UGoos AM6B+ - End-Game 4K Media Streamer (for me anyway, and anyone who cares about Dolby Vision playback)

[himey]

The Homatics can't run CoreElec from it's internal storage. You must have a 'slow' USB device connected for that. (I have one of those too). I have a SSD USB drive hanging off it behind my Bedroom TV!). That's not a lounge room, fast browsing Music device at all. It will be the next to be dumped.

I have the data stored on the eMMC which speeds things up. I don't use fancy skins atm, so it flies. Definitely no speed issues. I only use it for movies. I use a mini pc for music.

 

[HomerJAU]

I have the data stored on the eMMC which speeds things up. I don't use fancy skins atm, so it flies. Definitely no speed issues. I only use it for movies. I use a mini pc for music.

That was my point:
If you're are buying a Media Player for music the Homatics is not ideal.
If you are buying the AMB6+ for music, its not ideal either.

They both are way better than using a BD Player or a PC and keyboard, But for most members here on QQ there are better devices.

 

[himey]

That was my point:
If you're are buying a Media Player for music the Homatics is not ideal.
If you are buying the AMB6+ for music, its not ideal either.

They both are way better than using a BD Player or a PC and keyboard, But for most members here on QQ there are better devices.

The fancy skins don't slow down mini pc's like they do streamers. I was set with only my mini pc and an Apple TV until I got an OLED. After that, Dolby Vision became a priority.

 

[HomerJAU]

Newbies need to look at their Use Case:

Here's mine:

I watch 4K FEL movies about once a month
I watch 4K HDR and HD movies about once a week
I listen to music surround almost every day
I have a fully focused music/concert experience about once a week (3 or 4 hrs)

So my ideal media player is one that is the best for music, great at 4K HDR and HD video and Dovi FEL is not critical at all.

I can still watch a 4K movie with FEL in 4K HDR only and not notice any difference. I'd have have a side by side look to spot any difference anyway)

Its like saying I can't enjoy 96/24 surround because my AVR can only do 48/24 surround. So don't chase a pipe dream unless you really must.

I'm only posting this as I presume most of us here on QQ have a similar use case to mine.

 

[himey]

I can still watch a 4K movie with FEL in 4K HDR only and not notice any difference.

I agree, but I am still glad I don't have to compromise. I have never watched as many movies as I have since getting an OLED.

 

[citysoundman]

I agree, but I am still glad I don't have to compromise. I have never watched as many movies as I have since getting an OLED.

Yea same here. There really isn't a one box solution for everything. I'm fine with getting a few different things that are all kinda optimal. So for video I'll use the Ugoos for my local movies/videos and ATV 4K for streaming.

As for playing my music files I'm using JRiver on a Mac Mini which has been great for hi res 2.0, especially since I have a lot of DSD files which JRiver can bitstream. Since I don't have a proper Atmos playback system I haven't worried too much about not being able to play Atmos releases. But the QQ NUC devices do look incredibly sweet, it's so cool seeing this community benefit from the amazing contribution from @HomerJAU !

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Newbies need to look at their Use Case:

Here's mine:

I watch 4K FEL movies about once a month
I watch 4K HDR and HD movies about once a week
I listen to music surround almost every day
I have a fully focused music/concert experience about once a week (3 or 4 hrs)

So my ideal media player is one that is the best for music, great at 4K HDR and HD video and Dovi FEL is not critical at all.

With regard to movie playback, it's a shame our smart TV's arn't a bit smarter. Given the popularity of .mkv file playback you'd think support for chapters would be standard. Same goes when playing .mp4 contained files. And reliable passthrough of all lossless audio formats via eARC should be a given too!

EDIT: Much like you Homer I would prefer to use a separate device for playing audio files...

 

[himey]

You might want to wait on buying it. It seems the CoreElec site is all of a sudden down while the team reassesses things

It's back up now but read only.

 

[kvsawilson]

From what I've read, ISO playback is not really doable from Kodi. Some Windows users have had some success but I kinda doubt that it will work on this. Maybe someone else has tried it?

I'd like to see an answer to this one. The vast majority of my concert videos are stored in iso format. If my new nuc can't deal with them, I need to start getting them converted to mkv?

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

From what I've read, ISO playback is not really doable from Kodi. Some Windows users have had some success but I kinda doubt that it will work on this. Maybe someone else has tried it?

Perharps you need to access ISO image files via an SMB or NFS network connection, not UPnP/DLNA...

 

[HomerJAU]

I'd like to see an answer to this one. The vast majority of my concert videos are stored in iso format. If my new nuc can't deal with them, I need to start getting them converted to mkv?

