[ED-209]

I just installed it and it shows up in the app list with a "TZC" icon. Its package name is com.futurek.android.tzc. You can reinstall it via adbfire (which uses -r by default) or with adb and the install flag "-r".

Hi again jocala. I have tried install -r command and it reports success, however the TZC still does not appear in apps list. I have since installed other apps successfully but I cannot get Time Zone Changer to install at all. I have also tried uninstalling but I get error on that as well.

I'm tempted to do a factory reset on the Fire TV, but to do that I really need to take a backup of my XBMC userdata folder. Is there any way to take a backup of the whole folder rather than copying individual files? I have tried the 'Backup XBMC' button in adbfire but all I get is 'backup failed' message every time.

Please can someone help me either fully uninstall / re-install Time Zone Changer app or alternatively help me to take a backup of my XBMC userdata folder so that I can do a factory reset on the Fire TV?

Thanks.

[Apothis]

I just installed it and it shows up in the app list with a "TZC" icon. Its package name is com.futurek.android.tzc. You can reinstall it via adbfire (which uses -r by default) or with adb and the install flag "-r".

Hi again jocala. I have tried install -r command and it reports success, however the TZC still does not appear in apps list. I have since installed other apps successfully but I cannot get Time Zone Changer to install at all. I have also tried uninstalling but I get error on that as well.

I'm tempted to do a factory reset on the Fire TV, but to do that I really need to take a backup of my XBMC userdata folder. Is there any way to take a backup of the whole folder rather than copying individual files? I have tried the 'Backup XBMC' button in adbfire but all I get is 'backup failed' message every time.

Please can someone help me either fully uninstall / re-install Time Zone Changer app or alternatively help me to take a backup of my XBMC userdata folder so that I can do a factory reset on the Fire TV?

Thanks.

This is all assuming not rooted, but timezone changer should show up in the settings menu just above xbmc, or does for me when I installed it (manually via adb commandline)

also, backing up your userdata folder, you can just do a commandline adb pull on the userdata directory.

[freon]

Guys How would i go about having xbmc open the video,files menu upon startup on firetv?

[Kirky99]

Guys How would i go about having xbmc open the video,files menu upon startup on firetv?

I think this is normally a skin configuration setting.

[angeloaz]

Just posting some observations about instability after running XBMC on the Fire TV for about a week.

I've been experiencing quite a bit of crashes on the official Gotham release. It seems to mostly occur when changing channels on the Live TV feature. And if I switch channels enough, it will inevitably crash XBMC (all of sudden, no XBMC and I'm back at the Fire TV UI). It seems to happen less often if I stop the current live tv stream before changing to a different channel, but that just delays the crash.

My Live TV function is driven by a MythTV backend and a HDHomerun Plus (set to H.264 transcoding of the OTA signal).

In addition to the official 13.1 release (linked from the Wiki), I've also tried several other releases (13.2 beta, 14.0 alpha) from here: http://mirrors.xbmc.org/test-builds/android/arm/ -- with the same results.

Another issue (not sure if it's related) is that changing channels often will cause the audio and video streams to get out of sync. The video will slows way down, but the audio seems to keep going at normal rate. This will sometimes correct itself after a bit, but usually I have to stop the stream and restart it in order to eliminate it.

My recourse at this point has been to run SPMC 12.4.2 -- which hasn't crashed on me once yet. Although I think I may still see the audio/video sync problem occasionally, but it's at least stable and usable.

Also, I'm running x86 versions of Gotham on a couple of PCs throughout the house and they don't have any apparent problems with the Live TV function.

Follow up: Turning the transcoding completely off on my HDHR Plus seems to make the Live TV function of 13.1 much more stable. It doesn't seem to crash at all and channel changes are much faster and reliable (no a/v sync issues or buffering messages like I see with H.264). The video playback performance seems to be fine too -- this is surprising since the Fire TV claims to not have hardware support for the MPEG2.

Another curious observation: looking at the Codec Info data during playback shows the CPU usage about equal between H.264 (using "stf-h264" decoder) and MPEG2 playback (using "stf-mpeg2"). It seems that they are both using about 1/2 of CPU cores 0 and 1 -- and nothing on 2 and 3. I would have expected the H.264 stream to decoded in hardware and to use much less CPU than MPEG2.

