[regan]

Im looking for a cheap android capable player which can play mkv 1080p files and iso files. I currently share my drives over windows SMB, would this be an issue using a android system for playback?

These are some i have looked at, can you see any issue's or advice on what to look for?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Android-4-0-4G...3a810dd2f5

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bluetimes-MX5-...1c31baab4e

[davilla]

cheap and capable are sometimes incompatible when it comes to android.

[regan]

so i'd be better off with a cheap htpc ? seen some good reviews of the G-Box Midnight mx2

[Alchete]

I was *really* hoping Ouya would be IT. I'm expecting mine to arrive in a few weeks and will report back .. but the early feedback has pointed to trouble decoding multi-channel audio, which is a requirement of mine. So, I'm concerned.

Aside from that, I think the best promise lies in the upcoming round of hardware upgrades that will be based of the ARM A15 architecture (Tegra 4, Exynos-Octa).

I think 6 months from now, we won't have to search too hard to find an Android hardware box that'll crush 1080P. Not to mention, the end-of-year 22nm Intel Atom should make an awesome HTPC.

[davilla]

eh, cheap over capable ? I'd choose capable any day.

[joelbaby]

Capable Android Boxes:

Pivos XIOS DS (single core)
Little black box (single core) - similar insides to Pivos but a cooler remote
MyGica Geniatech ATV1200 (dual core)
Matricom Gbox Midnight MX2 (dual core).
YW9300 Quad core

- Pivos offer the best customer support, and have contributed heavily to making xbmc work on android, but don't offer the most advanced hardware.
- Matricom have the best marketing. Have not seen them back up their marketing with a dedicated support forum or any true development that gives back to the xbmc.org community.
- Geniatech has little support, but is a capable machine and discussed a lot in this forum.
- YW9300 has no support, but is very powerful (the same GPU and CPU as a Samsung Galaxy S3).

I'm waiting for Pivos to release a new version of their box, but the company doesn't want to indicate when that will happen.

[nero12]

How about this cheap android box...
http://m.alibaba.com/product/837163554/2...etail.html

Anyone had experience with this mali400 chip?

Feedback is appreciated.....

[Memphiz]

Capable Android Boxes:

Pivos XIOS DS (single core)

AFAIK its a dualcore @ 1ghz

[joelbaby]

AFAIK its a dualcore @ 1ghz

I think you'll find its a single core CPU - AML8726-M3
There is a Dual core AML8726-M6(MX) which has not made it into the Pivos line-up but is available in other boxes.

[davilla]

Pivos XIOS DS is single core arm M3 at 1GHz, all the other M3's run at 800-900MHz.

Other Dual core AML8726-M6(MX) are out but no Linux and only Android. The Android firmware has just become stable enough for production shipping.

No Quad cores AML arm (M8) are out, nor will they be out for another six months.

Any one selling a 'quad core' AML based system is trying to confuse consumers in that the MX GPU is a quad-core, but the CPU is dual-core.

Rest assured that Pivos does have plans and products in the pipeline. All I can say it they will just knock your socks off

[joelbaby]

Other Dual core AML8726-M6(MX) are out but no Linux and only Android. The Android firmware has just become stable enough for production shipping.

This page indicates that linux is available for M6(MX)
http://www.j1nx.nl/xbmc-amlogic-8726-m-s...-thoughts/

Maybe Matricom are waiting for davilla or j1nx to fix it for them.

[nspierbundel]

I think this page is more up to date ;-)

http://www.j1nx.nl/amlogic-mx-linux-armh...rnel-xbmc/

[refinedmusic]

Anyone got any advice on this one.

* Rockchip 3188 Quad core, 28nm, 1.8GHz Cortex-A9
* 2D/3D GPU,GPU Mali-400 MP4 @ 533MHz
* GPU offers 3D graphic with OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenVG 1.1
* Android4.1,(will update to Android4.2 with Miracast).
*Use 2GB DDR3 8GB ROM high capacity memory.
*With WIFI 802.1b/g/n Wireless to get rid of the wire bond
* Build in Bluetooth
*Support the latest HTML5,Flash11,etc. network standard.
* ESD circuit design make sure the stable feature, support soft turn off.
* Strong Power Manage Unit (PMU)
*There are more than 600,000 Google Play apps and games for a great experience
*Extension ports support 2.4GHz wireless mouse, wireless keyboard with touchpad, etc, while a micro-SD slot lets you add more storage memory up to 32GB

[forest]

Rest assured that Pivos does have plans and products in the pipeline. All I can say it they will just knock your socks off

I'm looking forward to it. I want a fully open source xbmc linux box that does high bit rate 1080p from network sources and ac3/dts optical passthrough. It seems like all the boxes on the market right now are underpowered (Raspberry Pi), closed-source (everything based on Allwinner), poorly supported / license-noncompliant (Matricom), or missing a real audio output port (Pivos, Little Black Box). I love how you folks at Pivos are working with the community and offering both linux and android images, but requiring the expense and clutter of an hdmi audio splitter is a deal breaker.

[Memphiz]

Instead of waiting for a box appearing (at least if i would get sick of it) - it tends to be a much more hazzlefree solution to just buy a new receiver with hdmi input. I know most users like you are like "Wahhh its still working perfectly - why should i replace it - it should be fixed in software or in a different hardware box" - but in the end you will think something like "Why didn't i do it in the first place - i could have prevented some gray hairs".

Just as an other point of view to think about.