Best Kodi Box

[smarch]

I apologize if this has been covered.  I have XBMC running on an HTPC (love it) and I'd like to add two more boxes that will run Kodi.  What are the best recommended boxes (available in Canada/North America)?  Android?  I'm running a Qnap Nas that has my content stored on it.  I can't believe how cheap these have become and even capable of running 4k video.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

[vstar]

I have ordered a raspberry pi 2 (quad core) to test with Kodi (linux ver), once I receive it and have done some testing I will post the results. I am hopeful that this will be a very inexpensive, reliable, small and low power consumption solution that will still have descent performance. 

[MakeItAMudLight]

I'm currently using a Tronsmart Draco AW80 to play around with.  I'm not sure what all it's capable of but it does seem to be very fast so far.  

 

[gooseleg]

I'm using an Amazon Fire TV and 2 Amazon Fire Sticks

[MakeItAMudLight]

I'm using an Amazon Fire TV and 2 Amazon Fire Sticks

How well does Kodi run on there?  Did you root them or just side load it?

[howieumd]

I have 3 Tronsmart Draco AW80's too. They are very fast! I was using Pivos XS prior. The difference is very noticeable. The only issue I have with the Tronsmart is we're still waiting for a stable firmware from them, but besides that, not sure if there's anything faster/smoother.

[LSDave]

I have an Ouya running XBMC and it works very well. 

[alanchow]

I have been promoting the Tronsmart Draco AW80's for a few months now.  I bought one back in december and its been going strong.

 

Having said that though now that the Raspberry Pi 2 has come out i'm leaning more towards that box though it does require a little (very little) bit of technical knowledge to setup in comparision to the Tronsmart.

 

I have not personally tested our kodi lite driver on the ouya or the amazon fire devices so i can't tell you how well it works (though it should work fine in theory).

[gooseleg]

How well does Kodi run on there?  Did you root them or just side load it?

 

It runs well, not need to root side load less than 10 minutes.

[wappinghigh]

Can you guys please post if your Kodi boxes playback bluray quality iso and MKV video stutter free...? > My older raspberry pi struggled. The video processing wasn't good enough. There is no point buying one of these and spending all the time with setup if it can;t even handle and stream 1080p BluRay. Cheers Wap 

[qVAMPIREp]

I just built a powerful HTPC and threw it in my rack. No more jacking around with weak hardware for me  

[mallom]

I have had bad experiences with droid boxes and sticks.

I got a mac mini and never had any problems with it.

There are tons of cool stuff you can do.

It looks good and it works great.

[louisraza1]

Can you guys please post if your Kodi boxes playback bluray quality iso and MKV video stutter free...? > My older raspberry pi struggled. The video processing wasn't good enough. There is no point buying one of these and spending all the time with setup if it can;t even handle and stream 1080p BluRay. Cheers Wap

I just order the new rasberry pi 2 like allan told me. He is supposed to be much more faster than the first generation. Did you had any issu programming it ?

Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk

[howieumd]

I have been promoting the Tronsmart Draco AW80's for a few months now.  I bought one back in december and its been going strong.

 

Having said that though now that the Raspberry Pi 2 has come out i'm leaning more towards that box though it does require a little (very little) bit of technical knowledge to setup in comparision to the Tronsmart.

 

I have not personally tested our kodi lite driver on the ouya or the amazon fire devices so i can't tell you how well it works (though it should work fine in theory).

 

Hi Alan...I've had the Tronsmart Draco's for a few months now.  Great hardware, but they are still having a lot of problems with their firmware.  I might try to throw them on eBay and go with another box.   What are your thoughts on the NVIDIA Shield?   They just came out, but the reports I've seen are pretty solid.   If not that, what other recommendations do you have?  I just want to make sure I go with something that I'm not going to want to upgrade again too soon, hardware wise.  Thanks!

[alanchow]

Hi Alan...I've had the Tronsmart Draco's for a few months now. Great hardware, but they are still having a lot of problems with their firmware. I might try to throw them on eBay and go with another box. What are your thoughts on the NVIDIA Shield? They just came out, but the reports I've seen are pretty solid. If not that, what other recommendations do you have? I just want to make sure I go with something that I'm not going to want to upgrade again too soon, hardware wise. Thanks!

If you want something that will just work get a PC. Something like an Intel nuc (i3) will work just fine

[Kalschjj29]

The Intel Nuc is a nice little box but you have to provide an msata drive and RAM.

 

 I would recommend the mac mini for the price.  Once that is done, you are at the price of a mac mini.  Apple refurb store is a great value if on a budget.  You still get a full 1 year warranty and each device on there has been gone through by hand.  My current 2.6 i7 Mini is a refurb that i've had for 3 years now.  

