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UPDATED WITH REVIEW:
In-depth review below, will update in a few days to cover DLNA support and revisit Miracast experience while at home (currently discussing the experience at a university)
The PTV Miracast adapter works as advertised, but isn’t perfect. Miracast functionality works like a charm, but with the same slight delay in most other adapters out there. AirPlay is listed as a feature, but don’t expect it to work. Upon opening the package, I was greeted with a matte black, rubbery dongle that was slightly larger than a USB thumb-drive. Under the cap is the HDMI plug, on the other end are two micro USB ports -- one for power and one to connect a storage drive. On one side of the USB end is a tiny button that doesn’t clearly indicate it’s purpose, but is meant to switch between Miracast connectivity and AirFun mode (see below).
Using this adapter isn’t as intuitive as I would like it to be, but it does work. When you initially plug the device into the HDMI port of the TV and USB power, you’re greeted with the AirFun screen, which is green and black. This screen displays the dongle’s IP address, a url containing the IP address and ending with “/remote,” and what network it’s connecting to. When no network is available, it turns itself into it’s own wireless network to allow you to connect. Visiting http://ipaddress/remote takes you to a web-based remote for the dongle to set it up and control the DLNA features of the device. When connecting to this address from an Android device, it prompts you to download the app for this same control. The app is called AirFun and CORRECTION: is in the Play Store - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.realtek.airfun.client. The app appears to be stored on the dongle itself also. Don't worry much about this app after you've adjusted the settings to your liking. Use another DLNA app for your media, MirrorOP if you wish to take advantage of that, and wait on AirPlay.
Connecting the dongle to wifi is easy, but the first step isn’t apparent. You must first connect your phone or tablet to the wifi hotspot the dongle creates. At this time, you will not have an internet connection and will only be able to connect to the Miracast dongle. The next step is to go to the url containing the ip address that is displayed on your TV or use the app to connect to the device. In the settings, you can choose the wireless network you want to use and enter the password. Once this is completed, the Miracast adapter will disconnect it’s own hotspot, disconnect your phone or tablet from the device, and connect to the wireless network you chose. At this point, you should connect to the same wireless network in order to pair with the device again.
I must share a mistake I had made in hopes of those reading this can learn from it. Do not, under any circumstances, connect to an open wireless network in which you need to visit a web browser to sign in or click and accept button. The Miracast adapter can’t choose to accept a license or enter login information. I did this at the university I work for and found that I could no longer access the dongle for anything relying on wifi, including accessing the settings. I had attempted to disconnect and reconnect, reset, unplug and plug in again the device. As I had already set it to connect to the wifi that requires authentication in a browser, it automatically connected to it every time. I was forced to bring this in a location in which that wireless network was unaccessible so that I could connect directly to the device’s own hotspot and connect it to another network.
Once the wireless connection has been connected to both the PTV dongle and your phone or tablet, you can begin using MirrorOP, DLNA, or AirPlay. Please note that Miracast is connected using different steps which I will discuss later. No wireless connection is needed for Miracast and if this is the sole purpose of using this device, you can ignore the steps above and continue to the section specifically about Miracast. After connecting to wifi, I tested MirrorOP and found that connecting to this worked without issue. The screen mirrored as any other MirrorOP connection does. MirrorOP is an AirPlay-like connection except that it requires a rooted Android device or jailbroken iOS device to connect. It mirrors the screen like AirPlay to a device on the same wireless network. The MirrorOP app needs to be installed on your device to make the connection. Though screen mirroring works, MirrorOP does not support audio mirroring -- the audio will continue to play through your phone or tablet.
Connecting to AirPlay was very disappointing. I attempted to connect to AirPlay both at the university I work at and at home using an iPad on iOS7. In each attempt to connect, the iPad recognized the Miracast dongle as an AirPlay device. When selecting to connect to it, it appeared to work initially. Choosing a photo to display on the AirPlay device, however, proved nothing worked. The photo would not project to the TV. The same applied for video as well, but I have not yet tested audio. When enabling screen mirroring in the AirPlay settings, I was also disappointed by the results. The notification bar turned blue, the device appeared to be trying to connect for mirroring, then the AirPlay settings reset, turning off the connection to the dongle. No matter how many times I tried, it wouldn’t work. It may be my lack of knowledge with iOS and how to properly connect the devices, it could be an incompatibility with iOS7, or it could just be a falsely advertised feature. I don’t know the answer to this. EDITED: If I am correct in that Visiontech makes this device, their website (in a couple of posts below) indicates AirPlay is a feature still in development and will be added in a future update.
EDITED: DLNA works as expected. I did have some buffering/stuttering, but that was likely due to my new ISP which is a reduction in speed. Any DLNA/UPNP app or device will recognize this dongle and send content to it. Since DLNA plays the content locally, I haven't narrowed down which files are supported. I have not had any issue with mp4, which should be expected. In order to use DLNA, this dongle needs to be in AirFun mode, but you don't need to use the AirFun app to use it. This app just gives basic functionality and allows you to setup the dongle.
The most important feature in which I purchased this for is the Miracast functionality. I tested this in two different environments and found two different user experiences. I tested this at the university I work for and at home (which I am still testing more at home and will update this with more information later). Before you can connect to Miracast, you must press the button on the side of the dongle twice to switch to the wireless HDMI mode. At the university, the experience was such that I don’t feel it would be beneficial for the classroom. Connecting took several attempts before it was successful. Upon a successful connection, most of the time my device’s wireless connection was disconnected and reverted to cellular data. The screen mirroring worked as it should, however with a fraction of a second in latency. Audio transmitted to the TV flawlessly as well. At times, especially during heavy activity, the TV would fall further behind than initial connection and the picture would display large groups of poorly rendered blocks. This was further exaggerated when I reconnected to wifi for some reason. It may be due to the large number of wireless devices on a college campus causing interference that caused these issues, but I don’t know enough about networking to make an educated guess to this. I did notice turning the HTC One’s Power Saver mode off improved the experience, but only slightly.
EDITED: At home, I get mixed results. Most of the time, it works flawlessly via Miracast. There are times that the picture lags behind and when it starts to, it can be tens of seconds behind. It eventually catches up, especially if you stop your activity to allow it to catch up. With that said, I streamed a few movies from Plex to my HTC One which was Miracasting to the PTV dongle. I did not see any moments in any attempt in which the mirroring had fallen out of sync with my phone. I did, however, find a few movies that would not play sound over Miracast. I am not sure if this is due to bandwidth, licensing/authentication/DRM, or something else entirely. I need to investigate the files more in depth to determine if it's the stream. I tried to play a game with this, but I honestly found myself looking at my phone more than the TV to see where I was touching on screen. I didn't notice any delay here either, but I wasn't playing a complex game either. I ought to try this using a game controller and see how it performs this way. I also discovered that Google Play Music and Google Play Movies & TV are blocked over Miracast. They will not play, even locally stored music tracks. Play Movies tells me this feature is not supported, while Play Music will either display "Cannot play track" or disconnect the Miracast connection completely. Upon contacting Google with regard to this, they responded indicating that this is normal behavior and suggested I buy a Chromecast. I shouldn't have to buy another product to use Google services that already work on my device.
