Android/Dream Box [ Illegal discussion = Ban ]

Gerard_Smith

Does the Shield TV support Miracast? Being able to cast my PCs display (not just games) to it would be handy.

vibe666

Horace Cope wrote: »

hometheatrelife.com/sunvell-t95x-android-6-0-tv-box-features-amlogic-s905x/
androidtvbox-kodi.ie/shop/2016-x96-android-tv-box-fullyloaded/
It's 2016, minimum GPU should be Mali 820

does anyone know if there's a comprehensive list of benchmarks or comparisons of GPU performance?

I've been looking through a few sites and can't seem to find anything definitive?

vibe666

I'm also looking at getting 3 or 4 boxes for testing and wondered what everyones throughs were on the current best of the best in the crop of models in the low/mid/high end brackets and if there was anything worth looking forward to on the horizon?

dodzy

vibe666 wrote: »

I'm also looking at getting 3 or 4 boxes for testing and wondered what everyones throughs were on the current best of the best in the crop of models in the low/mid/high end brackets and if there was anything worth looking forward to on the horizon?

Purchased 2 x TX5 pros this morning. 2gb/16gb. Will let you know how they perform when they arrive in 2018

Heraldoffreeent

vibe666 wrote: »

I'm also looking at getting 3 or 4 boxes for testing and wondered what everyones throughs were on the current best of the best in the crop of models in the low/mid/high end brackets and if there was anything worth looking forward to on the horizon?

I got a Beelink minimx111 recently, 2gb/16gb, s905, it's pretty low end, but at $30-$40 it's cheap as chips. I'd intended using it very sporadically but at the moment I'm using it all the time, biggest down side is the wifi which is terrible, it's grand hard wired or, using it. As I am, with a vag300mb adapter.

Horace Cope

vibe666 wrote: »

does anyone know if there's a comprehensive list of benchmarks or comparisons of GPU performance?

I've been looking through a few sites and can't seem to find anything definitive?

The Mali 450 came out in 2012 or thereabouts, while the Mali 820/830 came out in late December 2015. So, I won't touch a box with a Mali-450.

When your think that your graphics unit (GPU) dictates how video/images etc are processed (yes i know the CPU plays its part also in decoding/encoding), but the importance of a good GPU cannot be emphasized enough.

I'm not saying you should spend big money on a Mali 860 GPU (probably equivalent to Qualcomm Adreno 530), for what we want, a Mali 820/830 which is aimed at mid-range devices is good enough.

vibe666

the original 450 yes, but there seems to be multiple versions now (the TX5 one seems to be penta-core) with different hardware, hence my question about if there were comprehensive benchmarks listing the performance of each.

some of the lower end S905X boxes come with only 1gb ram and the mali-450 gpu, but due to hardware decoding support, even that is still able to decode 10bit HDR H.265 60fps video at 4K, which you'd *probably* struggle to do even on a mid-range PC without hardware decoding support.

It depends what you want from your Android computer.

If it is to run Kodi, then a Mali-450 is far more than is necessary from a GPU standpoint.

I've run a MK808B+ using Kodi through Android, Openelec soley, and now LibreElec and there has been nothing that it hasn't coped with.

The spec for that stick is
CPU Amlogic M805 Quad-Core 1.5GHz (Cortex-A5)
GPU Quad-Core Mali-450
1 Gb Ram

Kodi's requirements are very low. If you want to run a gaming computer that's a whole different ball game. But for Media Centre requirements you won't see any difference between a 450 and any of the newer GPUS.

branners69

Hey,

am in the market for another Android box. I currently have a Minix x7 and a Minix x8H Plus.

I had planned on getting another x8 but I notice there is a new kid on the block the Neo U1. The reviews I have read say the Neo U1 doesnt have any major improvements over the x8 so am I better off sticking to what I know?

Is there another box I should be looking at around the €120 price tag? I dont want to stretch to the nVidia and want a reliable box so any other recommendations?

