Need some advice regarding hardware for kodi.
Need some advice regarding hardware for kodi.
Hello everyone,
I'm planning to set up Kodi on a mini PC, but I'm unsure which hardware to choose, such as a Minisforum or an Intel NUC and which once. I have a very large library of movies and shows on Jellyfin, and I'd like to use Kodi with one of the two Jellyfin plugins to stream content from Jellyfin to the Kodi box.
I tried Jellyfin for WebOS 4, but unfortunately, it has many limitations regarding codecs. My library mainly consists of REMUX files. The box needs to be able to play 4K, Dolby TrueHD, Atmos, etc. Additionally, I'd prefer it to be somewhat future-proof.
Apart from that, I will connect the Kodi box directly to an Arcam AVR31 so I can pass on the Dolby audio to it.
I run Kodi/LibreElec w Jellyfin plugin on a rPi4-8gb with everything mounted via SMB.
Successfully watch 4k content no problem.
Your biggest problem/concern ends up being hardware decoding. You want something that can do x264,x265-10bit,etc. DD/Atmos decoding is way less intensive.
Just check your CPU/GPU for hardware decoding support when you do a purchase as that is where you'll want to splurge.Any new 2020+ Intel nuc/mini PC will be over powered for this.
Alright thnx for the insight. Almost all audio can be decoded by the arcam as far as i know so I like to passtrough the audio to it. The video decoding is something to look in to then. If a device supports it is it lightweight to decode or should I be aware to get a CPU with enough power to do so.
If the CPU has hardware decoding then you're good. As the CPU basically offloads the processing power.
You are right, audio processing is next to nothing and passthrough will work.
The only reason (for me) to grab a powerful CPU would be so I could do other things on it. & So it lasts for the next decade. An example would be AV1 which is gaining more popularity (YouTube announced that all videos will be av1 now). At the moment hardware decoding is not great for PCs but it will get better. Even so a more powerful CPU will be able to handle it.
I currently use a Khadas VIM1S running Coreelec. Churns through 4K 10-bit HDR AV1 with no problem, and the spec sheets claim that it'll do HEVC at 8K.
Only thing is that the hardware decoder doesn't handle AV1 grain synthesis. Not sure if that's a limitation of the hardware itself of a software issue with Kodi.