Being a Sprint customer and experiencing network issues regularly on their cellular data, I have installed an app that floats network download and upload speeds on my screen so that I can determine if anything isn’t working due to my internet connection. I noticed that while connected through Miracast, my upload speeds were incredibly high. This is what I would expect from a Miracast connection considering 1080p video encoded as h.264 mp4 video and up to 5.1 surround sound audio is being sent from my phone to the dongle over wifi direct. For anyone curious about the network activity, my upload speeds floated between 7-9 Mbps while connected to Miracast. Download speeds remained normal for the activity I was performing.
I also wanted to note that the PTV Miracast adapter gets about as hot as the HTC One can during high activity. It can be uncomfortable to touch. The included manual warns about this and promises that it will not affect performance. I am still concerned of the heat, despite the manual’s acknowledgement of this issue. Hopefully the heat doesn’t affect this device’s lifespan. I hope that this in-depth review has been helpful to all those who have read it. I would recommend this product to others, but I would warn others of the shortcomings this dongle has as well. The $50 I paid for this was a fair price considering the average price for Miracast today. Others at the same or higher price don’t offer MirrorOP or AirPlay -- I’m hoping a firmware update down the road fixes the AirPlay problems.
Tested with:
MirrorOP - Nexus 7 (2012) on Android 4.3
AirPlay - iPad 2 (two different iPads) running iOS7
Miracast - HTC One on Android 4.3 Sense 5
Full HD 1080P WiFi Display Dongle HDMI Wireless PTV Support DLNA / Miracast
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ESUPKE4/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I just received this dongle. Haven't had time to play with it yet, but will very very soon. I did manage to test whether or not the HTC One would connect and on 4.3 Sense 5, it connects and detects it. It's not as intuitive as I would hope, but I'll elaborate later. iPad connectivity via AirPlay will be tested soon too.
gk1984 said:
I just received this dongle. Haven't had time to play with it yet, but will very very soon. I did manage to test whether or not the HTC One would connect and on 4.3 Sense 5, it connects and detects it. It's not as intuitive as I would hope, but I'll elaborate later. iPad connectivity via AirPlay will be tested soon too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
please let us know how it works.
thanks
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
Well, I plan on writing an in depth review later and putting I on the Amazon page too. But some initial thoughts:
So far, miracast works great! WiFi turns off while connecting. Not sure if this is normal or not. Performance is also worse with wifi on, in fact it can be very unusable with wifi on. But this was tested at work so far, home wifi might be a different experience.
If you plan to use any of the other features, I don't recommend setting it up on a wifi that needs to be authenticated - as in if you need to open a website, get a splash screen, and either sign in or accept a license agreement. This is not possible to do on this device and it locked me out of the dongle because it was connected to this kind of network and I had no way to change it.
You download the app to control this device directly from the dongle via ip address. You use the app for everything besides miracast - Dlna, configuration, etc.
I'll update op with full, in depth review after I spend some time with it.
Sent from my HTCONE using xda app-developers app
EDIT: testing at home not disconnect of wifi upon connection. iPad on iOS 7 will see the dongle as an airplay device, but can't connect to it for mirroring, not sure what else to do with it. More testing to come.
Another note for everyone before I write my in-depth review... Airplay doesn't work. The iPad will see the dongle as an Airplay device, but won't connect to it. Tried screen mirroring and just picture sharing, neither worked. Could be something to do with iOS 7 or something.
Sent from my HTCONE using xda app-developers app
Updated OP with in-depth review. Need to revisit two sections after I play with it some more. Will update in a few days.
Not having much success at home either. It works for a little bit, then has problems like I experienced at the university. Still planning to update with more info. But I think I found the company that makes this - the vendor has left this information out and the packaging doesn't include this info either. The specs, description, features, and pictures are all identical.
http://www.vissontech.com/products_detail2/&productId=16a67a7b-4b2c-46f6-8a28-c825a361bdd5&comp_stats=comp-FrontProducts_list01-1337323367416.html
In case anyone wants to investigate further.
Wow! this review is very helpful man. thanks for this review. Now I think I want one :cyclops:
gk1984 said:
Not having much success at home either. It works for a little bit, then has problems like I experienced at the university. Still planning to update with more info. But I think I found the company that makes this - the vendor has left this information out and the packaging doesn't include this info either. The specs, description, features, and pictures are all identical.
http://www.vissontech.com/products_...=comp-FrontProducts_list01-1337323367416.html
In case anyone wants to investigate further.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem. Shop around though, I think if it supported 5ghz wifi like miracast is supposed to, this would have been a better experience. I just recently discovered that.
Sent from my HTCONE using xda app-developers app
HI,
2 weeks ago I got this unit http://www.win-star.com/eshop/goods.php?id=159
I choice it because of the integrated LAN, and simplified functionality (no android, no need to play with air mouse).
It prove to need it own mouse to switch between different modes, as there no any button on unit itself(only hidden reset)
During first star the Unit create own wifi network so I connect to it my samsung galaxy s4 active. However I was unable to test miracast mode not connect.
Then I switch to "bridge to wireless" trying to connect WS-AV601D1 to my existing network but unsuccessfully. I switch back manually to "AP only" mode, however since then I can not see any more networks from the device itself nor to access WIFI settings(its gray/unaccessible). I can not see anymore the open WiFi network that the device should make. I reset it several times to default settings but it going to "Bridge to WiFi" mode instead of "AP only". WiFi light not switching on at all, and wifi module is unaccessible. WiFi module fail about 10 min after first start.
Note that the unit support only WEP encryption, and have no settings for connection to not broadcasted /hidden SSID. So practically I could not connect it WiFi to my existing network even if it works(unless broadcast SSID and change to WEP)!!!
Further I could test only airplay(android airfun appk) from my s4 active and notebook, and screen mirroring from my notebook only(having the device connected to my network via LAN cable). Using the software provided.
Most important for me was the 1080p video played from notebook to TV quality. So the quality was bad, looks like xvid 700MB rip(or more like x264, baseline, ultra fast, 1000bit/s encoding). Dont understand me wrong quality was fair for animation movies of my son, despite of HDMI playback of same video you can not see each hear and dimple of actors face). There was some sound distortion too, however i dint paly with sound settings of the unit. Upload speed during playback was 2-3mbit, while normal speed within my network is 6-7mbit. Note that the Unit is LAN connected to my Asus RT-N66U.
I already send my back to China and waiting for refund.
