Amazon Prime, Kodi & 24p in one box . . possible?

Orch

Orch

Orch

Associate
Joined
11 Apr 2013
Posts
1,741
Location
Nr Salisbury
Current setup is an intel NUC running LibreElec OS and Kodi 17. Have just purchased a prime account but can't for the life of me get it to work on the Amazon VOD addon.

I could buy a fire TV box but a) I hear it doesn't do 24p or frame rate switching very well and b) I hear that although you can install third party apps like Kodi that is potentially under threat of removal?

I'm also thinking I could install windows 10 on the NUC, then install windows version of Kodi and use the browser for prime, but am I correct in thinking prime would only be 720p? and not sure how 24p playback could be achieved via a browser?

Man why is this so hard. There seems to be a disadvantage with every option unless I'm missing something?

Wish the Kodi addon would just work!
 
I would love that to be the solution, but like I said above, I hear it doesn't do 24p very well which is always a big bug bear for me. From what I understand you can force it to play at 1080/24hz by holding down certain buttons on the remote but you'd have to do this each time you play something different. One of the things I love about my NUC and Kodi is the forced frame rate switching.

Would love someone to tell me I heard wrong though!
 
Just picked up a new FireTV yesterday.

I was looking for a device for the back room, I use a Nvidia Shield TV in my main room and it's flawless. The best Kodi experience I've used, and I've had mini PCs running Openelec, numerous android boxes. I was trying to pick up another Shield TV but prices have gone daft.

I originally order a Minix Neo U1 and that went straight back. The UI was horrid and the remote was unusable. So thought id give the FireTV a try.

Really happy with it for the cash. It isn't as quick as the Shield, but it's quick enough. I've sideloaded the Beta 3 of Kodi 17 and it runs fine. Does HD audio passthrough just great and auto switches frame rates with no issues.

I did download MrMC, although I'm not sure what it does any better than Kodi that I can see. Well other than the fact it's a supported app so it will auto update etc.
 
So auto framerate switching does work on the fire TV through Kodi 17? Awesome!!

Couldn't find anywhere online to confirm that, only that it didn't work in V16. That was the only reason I was looking at other media players.

Definitely going to grab one, just trying to hold out until Friday to see if they feature in any black Friday deals!
 
The official version of Kodi doesn't do it on the Fire TV, official development for Kodi on android is pretty much dead. You need to use a fork like SPMC if you want something that gets updated regularly, use the latest test version from here to get refresh rate switching https://github.com/koying/SPMC/issues/435

Personally i find SPMC better than MrMC, for starters it's free but it's updated more often, focuses on the Fire TV more often and is generally less buggy.

Edit - i didn't realise they'd added it to the beta builds for 17.
 
Last edited:
NexusK said:
official development for Kodi on android is pretty much dead
Click to expand...

really? that would surprise me!

To be honest I'm not fussed, I do like Kodi but just having frame rate switching is more important, so the fact I have options on which MC use is even better!
 
It was for a long time, i hadn't realised they'd started adding it to the beta for 17. Installing it now to see if switching is working on it.
 
Orch said:
really? that would surprise me!
Click to expand...

The main android developer for Kodi was Koying, he had a falling out with the main motivators behind Kodi over code he was implementing to improve performance on Android that they felt was to "hacky" and against the universality ethos of Kodi.

This means that Koying has now returned to his original project which is the SPMC fork. SPMC recently has mostly been developed with Nvidia's Shield in mind but he is now increasingly targeting improvements on the AFTV (particularly 2nd Gen) as well.

Last we heard the Kodi team still do not have an Android dev in place and are in no real rush to find one.
 
Just checked the official Krypton beta build on the Fire TV and refresh rate switching seems to be working fine in it.
 
NexusK - thanks mate, much appreciated.

TheMightyTen - thanks for the detail, handy to know these things!
 
(Another fire tv limitation we discussed in a parallel thread, lack of >30fps media streaming at 4K )

Did you find out if win 10, amazon app on edge/html5 browser will give 1080p ? (that is the only win setup that will give netflix 1080p)
Are there some Amazon demo streams anyone can try out with having to sign-up to test this ?

Kaby Lake processor (hdmi 2.0,HDR10) is believed to be win environment for which netflix and amazon will give 4k apps, so waiting for an updated nuc variant maybe another albeit longer term option ( rumours that intel may discontinue nuc itself before then )
 
I played the new Grand Tour episode via chrome browser at 1080p on saturday? I may be misunderstanding your request though.

The browser was reporting at 1080p anyway, I noted it because thought browser viewing prime was limited to 720p.

Re the 4k thing - won#t 'most' 4k content be 24p anyway? films, tv series etc
 
OK so reference your original comment

I'm also thinking I could install windows 10 on the NUC, then install windows version of Kodi and use the browser for prime, but am I correct in thinking prime would only be 720p? and not sure how 24p playback could be achieved via a browser?
Click to expand...

1080p would work on your nuc.
I had seen a comment that when you full screen the amazon app it will change refresh rate to 24hz - have you seen that too ?

reference >24fps support, utube has some 60hz 4k material, agree films are 24fps, but I thought that usa tv series would naturally be 60fps@4k, but maybe they are only 24fps to reduce streaming bandwidth ... before parting with money on a firetv I wanted to find out about any limitations for hevc codec playback
 
Last edited:
Ha, forgot I asked that. Yeh 1080 did work, but it definitely wasn't 24p. Missus said within 10 seconds of it starting "why is it jerky". Leading to a half hour discussion on 3:2 pull down etc. Apparently she didn't want to know that much :D
 
... was trying to think of famous female film directors (a women did flying daggers)
On a win10 machine - final resort is you set refresh rate to 24fps (23.997) yourself w/ 'intel hd custom resolution', browser&Amazon will then comply ? (that is what I doing with mpc-hc on an extended monitor until I realised mpc could change it itself)
 
Also, last time I tried I couldn't get any decent surround sound working through my firetv (using SPMC) so bare that in mind...
gave up in the end and settled for 2.1 :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom