What does SPMC have that Kodi v17 doesn't?

[Zacharybinx34]

It looks like the latest Kodi v17 has done some major catch up on android. I'm wondering why I should still use SPMC over it?

Thanks!

[JFG90]

If you are a shield user stick with spmc, as koyings main focus is for shield users

[Zacharybinx34]

Specifically why?

[JFG90]

I don't know I'm not the developer...but spmc has always been based for Android as kodi isn't

[MrMC]

SPMC has a seasoned and active maintainer, Kodi does not :)

[Zacharybinx34]

If that's true, then how did the newest Kodi v.17 add so many android features that SPMC has?

[JFG90]

What's it added?

[Zacharybinx34]

"Android

Android 5.0 Lollipop (or later) as minimum

Over the years the Android platform started to mature and catch up to the other platforms regarding capabilities. This also means that we can drop all the custom code we had to add in the beginning to get Kodi running at all as that’s now becoming obsolete. One of those from back in the days was libStageFright which we dropped in a previous release and was replaced by the standard MediaCodec from Android. With v17 we have started to clean up all the old implementations which sadly also means we had to set the minimum Android version to at least 5.0 Lollipop. Don’t worry you can keep using Kodi v16 on all previous Android versions however you just can upgrade to a newer Kodi version. Certain devices will now also support switching the Kodi interface resolution itself so you could potentially set Kodi in 4K skin resolution.

Improved audio support

As you may have read several times is that the Android part of Kodi is currently low on development. It’s the platform with the largest user base but somehow there don’t seem to be a lot of developers around that can work on Kodi for that platform. Since Kodi isn’t the standard JAVA app like the million other out there working on it is certainly a challenge. One of the improvements we did manage to get added is what most of you have been waiting for and that is HD audio passthrough capabilities. Although we had a proof of concept for v16 it wasn’t in a state where the team was comfortable adding it that late in release cycle. However for v17 we can now tell you that passthrough for DTS, DTS-HD, DTS-X, Dolby TrueHD and Dolby ATMOS should all be working if your device and attached TV/AVR supports this. During the past months however we did find some limitations in the way Google had implemented audio passthrough. After contacting Google and explaining the problems we worked together towards a good alternative which was adding IEC61937 as passthrough option. This standard is something we already used on other platforms like Windows, Linux, OSX and iOS and has proven to be exactly what was needed for good audio support. As such we are happy to say that starting with Android Nougat we will fully use this standard. Devices running Lollipop or Marshmallow will use the older standard method.

Welcome to Android MediaCodec standards only

One of the last custom implementation we had was Amlogic related code which was the device were it all started with Kodi on Android. We had to resolve to this custom implementation back then to acces certain hardware parts which Android officially couldn’t yet. Due to this legacy and how we had things implemented we couldn’t switch this off just yet in past releases. Over the past months with the help of MINIX we have been working closely with the Amlogic to get everything in order and we can say Android Marshmallow and onward will have the best experience possible for devices containing these chipsets. Amlogic even went as far as adding the IEC61937 audio passthrough back into Android Marshmallow which normally is only available since Android Nougat. We would certainly like to thank Amlogic and MINIX for going to this extend of cooperation making the experience and support of Kodi on Android a bit better. Now Amlogic has done their part on proving a good bases it’s up to manufacturers and vendors to supply updates for their devices over coming months. We are certain that manufacturers with good support will send out these updates as soon as they are ready. What does this mean for you regular users? Mostly we kept the proper support for devices running Android 5 Lollipop and you shouldn’t notice any real difference. Should your device receive the newer Android 6 Marshmallow you will gain these improvements mentioned above. For devices using other chipsets we don’t really know but we are hoping they will follow."

[JFG90]

Well if it looks good to you download it, me personally am sticking with spmc

[Zacharybinx34]

Well, I sold my Shield since the Shield 2 is right around the corner. If SPMC has Kodi v17 out when I get my Shield 2 I'll probably stick with it. If not, I'll go for Kodi v17. That new player sounds awesome.

[DummySYSTEM]

Speak on the Amlogic part, KODI 17 seems just use what the android box have, for some box the hw decode for HEVC 10bit is broken(mainly driver problem) and hi10p just not exist, but SPMC using it own codec on this which fix all these problem. for example you just can't play 1080 hi10p on kodi 17 with amlogic S905/912 as no hw decode exist, but SPMC will try to use the x264 8bit hw decode to accelerate it. sure there are many screen error but just better can't play.

p.s. but I really love the KODI 17 new UI

[sammarbella]

You don't need to choose one or another, i have both installed.

SPMC and Kodi have different data folders you can have both installed without problem and use one or another.

If you want to use the SPMC addons, configs, settings, ect on Kodi you simply need to copy all subfolders from here:

/Android/data/com.semperpax.spmc16/files/.spmc

to here (after Kodi install):

/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi

I'm using SPMC 16.5.5 (aarch64) ARMv8A from SPMC site and Kodi 17 RC2 ARMv8A from nightlies Kodi site:

http://mirrors.kodi.tv/nightlies/android/arm64-v8a/Krypton/

[99rook99]

That's funny as everything listed above, SPMC already supports plus more like HD scales and better deinterlacing

[sammarbella]

so true. :)

[JFG90]

In my opinion if your a shield user i would you would be silly not to use spmc, seeing as koyings main focus is to focus on it!

[99rook99]

+1 Unless something has changed he owns a shield as his day to day box

[Gertbucket]

SPMC is Netscape. Kodi is Mosaic. MrMC is Internet Explorer.

HTH

[sammarbella]

MrMC? Internet explorer? Not at all.It's like Edge with his same addons possibilities: none.

LOL

Seriously, SPMC is the best Kodi based media player for android devices, specially for Nvidia Shield TV.

(Maybe) If you have an Amazon device and/or you are used to be extremely limited in your choices by the device maker (read Apple "closed garden" gadgets) use MrMC.

[MrMC]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[koying]

Guys, find by yourself which flavour fits you best, I basically don't care ;)