I’m currently running OpenPHT on Windows 10 and I’ve really had enough of dealing with Windows.
I’d really like to just run OpenPHT with just enough OS to run it and nothing else.
Presumably going the linux route would be best, but would one of the embedded options work at all on x86 hardware?
I’m running a HP Microserver n54L with an AMD Radeon HD 6450 Silent graphics card. It may not be the latest and greatest but it’s done me well for a few years and I see no reason to change it.
It doesn’t -have- to be a cut down OS, I just want it to basically act like an appliance - switch on load into OpenPHT.
I went the Odroid C2 route for just the reasons you mention. Couldn’t be happier. Total cost with case, card, and remote is under $100. Money well spent for ease of use once setup. Its played everything I’ve thrown at it and has been far more stable than my old windows based system.
WeTek Hub is also supported in the up coming 1.7.0 release. All the power of the C2 chipset with builtin wifi and remote. The linux kernel is better supported as well.
@benjaminwolf said:
WeTek Hub is also supported in the up coming 1.7.0 release. All the power of the C2 chipset with builtin wifi and remote. The linux kernel is better supported as well.
There will be new images for both WeTek Hub and WeTek Play2 starting with 1.7.0.
The only possible disadvantage the Hub has is that it only has 1GB ram compared to 2GB in the C2 or the Play2.
If repetitively playing very high-bitrate 4K hevc is your main purpose I would try to select a device with 2GB ram.
For 10-bit 50hz 4K DVB hevc the C2 will not be the best one as it contains a hardware decoder bug that can produce some artifacts.
@dragonmel said:
That’s not too bad… what does the c2 come in at these days
A c2 is about 49 and pi3 about 35 … bare boards on amazon…
Wetek looks good from a specs perspective… wonder if the openPHT guys will make an optimized release to take advantage of the hardware goodies…?
C2 allows HEVC and full DTSHD MA passthrough, etc. My C2 runs a little cooler with the wallwart plugin rather than power over USB. I imagine the WeTEK will be the same.
Holy grail for me on these devices is to get a dual boot going. Android on eMMC and OpenPHT on SDcard so I can stream just about anything on any of my accounts from a single device without using PMP (uhg at the moment, am I right? )
I will likely stay in a holding pattern until my idevices get the hardware capability for hevc …
Then a massive reencoding effort will ensue !!! Hehe…
Might want to get started on that now. Some of my H264-to-HEVC HQ re-encodes have taken a week for a single movie. I will say 10bit looks pretty good though. Wish these devices supported 12bit as those look really good compared to the 8bit at lower bitrates.
@tickticktickboom said:
Have you tried the Wetek hub with 1.7? bugs?
I’m thinking about buying the odroid c2 but whats nice with Wetek is that it’s already built and ready with remote and wifi.
I bought one the other day when @kwiboo mentioned it was going to be supported in 1.7. I haven’t received my hub yet to test. I can report the Odroid C2 works pretty well with a 1.3 dev version I had access to, but I haven’t tested either of them with a 1.7 build yet.
Can anyone confirm that the Odroid C2 and Wetek offer passthru to bitstream the HD audio formats DTS HD Master Audio & Dolby TureHD (Atmos and DTS X a bonus)?
(I see above DTSHD MA is mentioned but wanted to double check)
@kudos69 said:
Can anyone confirm that the Odroid C2 and Wetek offer passthru to bitstream the HD audio formats DTS HD Master Audio & Dolby TureHD (Atmos and DTS X a bonus)?
(I see above DTSHD MA is mentioned but wanted to double check)
I don’t have a surround sound system at this location to test on, but here’s @NedtheNerd’s original assessment. Keep in mind the HDMI PCM channel issue maybe resolved in 1.7 via a linux driver update. The C2 hardware can support more than 2 PCM channels but there is an issue with the software driver outside of OpenPHT’s control. The anticipated new version may support full PCM surround over HDMI.