For the record, if I turn MediaCodec on (and libstagefright off), everything seems to go to hell: lots of crashes, CPU usage goes way up (3 cores going pretty strong), and the "drop" frame counter goes crazy. The decoder changes to "ff-h264" and "ff-mpeg2" in that case.

[Edited to correctly state "nothing on 2 and 3"]

[jocala]

\

Please can someone help me either fully uninstall / re-install Time Zone Changer app or alternatively help me to take a backup of my XBMC userdata folder so that I can do a factory reset on the Fire TV?

Thanks.

adbFire will do both.

[mjbxx]

Im in australia and cant use classic tv app due to location requirements. Is there an alternative? Thanks

This may sound sacrilige but the only other app I found to work properly without looping is the YouTube app. I am not a fan of YouTube and would have no problem using it as a sacrificial app for XBMC. Besides, you can access YouTube in XBMC.

[dukester]

Im in australia and cant use classic tv app due to location requirements. Is there an alternative? Thanks

This may sound sacrilige but the only other app I found to work properly without looping is the YouTube app. I am not a fan of YouTube and would have no problem using it as a sacrificial app for XBMC. Besides, you can access YouTube in XBMC.

there are more than a few options so far, check out xda-developers, there is a custom built version of xbmc that works as a launcher, an apk in the google store that auto launches xbmc, xposed modules that launch any other launcher you want and a couple others iirc. but since your probably not using much amazon stuff the easiest way is sideloading firedTV which works really well imo for this exact situation, it auto boots to a loader screen with all your installed apps, including XBMC and when you hit the "home" button it goes back to that screen, effectively bypassing the stock amazon launcher.. and giving you all your installed apps front and center which is nice.

[kenelbow]

Just posting some observations about instability after running XBMC on the Fire TV for about a week.

I've been experiencing quite a bit of crashes on the official Gotham release. It seems to mostly occur when changing channels on the Live TV feature. And if I switch channels enough, it will inevitably crash XBMC (all of sudden, no XBMC and I'm back at the Fire TV UI). It seems to happen less often if I stop the current live tv stream before changing to a different channel, but that just delays the crash.

My Live TV function is driven by a MythTV backend and a HDHomerun Plus (set to H.264 transcoding of the OTA signal).

In addition to the official 13.1 release (linked from the Wiki), I've also tried several other releases (13.2 beta, 14.0 alpha) from here: http://mirrors.xbmc.org/test-builds/android/arm/ -- with the same results.

Another issue (not sure if it's related) is that changing channels often will cause the audio and video streams to get out of sync. The video will slows way down, but the audio seems to keep going at normal rate. This will sometimes correct itself after a bit, but usually I have to stop the stream and restart it in order to eliminate it.

My recourse at this point has been to run SPMC 12.4.2 -- which hasn't crashed on me once yet. Although I think I may still see the audio/video sync problem occasionally, but it's at least stable and usable.

Also, I'm running x86 versions of Gotham on a couple of PCs throughout the house and they don't have any apparent problems with the Live TV function.

Follow up: Turning the transcoding completely off on my HDHR Plus seems to make the Live TV function of 13.1 much more stable. It doesn't seem to crash at all and channel changes are much faster and reliable (no a/v sync issues or buffering messages like I see with H.264). The video playback performance seems to be fine too -- this is surprising since the Fire TV claims to not have hardware support for the MPEG2.

Another curious observation: looking at the Codec Info data during playback shows the CPU usage about equal between H.264 (using "stf-h264" decoder) and MPEG2 playback (using "stf-mpeg2"). It seems that they are both using about 1/2 of CPU cores 0 and 1 -- and nothing on 1 and 2. I would have expected the H.264 stream to decoded in hardware and to use much less CPU than MPEG2.

For the record, if I turn MediaCodec on (and libstagefright off), everything seems to go to hell: lots of crashes, CPU usage goes way up (3 cores going pretty strong), and the "drop" frame counter goes crazy. The decoder changes to "ff-h264" and "ff-mpeg2" in that case.

Interesting. I have a similar setup and LiveTV (and recordings) have not been great. MythTV 0.27 on Ubuntu server 14.04 and HDHomeRun Plus results in the video lagging behind the audio, some times the video freezes completely while the audio continues. I also get complete crashes on occasion. This only happens on FireTV running XBMC on Windows or Linux is fine. So what settings do you use for acceleration? MediaCodec off and libstagefright on?

[angeloaz]

Just posting some observations about instability after running XBMC on the Fire TV for about a week.

