The time has come to replace my trusty old NUC box running an ancient version of Ubuntu and Kodi. It’s been 10 years.
It’s been good except
– It drops frames with new codecs like x265
– It occcasionally struggles with emulation
– It only supports HDMI 1.4
*What I’m after, in priority order*:
1. Works well as a KODI media player for rips (smooth, reliable, plays anything without dropping frames). It should boot straight into Kodi.
2. Future-proof for new codecs (my thinking is some raw CPU/GPU grunt would be good for this)
My TV (LG 55B7) apparently supports Dolby Vision (!) so maybe it’s worth something that supports that. If not, at least need it to degrade gracefully (no messed-up colours!)
I’m a bit concerned that Android boxes may not have the grunt if some hot new codec comes along.
3. Can play up to at least PS1 games via emulators – ideally, game launching is from/integrated with Kodi and I can use the remote to exit the game. No interest in “streaming” games, this is for ROMs/software I’ve got locally.
4. No ads / I’m in control of the device & what’s running on it
5. Operating system is supported or open-source. I think that rules out the majority of the very cheap Android devices.
6. Ability to run things like Deluge (torrent daemon). If there’s no package it exists as a docker image. Don’t know if this is possible with Android.
Appreciate that I may not get everything I want. Keen to hear your thoughts / recommendations.
Budget – up to $400 USD.
Would you go ARM or x86? Android, Linux or Windows?
Main contenders at this point are
– A beefy new Intel Nuc with Iris XE
– NVidia shield
– Vero 5
If NUC, tossing beteeen Ubuntu again, Libreelec or Batocera