Kodi can play ISOs.

But ISOs can not the added to the Kodi music library (database) so the album metadata and navigation options (Show it as an 'Atmos' album is album lists etc) won't exist. You would need to use Kodi's file navigation to go locate the ISO file to play, like you do now on a PC or Mac I guess.

If you were to rip to MKV files you can tag the MKV them (almost automated) and then they get full support in Kodi's UI, the concerts would appear as just another 'album' in the Artists 'album list' and see the track names in Kodi too (and gapless).

Here is an example of both audio albums and 'video albums' (Concerts) in an 'Artist album view' for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Even the square audio covers vs rectangle video covers in same view):

And I won't mention the metadata you don't see if browsing for an ISO file. (ok I mentioned it


I just want to play a specific song, click on the cover and see the track list, click on a track bang (Kodi auto plays next from selected track until the 'album' is finished):

 

[kvsawilson]

Thanks for the info. Mkv sounds like it has lots of advantages but I guess you lose the menus? But, I guess if I can jump right to any song, why do I need them?

Thanks so much for all the help you provied here, Garry. Between your music helper, the nuc project and your wealth of knowledge about our hobby, i think you're the best support site on the Internet. Would love to buy you a beer sometime, except you live in a land far, far away. But, please know your efforts are greatly appreciated.

 

[Krobar]

@steelydave Do you still get working PCM 4.0 with recent firmwares?

Using different channel mappings within a 4 channel Flac file, I get quite a few issues:
No Flac Mapping - Bad (5.1 Output)
FL+FR+SL+SR (4.0) - Bad (5.1 Output)
FL+FR+C+LFE (3.1) - Good (3.1 Output)
FL+FR+SBL+SBR (Quad) - Bad (5.1 Output)

 

[Krobar]

If using Kodi then SACD/DSF etc is converted to PCM.

I had it on my list to look at allowing passthrough in Kodi but since I don’t play SACD ISO, DFF, DSF etc I doubt I’ll do anything, as my SACDs have been converted to FLAC.

Another plus one for this if you ever get a chance.

 

[steelydave]

@steelydave Do you still get working PCM 4.0 with recent firmwares?

Using different channel mappings within a 4 channel Flac file, I get quite a few issues:
No Flac Mapping - Bad (5.1 Output)
FL+FR+SL+SR (4.0) - Bad (5.1 Output)
FL+FR+C+LFE (3.1) - Good (3.1 Output)
FL+FR+SBL+SBR (Quad) - Bad (5.1 Output)

I've had no problem with this. Generally speaking, these issues are related to AVRs (not sure which one you have) not having support for any channel assignments between 2.0 and 5.0 (ie 3.1, 4.0, 4.1 etc.) even though they're in spec and should be supported. This is why I've argued several times for disc-based media like the Quadio Blu-Rays being authored as 5.1 even though there's "empty" channels - they don't increase the file size, but ensure 100% compatibility with every playback device.

I've included a couple of pictures of my audio settings below, you can check and see if yours match - the other option is to use software to "pad" any of your multichannel files that have less than 5.1 channels to 5.1. I personally use @HomerJAU 's wonderful Music Media Helper which allows you to do all manner of these kinds of things including adding silent channels, remapping files with swapped channels, file and format conversions, tagging and so much more, and best of all it's free (aside from the human cost on Homer's psyche).

 

[Krobar]

I've had no problem with this. Generally speaking, these issues are related to AVRs (not sure which one you have) not having support for any channel assignments between 2.0 and 5.0 (ie 3.1, 4.0, 4.1 etc.) even though they're in spec and should be supported. This is why I've argued several times for disc-based media like the Quadio Blu-Rays being authored as 5.1 even though there's "empty" channels - they don't increase the file size, but ensure 100% compatibility with every playback device.

I've included a couple of pictures of my audio settings below, you can check and see if yours match - the other option is to use software to "pad" any of your multichannel files that have less than 5.1 channels to 5.1. I personally use @HomerJAU 's wonderful Music Media Helper which allows you to do all manner of these kinds of things including adding silent channels, remapping files with swapped channels, file and format conversions, tagging and so much more, and best of all it's free (aside from the human cost on Homer's psyche).

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Thanks, I have the same settings. AVR is Arcam; 4.0 works nicely with Libreelec on an Intel PC and a bluray player so it definitely supports it in some capacity.

When I asked on the Coreelec forums one of the team mentioned only 2.0 and 7.1 is supported?!?
https://discourse.coreelec.org/t/coreelec-21-2-omega-amlogic-ng-discussion/54109/119