Quote :

" I will probably just wait it out. Thx."

Definitely wait it out. I'm still waiting on my damn Ouya kickstarter to arrive , but the xbmc support for it supposed to be really good. I'll update y'all when mine comes in and I have change to install it.

5/1/2013 6:22:55 PM

I'm waiting till May 21st to learn more about set top capabilities of the new Xbox.

5/1/2013 7:00:22 PM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856178002&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10440897&PID=404255&SID=307954_desktop

Looks like a decently spec'd Android on a stick PC that will run XBMC. Reviews are mostly positive aside from a few small issues here and there.

Or if you want something a little nicer:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0088IGPM8/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0088IGPM8&linkCode=as2&tag=thfefi02-20

5/4/2013 1:57:17 PM

I have an android stick just like ^. I'll sell it for cheap. It can't seem to handle WPA2-enterprise

5/4/2013 5:10:48 PM

So, I want to run xbmc, and have all my files sources on network storage via NFS... I've tinkered with this and have it working, etc...

My goal is to rip all of my blurays and have them stored centrally, and have some sort of xbmc client at each TV.

What sort of hardware should I be looking at to handle this? I don't really want to compress my blurays, I literally want them stored as is. I was considering something like an Asus vivopc vc60, but I'm hoping to get away with something less robust (vc60 has an i5,Intel 4400 graphics, runs ~$500)... I will probably put xbmcbuntu on the device.

I just don't know what is sufficient to handle this job (I might be over thinking this)

2/22/2014 11:20:58 PM

^I just grabbed a sample blu-ray file from http://www.demo-world.eu/trailers/high-definition-trailers.php (Pioneer - Aquarium - Dolby Digital 2.0 1080/29.97p m2ts)

Streamed it from my media server to the Ouya.

And it plays back beautifully on the OUYA through XBMC. I've yet to see any video file, even at 1080/60p that didn't play back smooth as silk.

[Edited on February 23, 2014 at 12:52 AM. Reason : .]

2/23/2014 12:51:35 AM

Quote :

"Or if you want something a little nicer: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0088IGPM8/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0088IGPM8&linkCode=as2&tag=thfefi02-20"

so this comes with XBMC from the store?

2/23/2014 1:02:38 PM

Says in the FAQ you have to install the xbmc apk...

Ideally, I don't want a device that boots into something and I have to select xmbc... I want turn key, this device is xbmc only. Which is why I'm looking at xbmcbuntu...

But I guess for cost concerns I should cave and look at android devices.

Edit: wait... Maybe you can configure that to boot straight to xbmc... Hmmm...

[Edited on February 23, 2014 at 1:43 PM. Reason : .]

2/23/2014 1:40:57 PM

Fuck it. I just bought one for my short term needs. I'm not ripping my blurays yet. Still in the infancy of mapping out how I want to handle everything. This should be a good device to bridge my needs and give me some testing capabilities.

[Edited on February 23, 2014 at 2:24 PM. Reason : micro center had them for $120, shipped]

2/23/2014 2:24:24 PM

Are you looking for recommendations for an XBMC box only, or are you looking for a box that will rip, play, and provide network storage?

2/23/2014 5:31:24 PM

I have network storage, and can sort out the ripping. I'm looking for for a box that can handle the demands of running xmbc and displaying bluray quality content.

2/23/2014 5:35:51 PM

Pretty much anything with HD2000 integrated graphics and up should work fine. I use an i3-3225 w/ HD4000.

I recommend compressing your blu-ray rips. You can get a fair amount of compression without losing a lot of visual quality.

2/23/2014 6:07:21 PM

I'll probably strip out things like extra features and the like... I *may* fiddle with compression, but I'm willing to leave them uncompressed. On some movies I won't give a shit, because they're already crappy transfers. But there are some that I find visually stunning, and would want to make sure I retain that.

