Best XMBC Box

Montala · 23 Jan 2015 at 12:46

... or might it even be worth waiting for the Intel 'Compute Stick' to become available?

More info. at: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/compute-stick/intel-compute-stick.html

meandu229 · 23 Jan 2015 at 13:47

Montala said:
... or might it even be worth waiting for the Intel 'Compute Stick' to become available?

More info. at: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/compute-stick/intel-compute-stick.html

Basically same hardware but will have an intel premium added onto costs.

Montala · 23 Jan 2015 at 13:54

meandu229 said:
Basically same hardware but will have an intel premium added onto costs.

True, but would probably come with better support, future firmware updates etc.

meandu229 · 23 Jan 2015 at 14:04

Montala said:
True, but would probably come with better support, future firmware updates etc.

100% yes. Until we see price will be hard to judge if thats worth it.
I also expect it to have better wifi so maybe steam streaming will become possible.

oulton · 27 Jan 2015 at 13:37

I just set up my NUC 54250 and it is brilliant.

ArchAnGeL · 27 Jan 2015 at 20:05

ArchAnGeL said:
It was from China. Paid by PayPal so some protection there. You get the option to return to spain if there is a problem for an extra quid or so

However, still not dispatched so not looking like the quickest

HEADRAT · 28 Jan 2015 at 12:07

oulton said:
I just set up my NUC 54250 and it is brilliant.

I bet, quite an expensive option though

rob77 · 30 Jan 2015 at 22:14

lmfy2k said:
I think there's a limitation with the celerons. They don't do dts hd on windows but the i3 and i5 do

Celeron do dts-hd In Linux only like openelec

The newer graphic card drivers allow dts-hd on the celeron nucs. I have a n2820 and run kodi through win 7 64bit and it plays back dts-hd no problem

I've had a few xbmc boxes and to be honest the n2820 is the best of all I have tried. It also does auto frame rate switching which is the biggest problem with most boxes that are stuck at 60hz. I think in total with a 64GB ssd and 4GB ram it came to £150.

HEADRAT · 30 Jan 2015 at 22:15

Good to know rob77, think that's what I'm gonna get.

rob77 · 30 Jan 2015 at 22:40

Honestly mate I think its the best bang for buck out there. I installed win 8.1 first but there is a problem that it does not output true 24hz and defaults to 23.976. Its not the nuc at fault but a windows 8 problem. Which means 95% of movies play fine but the odd one in true 24.000 stutter every minute or so. Windows 7 can output both 23.976 and 24.000 so doesn't have this limitation.

I have tried openelec but did not find it as stable as kodi on windows. I'm running kodi 14.1 now and it is fantastic on the n2820. Kodi launcher is also really good as it allows you to run kodi in a shell from first boot without having explorer in the background. CPU usage is about 20% running a good quality 1080p mkv so no problem with it being underpowered.

drumlegend · 2 Feb 2015 at 14:23

rob77 said:
The newer graphic card drivers allow dts-hd on the celeron nucs. I have a n2820 and run kodi through win 7 64bit and it plays back dts-hd no problem

I've had a few xbmc boxes and to be honest the n2820 is the best of all I have tried. It also does auto frame rate switching which is the biggest problem with most boxes that are stuck at 60hz. I think in total with a 64GB ssd and 4GB ram it came to £150.

SO all you need to do is add the SSD and the RAM and it's ready to run Kodi?

I know you don't have to use the SSD but i'd rather use that than a USB

ZXSpectrum · 2 Feb 2015 at 14:40

I got my Minix Neo X8-H Plus a couple of weeks ago and I am very happy with it. Unfortunately I have not had time to do the emulator stuff on it that I intended to but as far as playing media goes it has played everything I have thrown at it without issue. I have played an uncompressed br rip of Avengers and The Man of steel and the work perfectly as far as I can tell. No stuttering, no skipped frames and no issues with skipping forward/backwards chapters. I have also tried 3D and they appear to work fine as well.

So for £120 all in for an Android based unit that seems to play everything I want it to in XBMC/Kodi as well as being able to easily browse the net, play games (Actually Angry birds was fun on the 50" screen) and I also have access to my music via Google play so it just streams via the net (The interface and the album art are a little nicer than I have setup on my server/xbmc)... Its a great buy!

Not setup the airmouse yet tho...

ArchAnGeL · 2 Feb 2015 at 15:08

Update on the pipo. Contacted them on Thursday as it had been a week without dispatch. They said they were having trouble with the demand on the balck, would I consider the silver (my mate also got the same response). I said yes and to inform me of dispatch ETA (this was friday). No response other that we will let you know when it has been sent.

They are getting back quickly though

rob77 · 2 Feb 2015 at 17:01

drumlegend said:
SO all you need to do is add the SSD and the RAM and it's ready to run Kodi?

I know you don't have to use the SSD but i'd rather use that than a USB

Yes that's all that is needed. I installed a small 64GB ssd as I only needed a simple win 7 installation and stream all my movies over my network. Make sure you get the right ram which is ddr3l (low voltage) sodimm.

ZXSpectrum · 2 Feb 2015 at 17:15

rob77 said:
Yes that's all that is needed. I installed a small 64GB ssd as I only needed a simple win 7 installation and stream all my movies over my network. Make sure you get the right ram which is ddr3l (low voltage) sodimm.

VERY important as its a little bit finiky on memory. I find that Crucial SODIMM 1.35v work fine in any of the NUCs but it doesn't look like OCUK Stock it.

SSD is very helpful when caching the album/poster art to make things like Aeon Nox smoother.

jellybeard999 · 2 Feb 2015 at 17:58

Not heard anything about it until today, but the new Raspberry PI could be very promising if it gets the support the first got.

happykitty · 3 Feb 2015 at 08:35

I feel that this is good.
I like this device so much.

All of the information can get it from here.
http://www.cloudmedia.com/products/open-hour/chameleon-combo

drumlegend · 3 Feb 2015 at 10:22

happykitty said:
I feel that this is good.
I like this device so much.

All of the information can get it from here.
http://www.cloudmedia.com/products/open-hour/chameleon-combo

Damn, that looks nice. I might have a look into that a bit more!

drumlegend · 3 Feb 2015 at 10:41

Regarding the NUC n2820 I have a question.

My RaspPi is slow with certain questionable add ons such as a popular one... the one that Phil Collins used to be in.

It could take quite a while to get to anything, will this run a lot smoother.

I'm running on my laptop at the moment which has an i5 and it's pretty fast with that.

Joebob · 3 Feb 2015 at 14:40

I know it's only just been released so I'm more than likely jumping the gun with this question, but has anyone tried a R Pi 2 with Openelec? Or maybe you plan on getting one... I'm certainly considering it, but would like to know if there is a noticable difference in performance over my B+ first.