[te36]

Looking for a road-warriors Kodi box.

Currently, i have a UEBO 50, which is size and HW wise exactly what i want: little bit larger than a 2.5" USB hard drive. Works perfect as external USB 3.0 disk to back up eg: my mac book (no addtl. power supply reqiured). Easy to use as additional travel gear to connect to hotel room TV as media player. And with 2TB drive i always have a large archive to pick something from. And yes, it was a welcome surprise that i could format the drive with HFS+ and it can play back media from HFS+ as well. Wasn't spec'ed, just lucky that the linux kernel had that FS enabled.

Alas: software sucks compared to Kodi and can't do h265, so hacking it for kodi wouldn't be worth it.

Regularily browsing iboum.com, but seemingly no new media players with space for built-in 2.5" HDD. Couldn't find anthing mentioned here on the forum either.

[Tinwarble]

Most likely what you're looking for is a NUC, something like a ASRock Beebox.

Take a look here: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=294312

[te36]

The nucs with internal HDD option all seem to be fairly large, as much as 2 liters or so. And do they have infra red, good wifi, no fan, ...

Continuing to browse i saw this here: Zoomtak T8X-S

https://www.amazon.com/Zoomtak-Amlogic-L...3843082011

thats the type of device i am looking for. a bit larger than my old UEBO but close.

Not sure what else is out there, really hard to search for players with internal sata disk and h265.

[Tinwarble]

NCUs are relatively small, most are about 5"x5" and about 3 - 4.5" tall. That's about as small as you're going to find something and still be able to fit HDD in it. Even that box you linked to is 7"x5"x1" and it doesn't have a HDD or space to add one, but I would stay away from anything like that anyway.

Some have IR, some don't but pretty much all have bluetooth and I would suggest getting something like a FireTV remote to use with it. And yes, they the wi-fi is good on NUCs.

[te36]

0.53 l for the zoomtak vs 0.6 l for the beebox. Zoomtak $100, N3000 beebox maybe $150 with memory, so the ballpark is right.

But why would you stay away from those SOC devices ? Anyththing on the HW or just because it's Android based ? I assume NUC i'd use linux... ? (never tried android for a media player, so no idea...)

[wrxtasy]

This is what I use....but its not a built in 2.5" HDD.

Power for 2.5" HDD:
Use a USB Y-Cable and connect to a TV's USB port to provide supplemental power to a 2.5" HDD - a cable like THIS

Kodi Device:
Then I use an ODROID C2 running LibreELEC Kodi.
Power that from another USB port on the TV with an USB 2.0 Type A to Micro-size Type B cable.
Or the preferred option - any 2 Port USB - 2.0+ Amp charger. The AMLogic S905 - C2 is more power efficient than an equivalent RPi3.

Remote:
For remote control - I usually just use HDMI-CEC from the TV remote or you can pack a $3 Bluetooth USB dongle and use a Mini BT remote.
An IR receiver is also built into the C2 and thats programmable for any IR remote you already have.

It really depends on how much you want to spend and how tidy the setup needs to be.

[te36]

Wrxtasy: Thanks for the info. I hadn't realized ODROID C2 was same SOC as the zoomtak. In comparison, it seems to me as if the zoomtak is worth the $60 difference: Adds power supply, remote, AC WiFi with antenna, native sata interface, analog video out and a nice case with disk mounting. And some _maybe_ useful display. For traveling, i think i'd have a hard time building myself a similar handy package for less money out of SBC like Odroid C2 or other. Of course, NUC is maybe just $50 more, but also somewhat more weight/space.

How difficult do you think it would be to get LibreElec onto the zoomtak ? I have not found any explicit install instructions, so i don't know if the SD on the zoomtak is wired up the same way as on Odroid and can be used for install LibreElec.

Its good to hear that Odroid C2 might run on as little power as a single USB port. I run two RPI B+ from TV USB power. On the better ones of the TVs i needed a USB Y-cable. I guess that one restricts power to the official 500 mA while the cheaper one does not. But yes, thats the reason why i can't go to RPI 3 because that one would certainly go above 1000mA.

Alas, for live TV watching, Kodi GUI still has WAF issues (not simple & snappy enough), so i use VDR and there's limited support for Mali G450 for that ;-(