Kodi is the ultimate media center for cord cutters. If you have a ton of content you want to watch on your TV Kodi is a great management tool to make it happen. What is the best device you can run Kodi on in 2016? Here is our list of the best Kodi devices on the market today.
Nvidia Shield
The Nvidia Shield, with its Tegra X1 processor, is one of the more powerful machines on this list, which means that it's more than capable of streaming videos at 4K resolutions.
This level of power also has several other benefits. You don't have to worry about graphically intensive skins slowing down your media experience, and the system can also be used to both play and stream games when you're not using Kodi/XBMC.
Since the Nvidia Shield runs Android TV as an operating system, Kodi can be easily installed from the Google Play store, and its use is officially sanctioned by Nvidia.
The only downside of the Shield is its cost. With a starting price of $200 (￡150) it's one of the more expensive boxes on our list but, for the money, you're getting a powerful streaming box with enough horsepower for a range of other applications.
Amazon Fire TV
The Amazon Fire TV is an enormously popular streaming device, and with good reason. Its price ($100/￡65) is exceptional considering it offers 4K streaming, and its 2GHz quad core processor means that it's a snappy and responsive device.
There's a big drawback to the Amazon Fire TV though, and that's its exclusive use of Amazon's own marketplace for installing apps. This means that in order to install Kodi you have to perform a process known as 'side-loading'.
This isn't particularly difficult, but if you're someone who doesn't consider themselves to be technically minded then there are better choices on this list.
If you're willing to go through a slightly more involved process to set up your device, however, then the Amazon Fire TV is an absolute bargain.
Cubox i2 (US-only)
The Cubox i2 has a couple of strong arguments to be made in its favor. Coming in at only $90 it's darn cheap, and it comes with Kodi pre-installed to minimise the amount of time you'll spend setting the device up.
That said, the Cubox's 1GHz dual core processor is low-powered compared to others on this list. Plus, it doesn't support 4K playback, and it isn't available outside the US.
If having Kodi pre-installed is a major selling point to you then you could do a great deal worse than take a look at the Cubox, but spend just a little more money and you'll get a much more powerful machine with only a marginally more involved setup process.
Gem Box
On the theme of highly powered devices without 4K playback, we next have the Gem Box. Its price ($99/￡89.99) is significantly lower than the Utilite's however, not to mention the fact that its Android configuration makes installing Kodi a breeze.
However, despite a moderately powerful 1.5GHz quad core processor, the Nexus Player doesn't support 4K playback. If the lack of pixels doesn't faze you and you don't mind Full HD playback, then the Gem Box's easy Kodi installation and ample gaming options (which include streaming over both steam link and Game Fly) might make this box exactly the droid you've been looking for.
Matricom G-Box Q2
The Matricom G-Box Q2 is, for the most part, a quite adept streaming box. It packs Android TV, making Kodi just an easy app installation away.
It's also 4K-compatible, has a nippy quad core 2GHz processor and is even available at a reasonable cost in both the USA ($100) and UK (￡89).
The one odd omission? No gigabit ethernet. The G-Box Q2's ethernet speeds top out at 100gbps, which could potentially bottleneck 4K streams. That said, at least it includes the latest wireless-ac standard of Wi-Fi.
Source From: http://www.techradar.com/news/home-cinema/best-kodi-xbmc-streaming-boxes-2016-1320206
Kodi (formerly known as XBMC) is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media center for playing videos, music, pictures, games, and more. It allows users to play and view most videos, music, podcasts, and other digital media files from local and network storage media and the internet.
What are the file formats supported by Kodi
Container formats: AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF, FLV, MKV/MKA (Matroska), QuickTime, MP4, M4A, AAC, Ogg, OGM, RealMedia RAM/RM/RV/RA/RMVB, 3gp
Video formats: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, H.263, MPEG-4 SP and ASP, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), H.265 (as from Kodi 14) HuffYUV, MJPEG, RealVideo, RMVB, WMV
Audio formats: MIDI, AIFF, WAV/WAVE, AIFF, MP2, MP3, AAC, DTS, ALAC, AMR, FLAC, RealAudio, WMA
3D video formats: Passive 3D video formats such as SBS, TAB, anaglyph or interlaced
As you see, MTS, M2TS, MXF files are not on the supported list, users would have import and playback issues.
To play AVCHD (MTS/M2TS) files smoothly on Kodi, the best solution is to transcode MTS/M2TS files to Kodi best compatible H.264 video codec with AAC audio codec. Here, you can perform the video format transcoding process by downloading a program called Brorsoft MTS/M2TS Converter for Windows/Mac. The program offers a free trial version so that you can try it out fully with a waterstamp to see that it could do what you wanted.
To play MXF files smoothly on Kodi, the best solution is to transcode MXF files to Kodi best compatible H.264 video codec with AAC audio codec. Here, Brorsoft MXF Converter for Mac- Acted as the best MXF to Kodi converting tool - is recommended highly. It features a simple yet sleek interface and performs files conversion with fast speed enables you to complete the MXF to H.264 codec task with least quality loss in just a few clicks at your fingertips.
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