[discordian666]

I would guess at 'our firmware won't work on other boxes' as being FUD - The way these boxes work the worst you could do is softbrick - so long as you have an SD card slot and an original firmware you'll be able to roll back to your box's stock firmware.

My gut is that any M3 box whose board rolled out the same factory doors as the Pivos will work with Pivos firmware just as was true of the M1 box. It makes sense that Pivos would like to make people scared to buy other boxes/try their firmware on other devices.

This is just my guess but if I had an off-brand M3 box that looked identical to the Pivos (like the MyGica EnjoyTV 510b), I would have already tried to flash it with Pivos firmware.

The compiled firmware is tied to Pivos-specific boxes. The code is that makes up the firmware open to anyone if they are willing to compile it and test it themselves. It's not actually that hard, but does take time, especially if someone wants to tweak the firmware (both in XBMC and in Android) to bring out the best for specific hardware.

General designs for the hardware is often seen in multiple boxes, and in some cases there are basically identical boxes, but multiple factories push these guys out and can make custom accommodations for hardware orders. This can mean something as basic as Pivos putting some kind of ID on their boards, or it could be more drastic like some cheaper box with the same parts excluding an important voltage regulator.

I'm honestly not sure how it is with the AMLogic hardware in the Pivos, but I heard a lot about things like Allwinner A10 hardware, and how many drastic variations that nearly identical hardware (when viewed form specs and the outside) can have. Everything from parts of chips on the circuit board, the grade of plastic used, or even the quality of flash memory or quality of solder on the circuit boards.

I do know one Pivos example; they got hit with a batch of units with bad wifi, and it turned out to be something as simple as the placement of the antenna inside the box. This is something that is hand assembled, so now they make sure whatever factory is making XIOS boxes has to assemble those boxes more carefully.

All this being said, I don't doubt that there is some similar/identical hardware that is just as good, or possibly better, than the Pivos XIOS. There might even be some of the cheaper made boxes where those shortcuts in manufacturing don't realistically impact the person using it. I like to recommend Pivos XIOS because that's an option I don't have to guess about and I know it will be a good experience for the end-user, but there will be others like that too.

Always happy to see some intelligent postings on the matter, I'd like to see the particular post that was made about "our firmware wont work on other boxes" for myself.. Did a pivos employee actually say that, because from what i've read on their forums they are all pretty clued up on things)