My Minix x8-H just dies, need advice for a new box

[touch]

As the title says, my Minix Neo X8-H died last night after a couple of years of faithful service. I've been pretty happy with it and thought I'd buy a new Minix box.

I've been looking at the X8-H Plus and the Minix Neo U1, the U1 being the latest and greatest from Minix.

They are priced very similarly at around 4.500 Baht and the U1 "should" be the better box having a newer chipset.

I'm not interested in 4K so that isn't a consideration.

I would buy the U1 at this moment if I hadn't read a review last night that it didn't playback live TV well. Apart from downloaded content I'm watching the NBA in Chrome and other content using various apps for live

720p and 1080p content.

Sound is also a concern, I need passthrough for DTS and other multichannel content

X265 support should be OK on both devices and although I hardly ever watch any 3D content it would be nice to have.

I need to buy a box from Lazada today or latest tomorrow.

Does anyone have any experience of the U1 compared to the x8 H+?

Is there any real world difference between the Octo core Mali gpu in the h+ and penta core Mali in the U1?

You're input would be appreciated

Edited July 25, 2016 by touch

[trd]

I would get the Minix Z64 running Windows. Why bother with android when you can have a proper OS. I have a very old Minix mini running android and then got a Z64 about a year ago. What a great choice. It runs and boots faster than my desktop machine. It has Win 8.1. the new ones are preinstalled with Win 10.

[Berty100]

I have a Minix X8 H plus and two Beelink M18, at less than half the price of the Minix.

The Beelinks have a better chip, have Android 5.1, and are incredibly fast compared to the Minix

[muratremix]

If you like DIY, you can buy orange pi pc / orange pi pc plus (with wifi) for 23 / 28 usd with casing and adapter.

There is openelec / kodi distro with HW accelerated video decoding.

4500 baht is overkill for such boxes. You can buy a mini pc with intel atom / celeron cpu for this money (and run openelec / kodi on usb 2gb stick)

[HooHaa]

Personally I'd go for the U1, why bother with Windows nonsense, spy ware and updates for a media box.

[touch]

Thanks

As i said I've been happy with my Minix Neo X8-H until it died and will buy either the H+ or the U1

[Linesy]

I have both the U1 (Lollipop) and X8 H-Plus (Kit Kat).

Both good units and never had any major problems except for a minor issue with the U1 when using Thaiexpat TV, 365 Sport and Expatpremium android apps.

On the X8 H-Plus everything works fine but on the U1 it tends to freeze on buffering requiring me to toggle Pause/Play to unfreeze. I do not know if this is an issue with the U1, Lollipop or the apps as they all seem the same. The U1 performs well with Kodi and YouTube live steaming.

A good first hand user source for info is the www.minixforum.com or use Tapatalk. Loads of info on "pass through" app compatibility etc.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Linesy

[Linesy]

I have a Minix X8 H plus and two Beelink M18, at less than half the price of the Minix.

The Beelinks have a better chip, have Android 5.1, and are incredibly fast compared to the Minix

The Beelink M18 does look quite good and might consider it for the spare room, available on Aliexress but couldn't find it on Lazada Thailand. Edited July 25, 2016 by Linesy

[Chicog]

NVidia Shield.

[Berty100]

I have a Minix X8 H plus and two Beelink M18, at less than half the price of the Minix.

The Beelinks have a better chip, have Android 5.1, and are incredibly fast compared to the Minix

The Beelink M18 does look quite good and might consider it for the spare room, available on Aliexress but couldn't find it on Lazada Thailand.

Available from Gearbest or Geekbuying for around 50$

[WhizBang]

I had the X5-H Plus and it worked very well, no real complaints. I now use the U1 which I also like, but I only watch movies and other video from attached external drives. I upgraded from the X8-H Plus becuse the U1 has better 4K capabilities. I own about 5 4K capable cameras and need to be able to play back to a 4K SUHD TV. The U1 also supports 4K60p, which the X8-H Plus did not.

I use a Toslink (optical) cable to do passthrough audio to my surround system. Pretty straight forward once you get all the settings right in the Minix menus.

So far no complaints, but there are some issues with the hardware acceleration. I find it is necessary to select only one (not all 3) to get smooth playback. Selecting all 3 seems to confuse it. Other than that rather minor issue, no problems.

Oh, I bought my Minix boxes in Fortune (2nd floor), in case you are interested.

Edited July 25, 2016 by WhizBang

[Linesy]

I have both the U1 (Lollipop) and X8 H-Plus (Kit Kat).

Both good units and never had any major problems except for a minor issue with the U1 when using Thaiexpat TV, 365 Sport and Expatpremium android apps.

On the X8 H-Plus everything works fine but on the U1 it tends to freeze on buffering requiring me to toggle Pause/Play to unfreeze. I do not know if this is an issue with the U1, Lollipop or the apps as they all seem the same. The U1 performs well with Kodi and YouTube live steaming.

A good first hand user source for info is the www.minixforum.com or use Tapatalk. Loads of info on "pass through" app compatibility etc.

I should have done this before now but I just carried out a test of the Thaiexpat TV app on my daughters Android Lollipop tablet and it doesn't work very well so it would appear that the problem is not with the U1 but with the compatibility of the apps mentioned on a Lollipop device and I wouldn't hold out much hope that they will update their apps while they are still flogging their Kit Kat boxes.