So I could not test miracast! Does it provide better video quality when mirroring 1080p video What unit you could recommend
I purchased the iview Mira Cast dongle and it pretty much works the same. I did notice a slight lag in playing videos and sometimes it falls behind. The dlna feature works really well but with no remote you have to push everything from the One or browsing your dlna server with another app. I use skifta.
******************************
HTC ONE (Stock so far) Just got 2013-04-21
Samsung Captivate Glide
Installed:
CWMR5x_i927_recovery.tar.md5
ICS 4.0.4 LiteRom 0.9.0
LiteKernel
dudejb said:
I purchased the iview Mira Cast dongle and it pretty much works the same. I did notice a slight lag in playing videos and sometimes it falls behind. The dlna feature works really well but with no remote you have to push everything from the One or browsing your dlna server with another app. I use skifta.
******************************
HTC ONE (Stock so far) Just got 2013-04-21
Samsung Captivate Glide
Installed:
CWMR5x_i927_recovery.tar.md5
ICS 4.0.4 LiteRom 0.9.0
LiteKernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I brought the ezcast and found playback at 1080p theres a lot of delay at times on gaming and streaming on nvidia shield but with the htc one it wasn't to bad
Has anyone installed xbmc-torrents on Amazon Fire Tv and experienced any problems? Thx
athosk said:
Has anyone installed xbmc-torrents on Amazon Fire Tv and experienced any problems? Thx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Works perfectly fine for me
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app
athosk said:
Has anyone installed xbmc-torrents on Amazon Fire Tv and experienced any problems? Thx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have che following setup.
Rooted ftv. Xbmc 13.1. Stick mount to connect an external HDD.
Xbmctorrent is configured to save stuff on a subdir in the HDD. It works fine for TV series episodes. Yesterday night I tried with a movie and had two times the fire TV to completely crash after something like 15 minutes watching. I guess this might be related to having downloaded a file which is larger than a certain threshold. The first time it crashed I also got scared because it was stuck in the Amazon black screen without any sign of life. I removed power for a while to have it start back.
I am watching a TV episode now and it seems fine.
The other issue I experienced is sometimes getting the Xbmctorrent script failed. Not on eztv though, I guess this is related on how they handle individual sources.
Any help or other experiences?
Do you guys also know a better way integrated in xbmc to pick up a torrent to be downloaded and then watch it later, rather than immediately streaming?
I have two AFTV with XBMC 13.1 and xbmctorrent.
I never had issues with any files over 4gb. I mounted a usb flash drive (NTFS formatted) with stickmount, but I don't use that for xbmctorrent. I have xbmctorrent buffer up on the AFTV internal memory.
Shinyhead said:
I have two AFTV with XBMC 13.1 and xbmctorrent.
I never had issues with any files over 4gb. I mounted a usb flash drive (NTFS formatted) with stickmount, but I don't use that for xbmctorrent. I have xbmctorrent buffer up on the AFTV internal memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is really interesting. I wonder why I have so serious issues.
Yesterday I tried with a TV show, and it was stopping the reproduction immediately after starting, even though the download had no problems at all! After tried a few times, I had again the most disruptive crash with AFTV stuck on the black screen with white amazon logo. After that, I decided to uninstall the plugin.
Any suggestion?!
bastXda said:
This is really interesting. I wonder why I have so serious issues.
Yesterday I tried with a TV show, and it was stopping the reproduction immediately after starting, even though the download had no problems at all! After tried a few times, I had again the most disruptive crash with AFTV stuck on the black screen with white amazon logo. After that, I decided to uninstall the plugin.
Any suggestion?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try not putting any path for the download field in xbmctorrent, so it will use the internal memory to download on.
XBMCTorrent
This issue is happenning to me as well, I have toyed with all the options\save pathes possible, nothing seems to fix it.
I also opened an Issue on XBMCTorrent's Gibhub and Stream (a fork of this addon) but no help yet.
This is my favorite addon and it's a total deal-breaker for me about the AFTV
I really hope someone will find a fix for this...
Is there a difference between xbmc torrent and an android based torrent client?
Sent from my SM-G900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Dragracekid said:
Is there a difference between xbmc torrent and an android based torrent client?
Sent from my SM-G900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the difference is xbmc isnt a regular torrent addon. Its used only to stream/seed movies. you cant load a regular torrent file and expect it to download.
Oh ok cool thanks
Sent from my SM-G900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
I think the solution is simple.....uninstall XBMC and install SPMC (XBMC for Ouya). Alot more stable and dosnt keep the data stuck in memory.
You can get it here
https://github.com/koying/SPMC/releases/download/13.2.1-spmc/spmc-armeabi-v7a_13.2.1.apk
athosk said:
I think the solution is simple.....uninstall XBMC and install SPMC (XBMC for Ouya). Alot more stable and dosnt keep the data stuck in memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there evidence of better behavior of SPMC on AFTV than regular XBMC? I just went to the official XBMC, but maybe I did the wrong choice! Is it possible to install it without losing all the preferences over current XBMC?
I'm using the xbmc with the launcher mod, and last night got the xbmctorrent to sort of work. It was making my firetv unstable, I had at least two blackscreens while using it.
I'm not on the latest xbmc but am on the latest torrent plugin, but at this point I'm not inclined to keep chasing the plugin too often, neat as it is when it works.
bastXda said:
Is there evidence of better behavior of SPMC on AFTV than regular XBMC? I just went to the official XBMC, but maybe I did the wrong choice! Is it possible to install it without losing all the preferences over current XBMC?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the older version of spmc works the best.
load the apk on post 9
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=54237038&postcount=9
I have personally tried XBMC on all available platforms (Apple TV, Ipad, Windows 8.1, Android minix, Android tv box wih quad core processor and 8core graphics card capable of 4K output). Best one i think is windows.....it would be apple tv but that only gives 720p output.
Now, with Amazon, XBMC torrents somehow data is being saved somewhere and if you look at the screen before launching it, you will notice that the data file keeps getting bigger and at some point that would create a problem as AFT has only 8 GB memory.
With SPMC, I haven't really seen any increaments on the data file size...i wil keep you posted in the next few days if i notice any change
I've been seeing many of the issues with xbmc torrent that I've heard reported from others - problems downloading, issues where, once a stream gets into enough trouble, the box itself resets, very long initial load times.
I thought I was giving up on it, but I was curious and decided to look into what I was seeing.
Once things get bad enough that the FTV bombs out, I also noticed that I needed to reset my firewall to get anything going on the internet in the house - aside from things that were running before I started xbmc torrent.
I took a look, and my firewall has an 8064 session limit. What I'm seeing is that I need to limit how many sessions a single client can spin up. The xbmc torrent plugin is insanely chatty, and it was exhausing my session pool!
