New streaming media player needed. Which one?

[Bobby Bouché]

Everyone has different needs, so not everyone is going to go for the same thing. It's good to see everyone with different set-ups etc. i had a media pc a few years back under the tv, too much faffing about for me.

Loved the pi etc but settled for a roku 3 for now. Great all in one box and then a chrome cast in another room.

Saw a review of the Amazon fire tv today doing a normal search for a film rather than a voice activated one. Jesus it was terrible.

[Goldberg]

If it is like the Prime app now then searching is terrible.
However, is it not time we moved on with tech? Your sat there with a friend who says "I really want to see Captain Phillips" so in theory you should just be able to do the same to the streaming device and bingo.

But with Amazons catalogue it will probably come back with "you should have bought Netflix"...

[Hangman]

I used to lust after a Dell Studio like that before the original Revo came out. They got great reviews. What's CPU useage like playing a full HD MKV?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Ive be just tried this with the largest file 1080p MKV 15gb and the CPU was varying between 20-40%

that is based on mine with a T6400 Core 2 Duo 2ghz CPU and 4Gb or ram

[diablos]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-MX-And...item258c28c8b2

Are these Android boxes any good??

My son bought himself one of those he seems to like it never even looked at it myself to gauge how good it is.

[maltloaf]

Ive be just tried this with the largest file 1080p MKV 15gb and the CPU was varying between 20-40%

that is based on mine with a T6400 Core 2 Duo 2ghz CPU and 4Gb or ram

It's the same spec roughly as the pc I have in the spare room which only acts as a file server at the moment but has a dedicated 1GB Ati hd video card. I got it for a measly £30 about two years ago to play the blackmesa half life remake but the problem it has is the hard drive sounds like thor himself snoring.

I stupidly put Windows 8 on it just for a play with Windows 8 and promptly moved it in to the spare room and never ever even turn it's monitor on.

I might have a go at xbmcbuntu on it and see if it's quiet enough with that to tuck behind the tv in the living room. It's certainly up to playing the media.

[Hangman]

Mine has Windows 8.1 installed make no difference to the HDD sound

[maltloaf]

Windows being on there is a separate issue to the hard drive being noisy

[macmilm]

It's the same spec roughly as the pc I have in the spare room which only acts as a file server at the moment but has a dedicated 1GB Ati hd video card. I got it for a measly £30 about two years ago to play the blackmesa half life remake but the problem it has is the hard drive sounds like thor himself snoring.

I stupidly put Windows 8 on it just for a play with Windows 8 and promptly moved it in to the spare room and never ever even turn it's monitor on.

I might have a go at xbmcbuntu on it and see if it's quiet enough with that to tuck behind the tv in the living room. It's certainly up to playing the media.

You positive it's HDD ???? I have cured many a loud PC with a decent Heatsink / Fan.... For about £12
If it is HDD isnt it cheaper to spend £30 on a quiet HDD ???? and be future proofed ??!?!?!?

[Rick Sanchez]

I'm looking to build something like a Roka 3 that plays blue rays and dvds for my brother when he moves out in Sept for uni, an all in one device

[maltloaf]

I got the pc downstairs and tucked it behind the tv. Put the latest xbmc on it, disabled everything in Windows that I don't need running and it all seems pretty happy to be honest.

It's certainly massively quicker starting media playback than my wdtv and worked plug and play with my old usb infra red receiver and remote.

What I can't do tho is play netflix and Amazon prime video from the xbmc interface and to make the unit fully "missus friendly" it needs to be something she can drive.

Are there any good media front ends out there that would do the lot from the remote ?

Thanks,

Malty

[Rick Sanchez]

Netflix - http://www.digital-forums.com/showthread.php?t=970610


Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[maltloaf]

Netflix - http://www.digital-forums.com/showthread.php?t=970610


Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Erm that's a bit fishy !

[maltloaf]

On my remote there are buttons for tv, radio etc. I'm wondering if I can assign those buttons to activities, I.e. launch netflix in a browser, launch xbmc etc. Anyone have any ideas ?

[Rick Sanchez]

What remote do you have?

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

[maltloaf]

Hi,

It's a cyberlink generic one off eBay years ago when I first had my revo.

Play, pause etc are plug and play in xbmc but most of the 30 or so buttons do nothing.

[spyke]

I think I'll keep my eye out in case a cheap 3600 3610 or 3700 come up. I can't justify 200 quid on something at the moment tbh.

Malty, you still looking for a cheap Revo 3610??

[maltloaf]

Depends on the price mate I'm having a tough month money wise as the baby just started nursery and the fees have crippled me. PM me.

[losttoy]

I've just been through a love hate, back to love and ending up on meh it'll do experience with an odroid U3. Came to around the £100 mark with the case, psu 8gb mmc and so on. The wifi adapter was cack and disconnected a lot so ended up getting a cicso AC wifi bridge which now lets it stream 1080p with no issues. Running kitkat with a nightly build of the hardware accelerated ARM XBMC Gotham all works but with far too many dropped framed on 1080p content.

I've now pissed away another £75 in my quest for a XBMC box that will do what I want. Really, I only want it to play movies well, but nothings ever simple.

So I'm waiting on this, http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Trons...ck-324676.html

Ordered on the 1st, finally collected from them by DHL today which is a bit of a piss take so I'm hoping the wait will be worth it. £75 delivered isn't that bad for what it is providing it doesn't turn out to be total junk.

More info and roms / rooting

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.p...EAD-THIS-FIRST

[Goldberg]

Will be interested to see your review on that.. Spec wise it is a nice bit of kit.

[losttoy]

Will be interested to see your review on that.. Spec wise it is a nice bit of kit.

4 days of movie watching bliss. Upgrading the firmware did my head in but it turned out to be some probem with either the partitioning or the filesystem on the sdcard I was using for the upgrade. Formatted the sd card in the s89 then copied the new firmware to the sdcard on my laptop and it worked like a charm.

Over 5ghz wifi 1080p mkv's play at a failrly solid 24fps, still with skipped frames but that's normal for a 60htz display. Skipped good, dropped bad. No artifacts, stuttering or Intel like (Yes you Qnap x69) weird tearing.

I've only got it plugged into a panasonic TV but DTS and whatnot are playing fine, the newer version which is 10 bucks more does hardware passthrough which I'd buy in a heartbeat for the living room av amp if it wasn't for the fact that the kids pretty much have the tv monolopy in there these days.

I can't express how nice it is to have something that works.

The only problem I've had is the supplied remote freezing in xbmc. Most likely a firmware issue but I use an airmouse anyway and normal remote seems a step backwards now. One of these if you're interested http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rii-mini-i...item5aff0e5170

It's only crashed on two occasions, the first time the video froze but the audio was still playing. I just hit stop and it went back to the file list and replayed without a hitch. The other time I was trying to play a bdrom iso over the network and it froze but bluray menus aren't supported by xbmc I don't think so that's likely to have done it.

It's made something in me breathe a sigh of relief. I've gone through a raspberry pi, qnap 269 and a odroid U3 while tossing about with samsung smart tv's and plex and a roku in the kids room in a mission to find something right.

Thank fook