I've been experiencing quite a bit of crashes on the official Gotham release. It seems to mostly occur when changing channels on the Live TV feature. And if I switch channels enough, it will inevitably crash XBMC (all of sudden, no XBMC and I'm back at the Fire TV UI). It seems to happen less often if I stop the current live tv stream before changing to a different channel, but that just delays the crash.

My Live TV function is driven by a MythTV backend and a HDHomerun Plus (set to H.264 transcoding of the OTA signal).

In addition to the official 13.1 release (linked from the Wiki), I've also tried several other releases (13.2 beta, 14.0 alpha) from here: http://mirrors.xbmc.org/test-builds/android/arm/ -- with the same results.

Another issue (not sure if it's related) is that changing channels often will cause the audio and video streams to get out of sync. The video will slows way down, but the audio seems to keep going at normal rate. This will sometimes correct itself after a bit, but usually I have to stop the stream and restart it in order to eliminate it.

My recourse at this point has been to run SPMC 12.4.2 -- which hasn't crashed on me once yet. Although I think I may still see the audio/video sync problem occasionally, but it's at least stable and usable.

Also, I'm running x86 versions of Gotham on a couple of PCs throughout the house and they don't have any apparent problems with the Live TV function.

Follow up: Turning the transcoding completely off on my HDHR Plus seems to make the Live TV function of 13.1 much more stable. It doesn't seem to crash at all and channel changes are much faster and reliable (no a/v sync issues or buffering messages like I see with H.264). The video playback performance seems to be fine too -- this is surprising since the Fire TV claims to not have hardware support for the MPEG2.

Another curious observation: looking at the Codec Info data during playback shows the CPU usage about equal between H.264 (using "stf-h264" decoder) and MPEG2 playback (using "stf-mpeg2"). It seems that they are both using about 1/2 of CPU cores 0 and 1 -- and nothing on 1 and 2. I would have expected the H.264 stream to decoded in hardware and to use much less CPU than MPEG2.

For the record, if I turn MediaCodec on (and libstagefright off), everything seems to go to hell: lots of crashes, CPU usage goes way up (3 cores going pretty strong), and the "drop" frame counter goes crazy. The decoder changes to "ff-h264" and "ff-mpeg2" in that case.

Interesting. I have a similar setup and LiveTV (and recordings) have not been great. MythTV 0.27 on Ubuntu server 14.04 and HDHomeRun Plus results in the video lagging behind the audio, some times the video freezes completely while the audio continues. I also get complete crashes on occasion. This only happens on FireTV running XBMC on Windows or Linux is fine. So what settings do you use for acceleration? MediaCodec off and libstagefright on?

Yes, MediaCodec off, libstagefright on. You should be able to verify the codec being used in playback with the 'o' key (http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Codecinfo). I think if you see "stf-mpeg2" as the video codec, you know it's stagefright. Changing channels improved drastically with no transcoding on the HDHR Plus. It changes just as fast and smooth as Dish Network does for me now. Perhaps H.264 is harder to decode at first or more sensitive to weaker OTA signals -- which may explain its poorer behavior in some cases?

I also have audio passthrough enabled for Dolby Digital -- not sure if that mitigates the audio/video lag in some way.

I would be curious to know if you see a jump in reliability by turning transcoding off on your HDHR Plus. Part of the complication with that is network bandwidth: I've got my AFTV using ethernet and not WiFi. Not sure how WiFi can handle ~2MB/s that MPEG2 can generate.

[kenelbow]

Follow up: Turning the transcoding completely off on my HDHR Plus seems to make the Live TV function of 13.1 much more stable. It doesn't seem to crash at all and channel changes are much faster and reliable (no a/v sync issues or buffering messages like I see with H.264). The video playback performance seems to be fine too -- this is surprising since the Fire TV claims to not have hardware support for the MPEG2.

Another curious observation: looking at the Codec Info data during playback shows the CPU usage about equal between H.264 (using "stf-h264" decoder) and MPEG2 playback (using "stf-mpeg2"). It seems that they are both using about 1/2 of CPU cores 0 and 1 -- and nothing on 1 and 2. I would have expected the H.264 stream to decoded in hardware and to use much less CPU than MPEG2.

For the record, if I turn MediaCodec on (and libstagefright off), everything seems to go to hell: lots of crashes, CPU usage goes way up (3 cores going pretty strong), and the "drop" frame counter goes crazy. The decoder changes to "ff-h264" and "ff-mpeg2" in that case.