Thanks,

Branners

vibe666

I've spent the last week or so lurking in the KODI forums reading all the useful posts and it seems like (unless you want to pay a premium for the shieldTV or build your own box) the Wetek Hub (or core if you can afford it) are your best bet for a mid-range box with all round hardware support of all the potential video/audio formats, as well as good support from the vendor, plus being a diamond KODI partner (which basically means they contribute to KODI development and the community both directly and indirectly themselves).

i've also been reading reports of some of the cheaper boxes having PSU's overheat and melt or catch fire, or the boxes themselves not being anywhere near as good as their paper specs would have you believe due to not having optimised builds for their hardware, or just being poorly put together so they end up with cpu/gpu throttling when they warm up, which cripples what they can do, so not to expect great things from cheap boxes.

there also seems quite a bit of ill will towards some of the cheap chinese KODI boxes as the KODI foundation have done quite a bit to distance themselves from the more unsavoury/illegal side of XBMC, and some of the dodgier chinese brands are selling their boxes with KODI installed and blantantly advertising them as 'fully loaded KODI boxes' with pirate streaming plugins pre-installed specifically to cash in on the blooming 'cable cutter' home market where people are ditching traditional tv sources for the free and/or illegal online streams.

it would be very niaive of me to pretend that isn't what a lot of KODI users are wanting to do (or even that my own usage is always 100% legit), particularly given how popular they are, but the KODI foundation have gone out of their way to keep themselves clean and legit and have worked hard to keep it that way, so i'm not surprised they don't take too kindly to their good name being muddied.

vibe666

if you don't mind rolling your own, it looks like the best budget box currently is the ODriod C2 running a custom build of LibreELEC, although it's along the lines of a beefed up raspberry pi, so it's not just a case of plugging it in like the android boxes, you'll have to get a case and psu for it too, but it's got a great onboard IR reciever (so you can control it with your existing tv remote) and hdmi2 and does pretty much all the audio/video stuff you'd want it to in 4K 60fps.

other than that, if you're not into the self build end of things, the next best budget boxes are the Beelink Mini MX / MXIII with a custom OpenELEC build would be the way to go if you're not looking for 4k or H265 h/w decoding just yet.

i'm still going to give the TX6 Pro a go to put it through its paces, but this whole thing just seems to get more complicated the more i look at it!

Do-more

vibe666 wrote: »

this whole thing just seems to get more complicated the more i look at it!

That's the thing, if you look at it too much it just becomes a head wreck. I look at the Kodi forum too for advice but you have got to remember that a lot of the posters there have vastly different requirements to the mainstream like myself.

I have a Pi3 on the main TV and recently bought an android box for the bedroom I went for the cheapest S905 with 2Gb ram I could find.

Both work perfectly for what I want (streaming from the internet).

Best advice I seem to see is to install a maintenance add-on and regularly clear cache and packages so you won't have problems with buffering.

I don't see the point in paying €100+ for a box for my requirements, what I have will probably do nicely for a couple of years and then replace with newer cheap tech.

vibe666

Do-more wrote: »

Best advice I seem to see is to install a maintenance add-on and regularly clear cache and packages so you won't have problems with buffering.

i've not seen that, do you have any recommendations?

neacy69

any know of good IPTV setups? A friend of mine has a beelink/MXIII box and has a good IPTV setup that I'd like to copy

dahat

vibe666 wrote: »

I've spent the last week or so lurking in the KODI forums reading all the useful posts and it seems like (unless you want to pay a premium for the shieldTV or build your own box) the Wetek Hub (or core if you can afford it) are your best bet for a mid-range box with all round hardware support of all the potential video/audio formats, as well as good support from the vendor, plus being a diamond KODI partner (which basically means they contribute to KODI development and the community both directly and indirectly themselves).

i've also been reading reports of some of the cheaper boxes having PSU's overheat and melt or catch fire, or the boxes themselves not being anywhere near as good as their paper specs would have you believe due to not having optimised builds for their hardware, or just being poorly put together so they end up with cpu/gpu throttling when they warm up, which cripples what they can do, so not to expect great things from cheap boxes.

there also seems quite a bit of ill will towards some of the cheap chinese KODI boxes as the KODI foundation have done quite a bit to distance themselves from the more unsavoury/illegal side of XBMC, and some of the dodgier chinese brands are selling their boxes with KODI installed and blantantly advertising them as 'fully loaded KODI boxes' with pirate streaming plugins pre-installed specifically to cash in on the blooming 'cable cutter' home market where people are ditching traditional tv sources for the free and/or illegal online streams.

it would be very niaive of me to pretend that isn't what a lot of KODI users are wanting to do (or even that my own usage is always 100% legit), particularly given how popular they are, but the KODI foundation have gone out of their way to keep themselves clean and legit and have worked hard to keep it that way, so i'm not surprised they don't take too kindly to their good name being muddied.

