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Comment by jsmeaton | Hacker News Reader

What I'm after is something that can run Kodi (xbmc) which links to a NAS for its media. Running Netflix is a nice to have. What devices are out there that I can use for this purpose?

At the moment I have a fairly heavy htpc running Windows, but I have more tvs that I would like to use for similar purposes.

Edit: Bonus if it can do 4k video, but 1080p minimum is a must.

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There are a bunch of atom-based devices for a hundred dollars or so. One of the ones that looks tempting for me is the Kangaroo -- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883722... -- $15 more than the chromebit, and you get twice the storage space, two usb ports, one of which is usb 3, and an all in all more interesting device.

That looks interesting, but it's out of stock in Australia at t he moment. It does say Intel HD graphics, but does that mean 1080p?

Yep, the video chip in it handles 1080p with no problem, and should handle 4k even.

The Kangaroo is unavailable in Australia?

Our crocs ate it

Not the dingos?

Or is that just babies?

Maybe it was a dropbear?

Intel HD graphics is the GPU chipset. I have a tablet with the same Z8500 CPU with a 2560x1440 screen and it's really smooth. Supposedly it can handle 4K out of the HDMI-port but this is not something I have tried yet.

That kangaroo looks awesome; I wanted to get three, but it seems NewEgg doesn't ship them to the netherlands?

If [1] is true (and I have no particular reason to believe otherwise) you can get an 8" tablet with Cherry Trail SoC, expansion ports, acceptable screen resolution and HDMI out for $0.11 less than a Chromebit.

[1] http://www.gearbest.com/tablet-pcs/pp_252625.html

Thanks for posting this - that is interesting. Have you used this tablet? I found reviews on its predecessor, but not much on this one (other than apparent sponsored reviews).

Not yet. I succumbed to temptation and ordered one though.

I picked up a $50 Nexus Player (Android TV OS) last month for this purpose. It replaced a first generation Raspberry Pi B that was actually pretty decent as a Kodi box (I used the Xbian distro).

So far I'm really happy with the Nexus Player. I like that it gets Android TV apps (like Kodi and Moonlight for game streaming from my desktop) and also supports Google Cast. It also has a usb port that supports things like keyboards, ethernet, external disks, etc with a usb hub.

I also strongly considered the Nvidia Shield TV (also Android TV OS). It's $200 with a lot better hardware, getting good reviews, supports 4k, and apparently can decode H265 in hardware.

Do you know if there's any way to use nexus player with steam? I mean like their steam link device, or is that completely proprietary solution?

Not to my knowledge but the nVidia Shield TV (more expensive than Nexus Player but better hardware and still runs Android TV) lets you stream from a PC running a supported nVidia GPU.

I've been very tempted to pick one up even if I don't use the game streaming function too often. It'll be a nice bump up from the Chromecast and I'll be able to occasionally fire up a game on the PC and play it on the living room TV (albeit at 1920x1080 instead of 2560x1440)

Moonlight can do it. YMMV

http://moonlight-stream.com/

As ixnu mentioned - I use the Moonlight Android app (http://moonlight-stream.com/) paired with Geforce Experience running on my Windows box (Geforce GTX 750 Ti video card) for Steam games.

To be honest though - my Moonlight streaming experience hasn't been as smooth as using a device that can actually run the Steam client (Linux/Mac/Windows). But Moonlight is still really cool.

The Shield Android TV has just had a price reduction to 179. After trying Chromeboxes, Chromecasts, and vanilla PC's, it's the closest to streaming nirvana - when it works.

The Shield TV runs Kodi as well as any PC. Nvidia's gaming ecosystem runs very well either from the cloud gaming grid or local PC. They deserve credit for taking the platform well beyond what Google could do with it.

However, my worry is that Google will abandon the Android TV OS in favor of Chromecasters and sticks and leave Nvidia to pick up where the Nexus Player has failed. The Android TV OS interface is simple enough, but there are glaring issues that continue to frustrate. Simple things like customizing the launcher are impossible. Also, there are persistent bugs at the OS level like a flakey ethernet driver and unreliable voice commands.

Why did you leave the Raspberry?

Also, I have similar requirements as you (mostly want to play media off my NAS through XBMC or any other player with sufficient format support), but I want to use a remote rather than mouse and keyboard - is this possible with the Nexus Player or is there another good solution for this?

There's an iOS app where you can control XBMC from your smart phone. It's pretty awesome.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/official-kodi-remote/id52048...

My first generation Pi was significantly slower at Kodi (things like menu traversal, library updates, API consumption, etc) than a second generation Pi (I tried a friend's). So I was already considering $35-40 for a new Pi when I saw the sale price on the Nexus Player. But the bigger deal for me was Google Cast support. I wanted a single device that could run Kodi and also that the family could cast Youtube, Soundcloud, etc using phones.

Regarding remote - the Nexus Player comes with a simple, bluetooth remote (as does the Shield TV now apparently). It works great for simple Kodi interactions but doesn't work for everything (the biggest one that I've noticed so far is the lack of a context button). But as thoughtpalette mentions - I use Android and iOS remote apps when I need more control over Kodi (Yatse is what I use on Android). Also there is an Android TV control app for Android phones that has the same buttons as the simple Nexus Player bluetooth remote.

The Raspberry Pi 2 is a great candidate for that. I'm running OpenELEC and it streams IPTV, music from a NAS server I have at home, links from my phone - and the performances are fine.

Raspberry PI has pretty much what you're looking for. I one set up exactly for this purpose.

I've been thinking about a raspberry pi for this purpose but I'd prefer something already packaged up (even if it was a pi underneath).

Once the case, wireless adapter, and a few other items are added in to make the Raspberry Pi 2 function as a nice HTPC it comes out to about $100. The same cost for much less hardware.

I only used a Pi (1B) (20$) 4GB SD Card (5$?) case (6$) and hdmi cable (0.5$) My TV has HDMI CEC built in which means my tv remote works with the OSMC / Kodi / etc install. This gets me to a total of 31.5$ for my full HD supporting mediacenter :) (the case is even optional since it sits on the back of my TV, out of sight)

http://www.xbian.org/

XBian is a small, fast and lightweight media center distribution for the Raspberry Pi, CuBox-i, Hummingboard and many more devices to come. It is based on a minimal Debian and therefore offers much of the same freedom as Debian offers.

Very simple to install and get running.

If I'm not mistaken, one or more of the previous generation Roku devices uses the same SoC as the Raspberry Pi.

We have a Roku 1 and a Roku 3, and they are both great for the price. The $50 Roku 1 is attached to an old but "too good to throw away" Sony Trinitron CRT, and the Roku 3 is on our bedroom TV, a 27" Vizio LCD. They both stream via WiFi with no issues (480p on the 1, 1080p on the 3).

I did have a couple of RasPis running OSMC before we went with the Roku devices, and apart from issues with the initial setup, the Pis worked great. The Roku does offer a greater selection of services so there's a lot more 3rd party streaming content available there, and the official Plex app on Roku makes it easier to stream from our media server than the Pi, but if you know what you're doing you can enable uPnP on OSMC and local streaming mostly works fine. You can also run emulators on the Pi on top of OSMC, which is great for nostalgic gaming. The Roku 3 has a limited selection of games and a Wiimote-like remote, but no support for emulation that I'm aware of.

Raspberry Pi is not really good as a media player. It struggles for high quality high bit rate 1080p videos and it is limited with USB 2 and does not have gigabit ethernet.

I use an older Pi with Raspbmc (osmc) and I can stream 1080P movies just fine. The key is to 1.) Avoid streaming off a slow disk e.g. NAS, 2.) Ensure you have the necessary bandwidth to stream (no slow wifi), and 3.) Pass DTS audio to your receiver for decoding so your PI isn't doing double duty for audio/video.

It is also worth looking at NFS if you use a NAS. I have been able to stream movies over terrible Wifi by switching from Samba to NFS. This wasn't with a Pi though.

Initially, I tried this setup..

    disk [usb]-> router <-[wifi]-> raspB+ <- tv

but it wasn't good for streaming videos over the network. The router was the problem.

so when we upgraded to rasp2, I tried this setup..

    disk [usb]-> raspB+ <-[eth]-> router <-[wifi]-> rasp2

..and it's been working like that, flawless, for almost a year so far.

The raspB+ shares the media collection over upnp, so we can consume it from pretty much everywhere on the house, and the rasp2 consumes using upnp so when can control it remotely.

With a combination of these apps, you can do pretty much everything remotely from your phone..

- upnp: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.droidupnp

- torrents: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.sugr.gearshi...

- run stuff: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.littlebyteso...

Now I just need a good radio support .. any ideas?

It streams 1080p h264 just fine, haven't had a single issue yet.

The only movie so far I've had problems with was a raw Blu-Ray rip of Pixar's Up that I streamed from my NAS. It has some crazy high bitrates and just refused to play smoothly even with all caches turned up to 11.

But that's the only one from hundreds of movies I've tested.

My Raspberry Pi 2 is working great as a media player. I threw OSMC on it (a Linux distribution specifically for Kodi with specific support for Pi's) and it is essentially flawless. It has no problem with high bit rate H264 videos. The lack of gigabit Ethernet isn't an issue. 100Mb Ethernet can easily stream raw Blu-Ray video (not that I've tried that with the Pi 2).

Second this.

We also use it as a upnp-server to stream (over usb wifi) music/movies to the kids room.

