Best Method for XBMC on a TV?


Garrett

Garrett

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I was thinking of some kind of Android USB/HDMI Stick or Box (prefer a stick though)
I'm a new XBMC user & have no experience with Android sticks or boxes so would really appreciate the thoughts/advice of folk who have something like this set up.
It would primarily be for XBMC (& ideally HD content streaming) but I'd also like to use it for browsing & potentially some light gaming.
 
Man, if only the Pandora could decode HD videos properly i would just suggest using it with a TV-Out cable.

But as that's not an option at the moment, i guess my suggestion would be trying a Raspberry Pi with an XBMC-based Linux distro like OpenElec or Raspbmc. The device has both an HDMI and a Composite port built into it and you can buy a custom mountable case for it if you like.

Other then that, i guess using a Pyra should be also possible (If you are willing to wait for a while).
 
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I've got a Raspberry Pi and allready tried that.

Forget about Raspbmc or installing XBMC the traditional way. It lacks performance, so you cannot watch HD movies fluently.

What really works is OpenElec.

Unfortunately, HD movies take very long to load and searching doesn't work because of the little performance.

Also, forget about the competitor Banana Pi. This one has an Alwinner A20 and very good performance, but lacks software with hardware acceleration (atm).
 
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N3Cr0 said:
I've got a Raspberry Pi and allready tried that.

Forget about Raspbmc or installing XBMC the traditional way. It lacks performance, so you cannot watch HD movies fluently.

What really works is OpenElec.

Unfortunately, HD movies take very long to load and searching doesn't work because of the little performance.

Also, forget about the competitor Banana Pi. This one has an Alwinner A20 and very good performance, but lacks software with hardware acceleration (atm).
Click to expand...
Hmm I also own a Raspberry Pi, It is able to play HD videos. It is hard to its limits but after overclocking the Pi it is able to play HD material. In case of the Pi many things work out of the box.

About the Allwinner A20 its true, i bought an Cubietruck which has nice Hardware but very little software side support. Up to know i was not able to set its graphics driver to an 1920x1200 (16:10) resolution.
 
I'm currently playing around with ODROID-U3 at work. They offer a Ubuntu Linux and an Android image for it - at least under Ubuntu, XBMC plays FullHD material flawlessly. Its not a stick, but it has three usb ports, which has its merits (like connecting wired gamepads or mass storage devices).
 
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The Pi can play HD content, but it is limited to 4.1 High Profile.


Also it is limited by the USB/Network throughput. Streaming 1080p files over wifidongle is not working great.
 
I wonder if it's the same case while streaming using N draft on a 5.0Ghz channel or the newer AC draft.

Did anyone happen to try it out?
 
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I use a MK802IV Android stick. Been using it for over a year... XBMC works brilliantly on it... I had to get a USB to ETH adapter and use some ethernet over power adapters to connect to the router... but it connects to my NAS for movies/pics/music. Streaming works really well. Good for the American football for my wife :)
 
I've asked around & the Amazon Fire TV is being recommended often, & it's coming to the UK soon (i think) ..pretty good all round performance & full XBMC support when rooted.

Any thoughts?
 
Night said:
I wonder if it's the same case while streaming using N draft on a 5.0Ghz channel or the newer AC draft.


Did anyone happen to try it out?
Click to expand...
if you are still talking about the pi, it will not really matter what speed your dongle is as the maximum usb throughput I got was about 1.4 MB/s.

Edit: And that was while copying to an usb 3.0 HDD.
 
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i uses openelec on my rpi and watch 720p and 1080p videos on it all the time without issue, well i havent quite gotten my usb3 64gb stick to work on it, but whatever. hd content works just fine, i dont know what youre on about
 
My RPI with RaspBMC is ethernet connected, so I can't tell you the limitations of the wifi. But I can stream any HD content I can throw at it from my media file server. I can stream HD over the internet from many free channels that are available, but the Netflix and Amazon modules don't work, but I have at least 4 consoles that can handle that.
 
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stainy said:
I use a MK802IV Android stick. Been using it for over a year... XBMC works brilliantly on it... I had to get a USB to ETH adapter and use some ethernet over power adapters to connect to the router... but it connects to my NAS for movies/pics/music. Streaming works really well. Good for the American football for my wife :)
Click to expand...
When I had one (about a year ago) those weren't outputting 1080p, but upscaled 720p - is this resolved now
Garrett said:
I've asked around & the Amazon Fire TV is being recommended often, & it's coming to the UK soon (i think) ..pretty good all round performance & full XBMC support when rooted.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
The FireTVs main advantage is the same as the Ouya had, you get a good soc for a overly/very competitive price. Reports on running xbmc (either sideloaded or sbmc via the amazone store) are good. What made me cancel my preorder was that you get a arbitrarily crippled system. Applications that Amazone hasn't sanctioned need to be sideloaded, you need to rely on a special launcher, if you don't like the one from Amazone, and mass storage support for the USB port is currently deactivated (and nobody knows wether they will permit it in the future or not). Thats not far off, from what Apple does, and I don't want to support such a business model in any way.
Interesting side note: this thing comes fully preconfigured, so you wont have to enter any account data > if your device is getting into the wrong hands by accident, those hands can have a fun time, buying things Amazone offers electronically.
 
The videos always played in full hd. The GUI was upscaled from 720p as it was too memoryhungry.


Now the UI is 1080p, too but you can activate 720p upscaling again if you have a model A pi.


On a side note: The pi cannot pass through HD audioformats. It needs to decode them what could lead to stutter.


Normal DTS / DTS-MA Core stream and AC3 is no problem though.
 
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