Vero 4k+ purchasing questions

General Discussion
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I’m thinking about getting a Vero 4k+, but I have a few questions before I do. Specifically:

  1. It’s been 4 years since Vero was last refreshed. Are there plans to release a new hardware version soon? If so, I might wait for that (in particular I’m interested in WiFi 6 but more performance would always be welcome, especially given Widevine software decode). If not, how future proof is the Vero 4k+ today? E.g. I don’t think I’ll be getting 8K content anytime soon, but it would be nice to understand if I’d have the option to in the future.
  2. Someone said on another thread that Netflix will play at 720p with no problem (which I take to mean, no stuttering/lagging video even though the audio keeps going like I’m seeing on my Raspberry Pi) and may eventually support 1080p, which I assume will be based on Widevine L1 support via secureOSMC, if that happens. Is that correct?

Cheers!

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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 have changed and we have to re-work things. Widevine stopped training and examinations in 2021 but work is resuming again.

You are correct that implementation would leverage secureOSMC. However, we cannot provision keys over the air for the Vero 4K+ because we didn’t build mechanisms to do that. We could potentially retrofit the keys by sending them out via a medium (SD/USB) or offering users to return their devices.

I don’t want to mislead so consider Netflix capped at 720p for this device. Different Widevine library versions have different levels of performance, I’m sure that other users can chime in about the latest performance on Vero.

Could you list some titles giving you problems on Pi? Maybe some users can compare on Vero.

Sam

1 Like
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Got it, this is super helpful!

I’m primarily interested in ax over ac since I live in a dense apartment environment and ax has optimizations for interference. But ac will probably be good enough.

As for titles, honestly it’s all of them AFAICT but I’m currently running OSMC on a Pi 3B so that’s definitely a big part of it. 720p is fine, I’d rather run (mostly) free software at a lower resolution than get something proprietary - just wanted to understand what I was getting into and how the system works. I appreciate the transparency!

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You’re welcome. Give a few titles and the region you’re from (so it can be checked) and I’m sure you’ll get some responses here.

The current Vero is not intended for streaming from proprietary platforms like Netflix, but it’s being worked on. When we do make progress, the interface will still be a bit limited. It’ll be a long time before you see an official Netflix interface. Kodi will see a web browser in the future which is why we are developing Widevine support with CDM libraries, so that users could see Netflix.com which presents a better interface.

Cheers

Sam

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It can handle HEVC/h.265 up to 4K/HDR/60fps, VP9 (e.g. on YouTube) at up to 4K/HDR/60fps, and AVC/h.264 up to 4K/30fps. It can also handle MPEG-2 and VC-1 at any resolution you’re likely to encounter. It can pass through all common audio formats. It supports both HDR10 and HDR10+ . Unlike most other media players it can also handle MVC 3D with frame-packed output.

Things it can’t handle: resolutions above 4K; the AV1 video codec (which is becoming more common, but I don’t know anyone who uses it but doesn’t also support other codecs); and (more importantly!) Dolby Vision.

(Sam occasionally drops veiled hints about experimenting with DV, but he is careful not to make any firm commitments about when or even if we might actually see it; so if I were you, I would work on the assumption that it won’t be supported any time soon, and perhaps not at all).

Sam covered the Netflix situation very thoroughly. My own experience has been that Netflix performs well at 720p (decoding is software-only). Some low bit-rate 1080p streams will play well; some won’t.

Other streaming services that I use:

  • YouTube is a pain in the ass to get working, but once it’s set up, it works well, and you can play up to 4K/HDR/60fps.

  • BBC iPlayer works very well with standard 720p resolution stuff, but you can’t play UHD/HLG versions of programmes. (To be fair, this is a limitation of the Kodi add-on, not a Vero/OSMC issue).

  • Britbox can’t be accessed at all, because there’s no Kodi add-on for it.

  • Disney Plus won’t allow access to anything above 720p; but, curiously, 720p plays with hardware decoding/acceleration. Don’t ask me how!

  • Prime Video (Amazon) is limited to 960x540 resolution. This plays well.

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If you can avoid WiFi, avoid it and go for Ethernet + Switch.
WiFi is similar to connecting a device to an old Hub. And depending on the number of “active” speakers, the available bandwidth for each device is reduce accordingly taking the speed of the slowest device and available physical antennas.