When things got to their worst, I wasn't able to get DNS moving and when I dug in, I found that what I was seeing was that I couldn't translate the DNS requests from my lan. (In some ways, the firewall I'm using is a gynormous pain in the butt - it'd be nice if I had more than 8k outbound translations - but it makes up for it with truly epic diagnostic info.)
So, it's worth trying to see if there's a way limit the number of connections a client on your network can establish. I'm getting decent performance and still having resources available to other systems using a 512 session limit.
My impression on the FTV rebooting is that once DNS was unavailable, other services I was trying to run were crapping out, taking the OS with them.
XBMCTorrent
athosk said:
I think the solution is simple.....uninstall XBMC and install SPMC (XBMC for Ouya). Alot more stable and dosnt keep the data stuck in memory.
You can get it here
https://github.com/koying/SPMC/releases/download/13.2.1-spmc/spmc-armeabi-v7a_13.2.1.apk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mejdam said:
the older version of spmc works the best.
load the apk on post 9
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=54237038&postcount=9
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried XBMC 13.1 official, BeyondXBMC, XBMC For Ouya and SPMC.
In all of them the plugin had made my XBMC go crazy and eventually reboot the entire Fire TV, on some occasions even corrupted my XBMC Skin settings somehow.
athosk said:
I have personally tried XBMC on all available platforms (Apple TV, Ipad, Windows 8.1, Android minix, Android tv box wih quad core processor and 8core graphics card capable of 4K output). Best one i think is windows.....it would be apple tv but that only gives 720p output.
Now, with Amazon, XBMC torrents somehow data is being saved somewhere and if you look at the screen before launching it, you will notice that the data file keeps getting bigger and at some point that would create a problem as AFT has only 8 GB memory.
With SPMC, I haven't really seen any increaments on the data file size...i wil keep you posted in the next few days if i notice any change
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
roustabout said:
I've been seeing many of the issues with xbmc torrent that I've heard reported from others - problems downloading, issues where, once a stream gets into enough trouble, the box itself resets, very long initial load times.
I thought I was giving up on it, but I was curious and decided to look into what I was seeing.
Once things get bad enough that the FTV bombs out, I also noticed that I needed to reset my firewall to get anything going on the internet in the house - aside from things that were running before I started xbmc torrent.
I took a look, and my firewall has an 8064 session limit. What I'm seeing is that I need to limit how many sessions a single client can spin up. The xbmc torrent plugin is insanely chatty, and it was exhausing my session pool!
When things got to their worst, I wasn't able to get DNS moving and when I dug in, I found that what I was seeing was that I couldn't translate the DNS requests from my lan. (In some ways, the firewall I'm using is a gynormous pain in the butt - it'd be nice if I had more than 8k outbound translations - but it makes up for it with truly epic diagnostic info.)
So, it's worth trying to see if there's a way limit the number of connections a client on your network can establish. I'm getting decent performance and still having resources available to other systems using a 512 session limit.
My impression on the FTV rebooting is that once DNS was unavailable, other services I was trying to run were crapping out, taking the OS with them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is very interesting!
I have tried various combonations of this plugin (keep torrents, trying to save to SMB share, to Disk on Key, changing File Systems [exFAT,fat32,ntfs] and nothing seemed to work).
I have never thought of it as a network problem...
It works so good on my Windows PC and my Android Mini PC...
Maybe someone can post a way to limit the connections?
Thanks
Yeah maybe you are on the right track. My xbmctorrent also crashes quite oftenly and makes my firetv to reboot. It's very annoying.
Enviado de meu GT-N7100 usando Tapatalk
KillerJoeBR said:
Yeah maybe you are on the right track. My xbmctorrent also crashes quite oftenly and makes my firetv to reboot. It's very annoying.
Enviado de meu GT-N7100 usando Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same for me.
Has anyone gotten the stream plugin to work? It's being actively developed and is apparently a fork of the xbmc torrent code.
I'm unable to get it to run, either on ftv or on a tablet, and the diagnostic logging doesn't say much to me.
My firewall supports outbound rules that apply per host, and the values it takes are sess-limit per-src-ip <number>
Probably you can do something similar in one of the open source dd-wrt platforms. There's an interesting discussion of advanced config of those at http://markmaunder.com/2011/01/26/h...-your-room-mate-or-bad-office-colleague-uses/ - but it doesn't cover sessions, but rather total per-address or per-network bandwidth. (Which I've also had set up to deal with aftv chewing up everything it can when I need to have a few hundred low-latency kilobits to reach the office - it's challenging to apply QoS to inbound, simpler to drop everything over a cap that's trying to reach a host. I unset those rules before trying xbmctorrent.)
I have the impression that xbmctorrent, at least, has its own torrent client built in. And although I've seen a configuration in the system / network menus that lets you define a proxy for xbmc to use, I haven't seen a similar config for global torrent settings.
Many standalone torrent clients have a lot of controls over maximum connections, in addition to upload/download speeds, etc.
I haven't looked to see whether a standalone torrent client, or one of the various torrent plugins for xbmc, might be able to give one systemwide control over session initiation, session timeout and session number - applying some settings that xbmctorrent would need to respect, in essence.
I suspect that they'd make it harder to use if they were able to control those things, though - xbmctorrent is doing something pretty unusual: it's polling a swarm of peers (into the thousands) and asking not just 'who has the file' but 'who has this specific piece of the file starting at time X'
It would be nice if those kinds of advanced network settings were available in the configuration of one of these video on demand torrent clients, though
I've been reading forums all over the place related to the buffering issues I'm experiencing using Gotham 13.2 on my new Fire TV box.
The settings that get me the best results here: (Can't remember what forum I found them on)
<network>
<autodetectpingtime>30</autodetectpingtime>
<buffermode>3</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>708669603</cachemembuffersize>
<curllowspeedtime>5</curllowspeedtime>
<curlclienttimeout>30</curlclienttimeout>
<readbufferfactor>4.0</readbufferfactor>
</network>
The streams start really quick, but if it's 1080p, it buffers every 2 minutes 22 seconds or so. 720p works fine.
I've tried many many settings I find here and at other forums with worse results. With this one I tried the buffermode at 1 and 3.
There must be a setting I'm missing to try out.
I'm using the exact same networking connection as my old WDTV LIVE that had zero problems with these files. I just wanted to replace it with the Fire TV. Tried wired and wireless, same issues.
Thanks for any help anyone might have here.
Thered a tweeks xml that gets copied to your drive and helps with buffering.
Basically it caches some of the stream and you play catch up viewing.
Or if u pause it make coffee or wat ever the whole thing will cache for you and you can watch with our stops.
I use it and it works well.
Some more than others
Id link you but a quick google search will get you what your looking for
mychaelp said:
<buffermode>3</buffermode>.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
from kodi wiki:
0 Buffer all internet filesystems (like "2" but additionally also ftp, webdav, etc.) (default)
1 Buffer all filesystems (including local)
2 Only buffer true internet filesystems (streams) (http, etc.)
3 No buffer
So....
