Minix Neo Z64 as a HTPC (running Windows 8.1 with Bing)

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littleheaven

2130 posts

Uber Geek

#171999 8-May-2015 01:23

My little Minix PC arrived today and I've plugged it in to the TV and had a bit of a play. So far reasonably happy with it. It's pretty responsive while navigating through all the programmes and menus. It took a while to run all the Windows updates but no more than an hour. The Air Keyboard iPad app isn't working that well with it so I'll probably need to invest in a wireless media keyboard with trackpad, though I'm hopeful my Harmony remote might work with some of the apps. Streaming is a bit choppy from TVNZ and Lightbox, but I had 1080p content from YouTube streaming flawlessly, so that's likely down to issues with Flash and Silverlight rather than the device. It was watchable but obvious frames were dropping here and there. It'll do what I wanted, which is stream from TVNZ/TV3 on demand, browse the web, etc. I've installed Kodi and Plex but am yet to try them out. At the moment I feel like I got my $200 worth.

If anyone has any questions or wants me to try something on it, let me know.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

tanivula

992 posts

Ultimate Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1300352 8-May-2015 07:55

Cool, I've had a play with a PIPO X7, which I think has the same internals.... Anyways, looking through a few forums there is definitely issues with silverlight (not GPU accelerated or works very well multi threaded?) which causes streaming issues.

Yeah, windows updates took a wee while, but it's pretty impressive what these little boxes can do.

littleheaven

2130 posts

Uber Geek

#1300657 8-May-2015 13:13

I think maybe the Pipo has a slightly better processor, from memory, but is pretty similarly specced in most regards. It astonishes me that you can basically get a fully-functioning computer for $200. I remember my first one (an IBM Pentium II if I remember correctly) cost several thousand, had a 666Mhz processor, 256MB of RAM, and a 15GB hard drive. Oh, and dial-up internet. Anyway, it's a good little gap-filler while I wait to see what wonders come along with the new Apple TV and/or Freeview Plus.

Looking forward to trying out Plex and Kodi this weekend.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

littleheaven

2130 posts

Uber Geek

#1301297 9-May-2015 21:39

Installed Plex Home Theatre client on it today, with the server running on my big Mac Pro upstairs. So far it's worked perfectly. I streamed a 1080p H.264 file which played smoothly. I didn't intend to use the Neo this way as my home theatre system also streams from the Mac, but the Plex interface is so much nicer, I might switch. While I think Plex might be a better option than Kodi because it does the heavy lifting at the server end, but I'll give Kodi a run as well, just to see how it does. Plus, it's probably worth having for the add-ons alone.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

MikeAqua

7785 posts

Uber Geek

#1317859 5-Jun-2015 12:23

Hi can you clarify if the IR reciever works on these windows units? One of the reviews I have seen say it does not.

Mike

littleheaven

2130 posts

Uber Geek

#1318192 5-Jun-2015 21:31

So far I have not managed to find a way to make it work. I'm just using my wireless media keyboard to drive Plex, using the arrow and enter keys. I'm not sure if it's because the IR isn't physically connected or whether the drivers were never installed in this version.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.