[Bri1270]

Aside from the tricky install is all working well?

[Stereodude]

Aside from the tricky install is all working well?

So far... I've been getting various applications installed before I hand it off to my parents to use. It's a pretty snappy system with the larger / faster SSD and 8gB of RAM.

[Bri1270]

Aside from the tricky install is all working well?

So far... I've been getting various applications installed before I hand it off to my parents to use. It's a pretty snappy system with the larger / faster SSD and 8gB of RAM.

Do you think it's worth adding more RAM for running Kodi? I have 4GB, but I'm open to upping that if it's going to improve performance. I don't think I want to change the SSD yet.

[Stereodude]

Do you think it's worth adding more RAM for running Kodi? I have 4GB, but I'm open to upping that if it's going to improve performance. I don't think I want to change the SSD yet.

For Kodi, no.

[nolnaka]

I have this box with win8 and OE in dual boot GPT/EFI using rEFInd. Any one have any suggestions for a remote that will be able to allow me to select OS from the boot screen and works well with OE?

[Stereodude]

Do you mean remote or wireless keyboard? I suspect that only a Flirc will do what you want, but I'm not 100% sure about that. I dual boot mine by using F8 for the boot menu.

[Bri1270]

Does this system have enough horsepower to rip full brd quality mkv's if I add an external blu ray drive?

[Stereodude]

Does this system have enough horsepower to rip full brd quality mkv's if I add an external blu ray drive?

I would presume so, but I haven't tried it. AnyDVD HD doesn't use very much CPU to decrypt the discs on the fly, and you're not recompressing them.

[nolnaka]

Do you mean remote or wireless keyboard? I suspect that only a Flirc will do what you want, but I'm not 100% sure about that. I dual boot mine by using F8 for the boot menu.

I'm looking for a remote. I got everything working just the way I want it to, just can't figure out the remote thing. I'm thinking that whatever adapter (whether it be RF, IR, or BT) would need to be recognized by the BIOS but not really sure. I tried using a very old (XP WMC ed.) remote but that doesn't seem to do work out of box. I guess I'm just reaching out for suggestions to see if anyone else out there has suggestions or recommendations.

[Bri1270]

Does this system have enough horsepower to rip full brd quality mkv's if I add an external blu ray drive?

I would presume so, but I haven't tried it. AnyDVD HD doesn't use very much CPU to decrypt the discs on the fly, and you're not recompressing them.

Excellent, thanks Stereodude.

Is there a consensus on using DXVA-2 hardware acceleration in Windows with the Bi320? I've tried it, but it seems to cause some artifacts in the video, particularly macroblocking. Is there something else I should be changing as well? I typically play full BD MKV rips. I definitely get a better picture when not using the acceleration. My concern is, will that harm the CPU? I noticed that when using DXVA-2, the CPU's are running between 8% and 15%, but when not using them they run anywhere from 20% to 80% depending on the content.
adjust
And tonight I had an odd issue with HDMI handshake. I had set the display refresh rate to match video. The movie was 24p, so it played in 24p, but when I stopped the movie and tried to get back into Kodi, I had some serious HDMI Handshake issues. I was finally able to exit Kodi and reboot the Zbox. I reset the refresh rate so it doesn't adjust (so presumably it's running everything at 60Hz), and I didn't have anymore problems. I hadn't seen this before, and I've been running it in the previous manner for sometime. To be honest it's not that big of a deal to me. I can't really tell the difference anyway, I just try to run things in their native format and was curious if anyone else has seen this. I run the Zbox to a Marantz 7702 then from there to a Sharp LCD TV.

[Stereodude]

I'm not sure what your source is. I haven't used Kodi much under Windows 8.1, but on all the content I tried I didn't notice any macroblocking and it was using DXVA2. DXVA2 and software decoding should give the same picture quality. Still if software works for you and you prefer it, then by all means use it.

I haven't had any issues when refresh rate switching myself, but again I've really tried that in OpenELEC.

[Bri1270]

I'm not sure what your source is. I haven't used Kodi much under Windows 8.1, but on all the content I tried I didn't notice any macroblocking and it was using DXVA2. DXVA2 and software decoding should give the same picture quality. Still if software works for you and you prefer it, then by all means use it.

I haven't had any issues when refresh rate switching myself, but again I've really tried that in OpenELEC.

All of my sources are currently an internal 2.5" 2TB drive and two USB attached External HD's.

Here's something else. I have selected hardware, but I didn't select DXVA2, and that's when I seem to get less artifacts. I'm not sure if that matters. I never changed the setting to software. If the CPU can take the abuse then I'll just keep switching and driving myself crazy with the nuances of each until I finally just settle on one versus the other.

Yeah for the refresh rate, it was odd...first time it's happened. There's usually a a flicker or lag when stopping a movie and going back to Kodi, but this time it just couldn't make the handshake.

[flhthemi]

Hey Bri1270 - if you can point me to a link to download a test file that causes problems on your zbox I will be willing to d/l it and try it on mine. If you want PM me a link....

Not seeing problems here playing MKVs but then I have no Blu-ray rips to test....

BUT just saw this might be fixed in 14.2rc1

Fixes so far
* Fix: Application stopped responding on Windows
* Fix: Gap-less playback on MP3
* Fix: Playback of rtmp protocol
* Fix: Scanning of newly added episodes
* Fix: Fix multipath source scanning
* Fix: Loading external subtitles in some cases
* Fix: packaging of PIL module on Android. This fixes some script error when using weather add-on
* Fix: Fix video playback on all platform after refresh rate change
* Fix: Various bugs that were present in PVR add-ons.
* Fix: Save weather location
* Fix: Fix filtering of foreign add-ons
* Fix: ftps handling
* Fix: use LastWrite instead of ChangeTime for file system on Windows
* Feature: Bump OSX SDK to 10.10

[Bri1270]

Hey Bri1270 - if you can point me to a link to download a test file that causes problems on your zbox I will be willing to d/l it and try it on mine. If you want PM me a link....

Not seeing problems here playing MKVs but then I have no Blu-ray rips to test....

BUT just saw this might be fixed in 14.2rc1

Fixes so far
* Fix: Application stopped responding on Windows
* Fix: Gap-less playback on MP3
* Fix: Playback of rtmp protocol
* Fix: Scanning of newly added episodes
* Fix: Fix multipath source scanning
* Fix: Loading external subtitles in some cases
* Fix: packaging of PIL module on Android. This fixes some script error when using weather add-on
* Fix: Fix video playback on all platform after refresh rate change
* Fix: Various bugs that were present in PVR add-ons.
* Fix: Save weather location
* Fix: Fix filtering of foreign add-ons
* Fix: ftps handling
* Fix: use LastWrite instead of ChangeTime for file system on Windows
* Feature: Bump OSX SDK to 10.10

Thanks, not sure which issue you're referring to though. For the macroblocking, it seems to be any video. For the refresh rate change, it only happened the one time when I finished watching a movie and tried to exit back into Kodi. Something I'm going to try today is changing my Marantz to 1080p 24Hz, and see if that helps as well.

[Topken]

Newegg themselves is currently selling this for $180 while third party sellers have it sitting at $300+ on neweggs site. I will be happy to bite at the $180 but not these $230-$330 price range third party sellers have it at. The max I am willing to pay for this is $180 so newegg is on the ball with that price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6883218045

Amazon currently has their stock under review for some odd reason so scalpers have taken advantage of that and jacked their prices upwards to $200+ which I find unacceptable personally. I am willing to pay $180 or less if I can get it like newegg selling it for $140 for example but not at $200+ sorry scalpers you won't be getting any money from me