OSMC Vero 4K Media Streamer Review & Comments

@samnazarko can the Vero properly read full disc makemkv backups and link the files correctly?

Kodi went into absolute meltdown, it found the film info happily enough from my folder name but not the correct film data so nothing will play from the link. It then went really AWOL when I switched read from folder option off and started finding random films!

I’ve got the same file structure as what it shows on the Kodi Wiki as that’s what Makemkv puts it in, however the index.bdmv fails to play too so I’m not really sure what’s going on.

A nice simple solution would be a welcome respite given I’ve spent most of my day reading and messing about with things to no avail. VLC plays them fine if I open the folder as a disc without menus.

I’m sure it’s easy once you know what you’re doing but it’s a blood nightmare when you don’t :facepalm:.

Ok on further reading it would appear UHD file structures don’t currently work I’ll have to try a standard Blu-ray and see what happens.
 
Last edited:
@samnazarko can the Vero properly read full disc makemkv backups and link the files correctly?

Kodi went into absolute meltdown, it found the film info happily enough from my folder name but not the correct film data so nothing will play from the link. It then went really AWOL when I switched read from folder option off and started finding random films!

I’ve got the same file structure as what it shows on the Kodi Wiki as that’s what Makemkv puts it in, however the index.bdmv fails to play too so I’m not really sure what’s going on.

A nice simple solution would be a welcome respite given I’ve spent most of my day reading and messing about with things to no avail. VLC plays them fine if I open the folder as a disc without menus.

I’m sure it’s easy once you know what you’re doing but it’s a blood nightmare when you don’t :facepalm:.

Ok on further reading it would appear UHD file structures don’t currently work I’ll have to try a standard Blu-ray and see what happens.

I thought MakeMKV just backed up discs in MKV containers. I didn't realise it now also offers to store files as ISO.
The latest Kodi v18 builds we offer come with a version of libbluray that's up to date enough to parse UHD disc formats. We also depend on libaacs0 which means that if a KEYSDB is present (not something we intend to supply); encrypted BDs can also be played.

Menu support (BD-J) is a no go. I wonder if that's your issue.
Sorry for not really giving you an answer. Can you give me an example of a problematic title and I will check it out here?

Cheers

Sam
 
I hear you're making and awesome slick menu scroll as well :rotfl:

I've just moved all my TV over to the Vero4K+ now and only have the Shield for Netflix and Amazon.

*and the awesome library scrolling.....

When is Kodi v18 coming to the Vero?

Kodi v18 will be released as a stable update when the Kodi team announce it as stable. You can then get Netflix and Amazon through the Vero.

For now, test builds are available on our forum. They are still experimental however.

There's a 25% speed up coming for GPU on Vero 4K + shortly.

Yeah Kodi on Vero does support HDR out of the box. There's an option to toggle HDR auto switching in the settings which should fix banding (I still find this unreliable on my setup), but it shouldn't have any bearing on whether HDR is enabled or not.

Kodi on PC / Windows 10 doesn't support HDR out of the box, and you need a build with DSPlayer built in.

This will be fixed in the next update. You won't need to enable HDR auto-switching or any option. We're now able to reliably detect capabilities of the TV and switch chromacity, bit depth and HDR when necessary and depending on the device's capabilities.

Cheers

Sam
 
This be fixed in the next update. You won't need to enable HDR auto-switching or any option. We're now able to reliably detect capabilities of the TV and switch chromacity, bit depth and HDR when necessary and depending on the device's capabilities.

Cheers

Sam
That sounds really great Sam. Once again the continued development of the Vero makes me glad I purchased it
 
I thought MakeMKV just backed up discs in MKV containers. I didn't realise it now also offers to store files as ISO.
The latest Kodi v18 builds we offer come with a version of libbluray that's up to date enough to parse UHD disc formats. We also depend on libaacs0 which means that if a KEYSDB is present (not something we intend to supply); encrypted BDs can also be played.

Menu support (BD-J) is a no go. I wonder if that's your issue.
Sorry for not really giving you an answer. Can you give me an example of a problematic title and I will check it out here?

Cheers

Sam
So, there a 3 options, full disc backup encrypted, full disc back decrypted and then what most people are doing open the disc and get the files you want which converts to mkv.

I’m currently doing a full disc backup which gives your main BDMV folder (In the BDMV folder there is then a Stream folder with the untouched mt2s video files), a certificate folder and the index & objectmovie bdmv files and maybe some other folders (can’t check right now).

From what I understand those two files on a Blu-ray are read by Kodi to get all the film information from the scrapper and properly assign the files.

What’s happening with the UHD is it’s finding the film from my folder name but not assigning the files to play properly so I have to individually select them by going all the way into the folder paths. The mistake I made to try and fix it was unticking look for folder name only and then it started finding random films instead.

The menus also don’t work with VLC but there I can just point to the whole folder and say open as Blu-ray Disc without menus and it will start playing properly.

After furthing googling it would seem UHD’s are not currently supported with the full disc backup method and original file structure and are in fact different to regular Blurays despite looking the same.

There seems to be some talk of Kodi 18 having support so I will try that out and see what happens and also a standard Blu-ray to see what that does as it supposedly already works with them this way.

The actual films play fine (minus HDR in Kodi) once I select the files but I’m hoping I can get it to actually automatically find everything for me without having to convert each file individually to mkv and find the right ones for extras etc.

The films in question are Infinity War, Black Panther and Planet Earth 2 but pretty sure it’s just because they are UHDs. I’ll backup the Blu-ray this evening the same way and see what Kodi and the scrappers do with it.
 
