Recomendation for Android TV Stick or Box

[Heckler 147]

Got given a little android TV box based on a rockchip, called an MX9... It's not great and the only emby tv app that works on it isn't great... the normal android app is next to useless due to the lack of touchscreen, and you can't see where the cursor is positioned and using the on screen cursor with the remote is pretty pathetic.

 

 

But the box itself has shown me a few things about how far these things have come in recent years... and as it was a freebie... I'll use it in the spare room for guests and get myself something a little better for my room.

 

Specs need to be a little above average, at least 2GB or more of ram and some decent storage as this one has very little and after installing a couple of apps it's all but used up now.

 

Price needs to be around the £50-60 mark... A tv stick is a possible solution but only if there's not a better one... I don't think the current tv sticks have as good a spec as some of the mini boxes.

 

Not really looking to record TV on it, mostly catchup TV, accessing emby in the bedrooms, and amazon video, netflix and so forth.

 

Suggestions please, and bear in mind it's  UK purchase... so I'd like to avoid international sellers, especially ones selling cheap Chinese knockoff clones that go wrong after a few weeks (had too many bad experiences in recent years) that you can't get replaced or refunded.

 

Also... recommendations for the best apps/plugins for RKMC, as I'd like to set it up better than the one I currently have.

[Marc_G 92]

I'm not sure how much they cost in the UK, but I just bought a "Tronsmart Ara X5 Plus" for ~$100US (so, in the ~£80 range if you can find a similar deal). Several people on this forum have had good things to say about them. It's a small self contained Windows 10 box. I'll run the full Emby Theater app on it, plus some other utilities. I may try out the Netflix / Amazon / Hulu apps to see how they compare to my smart TV. And it will give me full web browsing and anything else I would want a "real computer" to do.

 

I just unboxed the thing an hour ago, and I'm letting it do all the Win10 updates before I start doing anything serious with it application wise.

 

The thing may be pricier than your target mark, but it would do a lot more than just a TV stick, and can pass full HD audio if that matters to you.

 

Just a thought. Keep us posted. I'm interested to know what you land on. 

[Heckler 147]

I'm not sure how much they cost in the UK, but I just bought a "Tronsmart Ara X5 Plus" for ~$100US (so, in the ~£80 range if you can find a similar deal). Several people on this forum have had good things to say about them. It's a small self contained Windows 10 box. I'll run the full Emby Theater app on it, plus some other utilities. I may try out the Netflix / Amazon / Hulu apps to see how they compare to my smart TV. And it will give me full web browsing and anything else I would want a "real computer" to do.

 

I just unboxed the thing an hour ago, and I'm letting it do all the Win10 updates before I start doing anything serious with it application wise.

 

The thing may be pricier than your target mark, but it would do a lot more than just a TV stick, and can pass full HD audio if that matters to you.

 

Just a thought. Keep us posted. I'm interested to know what you land on. 

 

 

Just looked them up on Amazon over here. Prices range from £105 to £440.

 

Not actually used the emby theatre yet, both my current machines are W7 using media centre and the emby plugin for that... I hated the way MS was pushing W10 and refused to upgrade simply because of their insidious and coniving attempts to trick/con people into upgrades that they may not want or even know they were getting... If anything it's turned me from a paying windows customer into one that now despises them and will happily consider a linux based system in 2020 when support for W7 stops... So not sure if a W10 based system is something I'd ever actually spend money on. 

 

Besides... I still have a couple of perfectly working media centre remotes, that as far as I am aware cannot be made to activate emby theatre via the green button as in W7... and that kinda defeats the entire point of having a system that can be controlled from the sofa via the remote... adding extra costs to source another remote that would work isn't exactly appealing either... but thanks for the suggestion.

Edited December 2, 2016 by Heckler

[MSattler 387]

Just looked them up on Amazon over here. Prices range from £105 to £440.

 

Not actually used the emby theatre yet, both my current machines are W7 using media centre and the emby plugin for that... I hated the way MS was pushing W10 and refused to upgrade simply because of their insidious and coniving attempts to trick/con people into upgrades that they may not want or even know they were getting... If anything it's turned me from a paying windows customer into one that now despises them and will happily consider a linux based system in 2020 when support for W7 stops... So not sure if a W10 based system is something I'd ever actually spend money on. 

 

Besides... I still have a couple of perfectly working media centre remotes, that as far as I am aware cannot be made to activate emby theatre via the green button as in W7... and that kinda defeats the entire point of having a system that can be controlled from the sofa via the remote... adding extra costs to source another remote that would work isn't exactly appealing either... but thanks for the suggestion.

 

The Android TV app is leap and bounds better.