Thanks for the feedback

2/23/2014 6:20:29 PM

Ouya has XBMC available from the Ouya Store for free. You can also sideload it (and Gotham nightly builds run really well). I just run the stock store build (Frodo 12.2).

The ONLY issue I have with it is that some themes (particularly Xperience 1080+) run extremely slowly. All of the main repo skins run great though, I'm running Xperience 1080.

It has fully hardware accelerated video playback now (since fall of last year), so it will playback everything short of 4k content. I've never had a single blip with any 1080p content, from completely uncompressed Blu-Ray to highly compressed h264.

The downside to the Ouya is getting a media remote working. The controllers work great, but I really want a remote for my living room. I broke down and bought a Flirc, which required some significant fiddling but finally works the way it should.

Ouya is absolutely my platform of choice for XBMC. Can be found for under 90 bucks, actively supported, lots of fun games, extremely hackable (Google Play + Spotify + Chrome). I will be buying an Ouya 2 when they come out. Worlds better than any of other media player boxes out there for me. Hulu works in XBMC, Netflix can be sideloaded, and its tiny.

2/23/2014 7:00:13 PM

I may consider ouya in the future. I pulled the trigger on that pivos xios for now. If I hate it i'll return it.

2/23/2014 7:55:57 PM

While I see merit in dedicated devices I still prefer a HTPC over anything else. XBMC is going to run the best on it by far compared to any other device and I use it as a Steambox with wireless 360 controllers.

2/24/2014 11:20:09 AM

so I got a new android stick. quad core 1.6ghz, 2gb ram, etc etc. the gf seems to love all the garbage on MTV but that seems to be all available online. rather than get another directv box (and a contract ) I'd like to get a decent content front end for her. Is xbmc the way to go? I see a plugin for mtv.de that I'm hoping could be adapted to mtv.com. PlayOn is also an option, so is roku

2/24/2014 11:33:48 AM

plex?

2/24/2014 12:04:50 PM

So, I'm not in love with the xios. I watched two shows and it ran quite capably. The remote sucks, but I have applications that let me manipulate the device. After I ordered, I found out that Linux based xbmc won't be updated and supported in the future, as the android version met their requirements. This won't work for me, this adds a step on boot (which is why I went xios over ouya). I also needed a newer version because I'm sourcing my files over NFS, and the Linux boot version has a bug with NFS.

So I got an ouya at target for 79.99 today. Installed autopilot (I wish I knew about this initially), and my ouya will boot direct to xbmc. Perfect.

I just need a simple remote for ouya (the controller was another reason I balked initially), and I'm set. I can use my phone as an xbmc remote, but using a game control for other things is very clunky.

I may seek to replace the fan with a quieter one though.

3/1/2014 10:33:32 PM

http://flirc.tv/ buy this and you can use any remote you like

^Also where did you hear that linux isn't being supported in the future? I've never heard anything of the sort, and Gotham (which will be the next major release for the next 2-3 years) absolutely supports linux.

[Edited on March 2, 2014 at 12:29 AM. Reason : .]

3/2/2014 12:25:26 AM

Not xbmc itself... The the xios supports a version that is not unlike xbmcbuntu but is specifically unique to that device. Its a direct boot into xbmc... That's the version they are not supporting anymore.

http://www.pivosforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=4372

But autopilot on the ouya provides what I need.

3/2/2014 11:38:26 AM

to answer my own question, MTV has an android app that works well. problem solved

3/2/2014 3:29:07 PM

does anyone know if there's a way to customize xbmc to launch my own apps? I don't want pictures/videos/music. I just want 'programs' and my own arbitrary ones

8/3/2014 10:52:23 PM

Yes, there is http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Add-on:Advanced_Launcher

and for future reference, the answer to any question of the form:

"Does anyone know if there's a way to customize xbmc to ____________________ ?"

