[jetfixr]

OK, I am not trolling, I am just trying to figure out why all the new ARM based set top boxes seem to fall short of being a full fledged htpc. I mean, in one way or another they just don't get the job done. It seems my 3 year old WDTV would play just about any file you could throw at it in 1080p. Granted it was far from an htpc but it would play just about any HDTV content from my USB drive. I mean the WDTV only had a 500 Mhz processor. Now we are starting to see quad core ARM processors with speeds in excess of 1 Ghz. With these new and powerful processors, why aren't we seeing stuff that is light years ahead of the old WDTV? I would love to upgrade, but I have just decided I am not going to go with an x86 solution. I keep waiting for a low power ARM set top box that will handle some basic htpc functions. It seems like we are close now, but I thought that a couple of years ago too.

[Ned Scott]

Probably because the they're all still in development... The only stable ARM build of XBMC is XBMC for iOS, and the hardware decoding APIs in iOS only work with h.264 (for a lack of a better description). All other ARM boxes are still being worked on. When the first PC port of XBMC was made back when the Xbox was king, XBMC wasn't pretty on those PCs... There were lots of issues and it took a while before the PC exceeded the xbox overall.

That being said, a Pivos XIOS running linux will be much better than the WDTV. I'm not sure if you've closely followed its development, but it's shaping up very nicely.

[Dougie Fresh]

You've just described the difference between dedicated hardware (WDTV) and general purpose hardware (ARM, etc.) . The dedicated hardware comes out-of-the-box with the hardware/firmware dedicated to the specific features. The general purpose hardware needs software to implement various features. Add that the software we want is open source and it all makes sense.

From all the posts I see around here folks are working hard on it, that's for sure. I have to imagine it's a steep hill to climb but once the building blocks are in place we'll see an explosion of useful stuff.

I am looking for a mini-ITX size ARM motherboard I can run Android on for other purposes -- but I am just learning...

[PobjoySpecial]

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[davilla]

The Mali GPU does not handle hardware video decoding. For the billionth time, repeat it. The Mali GPU has nothing to do with hardware video decode.

[PobjoySpecial]

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[davilla]

It's not a simple issue, as soon as more users understand that, the better they will appreciate the existing work that has been does under ARM platform, both linux and android based.