Vero 4K+ hardware update anytime soon?

[ssv17]

Hi - I’ve been a happy Vero 4k+ box user for ~4 years now and may need another one soon. Is there a potential hardware update that’s coming this year by chance? Thanks

[joakim_s]

This is a pure personal opinion, that doesn’t reflect any “official stands”!! Whith that said:

• The current device still works well, for a “old servant”
• Some of the lack of Standards like DV, isn’t likely to be addressed with a new generation.
• There is a global problem with supply chains and chip shortages, which I don’t think was a factor when next gen was “planned/designed” (if it even was )
• In this market, when are your designs to old to be realized, when is it time to redesign?
• Does a mediacenter device need a lot of ram or local storage? Is there a lot of people that uses their pi4 8gb as a pure mediacenter?

I’m not even into designing hardware, and I can see like 10 issues with put to market a pre-covid or early covid design. So in my mind, it’s better to develop a new design and make it as great as the Vero4k was when it came. It’s still holding it’s own, true limits are creeping up, but still 3+ years in a market like this. That says something about the concept, and when you have accomplished that once, you put yourself under a great pressure to do the same again. I don’t envy Sam at all when it comes to the next gen.

As I stated initially this is MY OPINION, nothing official /Joakim

[thansen_dk]

Vero 4k+ purchasing questions

Hi No new Vero soon - we are struggling to produce enough as is and chip shortages and price increases are making this hard. I will revise our pricing at the end of May to reflect this. The next model when it does get released will still feature 802.11ac and not WiFi6 as 802.11ac should still be sufficient for UHD streaming. But new models are still in the planning stage. We are still working on supporting Widevine L1 and HDCP2. We had some success with this in 2020, but Widevine requirements…

[angry.sardine]

@ssv17

Is there a potential hardware update that’s coming this year by chance?

All of the available evidence suggests that there isn’t. But frankly, even if there were, I very much doubt that the OSMC guys would admit it. Everyone knows about the Osborne Effect.

EDIT: Also, it’s not like launching a new device means that the old one stops working. If the Vero 4K+ does everything you need it to, it will continue to do everything you need it to, even after a new product is launched (whenever that is). So if it does what you want, buy one; if it doesn’t, don’t buy one. Either way, future products shouldn’t affect that calculation.

[sam_nazarko]

We don’t comment on new products.

What I can say is that support for the Vero 4K/4K+ will be extended significantly. Furthermore; support now exists in the upstream kernel. This means that once OSMC stops supporting it in an official kernel, there will still be upstream support from the kernel itself. The reason we don’t use this newer kernel yet is because it doesn’t have feature parity, but it works reasonably well and means users don’t have to rely on us for support forever.

[nunojsa]

@sam_nazarko

What I can say is that support for the Vero 4K/4K+ will be extended significantly.

Nice to know…

@sam_nazarko

but it works reasonably well and means users don’t have to rely on us for support forever.

Well, but this probably means that you need to compile the kernel yourself (right?) which is not so straight for regular users… And there’s also kodi which is a beast on it’s own… But yeah, no one really expects for a product to be supported forever and 5 years was already great so having this extended is even better

• Nuno Sá

[bla]

Very happy to hear that Vero 4K+ support will be extended. It is an amazing device and the only thing I miss is DV which, as mentioned above, is a very unlikely proposition on a device like this. And I rather have it this way than to have DV on a totally closed & locked device.
I believe that continuing 4K/4K+ (vs. a new model) is the best news anyone could hope. You already have a great device and the ongoing support will just continue to make the software side better. A new model would take a significant slice of the limited resources especially considering the current situation in electronics manufacturing.
My opinion is that let the 4K/4K+ continue to be the king of the hill until 8K is mainstream reality. Or some other (HDR?) standard suddenly takes over the world.

Regarding kernel building - I would assume that in such an unlikely future the community would band together and start to provide replacement builds for the benefit of all users.

[sid6581]

I’m very happy with the support we get here which is far more important than some hardware features. And with Sam already having implied that DV support is worked on that would add the last remaining standard which is unfortunately becoming more common all the time.

Would it be possible to add VRR support or would that need a hardware revision? No blank screens anymore when switching refresh rates would be the icing on the cake although not really necessary.

[sam_nazarko]

@sid6581

Would it be possible to add VRR support or would that need a hardware revision? No blank screens anymore when switching refresh rates would be the icing on the cake although not really necessary.

There’s some upstream work going on with this in Kodi. I think the changes will make it for Kodi v20 (definitely not Kodi v19). This should smooth out refresh rate changes for content with variable frame rates.