[Habibie]

I hope this is the right forum to post. Otherwise, please feel free to move it to a more appropriate forum.

Today, I saw this KII Pro DVB S2 DVB T2+S2 Android 5.1 TV Box Amlogic S905 Quad-core Kodi 16.0 Bluetooth 2GB/16GB 2.4G/5G Wifi Smart Media Player. What struck me is it has some built-in supports for both DVB-T2 and DVB-S2 hardware. If anyone owns this beast, I sure would like if you can answer the following questions:

1. Will either DVB-T2 or DVB-S2 channels work under kodi, especially with any kodi supported TV Guide?
   
2. Will these DVB-T2 and DVB-S2 require some additional drivers/software to watch their channels outside of kodi?

BTW, I did a search through AliExpress looking for any other (octa-core) Android TV box like this to no avail. Does this mean I am stuck with this one (quad-core)?

[wrxtasy]

No Kodi media player is any good without after sales support. I cannot stress enough how important this is especially for a device that can get pretty complicated when running DVB Tuners when using an Android OS.

Here is some self reading to do. Take particular care about reading the comments sections to judge after sales support yourself.

The one point I will make. When using Android - TV streams with any Dolby Digital sound ie AC3 be very careful as this box has not Dolby Digital licence to decode AC3 to PCM Audio.
Results may vary.

There is very little LibreELEC support for the DVB tuners in this device due to poor Linux DVB drivers from Videostrong.

http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/08/26/v...h-2gb-ram/
http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/02/28/r...-t2-tuner/

Personally if it were me. I would seperate the Tuners from the media player device, and keep them completely seperate.
An RPi3 in combo with any number of Dual Tuners would be a very good place to start as an external networked TV server.

BTW: Stop looking at fancy Tech Specs - you will very likely end up with some bleeding edge cheap Android device that frankly will be rubbish due to crap Android Firmware and no after sales support. These types are strictly DIY devices.

Please read the START HERE - Pick the Right Kodi Box (updated Nov 2016) to avoid some further pitfalls.

Just telling like it is

[Habibie]

Thank you.

[noggin]

An RPi3 in combo with any number of Dual Tuners would be a very good place to start as an external networked TV server.

Hmm. A Pi is good for a single tuner solution (in fact I'm not sure it needs to be a Pi 3B - the processing required may not be hugely improved by the faster SoC - though onboard WiFi might be advantageous) A single or dual tuner solution fits the Pi reasonably well. I may give the Pi Zero W a go this weekend if I get time. That could make an incredibly neat DVB-T2 single tuner WiFi solution.

However - loading a Pi with multiple tuners as a multi-tuner back-end may not be a great idea - particularly for HD. All of the USB Tuners, the Ethernet (though not WiFi in Pi3B) and any local USB connected storage (but not uSD card storage) will be hanging off a single USB 2.0 bus. This may be marginal as you'll be pushing the IO on the Pi a bit. I ended up with a Chromebox with an x86 Celeron, GigE and USB 3.0 - which may be overkill, but I have 9 tuners connected. (3 x DVB-T Dual, 1 x DVB-T2 Dual and 1 x DVB-T2 single)

** UPDATE - just installed TV Headend and a single DVB-T2 (August T210 v1) tuner on a Raspberry Pi Zero W **

So far so quite neat! Looks to be a good single tuner solution - and the WiFi seems to hold up with a single HD 1080i stream so far. If you just want a single tuner on a remote backend - the Zero W and a cheap DVB-T/T2 dongle and a micro-USB OTG shim could be a really neat solution. Not massively powerful - but probably OK for a single stream.

[komplex]

There is a guy that does Libreelec version for this that box over on their forums https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread-2722.html might be worth having a read

[dsmuk]

Got one of these boxes last week and I'm amazed at how far the Kodi ecosystem has come in such a short pace of time.

Have been using an Acer Revo for almost 10 years and while I have updated it over the years (from LiveCD to OpenElec and then LibreElec) it has basically remained the same for me.

Got one of these boxes and have access to IPTV, FTV sat channels, local stored files and all appears to work with no lag, switched between IPTV and sat channels seamlessly.

Took just a few minutes to flash it with LibreElec and copy across the restore file, longest thing to learn was TVheadend but that wasn't long.

Just need to configure the One For All remote and my whole viewing experience with be via this box with no need to switch TV inputs, everything in one box.

...just wish they had put the USB sockets on the back rather than it stick out the side!

[wrxtasy]

Yes these S905 boxes have come a long way in the last year with all sorts of low level Kernel and DVB driver - AMLogic LibreELEC support.

I still think the ATSC / DVB Tuner equipped WeTek Play2 is better value because you can now use a really good unofficial Android TV ROM running a inbuilt TvHeadend server when using Android as well. Plus you get all the proper DRM and HDCP for 4K ATV streaming Apps like Netflix.

One limitation is the broken Android Kodi Krypton TvHeadend viewing client - but you can still use SPMC (Jarvis) anyway.
There is actually very little need to leave Android TV as it all works so well.

[dsmuk]

A friend has a Wetek Play and that is what made me looking to update my current system but it was the fact this unit has DVB-S and DVB-T in the same unit that swung it for me plus the 50 USD price difference.

The TV has iPlayer, Netflix etc built in so all bases covered