[touch]

Whizbang and Linesy and others,

Thanks for all your advise. I'm going to order the U1. I hope it works as well as my old x8-H did

[touch]

@Whizbang What settings do you mean by this "to select only one (not all 3) to get smooth playback."? Do you mean in Minix or in Kodi?

[Berty100]

@Whizbang What settings do you mean by this "to select only one (not all 3) to get smooth playback."? Do you mean in Minix or in Kodi?

Those settings are in Kodi. System>Video>acceleration

For Live steam it is best to disable the first 2, but for recorded Movie streaming it's better to have all 3 enabled.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Berty100

[touch]

OK thank you

Yeah KODI I never seem to be getting it to work properly and reliably with live sports.

Am using Ccloud at the moment, but it's not real good on Live US sports. I guess I have to look for something for the Olympics too.

Anyway, waiting for the U1 now, got it for 4.176B after a 7% coupon.

Thanks all

[Berty100]

OK thank you

Yeah KODI I never seem to be getting it to work properly and reliably with live sports.

Am using Ccloud at the moment, but it's not real good on Live US sports. I guess I have to look for something for the Olympics too.

Anyway, waiting for the U1 now, got it for 4.176B after a 7% coupon.

Thanks all

Try Adrian Sports or AK47 for live sports.

[touch]

I will you

[trd]

Personally I'd go for the U1, why bother with Windows nonsense, spy ware and updates for a media box.

Strangely enough, in all the years I've been using Windows for both personal and business use, I never once got up in the morning and thought to myself, I must download some spyware today. I spent 5000 baht for a Minix running Windows instead of Android. You don't know what you're missing. I am sitting here with chrome, utorrent, Kodi and several other programs open with true multitasking easily switching from one to the other. And with Windows you get proper software not apps for phones. Compare utorrent for Android and utorrent for Windows for instance. No contest with the simple cut down version you get as an app. Video runs perfectly and I use Kodi remote on my android phone to control the Windows Minix. I agree that if you're just playing videos then there's nothing wrong with android, but when you want to do more from time to time, then Windows comes into its own as a powerful and flexible OS with proper grown up software.

[touch]

OK thank you

Yeah KODI I never seem to be getting it to work properly and reliably with live sports.

Am using Ccloud at the moment, but it's not real good on Live US sports. I guess I have to look for something for the Olympics too.

Anyway, waiting for the U1 now, got it for 4.176B after a 7% coupon.

Thanks all

Try Adrian Sports or AK47 for live sports.

[touch]

OK thank you

Yeah KODI I never seem to be getting it to work properly and reliably with live sports.

Am using Ccloud at the moment, but it's not real good on Live US sports. I guess I have to look for something for the Olympics too.

Anyway, waiting for the U1 now, got it for 4.176B after a 7% coupon.

Thanks all

Try Adrian Sports or AK47 for live sports.

Thanks bertie I got ak47 to work just fine, but there seems to be a problem with Adrian sports. I saw a message flash by with something about "wrong structure"

Any ideas?

[Berty100]

OK thank you

Yeah KODI I never seem to be getting it to work properly and reliably with live sports.

Am using Ccloud at the moment, but it's not real good on Live US sports. I guess I have to look for something for the Olympics too.

Anyway, waiting for the U1 now, got it for 4.176B after a 7% coupon.

Thanks all

Try Adrian Sports or AK47 for live sports.

Thanks bertie I got ak47 to work just fine, but there seems to be a problem with Adrian sports. I saw a message flash by with something about "wrong structure"

Any ideas?

Adrian sports requires to have the F4M tester addon to be installed. Some streams seem to be down at the moment.

For the Ace streams you need Plexus with integrated ace streams installed, but I haven't succeeded in that getting to work.

[touch]

I've got the f4m tester installed, but I can't get Adrian to install. It says something about wrong structure of the repo.i got my instructions from here https://seo-michael.co.uk/how-to-install-adrian-sports-kodi/

[Berty100]

No idea really, try uninstall repo, clear cache and purge packages, then reinstall repo.

Repo is version 1.0.1 and addon is version 1.0.9

[HooHaa]

NVidia Shield.

yes, for more money it would be my choice.

the main draw for me would be hd netflix as it is google certified.

the minix or generic android boxes dont have and cant get google certification to show netflix in HD.

[Berty100]

NVidia Shield.

yes, for more money it would be my choice.

the main draw for me would be hd netflix as it is google certified.

the minix or generic android boxes dont have and cant get google certification to show netflix in HD.

But who bothers with Netflix when he has a Android box with Kodi installed.

[touch]

No idea really, try uninstall repo, clear cache and purge packages, then reinstall repo.

Repo is version 1.0.1 and addon is version 1.0.9

I'll try that. Do you have it up and running?

After the first day the U1 seems to be really good. It's faster and with better wifi than the X8-H,otherwise it's not that different.

[Berty100]

No idea really, try uninstall repo, clear cache and purge packages, then reinstall repo.

Repo is version 1.0.1 and addon is version 1.0.9

I'll try that. Do you have it up and running?

After the first day the U1 seems to be really good. It's faster and with better wifi than the X8-H,otherwise it's not that different.

It's running fine for me, double checked yesterday after your post, and some streams were down but that is a normal occurrence with any free addon but others loading fine.

[touch]

OK tried Adrian sports again. Didn't work. It still says corrupted file structure

[Berty100]

OK tried Adrian sports again. Didn't work. It still says corrupted file structure

Try installing through the Noobsand Nerds community portal. Use the back up option.