VIM1 s905x or s912 VIM2 . Strictly KODI?

Technical Support
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Hi, I’m in the proccess of buying either VIM1 or VIM2.

I want a strictly KODI box, NO Android. with preferable an underlying OS armbian/archlinux etc… So I can use some of the GPIO’s for temp sensor for room & small diy 4$ oled display for Clock etc. Been using raspberry pi with this, but now upgraded to 4K TV.

I want to be able to use it with my Phillips 4K tv 10 bit panel, with HDR+ and HLG, that is the most important.
I dont look netflix, or any other TV, but I use kodi addon YouTube.

I’ve been using it with an old intel board, that only support hdmi 1.4 4k/30hz. and picture quality is not good. very dark. When using the built in media player that comes with the TV, it always makes content even 1080p quality rips look really good.

My question is should I buy VIM2 s912 instead or just settle with VIM1, s905x ?

I dont use wifi, prefer cable.

I settled with Khada board, because of what seems like a huge, great community.

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Hello, Not sure this is what you are after, but see here.

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Neither supports HDR+ or HLG (and no hardware running Linux supports those yet). S912 is the more capable SOC (under Android) but the lack of Linux blobs for the Mali T820 chip forces GL(ES) things to run via hacks which are clever but throttle performance. S905X is the slower chip on paper (and has 100-Base Ethernet) but is better/fully supported on Linux. An S905D device is best (identical to S905X but can have GB Ethernet) but Khadas don’t have any S905D devices in their current lineup.

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Thanks for all the reply’s, I think I will go with, VIM1 pro. seems like the best option for my usage, I don’t look that much true 4K content, and it seems VIM1 s905x is better supported with linux kernel.

Hopefully it do upscaling 4k auto switching, from 1080p???, anyone have any clue about this, because that would be the main usage.

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In K18 it’s best to use the GUI at 1080p and 1080p media will play at 1080p while 4k media will play at 4k. Kodi will not scale 1080p media to 4k unless you force it by removing 1080p modes from the resolution whitelist (leaving only 4k modes). If you want fancy 1080p > 4k scaling you need a load of fancy shaders, and for that you need something like an Intel NUC. It’s not really an issue because most TV’s will do a better job of scaling 1080p to the native 4k resolution anyway.

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