<cachemembuffersize>708669603</cachemembuffersize>
<readbufferfactor>4.0</readbufferfactor>
aren't really helping; since buffer needs to be enabled to be cached or read.
Also; default readbufferfactor is 1 but all examples use 10 or 20 rather than placing a decimal such as you did. Your setting may be resulting in a factor of 0.40 due to formatting
I am using mode 1 and caching to disk rather than use RAM.
The wiki warns this may shorten disk life (but I think I can afford another $10 usb stick if this one fails)
Never have any buffering issues with these settings on latest SPMC.
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>0</cachemembuffersize>
<readbufferfactor>20</readbufferfactor>
Here is the "official" Kodi thread: http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache.
gurnted said:
from
0 Buffer all internet filesystems (like "2" but additionally also ftp, webdav, etc.) (default)
1 Buffer all filesystems (including local)
2 Only buffer true internet filesystems (streams) (http, etc.)
3 No buffer
So....
<cachemembuffersize>708669603</cachemembuffersize>
<readbufferfactor>4.0</readbufferfactor>
aren't really helping; since buffer needs to be enabled to be cached or read.
Also; default readbufferfactor is 1 but all examples use 10 or 20 rather than placing a decimal such as you did. Your setting may be resulting in a factor of 0.40 due to formatting
I am using mode 1 and caching to disk rather than use RAM.
The wiki warns this may shorten disk life (but I think I can afford another $10 usb stick if this one fails)
Never have any buffering issues with these settings on latest SPMC.
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>0</cachemembuffersize>
<readbufferfactor>20</readbufferfactor>
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the input and tips to test out. Family is visiting right now, but shortly after the holiday I will test out. It seems there is no one-size-fits-all approach to get things working over a network with the Fire TV. Yet with my old WDTV Live player, absolutely zero issues.
I had found the settings I posted on another forum. They had the best results with zero buffering unless 1080p.
Will report back with results
gurnted said:
from kodi wiki[/URL]:
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>0</cachemembuffersize>
<readbufferfactor>20</readbufferfactor>
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, reporting back. These settings causes rebuffering every 20 seconds or so. My settings I posted above get me to about a minute in. It appears with my setup I won't be able to use this to play 1080p movies and will need to use my ancient WDTV box for that. I had high hopes but maybe XBMC just isn't set up to work as easily as the ancient WDTV's?
I hooked them up to HDMI1 and 2, tried each in succession and the WDTV plays flawlessly while the Amazon Fire TV buffers over and over again.
I may hold on to it in case someone comes up with a method or there is a special fork just for it that works better with my system.
Thank you for your easy to read analysis. It's appreciated. But it appears by googling, that many others are having my issue as well and have returned the boxes.
gurnted said:
from kodi wiki:
I am using mode 1 and caching to disk rather than use RAM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you allow kodi to cache to disk instead of RAM? Isn't the disk flash based and less likely to get worn out compared to a spinning disk? I don't know but it seems like there is nothing to wear out if isn't spinning...
If you allow it to cache to disk then if you were to pause a movie and your sd had enough space, would it download the whole movie to disk and delete when more space is needed?
If so is there a setting where we allocate a maximum amount of disk space for the temporary downloads to fill so kodi knows when to delete other cached videos?
edit: I found the answer to my questions... setting buffer size to 0 and the temp download is deleted when the video is stopped.
От: реставрация на автомобили по света и у 
I am using mode 1 and caching to disk rather than use RAM.
The wiki warns this may shorten disk life (but I think I can afford another $10 usb stick if this one fails)
Never have any buffering issues with these settings on latest SPMC.
____________
Arslan1
smithdevil1 said:
I am using mode 1 and caching to disk rather than use RAM.
The wiki warns this may shorten disk life (but I think I can afford another $10 usb stick if this one fails)
Never have any buffering issues with these settings on latest SPMC.
____________
Arslan1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you monitor your network's activity or just watch the buffer available as the greyed out area increases when you pause a video it will show much cache is building up. I have also set it to cache to disk and it does not cache very much of a video by using cache to disk.
I posted a question about this on kodi.tv They said that kodi will only cache about 1Gb of data per 3.5Gb of free disk space, as that is the amount of free space i had at the time of posting, not sure of official caching numbers. But there is no way that kodi cached a full gigabyte as it only showed network activity for a few moments when I was trying to stream the interview through kodi's youtube.
The wiki warns about disk life but I think that pertains to spinning disks that get worn out with constant use.
mychaelp said:
I've been reading forums all over the place related to the buffering issues I'm experiencing using Gotham 13.2 on my new Fire TV box.
The settings that get me the best results here: (Can't remember what forum I found them on)
<network>
<autodetectpingtime>30</autodetectpingtime>
<buffermode>3</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>708669603</cachemembuffersize>
<curllowspeedtime>5</curllowspeedtime>
<curlclienttimeout>30</curlclienttimeout>
<readbufferfactor>4.0</readbufferfactor>
</network>
The streams start really quick, but if it's 1080p, it buffers every 2 minutes 22 seconds or so. 720p works fine.
I've tried many many settings I find here and at other forums with worse results. With this one I tried the buffermode at 1 and 3.
There must be a setting I'm missing to try out.
I'm using the exact same networking connection as my old WDTV LIVE that had zero problems with these files. I just wanted to replace it with the Fire TV. Tried wired and wireless, same issues.
Thanks for any help anyone might have here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
set your advanced setting to 0 cache file, this will cache to your hard drive. You can use program such as xunity maintenance or maintenance tools to do this, just go into one of these program, i think it is under tweaks or fixes. It works great most of the time i am using this setting on my raspberry pi and on my fire tv. i have watched full 1080 movies and shows without any issue.
The buffering also depends on your internet speed. Have you try Ethernet connection if you are on wifi?
Also, test your internet speed to make sure. It also depends on the source it self, your connection may be fast enuf but the source it self is just slow or too much traffic.
Thank you
ashsha7877 said:
set your advanced setting to 0 cache file, this will cache to your hard drive. You can use program such as xunity maintenance or maintenance tools to do this, just go into one of these program, i think it is under tweaks or fixes. It works great most of the time i am using this setting on my raspberry pi and on my fire tv. i have watched full 1080 movies and shows without any issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will look into xunity maintenance since I'm new to XBMC and have not heard of it. I have a SMB share from an old laptop. Old laptop may be the reason 720p works well but not 1080p. It's just odd how the WDTV Live works perfectly. Oh, I tested wired and wireless and they both give me the same issues. I thought about buying a NAS, but I read here that many still have buffering issues.
Here are the latest settings I ended up with that give me the best results. 1080p gives a cache full error and rebuffers every 30 seconds or so. 720p is perfect. I can't recall where I found these, might have been here somewhere, or other forum. Tested way too many and getting tired of it.
