Android TV Device Comparisons

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Actually it's not huge, just there are so many other more important things to fix or to make better, that this takes a back seat.



Yes, the MiniClient runs on your phone, and the interactions are managed there, but the video is sent to the device on the TV for playback. But for sure, it's all running on your phone.

and it mostly runs pretty damn well on my phone. many a sporting event has been viewed in the clutch this way...

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by wayner

... I should also travel with a universal remote as sometimes it can be tricky to switch a hotel TV's input to HDMI...

I do just that. I will also occasionally pack a cheap JP1-enabled remote and a cable and create custom configs for places I stay fairly regularly ...

[KarylFStein]

I usually just watch on my tablet on the road, but would use a Chromecast if I could cast SageTV to it. What would be cool is if I could use the phone as a SageTV remote without the overlay showing up on the TV. But I think playback improvements is where I'd like to see focus. I keep going back to the HD300 because I just can't get everything working reliably on my SHIELD. (5.1 audio is a must for home which I understand means a less forgiving player.) But even IJKPlayer on my tablet on the road has issues with my streams especially skipping. I get that this is probably Comcast's fault, but it would be awesome if there was some way to get it working.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

I usually just watch on my tablet on the road, but would use a Chromecast if I could cast SageTV to it. What would be cool is if I could use the phone as a SageTV remote without the overlay showing up on the TV. But I think playback improvements is where I'd like to see focus. I keep going back to the HD300 because I just can't get everything working reliably on my SHIELD. (5.1 audio is a must for home which I understand means a less forgiving player.) But even IJKPlayer on my tablet on the road has issues with my streams especially skipping. I get that this is probably Comcast's fault, but it would be awesome if there was some way to get it working.

Not to hijack this thread... but I actually spent the last weekend updating the MiniClient core libraries (ijkplayer and exoplayer). I'm actually testing using ExoPlayer as my main player right now (as of last night). If this week goes well, then I think that I'd consider ExoPlayer to be on par with IJKPlayer. The biggest challenge that I have with ExoPlayer is the seek handling has been flaky, but, I think I've found/fixed it. Personally, I'd love to just go with a single player, and ExoPlayer is finally getting to the point where I think it can be used as the primary player. This also means that things like embedded CC/Subs can be a reality as well, since it has a means to extract that data, and I just need to send them to SageTV for rendering. All my streams are h264 ts files, and likely, using mpeg2 will have different results.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

What would be cool is if I could use the phone as a SageTV remote without the overlay showing up on the TV.

Can't you use the remote via the Web UI on a phone or whatever browser you want?

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by wayner

Can't you use the remote via the Web UI on a phone or whatever browser you want?

That would close the mini-client, or does today.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

That would close the mini-client, or does today.

Ok, I thought you meant using the phone as a remote for playback on the Shield or other AndroidTV device.

[jusjoken]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Not to hijack this thread... but I actually spent the last weekend updating the MiniClient core libraries (ijkplayer and exoplayer). I'm actually testing using ExoPlayer as my main player right now (as of last night). If this week goes well, then I think that I'd consider ExoPlayer to be on par with IJKPlayer. The biggest challenge that I have with ExoPlayer is the seek handling has been flaky, but, I think I've found/fixed it. Personally, I'd love to just go with a single player, and ExoPlayer is finally getting to the point where I think it can be used as the primary player. This also means that things like embedded CC/Subs can be a reality as well, since it has a means to extract that data, and I just need to send them to SageTV for rendering. All my streams are h264 ts files, and likely, using mpeg2 will have different results.

Great news... looking forward to testing it.

k

[Dargason]

So I'm getting closer to a purchase of a device for miniclient alternative. My Hd300 in the living room has been dead for a while now, and I finally landed a developer job so I might splurge on something.

It sounds like the MiBOX is the device for me, based on what I've read here. I'm not really an audiphile and I don't really care about 4k playback. My source is a pair of HRHomeRun tuners recording OTA HD channels. Unfortunately, these recordings don't work well with my FireTV gen 2...

Before I bite the bullet and buy one or two, I thought I'd ask if anyone has their eye set on something new on the horizon I hadn't seen yet?

Mike

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Dargason

So I'm getting closer to a purchase of a device for miniclient alternative. My Hd300 in the living room has been dead for a while now, and I finally landed a developer job so I might splurge on something.

It sounds like the MiBOX is the device for me, based on what I've read here. I'm not really an audiphile and I don't really care about 4k playback. My source is a pair of HRHomeRun tuners recording OTA HD channels. Unfortunately, these recordings don't work well with my FireTV gen 2...

Before I bite the bullet and buy one or two, I thought I'd ask if anyone has their eye set on something new on the horizon I hadn't seen yet?

Mike

I don't know what HDHR produces, but, I will say that overall, mpeg2-PS streams appear to cause more grief than h264 TS streams. I use the latter, and be honest, my setup works as good as HD300. The MiBox is a decent budget client, I think it will work well (I have 1), but I also have 2 NVidia Shield TV units, and these do work much better.