[eggzlot]

Posted this in another thread
http://slickdeals.net/f/7887339-asus-desktop-pc-intel-quad-core-i7-4770s-8gb-ddr3-1tb-hdd-4gb-nvidia-gt-640-hdmi-windows-8-549-99-ar-free-shipping-newegg?p=76257419&utm_source=dealalerts&utm_medium=em-i&utm_term=194982&utm_content=u4337054&utm_campaign=tu-9999#post76257419

Pretty powerful i7 cheaper than a Mac mini too.  realize its a regular PC size but if you have a matrix/distribution you may not need a small box to fit behind a TV or in a TV console, etc

[howieumd]

If you want something that will just work get a PC. Something like an Intel nuc (i3) will work just fine

 

Hi Alan...I've been reading up on the nuc's.   Great idea.   Do you use one?   How well does it work with your driver?  What OS do you use, or recommend at least?  I was thinking OpenELEC, but wanted to check if that was best for Kodi and the purposes of your driver.  I prefer something small like this compared to full size PC's mentioned above, just because I want to keep them remotely at each TV rather than through a matrix.   That said, I probably don't need large SSD's since everything is playing either off my NAS or over the net, so that'll keep cost down.   How does something like this wake up and automatically start Kodi?  Does your driver automatically activate it if I chose to watch Kodi or a specific movie from the movies folder, or do I need a driver that'll power it on separately first?   I know with the Android based boxes I just leave them on and your driver takes control when I want it to.  I just want to check on that with these before I pull the trigger.  Thanks!  

[alanchow]

Hi Alan...I've been reading up on the nuc's. Great idea. Do you use one? How well does it work with your driver? What OS do you use, or recommend at least? I was thinking OpenELEC, but wanted to check if that was best for Kodi and the purposes of your driver. I prefer something small like this compared to full size PC's mentioned above, just because I want to keep them remotely at each TV rather than through a matrix. That said, I probably don't need large SSD's since everything is playing either off my NAS or over the net, so that'll keep cost down. How does something like this wake up and automatically start Kodi? Does your driver automatically activate it if I chose to watch Kodi or a specific movie from the movies folder, or do I need a driver that'll power it on separately first? I know with the Android based boxes I just leave them on and your driver takes control when I want it to. I just want to check on that with these before I pull the trigger. Thanks!

We've been telling people to stay away from openelec for x86 based installations as for some reason JSON-RPC port 9090 becomes unresponsive after a while requiring a reboot of openelec. We have been recommending KODIBUNTU as that seems to work fine.

We have done some research and it seems this issue has been present for some time now and doesn't look like it's going to be fixed any time soon. As such we have been porting our code to HTTP based control with JSON-RPC based feedback. This will mean that if the openelec port becomes unresponsive you will at least not lose full functionality but just the live feedback.

Our driver will send a wake on lan command if configured to do so and will automatically turn on the HTPC wait for it to boot and then tell it to select a movie for playback.

Personally my HTPC takes too long to start up (about a minute) and I'm a bit impatient so I've programmed the driver to turn on the HTPC upon security disarm and shutdown on security arm.

Hope that helps.

[jerrywolf]

Running 2 ASUS Chromeboxes on KODIBUNTU and Alan's driver and haven't had any problems once we switched from openelec. Control is great, and the interface and video playback is very quick.

[howieumd]

We've been telling people to stay away from openelec for x86 based installations as for some reason JSON-RPC port 9090 becomes unresponsive after a while requiring a reboot of openelec. We have been recommending KODIBUNTU as that seems to work fine.

We have done some research and it seems this issue has been present for some time now and doesn't look like it's going to be fixed any time soon. As such we have been porting our code to HTTP based control with JSON-RPC based feedback. This will mean that if the openelec port becomes unresponsive you will at least not lose full functionality but just the live feedback.

Our driver will send a wake on lan command if configured to do so and will automatically turn on the HTPC wait for it to boot and then tell it to select a movie for playback.

Personally my HTPC takes too long to start up (about a minute) and I'm a bit impatient so I've programmed the driver to turn on the HTPC upon security disarm and shutdown on security arm.

Hope that helps.

 

Hi Alan...I should of just went with the nuc i3 that you suggested, LOL.   I ended up getting the newer nuc i7 version, just so I'd have the fastest one for future purposes.  That said, the newer i5's and i7's apparently aren't working with Kodibuntu or OpenELEC.   I tried setting it up first with Kodibuntu (didn't bother with OpenELEC based on your suggestion above), but it wouldn't install (Kodi did work in live mode though off the USB).   After researching a bit, I guess a lot of others have the same issue, and it's because Kodibuntu is still based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and the nuc i5 and i7 kernels (or something like that) won't work with 14.04, but a full install of Ubuntu 15.04 on my nuc i7 works just fine.  I downloaded Kodi 14.2 and put it on my desktop on the full install of Ubuntu 15.04, but know this isn't the ideal setup if I just want to use this for Kodi.  I also don't have sound, but that's another issue which I think I figured out, just haven't had the time to mess with it. 

