What is the best choice of Emby client for serious home theatre setup?

[clarkss12 304]

I have a Zidoo X9S boxed up and have not used in quite awhile.  As I recall, it did not work very well with the Emby client, so I boxed it up, and put it away.

I have concentrated all of my attention to these inexpensive Android boxes running CoreELEC....

Right now, Emby for Kodi (next-gen by Quickmic) is struggling with the high bitrate videos.  Otherwise, CoreELEC running on these boxes, shine when playing your own media.

 

[rbjtech 5284]

Likewise the Shield Pro has no issues playing 100Mbit/sec 4K Remux's - I haven't tried anything higher as tbh I have no need to - but expect it would hit the 130Mbit/sec 4K specification without breaking a sweat.

I run as direct FILE playback using the Emby Android TVClient - effectively taking the emby server out the equation during playback.  (media shares are mounted on the Shield)

If the CoreELEC option does everything the Shield does and is cheaper (I suspect it is) then it's certainly something worth considering.    What exact hardware model is it @clarkss12 ?

[clarkss12 304]

Right now I am testing CoreELEC on a Beelink GT1 mini 2 (Beelink GT1 MINI-2 Amlogic S905x3 Android 9.0 TV Box 4GB/32GB Voice Remote Control 2.4G+5.8G WiFi Bluetooth LAN 1000Mbps USB3.0).

I am still doing more testing of the Next-gen Emby for Kodi to see why it buffers on "somewhat" high bitrate videos..  There is no reason it should run into that awful "source too slow for continuous playback" issue.  There is NO bottle neck on my network to cause that issue (that I can find).

[clarkss12 304]

Here is a demo of Emby for Kodi using Embuary skin, running under CoreELEC on an inexpensive Android box.

 

[rbjtech 5284]

I have no interest running Kodi or mashing up with any other applications.  If it does not run native Android TV - then we are not comparing apples to apples...