[Dargason]

I'm not really sure what the HDHR produces either... my understanding is that they just tune to the OTA digital signal and pass the data to SageTV to be recorded. No transcoding. Consequently, what I get is whatever format happens to be broadcast and it's a mix of things depending on the station and show.

I've tried the miniclient on the Amazon FireTV and it sorta works on some stuff, and not at all on others. Not really usable, unfortunately. I'm hoping the MiBOX can handle the mix of formats much better.

Maybe I just need to buy one and try it out. I can probably return it if it doesn't work very well.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I don't know what HDHR produces, but, I will say that overall, mpeg2-PS streams appear to cause more grief than h264 TS streams. I use the latter, and be honest, my setup works as good as HD300. The MiBox is a decent budget client, I think it will work well (I have 1), but I also have 2 NVidia Shield TV units, and these do work much better.

HDHR can be configured to produce TS or PS files. It does not transcode - it captures the digital stream directly from OTA or digital cable (clear QAM), so could be MPEG2 or h.264 (or possibly even h.265). However, I believe all OTA currently being broadcast in the US is MPEG2. Depending on the station the content could be 1080i, 720p, 480i, or 480p.

[Dargason]

Hmm... I just checked and it seems that what I have is actually an HDHR Extend, which features the 'ability to convert the incoming video into H.264 format, making it more suitable for streaming over wireless connections and to portable devices like phones and tablets.'

I think I'll try enabling that and seeing if the FireTV (and FireTV Stick that I won at a hackathon) will work. Maybe I won't have to buy anything!

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by Dargason

Hmm... I just checked and it seems that what I have is actually an HDHR Extend, which features the 'ability to convert the incoming video into H.264 format, making it more suitable for streaming over wireless connections and to portable devices like phones and tablets.'

I think I'll try enabling that and seeing if the FireTV (and FireTV Stick that I won at a hackathon) will work. Maybe I won't have to buy anything!

You might want to look over this thread:

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64584

[Dargason]

Thanks for the link! I actually found the post on the silicondust forum saying that you couldn't enable the transcoding for SageTV, and I'm think it's not something I want to try to figure out. It sounds like it's not trivial.

[Dargason]

I picked up a MiBox and it was easy to set up and install everything. I was able to test a few different shows before it started updating my OS and all my apps.

The videos played fine, although there were some artifacts (interlacing, maybe) but certainly watchable. The remote will take a little getting used to. Navigating the UI is fast and responsive, and it's not difficult to start/stop a video, but I haven't yet figured out an easy way to skip around. I was able to pull up the OSD but didn't get to play much with it.

I noticed when I installed the app it said 'gamepad required'. I'm not sure what that means, exactly. Is there a different remote that uses the gamepad interface?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Dargason

I picked up a MiBox and it was easy to set up and install everything. I was able to test a few different shows before it started updating my OS and all my apps.

The videos played fine, although there were some artifacts (interlacing, maybe) but certainly watchable. The remote will take a little getting used to. Navigating the UI is fast and responsive, and it's not difficult to start/stop a video, but I haven't yet figured out an easy way to skip around. I was able to pull up the OSD but didn't get to play much with it.

I noticed when I installed the app it said 'gamepad required'. I'm not sure what that means, exactly. Is there a different remote that uses the gamepad interface?

If you click the help icon in the on screen navigation it will show the smart remote comamnds.

They are listed here as well.

https://github.com/OpenSageTV/sagetv..._NAVIGATION.md

When playing a video, if you use the left/right it should do the 10/30 second skip ahead/back. If you long press left/right, then it will skip commercials. Select during playback will pause play video. The only other nagigation item that might be handy is that long press up/down will do a page/up down.

[Dargason]

Thanks, Sean!

Yeah, after the box finished updating I had a chance to play with it some more and I found the help menu. Skipping forward and back doesn't seem to be as instant on the MiBox as it was in the HD200 or HD300 and I think that's what threw me off before.

Ironically the app that gave me the most problems was the Vudu app. It kept crashing, so I cleared the cache and data and disabled notifications. Then I restarted and it seemed to lock up the device. I eventually got it running and fixed the problem by uninstalling the app completely, rebooting, and reinstalling.

Next step I think will be to configure a better start page somehow...

Awesome job, Sean!

Mike

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Stu Gare

I quite like the idea of running the android mini client direct on a Sony Android TV.
Not quite time to upgrade any TVs yet, but I think I'll go for one of these next. No external device needed to run sage then :-)

Just curious, has anyone actually tried this? I'm curious how well it works.

FWIW, I saw that LG has their OLEDs on sale now, which has me really tempted, but then I remembered that Sony's run AndroidTV and that I'd had the same thought, would be cool to just run Sage directly in the TV.

[Fuzzy]

I can't imagine the experience with the built in is going to be any better than a mi box, and a mi box is portable (love taking it on vacation with us).