I have a friend across the pond, and I want to get them an android TV box for christmas. If they were American I'd get them the ONN streaming box(https://www.walmart.com/ip/onn-Android-TV-UHD-Streaming-Device/636597403) as a reference. I probably need to get it from ebay as well
Hey everyone, new here so forgive me If I am in the wrong place. I have been using the 4K Amazon FireTV Cube Gen 2 (one upstairs and one downstairs) with Kodi 19.1 with Seren as my primary add-on of choice for TV and movies. I am also using Arctic Zephyr Reloaded at this time but have tried skins like Cosmic, Arctic Zephyr, and similar. I find that upon opening Kodi, no matter what skin, there is about 2 minutes of wait time for all the AutoWidget widgets to load and such. I experience no lag with playback but the interface usage is like a 3/5 in terms of smoothness and ease for mostly all skins with configured widgets. Loading universal searches and things takes about 1-2 min regardless of skin choice too. (obviously with my PC this is all nearly instant). I see for benchmarks that the Amazon Fire Cube 2nd gen and the Shield 2 are reeeeally close in performance.
Is there any off brand device, recommendations for devices, or anything of the sort that you guys recommend for a smoother, faster user interface experience particularly for Kodi? Looking to keep it in the realm of a portable box/stick/device of the sort (laptop / desktop to go isn't as idea).
Thanks.
OK, got this device a couple of days ago - but am running into several issues.
Aside from frustration #1, how can I deal with 2 & 3? Any thoughts?
Would an Nvidia Shield Pro (also running Android 9 Pie) have these same issues?
Hello everyone,
I am from Italy.
I've got an old CGE 12" B/W TV that I'm quite attached to because it has been with me since my childhood, I find it has a great design (even better than Algol's in my opinion) and, most of all, it has been drawn by my grandfather who worked as a technical designer at CGE back then.
When the UHF switch-off took place in Italy in 2011 I bought a DVB-T decoder with a UHF modulator in it. Now, since DVB-T switch-off is coming soon as well, I wanted to attempt something bolder to keep it working.
As far as I know my TV has been produced in the early 70s, it has no video input and has two 300ohms antenna inputs with proprietary socket (UHF and VHF).
Many years ago my grandfather had built a 75ohm coaxial adaptor with splitter for using the roof antenna, using his company's materials. Unfortunately that adaptor is in very bad conditions: its proprietary pre-wired connectors have the tendency to fall apart: luckily I found a couple of those for replacement at home and I used one for this project.
I thought to use the space for batteries (yes, it used to run on 12V batteries as well) for sticking in an Android TV box and an UHF modulator.
My idea was using the integrated modulator from my DVB-T decoder, which is going to become useless soon and is very tiny too. I wasn't able to find any schematics of it but a very generic one that I used to identify audio, video and 5V power inputs. Unfortunately I couldn't get the modulator working by those inputs alone, since it requires a couple more contacts (with some 3V between them) that might be necessary for tuning or something else that I ignore. So this required to use the whole logic board from my decoder, and its power supply as well, with huge space privation.
To be honest I found some modulators for sale, but this is a low budget project so I'd better arrange it with what I already have.
I wanted to use my decoder's native SCART inputs for audio and video but it wasn't possible because it required RGB signal and I only had composite one (standard AV): so I had to separate contacts between the modulator and the logic board for using them as I wanted to.
Unfortunately most of the space was gone for the modulator and the power supply, and very few was left for the actual Android TV: I chose an unbranded HDMI stick that I had to combine with one of those cheap horrible HDMI2AV converters.
For the UHF signal I found for sale some odd 300ohm-75ohm converters that, once tried, in two words, just work.
For connecting my modulator to the HDMI2AV I used one of those "DIY" contacts with screws at one side and a female 3.5mm (2p+g) jack at the other, which I connected a 3.5mm-RCA cable to. I had to use one connector only for audio because my modulator is mono and my TV has actually one central speaker only. I hope to solve this problem software-side.
Talking about power, luckily my decoder's power supply had a 5V output as well, so I was able to connect to it both the Android TV and the HDMI2AV. I connected the power supply directly to TV's 220V line (after the power switch) because it was easy, and also because in this way I would avoid any interference that I might get if connecting to TV's 12V line and using a DC/DC step-down to get 5V.
It was definitely not easy to stick everything into the battery slot but in the end I managed, and the result is working.
I'm not sure why, but the signal came way too bright on the screen, maybe because of the HDMI2AV converter, but I solved the problem with an app for adjusting brightness. I have to find a way to run it at boot.
I installed VLC and my national broadcaster's IPTV app and I am so happy with the result that I wanted to share it with you.
Total project cost: 40€, 30€ for the Android TV stick and 10€ for cables, converters and adaptors.
I still have to do software-side:
- mono audio: my Android TV seems not to have the mono audio option, so I can only listen to one channel so far, even if it's not a problem for most of applications;
- brigthness adjustment: I only found an app that actually works (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bluelightfilter&hl=it&gl=US): the issue here is that it can't start on boot so I have to manually start it and enable the option, and it is a little tricky;
- manual DNS setting: on static IP settings I can't modify DNS configuration to AdGuard DNS (it doesn't memorize it when I change it) so I have to use a third party app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.frostnerd.dnschanger&hl=it&gl=US) that I have to start manually like above;
- changing boot animation: I can't find those files I need to replace that any online guide I found talks about (/system/media/bootanimation.zip).
I hope I haven't get you bored with my post. In case, I haven't done it on purpose.
Here you'll find some pictures of the project: https://imgur.com/a/EZYIO4k