Is always yes



[Edited on August 7, 2014 at 5:39 PM. Reason : m]

8/7/2014 5:38:14 PM

Why the hell "kodi"

8/17/2014 5:56:49 PM

I had no idea you could put XBMC on a Fire TV until a few days ago when I saw an article that the XBMC twitter account posted. I picked one up the other day and loaded it up and it runs pretty great. Granted, I'm coming from an Apple TV 2, but still even compared to when I run XBMC on my i5 Macbook, it's basically the same experience. Took me a few hours to get everything configured correctly, but for $99, if you're looking for a cheap entry level into XBMC, I think the Fire TV is the way to go.

[Edited on September 22, 2014 at 10:09 PM. Reason : The Fire TV is everything that I wanted out of the Ouya and more.]

9/22/2014 10:08:12 PM

Ouya wore thin on me. I'm looking for amlogic s812 chip set based devices... They're not out yet though. Hopefully they come out soon.

9/23/2014 10:18:59 PM

^^Yes, fireTV is great for XBMC, paired with the mediaportal TV server and a digital antenna it is awesome.

9/24/2014 10:36:09 AM

I'm looking for a new xbmc device and the amazon firetv sounds appealing. When using xbmc, I mount all of my content over the network from nas using a samba share. Have you guys done that?

From a few google searches, it looks like setting up a smb mount is not very straightforward and reliable in the firetv.

10/20/2014 8:28:53 AM

I watch 100% of my TV content using SMB shares from a Windows 7 server I have set up with 4 HDDs in it. XBMC on the Fire was just as straightforward as anything else I've tried it on. I think I might have had some minor firewall issues when first setting it up several years ago, but it's nothing that 5-10 minutes of tinkering around with Windows settings shouldn't take care of.

Edit: maybe the troubles you're seeing people talk about are people that are trying to mount the SMB shares to the Fire itself. I think that can be done in order to use external storage to install apps on etc. This requires root on the Fire TV and may or may not be difficult to set up (I haven't personally tried it), but if all you care about is seeing the shared content within XBMC itself, that's really straightforward and just as easy to do on the fire as it is any other XBMC capable device.

[Edited on October 20, 2014 at 1:25 PM. Reason : add another note.]

10/20/2014 1:20:46 PM

What about waiting on a Google Nexus?

http://www.google.com/intl/all/nexus/player/

Advantage that you can fun all Android apps including XBMC.

10/20/2014 1:41:00 PM

Fire TV will run all Android apps too, right out of the box, no root required. You can even put CyanogenMod on it for the "real" android experience. Fire TV also has twice the RAM as the Nexus, so it should be better hardware. I guess the Nexus has a intel processor or whatever, so that might matter to some people, but at a cursory glance, it didn't look like the Nexus had any advantages at all over the Fire, especially considering that about half of the time for the last 2 months you've been able to pick up the Fire for $84 instead of the normal $99.

10/20/2014 4:14:20 PM

This is funny

10/20/2014 4:38:16 PM

I was under the impression that you could only run Amazon app store apps on the Fire TV out of the box and you don't have access to the Google Play store like you would on the Nexus TV. Is this still not the case?

10/20/2014 6:07:45 PM

Nope. It's as simple as checking one box on the Fire TV and then using a computer on the same network to adb push apks to the Fire. Or just use an easy installer program to save the hassle of actually typing adb push or whatever. You can even install the Play Store if you want and use that.

^^That is pretty funny. Wouldn't be surprised if google sues to get that stopped though. I wouldn't think it would be legal if Google put up links for Android phones every time somebody searches for iPhone. Then again, maybe that already happens, I have adblock so I wouldn't see it.

10/20/2014 6:19:23 PM

Quote :

"Nope. It's as simple as checking one box on the Fire TV and then using a computer on the same network to adb push apks to the Fire."

Ok so I'm right. The Amazon Fire (like the Fire tablet) doesn't support the Google Play Store out of the box. I don't care if you can do it via a hack. It's not supported out of the box. So like if my parents wanted to use it.