Interesting. I have a similar setup and LiveTV (and recordings) have not been great. MythTV 0.27 on Ubuntu server 14.04 and HDHomeRun Plus results in the video lagging behind the audio, some times the video freezes completely while the audio continues. I also get complete crashes on occasion. This only happens on FireTV running XBMC on Windows or Linux is fine. So what settings do you use for acceleration? MediaCodec off and libstagefright on?

Yes, MediaCodec off, libstagefright on. You should be able to verify the codec being used in playback with the 'o' key (http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Codecinfo). I think if you see "stf-mpeg2" as the video codec, you know it's stagefright. Changing channels improved drastically with no transcoding on the HDHR Plus. It changes just as fast and smooth as Dish Network does for me now. Perhaps H.264 is harder to decode at first or more sensitive to weaker OTA signals -- which may explain its poorer behavior in some cases?

I also have audio passthrough enabled for Dolby Digital -- not sure if that mitigates the audio/video lag in some way.

I would be curious to know if you see a jump in reliability by turning transcoding off on your HDHR Plus. Part of the complication with that is network bandwidth: I've got my AFTV using ethernet and not WiFi. Not sure how WiFi can handle ~2MB/s that MPEG2 can generate.

I'll give your settings a shot. To be honest channel changing hasn't been that bad for me. Though my signals are relatively strong thanks to my roof mounted antenna. One question though. When disabling transcoding, does that mean you can no longer enable deinterlacing for 1080i ATSC channels? That my get annoying for me, but I will at least try it out. It would be better to have interlaced video than to have video that gets horribly out of sync or having XBMC crash completely. I will try it out tonight after work and report back.

[angeloaz]

Interesting. I have a similar setup and LiveTV (and recordings) have not been great. MythTV 0.27 on Ubuntu server 14.04 and HDHomeRun Plus results in the video lagging behind the audio, some times the video freezes completely while the audio continues. I also get complete crashes on occasion. This only happens on FireTV running XBMC on Windows or Linux is fine. So what settings do you use for acceleration? MediaCodec off and libstagefright on?

Yes, MediaCodec off, libstagefright on. You should be able to verify the codec being used in playback with the 'o' key (http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Codecinfo). I think if you see "stf-mpeg2" as the video codec, you know it's stagefright. Changing channels improved drastically with no transcoding on the HDHR Plus. It changes just as fast and smooth as Dish Network does for me now. Perhaps H.264 is harder to decode at first or more sensitive to weaker OTA signals -- which may explain its poorer behavior in some cases?

I also have audio passthrough enabled for Dolby Digital -- not sure if that mitigates the audio/video lag in some way.

I would be curious to know if you see a jump in reliability by turning transcoding off on your HDHR Plus. Part of the complication with that is network bandwidth: I've got my AFTV using ethernet and not WiFi. Not sure how WiFi can handle ~2MB/s that MPEG2 can generate.

I'll give your settings a shot. To be honest channel changing hasn't been that bad for me. Though my signals are relatively strong thanks to my roof mounted antenna. One question though. When disabling transcoding, does that mean you can no longer enable deinterlacing for 1080i ATSC channels? That my get annoying for me, but I will at least try it out. It would be better to have interlaced video than to have video that gets horribly out of sync or having XBMC crash completely. I will try it out tonight after work and report back.

From what I can tell, turning off MediaCodec is what eliminates the deinterlace option. I don't think libstagefright allows that option.

Here in Tucson, I only notice interlacing on the SD (non-HD) channels -- which I don't watch much of. But you're right, it's terribly annoying.

[caveman017]

Okay.... stupid question -- how do you install plugins?

I've tried to download the standard ones from within XBMC and downloading them from XBMChub but they don't seem to be installing.

[Canyaya]

Jocala,
I tried your adb firetv app for Mac and although it shows connected, it won't install the apk. It shows the progress bar moving and it goes all the way to the end but no result is shown. It also doesn't show up on the fire tv. Where can I pull the logs for you to see?

[nickr]

Okay.... stupid question -- how do you install plugins?

I've tried to download the standard ones from within XBMC and downloading them from XBMChub but they don't seem to be installing.

There have been some mirror issues for addons lately, you could be running into this problem. But then again of you really wanted help with it you would post a debug log.