I brought the box from amazon mainly for their official streaming platform icntv (which has a ton of tv shows and movies). XMBC wasn't much of a consideration since I already got a nice xbmc setup with a htpc. So imagine my disappointment right after I got it setup and I was greeted with a blue screen displaying an error message stating that it's unable to authenticate with its backend server. (apparently icntv had stopped authenticating non-china based boxes just one week back.) The worse part is that this error renders the box completely unusable as it blocks any access to the rest of the andriod system.
I was kinda mad that xiaome would sell such a box on Amazon to US consumers and yet stopped supporting the box outside of china. So I rooted the thing and installed 3rd party stream clients which got around the issue. And since then I was able to install any APK on the box so I figured to give XMBC a try. And to my surprise after installing the latest gotham beta release I found out that it's almost a perfect XBMC box sans the GUI which only supports 720p (1gb of ram not enough for the confluence theme?). It plays the killer clip (1080p bbc great plain) without a hitch with no audio sync issue that's been reported. As matter of fact I think it renders the scene better than my htpc setup (nvidia gtx 750). And it's quiter than my main htpc! Obviously the UI feels a bit sluggish comparing to my pc but man for box that sells for less than 100 bucks it's great!
I'd like to thank and congratulate the xbmc developers on being able to get the amlogic hw acceleration on par with the rest of the platforms. A great job! I didn't have to do any tweak to get a great little xbmc box.
Thanks guys!
Oh I do want to mention that the airplay support the xiaomi box has isn't exactly the same as what's on ATV. i.e. it works for youtube, built-in apps, etc but airplay fails to initiate playback from amazon video player. I wonder if I try to turn on the xbmc's own airplay support too which one would take precedence? I am gonna try it out tomorrow.
"stopped supporting the box outside of china",oh...
are you a chinese? why did you chosen xiaomi box?
do you konw ? xiaomi'boss is Leijun called Leibs in chinaļ¼because he and his company has lots of fans like jobs.
(2014-03-23, 10:27)asdfzxcv Wrote: [ -> ]I was kinda mad that xiaome would sell such a box on Amazon to US consumers and yet stopped supporting the box outside of china. So I rooted the thing and installed 3rd party stream clients which got around the issue.
I haven't been able to root mine yet and XBMC doesn't work well on a non-rooter box.
What did you use to root your box? I'm on firmware 1.3.20
I rooted the latest firmware 1.3.20 by doing the following:
1. install SnapPea which should get the the usb driver for xiaomi installed.
2. install shuame which roots the box.
3. after rooting the box then use shuame to flash the ROM with the LeTV 2.3 UI.
Then just go ahead and install the latest xbmc beta 2 and make sure to grant all permission for xbmc upon install (to fix permissions or else you'd have screen resolution issue.)
That's it and enjoy one of the best android base XBMC experience out there and thank the XBMC dev team for their fabulous efforts!
As far as choosing the xiaomi box: I know I need one that's based on the amlogic chipset (one of the few that supports DTS passthrough without any hacks) and among the amlogic boxes I went with xiaomi since it has the BEST remote out there, simple and elegant.
The two things I miss out of this is, one, the airplay support for Amazon prime videos. (airplay works in most other apps I tried) Two, lack of a dedicated spdif port (not everyone has a hdmi based receiver) I am actually looking for a HDMI receiver that'd fit in the palm of my hand but non exists today. All receivers has design of the last century with all the bulks.
Anyways the original reason I got the xiaomi box's for the hassle free stream platform. We are in the middle of a paradigm shift away from having going through multiple channels or addons to get to the content. Contents should just be available and curated by types and categories across all these channels. Some of the android tv apps are on the leading edge of this switch.
Thanks! I appreciate that.
(2014-03-25, 06:39)asdfzxcv Wrote: [ -> ]Then just go ahead and install the latest xbmc beta 2 and make sure to grant all permission for xbmc upon install (to fix permissions or else you'd have screen resolution issue.)
I've been having the screen resolution issues this whole time and didn't realize it's a permission issue. Could you tell me how I can go about granting all permissions for XBMC?
(2014-03-25, 06:39)asdfzxcv Wrote: [ -> ]Contents should just be available and curated by types and categories across all these channels. Some of the android tv apps are on the leading edge of this switch.
Could you give a few recommendations of android apps like these ones that you mention? Thanks!
(2014-04-03, 15:54)springroll Wrote: [ -> ] (2014-03-25, 06:39)asdfzxcv Wrote: [ -> ]Then just go ahead and install the latest xbmc beta 2 and make sure to grant all permission for xbmc upon install (to fix permissions or else you'd have screen resolution issue.)
I've been having the screen resolution issues this whole time and didn't realize it's a permission issue. Could you tell me how I can go about granting all permissions for XBMC?
It's part of the installation process (at least with beta 2) and you gonna get prompted. Just select yes to grant permission.
(2014-04-04, 07:36)saddie Wrote: [ -> ] (2014-03-25, 06:39)asdfzxcv Wrote: [ -> ]Contents should just be available and curated by types and categories across all these channels. Some of the android tv apps are on the leading edge of this switch.
Could you give a few recommendations of android apps like these ones that you mention? Thanks!
There are a bunch of them out there. I personally use wanhuatong.tv. You can pick any show and then be prompted with where you want it get streamed from. And typically you can pick from multiple content providers such as LeTV, iQiYi, etc. Imagine on Apple TV where you can just pick 'breaking bad' and then choose your preferred source between Netflix and hulu instead of having first to select netflix and then the show you want to watch.
Hi, I accidentally updated my ROM to letv ui. I thought it was just an app. Letv looks very nice visually but after this upgrade I now have a big problem. my touch pad mini keyboard no longer works, this is a wireless finger pad with a mini qwerty keyboard . I wouldn't mine too much but MI remove will not allow me to click on root permissions. I was wondering if anyone knows how to fix this?