I have a Real Derid account and looking for the easiest route to get a simple Kodi set up with Hvec playback ability, from your loitering around the Kodi forums will either of these Wetek boxes do the job for me?

Or sbould i look further again?

degsie

I have a MK808b+ running 112K4 build and cannot get 'Plex for Android' app to run. It installs but when I run it it just crashes after the splash screen appears. Anybody else having this problem?

BandMember

neacy69 wrote: »

any know of good IPTV setups? A friend of mine has a beelink/MXIII box and has a good IPTV setup that I'd like to copy

That can't be discussed here.

Heraldoffreeent

vibe666 wrote: »

i've not seen that, do you have any recommendations?

I think if you have tvaddons installed, there's a whole maintanance section you can install in program which gives you most of what you need for purging packages, clearing cache etc.

In work now so can't check but I rem setting it up more or less first thing on my boxes, and I just clean the cache etc on the add on thumbnail every week.

It also has a tweaks section where you can set cache size, implement zero cache etc etc.

ROS123

Apologies I went back though loads of pages, is this box still value for money, (MINIX Neo U1 Android Lollipop 5.1.1) it seemed so 3 months ago, has it been superseded by a later version?

NabyLadistheman

Excuse my ignorance lads, what is the main differnence between a wetek box & the android Mini M8S TV Box?

BandMember

Heraldoffreeent wrote: »

I think if you have tvaddons installed, there's a whole maintanance section you can install in program which gives you most of what you need for purging packages, clearing cache etc.

In work now so can't check but I rem setting it up more or less first thing on my boxes, and I just clean the cache etc on the add on thumbnail every week.

It also has a tweaks section where you can set cache size, implement zero cache etc etc.

I clear the cache and purge the packages on my box at the end of each day, as a result I would rarely (if ever) have any buffering issues. I wouldn't recommend using the zero cache setting on any of these boxes though, multiple posters here have said not to do that as it damages the boxes and reduces their lifespan.

I see some people recommending to delete the thumbnails as well (as they take up a serious amount of space), but I'm not sure how to do that - any advice?

ROS123 wrote: »

Apologies I went back though loads of pages, is this box still value for money, (MINIX Neo U1 Android Lollipop 5.1.1) it seemed so 3 months ago, has it been superseded by a later version?

The Minix Neo U1 is up there with the Shield as the best box on the market, it's the latest version of the Minix (although there may or may not be a new version out before the end of the year, I think that is when they usually release them but they don't give any advance warning) and I would personally recommend the Minix as the only box to get to anyone who is buying one. If you look after it and follow the instructions to keep it up to date, you should get a good few years use out of it.

dodzy

Suarezistheman wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance lads, what is the main differnence between a wetek box & the android Mini M8S TV Box?

Wetek has integrated tuner so you can connect up a dish/antenna for FTA channels.

M8S does not.

Thats the main difference.

Heraldoffreeent

BandMember wrote: »

I clear the cache and purge the packages on my box at the end of each day, as a result I would rarely (if ever) have any buffering issues. I wouldn't recommend using the zero cache setting on any of these boxes though, multiple posters here have said not to do that as it damages the boxes and reduces their lifespan.

I see some people recommending to delete the thumbnails as well (as they take up a serious amount of space), but I'm not sure how to do that - any advice?

I think TVAddons/Fusion Maintenance package has an option to clear thumbnails also.

As for the 0 cache, its not recommended for boxes primarily because of the smallish size of eMMc memory, but you can set the cache to a higher amount than default, like to 100Mb or 1GB, that gives scope for caching relatively large amounts of data to avoid buffering. Also, I've 0 Cache set on Kodi on my laptop, with a 1TB HD, its not going to cause any issues.

branners69

Ares Wizard addon also has maintenance options like clear cache etc.

batistuta9

zero cache uses the disk instead of ram so is pretty much pointless

clearing packages won't speed anything either, it'll just free up space on the drive, but the packages are very small file sizes. i'll do it now & again however. though i actually think kodi sets a limit for the packages folder so it won't grow too big but not 100% on it.

