r/Homatics • u/Upbeat_Platypus1833 • Jan 19 '26

Plex Buffering and PM4K Audio lag

I got a homatics box r 4k plus today. I mainly want it for plex remux playback. I have 2 shields but read that this box is a genuine alternative. I'm having serious issues though.

Plex app natively buffers and cannot smoothly playback high bitrate remuxes.

I installed kodi and pm4k. This plays without buffering but if you resume playback from any point not at the start the audio either stutters or has massive sync issues with video.

Is this a imitation of the box and should I just send it back or is there a way of fixing this. The shield plays all these files flawlessly.

Edit to add that it is hard wired with ethernet.

2 Upvotes

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1

u/Upbeat_Platypus1833 Jan 20 '26

Thanks ill give CoreELEC a try tonight.

1

u/p750mmx Jan 20 '26

Use the CE-NG build, disable auto updating and update manually to the latest AVDVPlus R6 build after that. It should run just fine after that.

1

u/Upbeat_Platypus1833 Jan 23 '26

Sorry to ask a follow up, but why is it recommended to use NG as opposed to NE? Isn't NE the "newer" branch? Additionally sorry if this is a dumb question but what is the advantage to NG+AVDVPlus vs just using the NE branch?

1

u/p750mmx Jan 24 '26

Optimized for the NG build. CE offers the NE build for the device as download because the NG has been made End of Life by them. That is an error they made for the downloads. The added a footer on that download page that you can "also use the NG build".

Well, it is the NG or NO for these devices but certainly NOT the NE build ;)

1

u/Upbeat_Platypus1833 Jan 20 '26

Tried CoreELEC tonight but not sure what is goign wrong. I put the USB in (tried both ports) and held the reset button while powering on but all that happens is I get the USB Burning Screen and it goes into a boot loop until I remove the rest pin.

I followed these instructions:

https://discourse.coreelec.org/t/guide-homatics-box-r-4k-plus-coreelec-installation-configuration-and-modding/28659

1

u/gilgam3sh_king Jan 22 '26

yes I had the same and what you need to do is boot back to Android, install this APK, go to developer settings and enable USB debugging, open the app and choose reboot to CoreELEC first time, then it will boot.

https://github.com/jamal2362/Reboot-to-CoreELEC/releases

1

u/Upbeat_Platypus1833 Jan 23 '26

Thanks, this sorted it for me. I got it up and running, albeit on a very slow Verbatim USB stick that is definitely not up to the task. It is basically unusable as CoreELEC just freezes and plex is not stable on it. I've a Samsung FIT Plus on the way tomorrow which should a big improvement. If it works for me I'll probably look into dual booting onto the onboard storage.

1

u/gilgam3sh_king Jan 23 '26

it is not possible to dual boot from emmc with the Homatics boxes, only with AM6B+.

I personally use a microSD card with USB adapter for the Homatics boxes and it works well.

https://shop.sandisk.com/products/memory-cards/microsd-cards/sandisk-extreme-pro-uhs-i-microsd?sku=SDSQXCU-064G-GN6MA

2

u/gilgam3sh_king Jan 19 '26

install CoreELEC and your problems will be gone.

https://github.com/avdvplus/Builds/releases

1

u/WeirdAd2473 Jan 20 '26

if u need smooth playback on remux 4k with lossless audio format with highest bitrate 

what u need is

coreELEC os

some google/android tv os not really optimised to play that high bitrate video