Help with Kodi Box specs (cheap)

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danepak

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#203118 18-Sep-2016 13:26

Hi,

What's the cheapest specs I can get away with, if I want an Android box, which only will be used for Kodi (mainly for sports streams)?

S905 processor?

Is 2GB of ram adequate?

Would I require any storage, apart from the ROM on the device? As mentioned, it's just to watch live sports. Is 8GB Flash enough?

I'm considering these two.

This one hasn't got 5Ghz WiFi. Will it make a big difference?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-2G-8G-4K-S905X-TX5-Smart-TV-Box-Android-6-0-Quad-Core-XBMC-KODI-Fully-Loaded-/201662224024?hash=item2ef4015698:g:Y1sAAOSwFe5XxUNF

This one has 5Ghz WiFi and also 16GB Flash.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/T95Z-Plus-T95Z-Amlogic-S912-Android-6-0-TV-Box-2GB-16GB-Octa-Core-2-4GHz/32733888040.html?spm=2114.30010308.3.227.SiL20e&ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_10,searchweb201602_5_10057_10065_10056_10068_10037_10055_9982_10054_10069_301_10059_10033_10058_10032_10073_10017_10070_10060_10061_10052_10062_10053_10050_10051,searchweb201603_7&btsid=789d2033-c9d7-45ce-bbb8-4b377552cf49

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#1635416 18-Sep-2016 13:36

Raspberry Pi 2 works great. R.Pi 3 would be excellent. Both are extensively used and well support. Wired is better than WiFi.

danepak

1112 posts

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#1635417 18-Sep-2016 13:37

timmmay:

Raspberry Pi 2 works great. R.Pi 3 would be excellent. Both are extensively used and well support. Wired is better than WiFi.

Yes, but the issue is that I'm not prepared to put too much work into this and from what I understand, this is required with the Raspberry Pi.

I'm just after a plug and play option for Kodi.

BarTender

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#1635418 18-Sep-2016 13:42

Erm with a Pi you can get prebuilt SD cards loaded. Or the install process is easy.
I'm loving the Odroid C2. Like a Pi but far more powerful processor for the same price.

richms

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#1635420 18-Sep-2016 13:44

1 gig ram I find is quite slow to start to take text input - either onscreen keyboard or getting it to start happening with a USB one. The 2GB one is much better in that respect.

Also depends what other crap you want to put on it. I have put spotify and play music and tidal on it as well. Optical out quaility isnt as good as the chromecast audio sounds, but its not dropping out all the time when the controlling device leaves wifi since spotify connect is actually reliable.

Most of the crappy playback issues I have had have been from souce files that have been encoded by idiots - things like bad black levels and frame blend being applied to them, converted to 30 FPS from 25 and other nasty things, a good file has always looked great on my s905 based boxes with no dropped frames like I always see on a PC playing back.

Richard rich.ms

askelon

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#1635422 18-Sep-2016 13:50

Raspberry Pi 3. Its what I use.. Setup is so damned simple its not funny. Download the rom, stick rom onto sdcard, plug sdcard into pi. I ditched my intel NUC (Win10/Kodi) for my Pi3 running kodi and it works pretty much brilliant. Only issue is no IR port - fixed by using Yatse for Android on my phone. Much nicer than a dedicated remote.

danepak

1112 posts

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#1635424 18-Sep-2016 13:53

richms:

Also depends what other crap you want to put on it.

This will solely be used for Kodi to watch live TV.

danepak

1112 posts

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#1635426 18-Sep-2016 13:57

OK, fair enough. I might want to check the Raspberry Pi 3 out then.

What if I want to run VPN through this thing.

And also, as the TV is about 6 metres from the router, I won't be able to hardwire the Raspberry Pi 3. Will that be an issue?

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richms

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#1635427 18-Sep-2016 14:02

Raspberry pi 3's inbuilt wifi is hopeless when I tried it out. Plenty of cheap dual band sticks will just work on it, only N ones. Not found an AC one that just plugs in and works yet.

Richard rich.ms

danepak

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#1635430 18-Sep-2016 14:09

richms:

Raspberry pi 3's inbuilt wifi is hopeless when I tried it out. Plenty of cheap dual band sticks will just work on it, only N ones. Not found an AC one that just plugs in and works yet.

My router is an AC one.

richms

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#1635431 18-Sep-2016 14:13

N is fine for streaming low bitrate pirated internet streams. Its bluray rips that start to show the limits of it.

edit: 5GHz N is fine. 2.4GHz is possibly ok, but I found the reception on the pi 3's onboard wifi was too bad to get enough thruput to even make apt-get downloads hit my lousy VDSL line speeds and it was very laggy with many timeouts.

Richard rich.ms

danepak

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#1635432 18-Sep-2016 14:19

richms:

N is fine for streaming low bitrate pirated internet streams. Its bluray rips that start to show the limits of it.

edit: 5GHz N is fine. 2.4GHz is possibly ok, but I found the reception on the pi 3's onboard wifi was too bad to get enough thruput to even make apt-get downloads hit my lousy VDSL line speeds and it was very laggy with many timeouts.

The streams I tend to watch are of high quality (in HD).

danepak

1112 posts

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#1635434 18-Sep-2016 14:21

Or would something like an Amazon Fire Stick be a good idea?

Paparangi

166 posts

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#1635448 18-Sep-2016 15:13

I use a Amazon Fire Stick for this myself, does a pretty good job, crashes sometimes but not that often (maybe once a month?). Apparently a new Fire Stick is coming out very soon so might be worth while holding off a couple of weeks.

ajw

1932 posts

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#1635468 18-Sep-2016 15:39

I bought this to use netflix but also has Kodi and has a updater and access to the google play store. Very happy with it.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Android-Tv-Box-2GB-8GB-Built-in-2-4G-5G-WiFi-Amlogic-S905-KODI-16-0/608605_32690605120.html?spm=2114.10010108.1000023.2.JCoszt

driller2000

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#1635471 18-Sep-2016 15:49

I have an s905 box http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_321408.html and it plays everything i have thrown at it via Kodi - up to and incl much of the 4k content I have. Have installed various addons eg. Exodus /SportsDevil and these work great too.

Would recommend you have a mouse and keyboard plugged in as it makes it a lot more functional with some apps. (Kodi is 90% good without a kb/mouse)

Also has access to full Play store so you can dl other apps / games etc and it does an OK job with these as well.

Given it can be had for $70nzd landed it is pretty good value. Great as my 2nd streamer - 1st being an Nvidia Shield TV which really is awesome and worth the premium paid as it means I have all HD Audio formats incl Atmos via SPMC (a Kodi fork)

Note: There are other boxes available - S905X which in theory incl HDR and Dolby licenses etc - which may be worth a look subject to actual testing/reviews - this site tends to be a good starting place for such things: http://www.cnx-software.com/

And there are also S912 boxes out which should be better again - ignoring first to market beta boxes.

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