<advancedsettings>
<network>
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>20971520</cachemembuffersize>
<readbufferfactor>20</readbufferfactor>
</network>
</advancedsettings>
So thank you for the information, it appears I need to read up as to what xunity is and how it might help me or where tweaks/fixes are within XBMC (hope I don't need to buy anything new).
Maybe with the popularity of the Fire TV there will be more guides on it one day. I got the box for $14 with an amazing deal so probably will keep it at least for streaming and use the ancient WDTV for movies if I can't figure this out.
mychaelp said:
I will look into xunity maintenance since I'm new to XBMC and have not heard of it. I have a SMB share from an old laptop. Old laptop may be the reason 720p works well but not 1080p. It's just odd how the WDTV Live works perfectly. Oh, I tested wired and wireless and they both give me the same issues. I thought about buying a NAS, but I read here that many still have buffering issues.
Here are the latest settings I ended up with that give me the best results. 1080p gives a cache full error and rebuffers every 30 seconds or so. 720p is perfect. I can't recall where I found these, might have been here somewhere, or other forum. Tested way too many and getting tired of it.
<advancedsettings>
<network>
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>20971520</cachemembuffersize>
<readbufferfactor>20</readbufferfactor>
</network>
</advancedsettings>
So thank you for the information, it appears I need to read up as to what xunity is and how it might help me or where tweaks/fixes are within XBMC (hope I don't need to buy anything new).
Maybe with the popularity of the Fire TV there will be more guides on it one day. I got the box for $14 with an amazing deal so probably will keep it at least for streaming and use the ancient WDTV for movies if I can't figure this out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) just add this path under file manager http://xfinity.xunitytalk.com
2) add XunityTalk_Repository
3) go to add on --> get add-ons
4) click on .xunitytalk repository
5) click on programs add-ons
5) click on xunity maintenance and install it
6) then run xunity maintenance --> tweaks --> click on "Add 2 cache advanced xml"
You can also use Maintenance Tools program which is under http://fusion.xbmchub.com (fusion) --> xbmc repos --> TVaddons repo --> program add-ons --> Maintenance Tools --> systems tweaks --> "ZERO CACHE"
here is link for advance settings....
http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache
thanks
ashsha7877 said:
1) just add this path under file manager http://xfinity.xunitytalk.com
2) add XunityTalk_Repository
3) go to add on --> get add-ons
4) click on .xunitytalk repository
5) click on programs add-ons
5) click on xunity maintenance and install it
6) then run xunity maintenance --> tweaks --> click on "Add 2 cache advanced xml"
You can also use Maintenance Tools program which is under http://fusion.xbmchub.com (fusion) --> xbmc repos --> TVaddons repo --> program add-ons --> Maintenance Tools --> systems tweaks --> "ZERO CACHE"
here is link for advance settings....
http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you certain they're still using the old xbmchub address for fusion? I used http://fusion.tvaddons.ag to set up a ouya the other day. Add-on installer installed but wouldn't work and config wizard gave a script error on 4 different builds (2 SPMC, xbmc for ouya and Gotham 13.2) Couldnt get it to work. Also I've had on & off issues with aftv even though I did get add-on installer working with helix and 13.2
Does it matter? What I mean is if fusion shows up at that point does the address used make a difference? Just trying to make sense of issues I didn't have before the hub became tvaddons.
KLit75 said:
Are you certain they're still using the old xbmchub address for fusion? I used http://fusion.tvaddons.ag to set up a ouya the other day. Add-on installer installed but wouldn't work and config wizard gave a script error on 4 different builds (2 SPMC, xbmc for ouya and Gotham 13.2) Couldnt get it to work. Also I've had on & off issues with aftv even though I did get add-on installer working with helix and 13.2
Does it matter? What I mean is if fusion shows up at that point does the address used make a difference? Just trying to make sense of issues I didn't have before the hub became tvaddons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you click on http://fusion.xbmcub.com it will take you to tvaddons so they are both good. It does not matter which one you use since both http are being pointed at one location.
on my ATFV i am using this path http://fusion.xbmcub.com and it works fine. I have used the config wizard and it is ok but i like to add the addons only i want to keep, to keep my set up clean. As far as add on installer it is generally ok but i used this file manager to add repo http://i.totalxbmc.tv this is one has all the repo in one place and easy to find, i like it better than add on installer when i want to add 3rd party repo's.
Thank you
ashsha7877 said:
1) just add this path under file manager http://xfinity.xunitytalk.com
2) add XunityTalk_Repository
3) go to add on --> get add-ons
4) click on .xunitytalk repository
5) click on programs add-ons
5) click on xunity maintenance and install it
6) then run xunity maintenance --> tweaks --> click on "Add 2 cache advanced xml"
You can also use Maintenance Tools program which is under http://fusion.xbmchub.com (fusion) --> xbmc repos --> TVaddons repo --> program add-ons --> Maintenance Tools --> systems tweaks --> "ZERO CACHE"
here is link for advance settings....
http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very good info. Thanks!
In a strange twist , I'm now having issues with a videos crashing on both aftvs, both 13.2 Gotham. This keeps occurring on 2 1080p videos. I assumed the op was trying to play movies from an add-on which could be effected by the speed of the server greatly.
No buffering for me. It plays perfect then crash. The files are 5 and 8 gb. Typically I watch tv shows and if I do play 1080p they're compressed mkvs.
I found messing with buffer size can cause other issues but can't say I've got much experience with it--didn't really need to. Would pushing a advanced settings.xml to increase buffer size help? Any other suggestions?
There really seems to be some variability and misinformation regarding this stuttering, so I wanted to share my observations by experimentation so far:
Testing setup is full switched gigabit network with FireTV at 100FDX. Server is capable of 1Gbps full throughtput and is sharing files via SMB/CIFS. The network is stable.
Test PC on wired ethernet on same switch can stream any speed up to 1G
Test PC on wireless ethernet can stream any speed up to typical speed of 802.11n @ 5Ghz double-width channels (approx 200Mbps).
Appears to only affected WIRED FireTV boxes. Switching to wireless with good signal removes the buffering issue experienced.
FireTV stick is not affected (wireless only obviously).
Only applies to large bitrate MKV files (typically 1080p @ > 20 mbit). Anything lower (e.g. 720p or less) is not affected as the low throughput via wired is able to keep up.
This affects any variant of XBMC that I've tried:
Gotham 13.2
Kodi 14.0
SPMC 13.X
Affects at least 51.1.4.0_user_514006420 & 51.1.4.1_user_514013920 versions of FireOS.
None of the internet-suggested settings for the advancedsettings.xml file appears to alleviate the issue even though there are posts suggesting otherwise.
This may be true for those users, but not for all. I can't find a commonality besides the "being wired" issue.
