2014-04-06, 13:09
(2014-04-06, 12:52)dismantler Wrote: A word about speed on this box:
It blows away any android device I've ever used. My Samsung Galaxy SII, 1rst gen Nexus 7, Gbox Midnight 2.2, do not hold a candle to this thing.
Just for an example, my single core GBOX could handle 1080p decoding (In linux, only recently in Android) at 24 fps with audio passthrough. I cannot tell you how many ROMs I've tried on that GBOX, nor how many different builds of XBMC. I've been trying to get a good Android experience out of that box for a year now, and even learned how to re-package ROMS and edit source code in APKs to get the experience I really wanted. I would say I only made it 80% of the way. I still couldn't get Netflix to work on the same build that would play 1080Pp mkvs in XBMC. No 1080p kernel either, which I would have been fine with so long as I could still play 1080p files and have Netflix. Never quite got there, although it's closer now than it ever had been. In fact, I'd say for the $50 that I paid for it, it served me well and has been my only source of entertainment for a year.
A common process for me was to install a new ROM on the GBOX, then XBMC, then wait for it to settle down before I even tried playing HD. Basically when I opened XBMC for 1rst run I'd go smoke a cigarette or do some laundry. Then come back and check to see if the CPU usage had settled down. When it got below 10% I knew it was ready to start viewing content. I still feel it's a decently fast machine for what it is, and I dare say that it's color output and clarity are almost better than fire tvs.
That being said. The Fire TV is as far from a slouch as I think you could get. While it was playing a 1080p movie with Dolby D off of Netflix I adb'd into just to see what would happen. I installed XBMC and BeyondXBMC while it was doing that, and I never even saw it miss a frame. Installing apps on the GBOX grinds it to a halt. The 1rst time setup honest to god made me drop my jaw. The load bar FLEW accross the screen in comparison. And when it loaded, the add-ons updated as fast as they would on my I5 OC'd to 4.5 Ghz. It was ready to roll in probably less than 1/10th of the time. Obviously the build needs some help to make it flawless, but do not for 1 second think this box doesn't have the balls for XBMC. The system information in XBMC was glorious after dealing with a chines box for a year: Full 1080 at 60 fps in confluence. That's what I'm talking about right there.
Thank you! Nice writeup! the main question that i really had was the loading bar in the xbmc menu when accessing streaming addons for ex youtube etc. How long it whould take to load the link / open menus. And after reading your writeup, it kinda feels like this will be a goto box.