Quote :

"Fire TV also has twice the RAM as the Nexus, so it should be better hardware. I guess the Nexus has a intel processor or whatever, so that might matter to some people, but at a cursory glance, it didn't look like the Nexus had any advantages at all over the Fire,"

The iPhone 6 only has 1GB of ram compared to the most flagship Android phones with 3GB. I'm simply saying specs don't always make a huge difference. The extra ram on the Fire might be due to the Amazon Fire OS on top of Android. Just saying the Nexus could be just as if not more performant than the Fire and it's main advantage being it supports everything vanilla android out of the box without having to install an adb.

[Edited on October 20, 2014 at 7:09 PM. Reason : d]

10/20/2014 7:07:07 PM

yeah, no, an extra gig of ram in android makes a huge difference

10/20/2014 7:28:44 PM

Oh I know. Just saying I'm going to read some review on the Nexus Player before making any assumptions. It might be a nice vanilla TV device. Not saying the Fire would be a bad decision simply saying I'll wait and see.

10/20/2014 7:30:11 PM

Quote :

"I watch 100% of my TV content using SMB shares from a Windows 7 server I have set up with 4 HDDs in it. XBMC on the Fire was just as straightforward as anything else I've tried it on. I think I might have had some minor firewall issues when first setting it up several years ago, but it's nothing that 5-10 minutes of tinkering around with Windows settings shouldn't take care of."

I think you're right re: smb mounting issues. my only experience with using xbmc was on windows, where I was mounting the SMB shares in windows before launching xbmc.

are you using the amazon fire for anything besides xbmc? i think i'm about to order one

10/20/2014 8:53:44 PM

fire OS is not a layer on top of vanilla android, it is open source android with LESS google stuff loaded and then some of the amazon stuff loaded. you can see this going through the installed apps and services and reading the about.

https://developer.amazon.com/appsandservices/solutions/platforms/android-fireos

10/21/2014 1:05:01 PM

If there was a Netflix and Amazon Prime windows app that worked great with a remote and interfaced with XBMC I wouldn't want an additional device like this. My XBMC HTPC runs better and faster than any dedicated device. Watching Netflix and Prime is just annoying via a browser. I know there's way's to hack it and get it working with XBMC and a remote but they're always such a pain.

10/21/2014 1:38:32 PM

Quote :

"are you using the amazon fire for anything besides xbmc?"

Games and shit for my nephews. I downloaded GTA San Andreas the other day for $3. I do use the Amazon Prime video and occasionally Netflix, but yeah, 90% of my usage is XBMC.

10/24/2014 12:40:01 AM

Anyone need a Ceton InfiniTV 4 (quad tuner, PCIe card)?

Switched to DirecTV and have no use for it anymore. Worked great in a Windows 8 HTPC.

10/27/2014 11:36:42 AM

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GDQ0RMG

$19 (for people on Amazon Prime) gets you a device that (probably) runs XBMC (reasonably well).

10/27/2014 3:42:13 PM

Ordered. Now I have to wait until Dec 17th. This thing will be great for hotels and on the go.

10/27/2014 9:27:38 PM

Has anyone installed 14 yet?

1/2/2015 7:25:38 PM

^I have. Looks and works the same, except my favorite theme Aeon MQ5 doesn't work. Theres a mod to make it work, but then you have to mess with it. Going to switch themes probably. Supposed to be better h264 support?

1/2/2015 10:19:28 PM

running spmc on an android box (open hour chameleon) and new to this whole thing - so far i like it

1/2/2015 10:45:44 PM

been running Kodi 14rc for a few weeks? now. So far really liking it. Many of the performance annoyances that caused me to venture to Plex and MediaBrowser have been fixed. It's a much smoother experience, and live tv rivals WMC now.

1/2/2015 11:41:38 PM

anyone been able to get hdhomerun hd channels to play on a firetv with xbmc? it seems like my fire tries to stream in mpeg2 instead of h264 and there's no hardware accel for that. my $30 android stick handles hdhomerun just fine on wifi

1/3/2015 6:05:32 AM