Audio codec support:
Passthrough of AC3/DD/DTS 5.1
Passthrough of Dolby True HD 5.1 and 7.1 / ATMOS
Passthrough of DTS-HD MA/HRA 5.1 and 7.1
Passthrough of DTS 96/24
No HDMI PCM 5.1/7.1 audio output is currently supported. PCM 2.0 is the only PCM output format available at the moment, selecting 'Enable Dolby Digital (AC3) transcoding' will give you AC3 5.1 output from AAC 5.1 media
Audio formats which can not be bitstreamed (FLAC, WAV/PCM, AAC etc.) will either be transcoded to lossy Dolby Digital 5.1, or folded down to a PCM 2.0 downmix.
Interesting. From memory I have very few files with PCM only sound, 2001 A Space Odyssey being one.
I see the C2 can run off an either a MicroSD card or slightly faster eMMC card. Can anyone confirm if they have tried both with OpenPHT and does it make any difference?
Edit:
Ah, just spotted that OpenPHT will not run from an eMMC…
Benjaminwolf, In that link you posted I see you saying:
“I do see one issue with the oDroid C2 OpenPHT version with DTS-HD 7.1 audio. If you don’t have passthrough capability enabled, caching happens a lot. I had the same problem running the Windows version, but I was able to get rid of the caching by enabling local DTS-HD 7.1 transcoding in the Audio Preferences. I don’t see that option available for the oDroid version.”
I’m not sure what you mean by caching in this context ? Or if this is even still an issue ?
I have a large amount DTS-HD 7.1 material, is there an issue with this or does it passthrough and bitstream fine?
@kudos69
The issue I encountered would not be present in a system that was passing through DTS-HD 7.1 bitstream to a compatible receiver.
As far as the oDroid C2 goes, I’d wait and see what’s in store with the WeTEK hub. Chipset is the same but it has more hw features you may or may not want. Version 1.7 is supposed to support it so you’d have to wait and see how well it works.
@kudos69 I can confirm that the Odriod C2 handles both Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio via bitstream just fine (at least within a 5.1 setup- I personally don’t have a 7.1, 7.2, etc). I cannot speak for Atmos and DTS-X, since I dont have the audio hardware to test.
Hope that helps a tiny bit, I know you have more questions, but I don’t have the hardware to test…
You sound like the goto guy on this so i will throw it out there…
Here in the openPHT forum… would you be willing to start a thread… or perhaps the openPHT devs will stup up…
A definitive thread … updated in the top post… for each popular hardware client that openPHT runs… pi, c2, etc… on plex capabilities, openpht preferred / mandatory openpht settings etc…
I use the Generic x86 embedded image on an ancient Acer Revo R3700 with Nvidia ION and it works flawlessly.
I used to have Windows + KODI on this before seeing the light that LibreElec was so much quicker. Then I got into PLEX and installed PlexKodiConnect for a while until I discovered OpenPHT.
I recommend the LibreElec USB creator tool to format and apply the image to your USB stick.
You sound like the goto guy on this so i will throw it out there…
Here in the openPHT forum… would you be willing to start a thread… or perhaps the openPHT devs will stup up…
A definitive thread … updated in the top post… for each popular hardware client that openPHT runs… pi, c2, etc… on plex capabilities, openpht preferred / mandatory openpht settings etc…
A central repository if you will…
rPi’s have their own legacy OpenPHT subforum called Rasplex. Everything is in there currently. There’s a thread for the Odroid C2 started by @NedtheNerd originally here.
I don’t own many other OpenPHT client hardware so I don’t think I’d be the one to start client threads about hardware I don’t own or have tested. But I’d be willing to start one on the WeTEK Hub once I’ve tested it with 1.7. Some of the forums have dual boot built into their base android image, so it maybe able to boot into Android on eMMC and OpenPHT on SD by default or with little modification. Crossing my fingers, toes, and testicles on that one.
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