 

I have been through so many no name brand players, the Minix players, Fire TV Sticks, Fire TV's, Nexus Player.  Honestly, in the end, the go to player is the Nvidia Shield.   With Plex I can even get True-HD and DTS-HD audio.   Secondary player wise for me is the Mi Box, which is very good aside a lack of HD Audio out.

[mastrmind11 717]

^^ this

[Marc_G 92]

Another thought in the Android direction: look into a Remix Mini PC. I have one, though I have only played with it a little bit. It has two gigs of RAM and 16 gigs of storage.

 

Default OS setup makes it work a lot like a regular PC but of course it is Android based. If you are interested I could try the Emby app on it. Haven't done that yet I think.

Edited December 2, 2016 by Marc_G

[Heckler 147]

The Android TV app is leap and bounds better.

 

I have been through so many no name brand players, the Minix players, Fire TV Sticks, Fire TV's, Nexus Player.  Honestly, in the end, the go to player is the Nvidia Shield.   With Plex I can even get True-HD and DTS-HD audio.   Secondary player wise for me is the Mi Box, which is very good aside a lack of HD Audio out.

 

I have the nVidia Shield K1 tablet and it's pretty awesome... Best specs for £150 on the market hands down... I know people who paid more than twice that and got smaller tablets with less space but the only better spec is an 8core CPU.

 

Sadly the Nvidia Sheild TV is way out of the price range at well over £200 here in the UK... In fact the tablet seems to have gone up to £169 now too... Just another example of how this whole Brexit debacle is making everything more expensive for us.

 

The mini android box I was given... I can see why they stopped using it... it's really a piece of crap. 1GB memory, 8GB built in storage that's somehow partitioned and organised so that only a few GB is available for any apps and that gets eaten up by most of the google ones... like Play store taking up 200MB. I've disabled virtually everything except the essentials... but RKMC no longer works for some reason, even after resetting it to default specs and when it did, it was constantly crashing and freezing due to the very poor specs.

 

The emby app I was able to install is clunky and very hard to navigate because everything is in A-Z and settings are very basic, cannot organize them like you can in WMC with the MC client... But it does work.

 

The plan is to eventually move the mediaserver to my office, so that there's no sound pollution in any other rooms from it... It's quiet, but at night with the sound down, still intrusive enough... especially if transcoding as that little FX CPU at 4.2ghz gets very warm and the 2 fans on the cooler tend to spin up a little more than I'd like. But before I can do that I need to rewire my network, add in a new switch upstairs, and get a new router... the one from my ISP is a POS that doesn't even have gigabit lan, dual band wireless, no guest access... it's real piece of crap... but I'm stuck with it for the fibre connection unless I switch to cable next April when my contract is up... But it's unlimited and they never complain about my high usage, even when I'm averaging well over 500GB a month. I'll get another router and connect everything to that... then simply piggy back through the ISP one to the outside. But everything inside the house will then be routed through the VPN first before even hitting their one, will be on gigabit lan and 2.4/5ghz wifi with 300mbps upwards rather than the crappy 130mbps max that I get now with their POS router. I just updated my mums and the max she can get on the same model of router (same ISP) is 144mbps as her PC is slightly closer to the router than mine... When I rewire, the main router will be in my office and then cabled down to the house phone line about 10mts away.

 

If only money wasn't an issue... I'd have all this done already... and Shield TV's in every room. 

Edited December 2, 2016 by Heckler

[CBers 6795]

@@Heckler - the nVidia Shield TV's are expensive, as they've stopped making them due to a new one coming out soon, so people have ramped the prices up.

 

I have 2 Shield TV's and would never go back to a HTPC now.

 

[arrbee99 1562]

A FireTV stck wouldn't be good enough ? Specs aren't that good but there's a new one coming out, improves the processor and wifi at least. Probably the only one that'll do Amazon video without having to download someone's mod of the Sony TV version. You can sideload Kodi, etc, don't know about that RKMC thing though. No Ethernet either. Am sure Shield is very nice, but if its too expensive....

[ebr 14959]

A FireTV stck wouldn't be good enough ? Specs aren't that good but there's a new one coming out, improves the processor and wifi at least. Probably the only one that'll do Amazon video without having to download someone's mod of the Sony TV version. You can sideload Kodi, etc, don't know about that RKMC thing though. No Ethernet either. Am sure Shield is very nice, but if its too expensive....

 

IMO the stick is not worth whatever little money you save.  If you want the Amazon ecosystem, get the full Fire and save yourself some headaches.

[Heckler 147]

I've ruled out anything that locks you in to an eco system, there's an amazon video app that can access all of their stuff for plain android anyway.

