Android box first time user experience

[SCS]

Hello everybody

 

Just have to put this up ...

Heard about and had "hands-on" on the android box at my good friend "Ban Farang Restaurant" in Thapklo, Phitchit, and that

https://www.facebook.com/InternetTVThailand/

could deliver a fine box and some service on top of it too.

I ordered one with preinstalled add-on's of news, film and the Scandinavian collection plus some extended service for a very fair price.

Was unlucky getting an "anniversary remote" in the box (i.a. it only worked every 25 th. time) but was changed to a i7 Rii mini that works perfectly ( though I'll never be a good Wii player).

 

So all-in-all a good and positive experience ...

only to be recommended.

[Encid]

6 hours ago, SCS said:

could deliver a fine box and some service on top of it too.

A lot of people knock service or support, but I for one am quite happy to have it.

I am not going to be scouring the web for new locations when addons change... I bought from an expert who does that for all his customers.

Since I bought my boxes I have had several updates to addons as well as a major update from Kodi 16.5 to 17.1, and his build was updated too.

All of this was done remotely too over the internet.

The Media Centre works perfectly, and for a few baht more I think that service/support is worth it so I don't have to bother.

 

Nice to hear a positive story on TV for a change.

[Mooner]

Would be interesting to know the costs of these services and supports and see how they compare to something like pulse, iview etc.

[janclaes47]

17 hours ago, Mooner said:

Would be interesting to know the costs of these services and supports and see how they compare to something like pulse, iview etc.

I don't think they are comparable at all, because pulse, iview or any other of those monthly subscriptions I know about offer hands on support over remote.

 

There is a difference between support by email and someone who logs in to your box an makes the changes.

 

By the way, Pulse is charges you every month for something that is available for free, while what Encid is talking about is a one off payment for a support service.

 

All the content is free.

 

 

 

[Encid]

17 hours ago, Mooner said:

Would be interesting to know the costs of these services and supports and see how they compare to something like pulse, iview etc.

If you look at the link in the OP you will see the following:

"We custom make Internet TV boxes. Boxes including one year support start at 6199 baht. No monthly fee."

That is similar to what I paid.

 

Compare that with the 2500 baht per month I was paying for 2 x TrueVisions Platinum subscriptions and I have recovered my investment within 3 months and I have a year of support.

[janclaes47]

On 4/15/2017 at 11:28 AM, SCS said:

 

Hello everybody

 

Just have to put this up ...

Heard about and had "hands-on" on the android box at my good friend "Ban Farang Restaurant" in Thapklo, Phitchit, and that

https://www.facebook.com/InternetTVThailand/

could deliver a fine box and some service on top of it too.

I ordered one with preinstalled add-on's of news, film and the Scandinavian collection plus some extended service for a very fair price.

Was unlucky getting an "anniversary remote" in the box (i.a. it only worked every 25 th. time) but was changed to a i7 Rii mini that works perfectly ( though I'll never be a good Wii player).

 

So all-in-all a good and positive experience ...

only to be recommended.

 

 

OP, I hope you didn't bought, or paid 6199 Baht for the box in the picture, because that would mean you were fooled.

 

M8S is a Amlogic S812 processor box, which comes original with Android Kitkat 4.4, because Android 5.1 isn't supported by Amlogic for the S812.

 

What some Chines manufacturers have done is got hold of the BETA firmware Amlogic developed and uploaded that to their boxes, but it's full of bugs. Kodi 17.1 can be installed, but DRM is broken and HD audio pass through doesn't work among a few other bugs, so Kodi 17.1 isn't fully functional.

 

Since Amlogic halted the Android 5 project for the S812, it will never be fixed.

 

If the box came with still Android 4.4 installed it's even worse, because Kodi 17.1 can't be installed at all, and the box will soon be a paper weight.

 

 

 

[johng]

Why will it be a paper weight ?
Just install/keep
Kodi 16 (Jarvis)
Or Kodi 15 (Isengard)

I'm still running XBMC 13.1 final on my "paper weight"

[janclaes47]

1 minute ago, johng said:

Why will it be a paper weight ?
Just install/keep
Kodi 16 (Jarvis)
Or Kodi 15 (Isengard)

I'm still running XBMC 13.1 final on my "paper weight"

 

Depends what you use it for, many of the new addons will not install any more on Kodi 15 or XBMC 13.1, because dependencies not met.