clearing the cache on kodi cleans the application cache, this isn't going to help buffering at all. it's actually slowing things down the next time you launch as all setting/images/etc. need to be repopulated, notice that first run screen. if apps/browsers whatever are giving you bother the easy option is to clear the cache but you shouldn't be doing it regularly at all. very basically the point of a cache is speed, frequently used objects are cached for quicker access.

same for the thumbnails, it's a cache pretty much. this can grow quite big, especially if you're going through seasons & seasons of stuff, loads of movies, browsing through different addons, etc. wouldn't be cleaning it too often either and especially if you've a load of your own stuff in libraries.
you'll need to clear the thumbnails folder & a thumbs.db file for this if you want to wipe it

the cache in kodi you're really worried about is the video cache, this is in ram & the one that effects playback. by default kodi uses 20mb though needs 3 times the amount set to be free/available for it.
this is the one worth changing, you can do it by adding an advanced settings file to your userdata folder and if you do you'll need to increase the speed the video is read into the cache too otherwise it's pointless. cachemembuffersize & readbufferfactor are the xml tags you need
http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache

if you do that & you're still buffering it's because where you're trying to stream from isn't up to it, which is more often that not is the cause of buffering anyway - them not able to handle all the requests

Ageyev

Saw this popup on the Facebook feed earlier. Looks like it's worth the punt for €39 (+€5 delivery). Am I right or is it not worth it? Seems only slightly more expensive than Amazon but they don't deliver to Ireland. I'd be using it for whatever streaming apps are available plus giving Kodi a bash.




internal storage (8gb) and has 1gb RAM
Specs: 1.5GHz x4 Amlogic Quad Core Cortex-A5 processor & Mali 450 quad core GPU &1GB DDR3 ram

Are they decent specs

Edit: hmml just copped that that website has no address. Looks a bit dodge

Invincible

Ageyev wrote: »

Saw this popup on the Facebook feed earlier. Looks like it's worth the punt for €39 (+€5 delivery). Am I right or is it not worth it? Seems only slightly more expensive than Amazon but they don't deliver to Ireland. I'd be using it for whatever streaming apps are available plus giving Kodi a bash.




internal storage (8gb) and has 1gb RAM
Specs: 1.5GHz x4 Amlogic Quad Core Cortex-A5 processor & Mali 450 quad core GPU &1GB DDR3 ram

Are they decent specs

Edit: hmml just copped that that website has no address. Looks a bit dodge

Use parcel wizard/ motel and order from Amazon.

dodzy

Ageyev wrote: »

Saw this popup on the Facebook feed earlier. Looks like it's worth the punt for €39 (+€5 delivery). Am I right or is it not worth it? Seems only slightly more expensive than Amazon but they don't deliver to Ireland. I'd be using it for whatever streaming apps are available plus giving Kodi a bash.




internal storage (8gb) and has 1gb RAM
Specs: 1.5GHz x4 Amlogic Quad Core Cortex-A5 processor & Mali 450 quad core GPU &1GB DDR3 ram

Are they decent specs

Edit: hmml just copped that that website has no address. Looks a bit dodge

They are the lowest tier box available. 1gb/8gb. Fine for an introduction to the world of Kodi. Easily available for cheaper. Personally, I'd suggest getting a 2GB/8GB as a minimum. You'd get one to your door for about the same price as the one you linked. Noticeably quicker. M8S would fit the bill well.

Aliexpress.

eamonnq

Ageyev wrote: »

Saw this popup on the Facebook feed earlier. Looks like it's worth the punt for €39 (+€5 delivery). Am I right or is it not worth it? Seems only slightly more expensive than Amazon but they don't deliver to Ireland. I'd be using it for whatever streaming apps are available plus giving Kodi a bash.


internal storage (8gb) and has 1gb RAM
Specs: 1.5GHz x4 Amlogic Quad Core Cortex-A5 processor & Mali 450 quad core GPU &1GB DDR3 ram

Are they decent specs

Edit: hmml just copped that that website has no address. Looks a bit dodge

Plenty of sellers on adverts.ie for the same sort of price ?

http://www.adverts.ie/media-players/android-tv-box/10932548

ROS123

Thank you BandMember, I took the plunge and ordered one of these MINIX Neo U1 Android Lollipop 5.1.1 yesterday, don't know a lot about them, but hey it will be interesting trying, (for a while anyway and then I will come back on hear a cry for help)