 

The nVidia Shield TV is out of the equation at the moment, but I spotted a few little android Marshmallow devices on amazon for around the £50-70 range with 2-4GB ram and a variety of storage capacity.  Massive storage isn't a necessity as that's what the mediaserver is for (I've always got a 500GB external drive I can plug in, or a couple of 128GB USB 3 flash drives), and games aren't required as that's what the console and gaming PC are for... Accessing catchup TV, streaming from amazon, emby, netflix and so forth is all that's really required.

 

At the moment I need something for a 24" dumb TV in one room and a 32" dumb TV in another... My room has a nice 40" Samsung smart TV with emby loaded, and downstairs is another of the new 4K samsungs with tizen OS... so still waiting for the app to go worldwide on that.

 

But it's the second home that I really want something for, my father passed away a few months ago and my sister and I are spending a lot more time there between us now... But that doesn't have a superfast broadband connection... it used to be a measly 2mbps, but seems they've done some upgrades and it's now around 14mbps. Still not great for streaming, but iplayer and so forth should work ok.

 

I'll hold of on a purchase for the moment and see what comes out in the new year... I'm one for really doing my research to get the best VFM products I can... and some of these boxes are utter pieces of crap. 

Edited December 3, 2016 by Heckler

[Vidman 589]

As others have mentioned proper certified Android TV devices will be alot less disappointing for you

If not the shield tv there is the mibox

Edited December 3, 2016 by Vidman

[Heckler 147]

The problem with all of them is that you have to dig pretty deep to get into the actual specs... the vast majority out there are still using android 4/5 and don't display the amount of ram/storage... nor do they tell you what kind of wifi they have.

 

This one I was given cannot connect at more than 62mbps on a network that my mediaserver sat 3ft away is connecting at 130mbps (that's down to the dongle being a few years old now, gonna replace it shortly).

 

So decent wifi is a must... and future proof... so 802.11n/ac should be what I'm looking at... even though the current network is only g, I am planning to upgrade it soon.

 

Been doing some searches for mibox and not coming up with much... everything I'm seeing is 4.4 or 5.1 so far... in fact it keeps throwing in MBOX stuff which is what I have here and that's a POS.

Edited December 3, 2016 by Heckler

[Vidman 589]

http://www.mi.com/en/mibox/ Edited December 3, 2016 by Vidman

[clarkss12 296]

XIAOMI 4K Mi Box H.265 Android TV 6.0 Set-top Box VP9 HDR Video Support Dolby DTS Certified Voice Remote Control

 

http://www.geekbuying.com/item/-Official-International-Version--XIAOMI-Mi-Box-4K-H-265-Android-Box-371297.html

[Heckler 147]

http://www.mi.com/en/mibox/

 

Specs look ok, H.265 native, DTS, DD up to 7.1 throughput & SPDIF output (I assume optical), dual band wifi up to ac, bluetooth remote.... but only 8GB storage though which is a bit stingy these days... I can't find that one on Amazon here in the UK. If the price is right (US price is $69, so expect UK to be the same or higher these days)... it's near the top of the list at the moment... But not if I can't buy from a UK seller.

 

 

XIAOMI 4K Mi Box H.265 Android TV 6.0 Set-top Box VP9 HDR Video Support Dolby DTS Certified Voice Remote Control

 

http://www.geekbuying.com/item/-Official-International-Version--XIAOMI-Mi-Box-4K-H-265-Android-Box-371297.html

 

 

That's another US based site, need to buy from a UK supplier... had too many issues buying abroad in the past.

Edited December 3, 2016 by Heckler

[Marc_G 92]

Seriously, check the Remix Mini:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Remix-Mini-Ethernet-Multitasking-Keyboard/dp/B018NAN0SC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1480808046&sr=8-2&keywords=remix+mini+pc

 

2 GB RAM / 16 GB storage plus expansion slot (microSD). £59.29 plus free delivery!

 

 

 

Marc

Edited December 3, 2016 by Marc_G

[Heckler 147]

Seriously, check the Remix Mini:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Remix-Mini-Ethernet-Multitasking-Keyboard/dp/B018NAN0SC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1480808046&sr=8-2&keywords=remix+mini+pc

 

2 GB RAM / 16 GB storage plus expansion slot (microSD). £59.29 plus free delivery!

 

 

 

Marc

 

I did look at that, but dismissed it... specs are OK, but lower than what I would want... and at the same price point as something like the Mi Box... which I've found through UK ebay sellers for around the £65 mark. Downsides to it are a lack of bluetooth connectivity... I've got a laptop sized bluetooth keyboard with built in trackpad that I use with my HTPC. But I have plenty of PC keyboards, so swapping it over would be no problem.

