweaks that are not supported by that add-on.
The Vero 4K+ has been known to have occasional issues with 4K/60fps material like Billy Lynn’s Long Half-Time Walk or Gemini Man. That’s pretty damn rare, of course, but just in case it affects you…
It’s also not the best device for accessing Netflix, Amazon Video, etc. But it sounds like your TV apps should have you covered there.