 

Kodi hasn't confirmed if they are working on updating 14.2 to be based on Ubuntu 15.04, but it'd be great if they did soon as that should fix the Kodibuntu install issues a lot are having with these and other similar newer boxes.   If my only options right now are full Ubuntu 15.04 or Windows (7 or 8.1, doesn't matter to me), which would you recommend?   Would your driver be able to start Kodi from the desktop of one of these operating systems?   I just can't picture how it'd know where to load the Kodi program from on the desktop, so figured I'd ask.   I noticed there were also others working on distros of Kodibuntu based on 15.04, but not sure how stable they are, but maybe you know of one that works?  Looking for suggestions, and thanks as always!

[alanchow]

Hi Alan...I should of just went with the nuc i3 that you suggested, LOL. I ended up getting the newer nuc i7 version, just so I'd have the fastest one for future purposes. That said, the newer i5's and i7's apparently aren't working with Kodibuntu or OpenELEC. I tried setting it up first with Kodibuntu (didn't bother with OpenELEC based on your suggestion above), but it wouldn't install (Kodi did work in live mode though off the USB). After researching a bit, I guess a lot of others have the same issue, and it's because Kodibuntu is still based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and the nuc i5 and i7 kernels (or something like that) won't work with 14.04, but a full install of Ubuntu 15.04 on my nuc i7 works just fine. I downloaded Kodi 14.2 and put it on my desktop on the full install of Ubuntu 15.04, but know this isn't the ideal setup if I just want to use this for Kodi. I also don't have sound, but that's another issue which I think I figured out, just haven't had the time to mess with it.

Kodi hasn't confirmed if they are working on updating 14.2 to be based on Ubuntu 15.04, but it'd be great if they did soon as that should fix the Kodibuntu install issues a lot are having with these and other similar newer boxes. If my only options right now are full Ubuntu 15.04 or Windows (7 or 8.1, doesn't matter to me), which would you recommend? Would your driver be able to start Kodi from the desktop of one of these operating systems? I just can't picture how it'd know where to load the Kodi program from on the desktop, so figured I'd ask. I noticed there were also others working on distros of Kodibuntu based on 15.04, but not sure how stable they are, but maybe you know of one that works? Looking for suggestions, and thanks as always!

Windows 7/8 will work fine. Just put kodi in the startup folder so that it'll launch on boot. Also set up wake on man so that the driver will turn the machine on.

[howieumd]

Windows 7/8 will work fine. Just put kodi in the startup folder so that it'll launch on boot. Also set up wake on man so that the driver will turn the machine on.

 

Hi Alan,

 

I have my Intel nuc HTPC setup with my home theater, thanks for helping out with that (above).  Next question on a different room.  I have an nVidia Shield that I just purchased a few days back.  I have it setup on my living room TV.  It runs on Android Lolipop 5.1.   The nVidia Shield aren't rooted boxes, but Kodi 15.0 can be installed right from Google Play.  I put Kodi on it, and if I leave it in Kodi, I can load it up and use your C4 driver controls fine.  However, if I leave it in Android, it won't launch into Kodi after I select watch then choose Kodi.   Also, if I exit Kodi, it won't let me navigate in Android, as was the case with the Tronsmart boxes.   Another thing I notice, if I leave the box in idle for a few minutes within Kodi, it goes to a screensaver (which I'm sure I can find and disable anyways), which C4 can't take out of screensaver status, even if  it was already in Kodi.  In Composer, if the Shield is not left in Kodi, both instances say Disconnected (not the case with the screensaver though, it still says connected, just won't respond).   Is your driver not setup to work with 5.1 yet?   Or, do I need LANMote, which is what you told me to put on my Tronsmart box for those functions to work, meaning launch into Kodi automatically and then being able to navigate through C4 in Android if I exit Kodi?  I can't put on LANMote because it's not rooted, are there any other similar options?   Thanks again! 

[alanchow]

Hi Howie,

Yes as mentioned you need to install LANmote to navigate the android OS. The driver will work on any KODI version from 12.0 onwards including the Latest RC builds

I don't have a shield but a quick google search returns this result on how to root

http://greenrobotgamer.com/shieldzone/root-shield-android-tv/

[turls]

Alan, any change to your recommendation on Tronsmart?  I've looking at the Cinema Experience Kodi app and I want to get a TV dedicated to that in my theater "lobby" (hall outside).  I might do some other things as well.

 

Has anybody used Cinema Experience?  It looks fantastic.