 

Now I've found a UK reseller of the Mi Box... I'm tempted to get one before xmas... Just need to see if I need a rooted one to get RKMC on it, or if I can do the same things with Kodi (RKMC is a fork of Kodi as far as I am aware).  I'd like to still have access to certain things that I can/could do with this one... Like accessing all of the sky channels we pay for without having to pay the extra to sky each month for multi room or the £200 they wanted for a second box. Still pissed off at them they they disable HDMI output on their android apps so people can't use what they pay for legitimately and are instead to seek out alternate sources to view what they've paid for already.

[clarkss12 296]

Specs look ok, H.265 native, DTS, DD up to 7.1 throughput & SPDIF output (I assume optical), dual band wifi up to ac, bluetooth remote.... but only 8GB storage though which is a bit stingy these days... I can't find that one on Amazon here in the UK. If the price is right (US price is $69, so expect UK to be the same or higher these days)... it's near the top of the list at the moment... But not if I can't buy from a UK seller.

 

 

 

 

That's another US based site, need to buy from a UK supplier... had too many issues buying abroad in the past.

That is a Chineese web vendor. I have purchased a lot of items from them, with free shipping. Also, check out Freaktab for suggestions.

[clarkss12 296]

I did look at that, but dismissed it... specs are OK, but lower than what I would want... and at the same price point as something like the Mi Box... which I've found through UK ebay sellers for around the £65 mark. Downsides to it are a lack of bluetooth connectivity... I've got a laptop sized bluetooth keyboard with built in trackpad that I use with my HTPC. But I have plenty of PC keyboards, so swapping it over would be no problem.

 

Now I've found a UK reseller of the Mi Box... I'm tempted to get one before xmas... Just need to see if I need a rooted one to get RKMC on it, or if I can do the same things with Kodi (RKMC is a fork of Kodi as far as I am aware).  I'd like to still have access to certain things that I can/could do with this one... Like accessing all of the sky channels we pay for without having to pay the extra to sky each month for multi room or the £200 they wanted for a second box. Still pissed off at them they they disable HDMI output on their android apps so people can't use what they pay for legitimately and are instead to seek out alternate sources to view what they've paid for already.

RKMC is only for the newer Rockchip based SoC devices, will not work on other SoC's.

[xnappo 1593]

I've ruled out anything that locks you in to an eco system, there's an amazon video app that can access all of their stuff for plain android anyway.

 

 

Ummm.. No....  That is not true and you better check before buying a device if you want Amazon content.  *Most* devices are locked out from using the App because Amazon for some reason thinks it should try to compete against Google.  You can play hackboy on XDA and get it running for a bit sometimes, but it certainly won't pass WAF.

Edited December 4, 2016 by xnappo

[Marc_G 92]

I use the Android app from Amazon (their Underground app, I think they call it) with their video plugin and access my prime video content no problem on my tablet.

 

The key is to get the app from Amazon rather than the slimmed down app they have on the Google Play Store.

[Heckler 147]

I have access to the amazon video app on my nVidia Sheild K1 tablet, and could have it on my phone if I wanted too.  You do need to check the setting to allow apps to be installed from 3rd parties... Just remember to untick the box again afterwards.

[Heckler 147]

Well, any plans I had to get one has been thrown out the window... Last night my 3TB seagate drive started throwing CRC errors and unmounted itself, the BIOS threw a wobbly and the system crashed on reboot. Had to clea the CMOS and & restore everything to defaults... reset the boot priority/order before it loaded again.

 

Downloaded the latest version of seatools from seagate and tested the drive... SMART passed ok and reports a few minor issues... but every other test was failing either within seconds or after 4hrs for the long test.

 

I think it's safe to say that the drive is on it's way out.

 

Cue a desperate attempt to salvage 2.45TB of movies onto less than 2TB of actually free storage... Currently left with 740GB of free space across 3 drives for the remaining 1.2TB... Harsh choices need to be made shortly.

 

Also cue a desperate search for a decent deal on a 5-6TB hard drive... and not finding any here in the UK where prices remain ridiculously high across the board.

[Heckler 147]

Couldn't find a decent deal on a 5-6TB drive, so I picked up 2x3TB ones for a very good price... I'll replace the oldest 1.5TB drive that I've had running 24/7 since mid 2010 in my mediaservers with the other 3TB and RMA the failed one as I think it's got a few months left on it's warranty... I'll use that replacement to swap out with the 2TB drive... and I'll then have around 17TB of storage in total.

 

Was cheaper to purchase 2x3TB than a single 6TB... by a fair margin too. A saving of over £36

Edited December 7, 2016 by Heckler