It may be a combination of factors (OS, settings) that produce the symptom.
I'd really like to hear comments on this. Perhaps this is a network stack issue with the FireTV. Perhaps this is a buffer handling problem. I've heard others using Plex that experience these issues as well, so perhaps this leans the issue towards something on FireOS. I'm not familiar enough with detailed network settings on this OS to diagnose.
Other observations:
Oddly, setting <cachemembuffersize>XXX</cachemembuffersize> to any value causes it to be halved when in use. I've set it to 50MB, and the cache readout shows 25MB when full. Is this right?
smartymcfly said:
The wiki warns about disk life but I think that pertains to spinning disks that get worn out with constant use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just a word of caution: this warning also pertains to flash based memory (such as the onboard storage on the FireTV). If you're caching to disk (or the sdcard, in this case), you'll wear out the flash memory rather quickly. The flash memory used in the FireTV is not designed to write/rewrite it's data all the time. It might take a couple of years (maybe 3ish), but it will eventually wear out due to high read/write operations. After that you're kinda SOL...
If you have the RAM space available, and your internet connection is fast enough, I strongly suggest using that for caching rather than disk. I'm currently evaluating the advancedsettings.xml below. For me, they've made a significant difference in my ability to stream video to my FireTV box. It will cache 150.9Mbytes of data while streaming both local and internet content (requires ~450MBytes of free RAM for XBMC). Assuming you're streaming a 5Gbyte file (that's a very high estimate, online HD video is compressed to around half that), it will cache at least 5 minutes of video. If I run into any issues I'll try upping the RAM available for caching and let you guy's know what changes I make.
Code:
<advancedsettings>
<network>
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>157286400</cachemembuffersize>
<readbufferfactor>20</readbufferfactor>
</network>
</advancedsettings>
sirwoogie said:
There really seems to be some variability and misinformation regarding this stuttering, so I wanted to share my observations by experimentation so far:
Testing setup is full switched gigabit network with FireTV at 100FDX. Server is capable of 1Gbps full throughtput and is sharing files via SMB/CIFS. The network is stable.
Test PC on wired ethernet on same switch can stream any speed up to 1G
Test PC on wireless ethernet can stream any speed up to typical speed of 802.11n @ 5Ghz double-width channels (approx 200Mbps).
Appears to only affected WIRED FireTV boxes. Switching to wireless with good signal removes the buffering issue experienced.
FireTV stick is not affected (wireless only obviously).
Only applies to large bitrate MKV files (typically 1080p @ > 20 mbit). Anything lower (e.g. 720p or less) is not affected as the low throughput via wired is able to keep up.
This affects any variant of XBMC that I've tried:
Gotham 13.2
Kodi 14.0
SPMC 13.X
Affects at least 51.1.4.0_user_514006420 & 51.1.4.1_user_514013920 versions of FireOS.
None of the internet-suggested settings for the advancedsettings.xml file appears to alleviate the issue even though there are posts suggesting otherwise.
This may be true for those users, but not for all. I can't find a commonality besides the "being wired" issue.
It may be a combination of factors (OS, settings) that produce the symptom.
I'd really like to hear comments on this. Perhaps this is a network stack issue with the FireTV. Perhaps this is a buffer handling problem. I've heard others using Plex that experience these issues as well, so perhaps this leans the issue towards something on FireOS. I'm not familiar enough with detailed network settings on this OS to diagnose.
Other observations:
Oddly, setting <cachemembuffersize>XXX</cachemembuffersize> to any value causes it to be halved when in use. I've set it to 50MB, and the cache readout shows 25MB when full. Is this right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am seeing exactly the same behaviour and have come to a similar conclusion that there maybe some hardware/OS specific issues.
I have a gigabit lan to which the fire tv is connected and experience buffering during playback of "raw" bluray mkv rips. I've tried to disable the cache/buffer but I'm not convinced if this is making any difference. I have a wired PC running the same Helix build and advancedsettings.xml file. I see from task manager that during playback the Ethernet connection bursts between 35 mbps up to 89/90 when connected at 100 mbps, and as high as 300 mbps when I've enabled gigabit speeds. This is even with the cache apparently disabled. These bursts seem to correspond with the cache filling up.
It feels like there are wired Ethernet throughput issues that when combined with the read ahead buffer result the "Buffering n%" messages. Plus the setting to disable the cache in advancedsettings.xml doesn't seem to work either due to a bug or because I'm not configuring it correctly.
sskuk said:
I am seeing exactly the same behaviour and have come to a similar conclusion that there maybe some hardware/OS specific issues.
I have a gigabit lan to which the fire tv is connected and experience buffering during playback of "raw" bluray mkv rips. I've tried to disable the cache/buffer but I'm not convinced if this is making any difference. I have a wired PC running the same Helix build and advancedsettings.xml file. I see from task manager that during playback the Ethernet connection bursts between 35 mbps up to 89/90 when connected at 100 mbps, and as high as 300 mbps when I've enabled gigabit speeds. This is even with the cache apparently disabled. These bursts seem to correspond with the cache filling up.
It feels like there are wired Ethernet throughput issues that when combined with the read ahead buffer result the "Buffering n%" messages. Plus the setting to disable the cache in advancedsettings.xml doesn't seem to work either due to a bug or because I'm not configuring it correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FYI , firetv only has a 10/100 nic so it wont get gigabit speeds.
I may have stumbled upon a fix for my buffering issues. I've checked over and over so many things these days with my network (router, modem, laptop with SMB external drive) and began moving in a different direction than just the advanced xml file (I tired about 100 options!). I looked at how to speed up serving up my files in case it really is just that simple. I found postings of editing Samba settings in the registry, but it was way beyond what I was willing to try. Then I stumbled on this blog
http://night-ray.blogspot.com/2010/03/improving-windows-xp-smb-file.html An old post from 2010 which looked promising. Since it's an old laptop I'm using I gave it a shot. Tested through 12 movies and no rebuffering yet. This may have given me just enough extra serving power to get enough data transferred. If you're brave as well and have XP (or maybe something similar can work for other versions) give it a shot.
I still have the huge buffer of 400mb someone posted in my settings but I've been clicking play about 2 seconds into it, so I probably need to adjust that down quite a bit and see how it goes.
The guy's blog is pretty interesting as I looked at it more, strange mix of topics, but I'll be writing him a thank you!
So i had the AFTV up and running for about 3 weeks and there are some great things but few annoying issues are out waving all pros in my view. I only use it for xbmc as media center. I am curious to hear how other are using and feel about it.
Pros
1) Really great hardware and Spec for $70 which is what i paid and it is hard to find anything out there with these spec, plus remote for this price.
2) xbmc is super fast so are other update, everything loads up fast.
Cons:
1) The amount of storage capacity that is actually available for usage after installing few things is 3.5gb and i don't have single game installed.