I tried that one yesterday but then as soon as I went to play a film it said it needed MadVR installed and I couldn’t be bothered installing and setting that up too for what is just a temporary setup. I don’t actually need Kodi to play the films I’m mostly using it to understand how the scrapper works and what files it can play and how they need to be ordered.
 
Ok, Kodi 18 finds the correct film files and gives the option to playback, although curiously it finds two files from the playlist it assigns as the film (4 & 800) and both play fine.

Just backing up a bluray disc with extras now to see what happens as I don't think any of these UHDs even have extras.

Ok backed up a Bluray which also shows 2 files but also gives the option to playback the bluray menu which worked flawlessly, even better than VLC which had slowdown. Not sure about how the extras kodi add-on works as it didn't find anything, I'll go have a read up on it now.

May have to have a play with converting something to mkv to compare and maybe just watch the first time on the player to get the disc experience.
 
Can I ask what the required internet speeds are for playing back 4k on the vero?

On mine, I have around 60 Mbps - arriving to my Vero via one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-PL...00WUACDBM/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

I actually pay for 200Mbps via Virgin Media but it is impossible for me to go wired straight from router. I tried putting a 50m ethernet cable across my house to test the speed from the router - and it was 140Mbps on the Vero, and all files worked. But this is not going to be a permanent solution.

With this setup, the majority of ripped 4k files are fine playing from a centralised hard drive on my network - but there are 1 or 2 that are True HD 7.1 - that don't play at all or stutter terribly.

I have checked the OSMC forum and have refresh rate synched, synch playback to display turned off etc

Should I try buying another set of powerlines, or is there a bottle neck somewhere? I tried a £15 USB 3.0 Gigabit adapter - but that literally halved my internet seed to about 30 Mbps! Extremely frustrated.

Any help appreciated.
 
— As an Amazon Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases —
Can I ask what the required internet speeds are for playing back 4k on the vero?

On mine, I have around 60 Mbps - arriving to my Vero via one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-PL...00WUACDBM/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

I actually pay for 200Mbps via Virgin Media but it is impossible for me to go wired straight from router. I tried putting a 50m ethernet cable across my house to test the speed from the router - and it was 140Mbps on the Vero, and all files worked. But this is not going to be a permanent solution.

With this setup, the majority of ripped 4k files are fine playing from a centralised hard drive on my network - but there are 1 or 2 that are True HD 7.1 - that don't play at all or stutter terribly.

I have checked the OSMC forum and have refresh rate synched, synch playback to display turned off etc

Should I try buying another set of powerlines, or is there a bottle neck somewhere? I tried a £15 USB 3.0 Gigabit adapter - but that literally halved my internet seed to about 30 Mbps! Extremely frustrated.

Any help appreciated.

I've replied to your OSMC forum post.
 
— As an Amazon Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases —
Can I ask what the required internet speeds are for playing back 4k on the vero?

On mine, I have around 60 Mbps - arriving to my Vero via one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-PL...00WUACDBM/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

I actually pay for 200Mbps via Virgin Media but it is impossible for me to go wired straight from router. I tried putting a 50m ethernet cable across my house to test the speed from the router - and it was 140Mbps on the Vero, and all files worked. But this is not going to be a permanent solution.

With this setup, the majority of ripped 4k files are fine playing from a centralised hard drive on my network - but there are 1 or 2 that are True HD 7.1 - that don't play at all or stutter terribly.

I have checked the OSMC forum and have refresh rate synched, synch playback to display turned off etc

Should I try buying another set of powerlines, or is there a bottle neck somewhere? I tried a £15 USB 3.0 Gigabit adapter - but that literally halved my internet seed to about 30 Mbps! Extremely frustrated.

Any help appreciated.

I think you're confusing your home network speeds with your Internet connection speeds. They are separate and not related!
 
— As an Amazon Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases —
Quick question here guys ,I had kodi working fine and all of a sudden it started crashing with an unhappy face ,tried to setup using a usb ,now all i get is a boot screen now ,wont boot from usb stick .

Any ideas welcome please .

Ps is there a way to get the pc to recognize the vero
 
Quick question here guys ,I had kodi working fine and all of a sudden it started crashing with an unhappy face ,tried to setup using a usb ,now all i get is a boot screen now ,wont boot from usb stick .

Any ideas welcome please .

Ps is there a way to get the pc to recognize the vero

The power supply could be faulty as this happened to me before. You should contact Sam, he was great and sent me a replacement.
 
Ps is there a way to get the pc to recognize the vero
My laptop does see the Vero, is it possible to write files from my laptop to the HDD attached to the Vero 4k+ ?

Thanks
 
Hi thanks Sam ,ive tried that but im now getting a boot error from the usb stick
is there any way i can connect to a pc to update

Try a different USB stick and make sure you follow the instructions to the letter in regards to formatting etc.
 
Does this have its own dedicated video player ?

Also where are you guys getting it for £99 ?
 
Its a Kodi box.Its ok if you like Kodi with excellent support from Sam the dev.
The £99 box was the previous model (Vero 4k) @ £109 with a £10 discount code offer now and then.The new Vero 4K+ is £119 on their website at the mo.
 
Its a Kodi box.Its ok if you like Kodi with excellent support from Sam the dev.
The £99 box was the previous model (Vero 4k) @ £109 with a £10 discount code offer now and then.The new Vero 4K+ is £119 on their website at the mo.

Never been a fan of kodi to behonest, i just want a player that has its own video player, wall posters for movies and plays all my files. including 4k HDR
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom