Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Non Joggler related discussion.
gegs
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by gegs »

castalla wrote:Can't you just selectively uninstall addons until it works without stutter?
I tried that but the problem remained, even when I uninstalled all addons and repos (except the xbmc.org one), rebooted, then installed iPlayer again. A clean slate seems the easiest option.
gegs
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by gegs »

Well, I'm flummoxed! After a clean reinstall and only the iPlayer addon added, the video stutters are back. Goodness knows why it worked flawlessly at the weekend after doing exactly the same thing. Sam Nazarko has suggested changing the build to the omxbackport4 version in the nightlies, but every time I try to install it from Raspbmc settings, the download fails at less than 20%.

To minimise the posibility that residual crud remained on my USB stick and SD card, I did a full 'overwrite erase' format before installing RaspBMC.

Android TV device, here I come. I hope I'm not opening myself up to new world of pain.
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dwl99
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by dwl99 »

There's not any thermal throttling, is there?
gegs
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by gegs »

dwl99 wrote:There's not any thermal throttling, is there?
I wouldn't think so. This happens on all occasions and from a 'cold start', having been powered down and unplugged overnight.

I've wasted enough time on it for the moment; there's an update due soon and hopefully my problems will evaporate as soon as they appeared. I'm still going to buy an Android device though, because I'm intrigued to see how it performs.
castalla
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by castalla »

A couple of points:

Are you installing xbmc 13 - I tried the version from yesterday (09/09) - this has very jerky video.

The latest xbmc 12 works okay.

Also, the downloads are very hit & miss - had to try umpteen times today to get a successful download.
gegs
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by gegs »

castalla wrote:A couple of points:

Are you installing xbmc 13 - I tried the version from yesterday (09/09) - this has very jerky video....
It's Raspbmc release version (12.2). Sam Nazarko has asked me to download the OMX backport v4 version from the nightlies but it always fails with a script error when < 20% has downloaded. I've tried umpteen different downloads, to umpteen different SD cards (and a couple of USB sticks), tried changing the size of the cache buffer, default video quality for various addons, various overclock settings etc. No luck! Same results every time.

The Raspbmc forums aren't filled with posts from users with the same problem, which led me to think that it may have been a hardware fault; so I swapped over to another Pi. Still the same!

Thanks for all your suggestions guys, but I've already tried most of them. I am definitely not wasting any more time on the Pi as an XBMC device until the next update, and maybe not even then if the Android version works well.
castalla
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by castalla »

Very strange.

I have 2 Pi's - one is an early 256, the other also 256 but a later revision. Both work fine for xbmc and have no audio out clicks, etc.

I suspect that there must be some production/parts differences between Pi's - as many people complain about the audio out.
gegs
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by gegs »

Downloaded the OMX backport version of Raspbmc from the command line and nothing has changed. Nobody else is reporting the same errors as me, so I'm well and truly stumped.

Has anybody got an Android stick running XBMC well? Is it OK with a dual core device or should I fork out for quad core? Also, does anybody know if they are available from a reputable UK retailer? I'm a bit suspicious of all the eBay sellers and internet warnings about clone devices.
castalla
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by castalla »

I'm hesitant about Android boxes - I had xbmc on a cheap tablet - sort of worked but was very slow. Tablet has since died. Waste of money, really as the battery lasted only about 1 hour!

I've hit another 'random' Raspbmc problem - installed World News addon. This has a Sky news feed - it resolutely refuses to play. I tried all sorts of 'fixes' - wasted money on the Pi codecs.

I then installed xbian (which is sluggish compared to raspbmc) but the stream works!

Nobody at raspbmc seems to have any idea why it won't play ....

Try the xbian distro - bit fiddly to set up. Worth a try.
gegs
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by gegs »

I did try Xbian and OpenELEC but had the same problem with video playback. That's what led me to believe I've probably got hardware issues.
castalla
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by castalla »

It sounds as if there's some network bottleneck - if the issues are on 2 different Pis.

Or, bizarrely, an sd card problem? Or a power issue?
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pete
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by pete »

From what I was reading the folks there on XBMC used a quad core CPU android device replacing the OS with linux hardware drivers that were not available in Android which was still using software streaming.

This is kind of funny in a way though that folks would be selling this device with android on it and having it sort of "half baked" and making it sort of work but not taking advantage of the build in hardware.

That and using the tiny wireless card in it with tiny antenna isn't going to buy you much HD streaming throughput unless you try maybe utilize a mini usb NIC card on it which though would increase its footprint.

BTW #2 - Gb wireless is around the corner (relatively speaking) and this too will help some with a miniature wireless device.
- Pete
O2 Jogglers running EFI Ubuntu / Squeezeplayer
OpenPeak Voip Telephony / Zigbee tabletops hardware modded with Seabios / RTC / Ethernet ROM edits / SSD drives running XPe for automation screens

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gegs
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by gegs »

castalla wrote:It sounds as if there's some network bottleneck - if the issues are on 2 different Pis.

Or, bizarrely, an sd card problem? Or a power issue?
It was definitely a hardware issue. I had originally swapped out my Pi but got a video crash on iPlayer again. I didn't investigate much further because it crashed in a similar way, so I put it down to changes in the new Raspbmc release. I tried again this morning with a USB stick install (previously tested with an SD card only version) and it now works fine. The same USB stick installation fails miserably on the other Pi. The only thing I changed was the Pi itself; same network cable etc.

I thought the crashes on both systems were related because they occurred in a similar fashion and at roughly the same time interval. Now it appears that one was a hardware issue and the other was maybe an SD read/write issue (or even just a temporary glitch). The bottom line is that I watched The Great North Run today using the iPlayer addon in Raspbmc and it performed excellently.

New toy purchase postponed - but not indefinitely ;)
gegs
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Re: Android TV Stick - new addiction! Any advice/tips?

Post by gegs »

Out of interest, are any of you gadget freaks running XBMC Gotham on the OUYA console?
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