2) Recently noticed wifi and wired connection issued, unable to connect or connected with a problem. Try rebooting AFTV many times but didn't work until i rebooted my router. All my other devices were working fine except AFTV.
3) unable to view sideload apps under apps menu.
4) unable to actually shut down the box, beside unplugging the power supply
5) Remote is great but gosh it would have been awesome if it was an universal remote that would control your tv with basic functions channel and volume button instead of voice search.
6) Unable to actually use the USB as external storage, my AFTV out of the box from amazon had 4.85gb free space from (5.49 gb) and the box it self has 8gb. Yes i know you can increased your storage after you have rooted your fire tv and i have rooted but amazon has just put one too many blocks for average user.
7) Forcing auto updates to AFTV and not letting user decided if they want to update or not.
8) i am always scared something will go wrong with AFTV since so many folks have managed to brick the fire tv and there is no way to fix it.
Personally for xbmc i love my Raspberry Pi B, sure it slower and not sexy as AFTV but never has to worry about bricking it and i have this running in my living room running for over 1 year with any issues except i may have to reboot is once or twice a week cuz some addon takes for ever and i just don't have patient. It plays 1080 and 3d movies flawless once you run this things on 8gb USB 3.0 with 0 cache setting.
If Amazon goal was to use the AFTV just for there echo system than this leads me believe with future firmware updates they will remove the ability for user to side load apps. Anyone else see this as possibility?
Thank you
I have a Fire TV, a Flirc, and a vintage MX-500 universal remote clone.
The Fire is un-rooted, have OTA turned off, and I have side-loaded FiredTV, Firefox, Adobe Flash, and Kodi with 1Channel, IceFlims, and Genesis. (Two out of the three I don't even use.)
Pros
2) I've had many streaming devices. This is far and away the best hardware.
Cons
1) Did I read another post by you that the box is actually complaining about running out of storage?
EDIT: Nope. Wasn't you.
2) If you can't resolve this as a network or setup or ISP issue, I'd be concerned that your box might be defective.
3) FiredTV.
4) Flirc for sleep/wake. The majority of streaming devices are expected to stay on and either go to sleep or deep sleep. That way they wake up instantly and can accept (unauthorized) OTA updates.
5) I'm sending back a Harmony 650. But if I hadn't already had what Remote Central says is one of the best they'd ever tested, I might have kept it.
6) True. But not a show-stopper for me.
7) Turn off OTA updates. This isn't unique to the Fire TV.
8) Only happens when you dink with it. :cyclops: Not really a con though, is it?
I have a Pi B. I also have a Neo X5 and just gave my sister a Roku 3. The performance of those devices pales significantly when compared to the Fire TV. IMHO. Of all the devices I've had over the last several years, barring any defects, all were functional but useability on some was questionable. The Fire TV stands head and shoulders above the crowd in performance. Now if Amazon would only get their head out of their posterior and sell a more open device maybe "with special features," I think they'd take the market by storm. It's already their #1 selling item.
Hi folks
Got a Fire TV Stick there and have XBMC/Kodi sideloaded. I also have a QNAP NAS which is hardwired to my Virgin Superhub 2 router. When I play most of my MKV's, which are stored on the NAS, the playback is kinda sluggish/low frame rate.
Is there anything I can do to sort this for smooth playback? Does the stick just not have the power to play the MKVs? Is it the network?
takkischitt said:
Hi folks
Got a Fire TV Stick there and have XBMC/Kodi sideloaded. I also have a QNAP NAS which is hardwired to my Virgin Superhub 2 router. When I play most of my MKV's, which are stored on the NAS, the playback is kinda sluggish/low frame rate.
Is there anything I can do to sort this for smooth playback? Does the stick just not have the power to play the MKVs? Is it the network?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine plays mkv from smb shares with no problems. Are these really large files? Id suspect its a network issue. How good is the signal in the room with the stick? Maybe do a speedtest or if possible move the stick to a tv closer to the router.
KLit75 said:
Mine plays mkv from smb shares with no problems. Are these really large files? Id suspect its a network issue. How good is the signal in the room with the stick? Maybe do a speedtest or if possible move the stick to a tv closer to the router.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They range from 2-4GB in size. The router is right beside the TV, so dont think it would be a range issue. I'll check the router setting this evening to see if I can maybe change the signal frequency to get faster speeds.
But the Fire TV Stick should play MKV files smoothly, even if they're around 4GB?
Press O on a Keyboard in Kodi, while a video is playing to see both the CPU stress (in percentages), as well as the cache fill rate, dropped frames, ...
You guys are all treating this problem like you were banging on a black box. Just use the obvious diagnostic tools baked into the platforms. Act like you weren't part of the Smartphone generation that is seen as being too dumb to do any kind of problem solving using diagnostics. Start by RTFM.
harlekinrains said:
Press O on a Keyboard in Kodi, while a video is playing to see both the CPU stress (in percentages), as well as the cache fill rate, dropped frames, ...
You guys are all treating this problem like you were banging on a black box. Just use the obvious diagnostic tools baked into the platforms. Act like you weren't part of the Smartphone generation that is seen as being too dumb to do any kind of problem solving using diagnostics. Start by RTFM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This may be dumb, but how do you press O without a keyboard?
The little problems you have to solve...
Because I've leaned myself out of the window in other topics so recently - I'll just name the solution in here -
If you have an Android Phone (or tablet), or an iPhone (or iPad), or access to someone who has - install the FIre TV Remote App (or any similar app) on it and it will provide you with an on screen keyboard that can also be used to send "O" to Kodi.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amazon.storm.lightning.client.aosp&hl=en
In fact - amazon notifies you, that this App exists in the setup process of the Fire TV if I am not mistaken.
If you have only access to a PC, or Mac - there are other solutions out there. Look for them in the Kodi Wiki (xbev).
---------- Post added at 05:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:13 PM ----------
edit: it is even possible to send the O command via adb -
adb shell input text o
Next time, you try to find one of the solutions yourself, promised? Maybe even share them. Like if this place would be something else, different to a consumer product support infrastructure.
harlekinrains said:
The little problems you have to solve...
Because I've leaned myself out of the window in other topics so recently - I'll just name the solution in here -
If you have an Android Phone (or tablet), or an iPhone (or iPad), or access to someone who has - install the FIre TV Remote App (or any similar app) on it and it will provide you with an on screen keyboard that can also be used to send "O" to Kodi.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amazon.storm.lightning.client.aosp&hl=en
In fact - amazon notifies you, that this App exists in the setup process of the Fire TV if I am not mistaken.
If you have only access to a PC, or Mac - there are other solutions out there. Look for them in the Kodi Wiki (xbev).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Many thanks for the info. I completely forgot about the app, as I've just been using the remote. I'll give that a whirl later to see what it says.