Plus the kids run emulation-station[0] on _top_ of OSMC to play games --we had a hell of fun playing 4 players games.

[0] http://emulationstation.org/

Not really true for Raspberry Pi 2. I'm running it with Kodi@OpenELEC next to my TV, it's set-up to connect to NFS via WiFi served by one of the SOHO Mikrotik routers. On the other end Synology DS215j NAS is cabled in via 1Gbit. No hiccup on 1080p/720p whatsoever despite WiFi choker, but haven't tried anything bitrate-crazy yet.

(For physical media I still just use a PS3.)

Currently the Broadcom GL driver and Webkit2 do not play well together. http://dabase.com/blog/Webkit_on_Rpi2/

I got burnt by this.

You also have the option of Amazon FireTV or Fire Stick. http://kodi.wiki/view/Amazon_Fire_TV You can enjoy netflix, amazon prime, hulu, etc and install Kodi. Although you have to go through an extra step to install it. Amazon removed Kodi from its store officially.

It otherwise plays exactly like an HTPC. Everything I threw at it played fine.

The only downside is that it does not support HD audio passthrough.

http://kodi.wiki/view/Amazon_Fire_TV

I have not been impressed with mine, slow and buggy. It also is not a fit for the NAS requirement.

What do you mean? Are you referring to playing stuff off of a NAS?

Our two Fire Sticks play of our NAS just fine. We even push video downloads in Kodi back to the NAS no problem. It took about an hour from pulling out of the box, to installing Kodi, configuring my streaming services and pointing it to our shared folders on the NAS.

OK, I didn't know about Kodi.

Another downside of the FireTV stick and a dealbreaker to me is that Android cannot adapt the refresh rate to the frame rate of the video. Many movies are 24fps, so a multiple of 24Hz is required on the HDMI port for smooth playback. It's one of those things you can't unsee once you're aware of it.

Maybe they've fixed it, but it was like this half a year ago when I had a FireTV stick.

I run XBMC on Nexus Player, which costs less than $50.

You can install Kodi from Google Play store. It can smoothly play 1080p videos from NAS or USB. It also runs most of the video add-ons available for XBMC.

Australia tax hits again. Seems to be $130 here, but I think that's going to be the rough price I pay for any device I go for. The addition of chromecast is nice.

I've used the cheapest celeron nuc for this. Has built in IR, just add a usb drive / laptop drive and memory. Not much more expensive than a dedicated box here in Aus, and much faster.

It's worth noting the Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) units only do HDMI 1.4a, which can only do 1080p (not 4K). The newer (4th gen/Haswell, 5th gen/Broadwell, 6th gen/Skylake) units can do 4K output over DisplayPort 1.2. They're also pricier (IIRC, they're kits, and Wi-Fi, SSD/HDD, and OS all have to be purchased separately).

At this price point you'd probably be better served by an Intel Compute Stick, although the current ones only do 1080p HDMI 1.4a output. Rumor is that the next generation ones might do 4K though.

Hark! The new Skylake NUCs are out! That must have happened within the last week or two.

I use a RaspberryPi that runs Raspbian and mount my file server's UPnP media directory using djmount. Then start videos on my TV using the OMX Remote app from Android devices (OMX Remote plays videos using the omxplayer app on the RPi). I had to increase the gpu memory on the RaspberryPI so that all my videos would play and once in a while kill omxplayer processes but other then that it works fine. And you go this route, you could still install Kodi if you need the plugins.

I'd say Vero but it is out of stock: https://osmc.tv/product/vero/

I don't know if it wasn't successful or they are just making another version.

If you haven't tried Plex I'd suggest at least giving it a go, I made the switch from XBMC early this year and haven't looked back once. It absolutely left XBMC in the dust for me - the UI, Transcoding, Performance and the option to have it run as a server/client model are all fantastic and pretty much work flawlessly.

That's not a bad idea actually, I'll have a better look at it. Turns out my NAS supports running plex server, and my main samsung TV has a plex client app. I'm loading in all of my library and will give it a go. Cheers.

There's the CuBoxTV (http://cuboxtv.com/).

I'm shocked how expensive that is. Cool find though. Didn't know it existed.

Yeah, it's hard to find that much I/O, full Linux support, and a decent case on anything cheaper, though (let me know if you are aware of something I'm missing).

Fire Stick ($39) will do ALL of that except for 4k. We haven't used anything in the house except Netflix and Kodi for a year. It's a wonderful little stick. Too bad Amazon had to be an ass and remove Kodi from their store (you just sideload it instead now).

if you're looking for ARM/Android, look for a unit with a Rockchip RK3288 processor, and 2GB Ram. that'll be plenty to run Kodi without problems.

if you want Intel, go for one of those Intel NUC boxes, they're small, cheap, and can boot OpenELEC (Kodi distro) if you modify the bios.

Check out the Remix Mini

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