 

If they were installed before, most of them will still work, but will not be able to update anymore.

 

With Kodi 17.1 released now this will only get a bigger issue, because Kodi 17.1 uses a different API than earlier versions.

 

Developers of the 3rd party addons develop their addons for a specific Kodi version.

 

Many sources now switch to SSL, because of the security, which is only available in Kodi 17.1.

 

You will see now already that in Kodi 16.1 you miss out on a lot of sources for HD movies, and certain live streams don't work at all. This will only worse in the near future.

[Encid]

I was running Kodi 16.5 and found that my video addons (Exodus and Specto in particular) were no longer finding 1080p and HD sources.

They had migrated to SSL which is not supported by versions of Kodi which are less than 17.

I upgraded to 17.1 and now have tons of 1080p and HD sources again.

[johng]

I must admit that maybe I don't
use XBMC in a "normal" way
And I certainly don't recommend this for a first time user but....
My Movies and series are downloaded and stored on a NAS server. IMDB and TVDB scraped for plot and artwork and the Mysql database is also stored on the NAS
The only add-on I depend upon is the PVR IPTV simple client
To play a homebrew M3u8 playlist (for mostly Filmon channels)
combined with EPG data made by another program called WebGrabPlus...its by no means automatic but I only download what I want in a small file size (720P)
Having a local copy is good for when the internet is down and when something stops working
Can mostly fix it myself (with Google's help of course)
I don't have to depend on someone to update their add-on or install their repository or build or continually update XBMC/Kodi to the latest and greatest version...not knowing what will break or even if the hardware is supported anymore.

[JHolmesJr]

for a first time user, OP did well…these things are darn confusing.

 

Knowing what I do now, I would never buy a pre-loaded box as I don't know what crap they have put on there.

Plus the heaps of stuff I will never need.

 

Better to get a good quality box you can trust and only load what you need.

[JHolmesJr]

22 hours ago, Encid said:

I was running Kodi 16.5 and found that my video addons (Exodus and Specto in particular) were no longer finding 1080p and HD sources.

They had migrated to SSL which is not supported by versions of Kodi which are less than 17.

I upgraded to 17.1 and now have tons of 1080p and HD sources again.

 

I wonder if SPMC (the android-specific fork of Kodi, developed by Koying) shows SSL links and HD sources?

[Jai Dee]

4 hours ago, JHolmesJr said:

 

I wonder if SPMC (the android-specific fork of Kodi, developed by Koying) shows SSL links and HD sources?

I think 16.5-5 is the latest version of SPMC and no, SSL is not supported.

[JHolmesJr]

thanks…i researched a bit and it seems the fork with SSL (thanks to upgraded version of python) is FTMC….freak tab media centre.

 

but you have to uninstal jarvis to use it.

 

not sure if Im up to setting up all my add ons etc all over again…..will have to research if i can just back up my jarvis data and import it into FTMC.

[Jai Dee]

I found this information on FTMC for you.

 

Some interesting comments in there:

 

FTMC is a fork of Kodi 16.1 Jarvis that has taken parts of both Kodi 17 Krypton and SPMC. They’ve upgraded the parts of Kodi 16 Jarvis that weren’t compatible with the newer HTTPS protocols, thus resulting in a version of Kodi 16.1 Jarvis that is still operational for the time being.

 

Before we go, we’re going to once again say it, this isn’t a proper solution, technology improves and older versions of Kodi won’t be able to keep up for much longer. It works for now but that’s really only for now.

[Stocky]

But given the cost of a new box it's no great expense just to buy a new one every 18 months to 2 years. Given I was previously paying True about Bht2,000 a month, spending 3 to 4k on the latest Android box every 18 to 24 months is a good deal.  The technology and software moves so rapidly there can be no realistic long term hardware solution.

[WorriedNoodle]

On 4/17/2017 at 5:10 PM, Jai Dee said:

I think 16.5-5 is the latest version of SPMC

SPMC only goes to 16.4 for those using Android 4.4+. Otherwise need to upgrade Android I think?

[Jai Dee]

5 minutes ago, WorriedNoodle said:

SPMC only goes to 16.4 for those using Android 4.4+. Otherwise need to upgrade Android I think?

 

Correct. you need Android 5.0+ for SPMC 16.5-5.

 

SPMC 16.5-5