[kennysmooth]

I'm currently thinking about getting a box to run XBMC to replace my current home theater setup as well as replace my cable box.

These box's will solely be used to run XBMC and play videos from my NAS server at home as well as play Live-TV streams.

Considering as all these are in the same price range ($~80-100) I was hoping to get some feedback as which does a better job at playing files from my network and streaming content.

Im thinking of the Apple TV Gen2, The G-Box Midnight MX2 and the Pivos running linux with XBMC.

Any other recommendations are also appreciated! Thanks

[Ned Scott]

Gbox MX < ATV2 < Pivos XIOS with Linux

Also, no navi-x discussion per forum rules (wiki).

[kennysmooth]

Gbox MX < ATV2 < Pivos XIOS with Linux

Also, no navi-x discussion per forum rules (wiki).

I see, so you recommend Pivos XIOS over the other two?

[baruchin]

I have an Apple TV 2, and everything was fine until Frodo. Then a memory leak still not fixed has made it slow and a little unstable with any other skin not being the default Confluence, also playing some 720p files may cause annoying crashes sometimes.

So, I decided to try the Pivos XIOS just three weeks ago. Linux distro is absolutely the way to go. It works fine. XBMC GUI feels fast, not blazing fast, but faster than the Apple TV. The thing is, Linux on the Pivos XIOS is still beta, and you definitely will encounter some issues and strange behavior. Not deal brakers, but certainly feels the 'beta' stage.

So, wrapping up:

Apple TV is slow, but knowing its Frodo limitations, it's stable, for now, because XBMC development and progress seems that soon will make the old and slow Apple TV hardware not being able to handle XBMC in the near future.

Pivos XIOS (Linux) is faster, but definitely feels beta. The good news is that it has a growing community and XBMC devs support, so I'm sure that many of the weird issues and bugs will get fixed with future software updates.

Don't know too much of G-box Midnight, but reviews are not very good.

A fourth option that I would consider, could be the new Ouya console. Many people are saying great things about it.

[milli]

I have ATV2 and checked out other two. Xios is better than other two but it has its own issues with high bit rate HD videos. The xios support is as good as the xbmc community support and don't expect any better support though you pay for it. It depends on what kinds of videos you would like to stream from nas which would determine the deal breaker criteria.

[Xeno43]

Insert obligatory raspberry pi recommendation here.

But seriously, it plays 1080P perfectly and cost $40 including a case from element14. And it can't be easier to set up, just write an image of openelec to an sdcard (or xbian). It plays my god tier avatar rip perfectly (I swear it must have been done with CQ 14 its like 25GB).

[Ned Scott]

Gbox MX < ATV2 < Pivos XIOS with Linux

Also, no navi-x discussion per forum rules (wiki).

I see, so you recommend Pivos XIOS over the other two?

If those three were my only choice, yes.

In that price range, OUYA and DIY Intel Celeron systems are good to consider as well. I own both an ATV2 and an XIOS, and the XIOS is a good box. I would not recommend buying an ATV2, due to cost and performance under the latest iOS versions. I hear lots of bad things about the gbox MX.

My personal favorite still remains my ATV1 + BCHD (wiki) + Crystalbuntu (wiki), but those are really hard to come by in good condition and for a fair price. eBay prices right now are unreasonable for the ATV1.

[Iamfreetofly]

+1 for pivos xios w/ Linux....however, u may have to consider swapping out the remote or using a wireless usb touchpad\remote... I also own an ATV2, and just like Ned Scott said, the cost is overwhelming now and performace with the latest iOS versions is lacking..

[Packetcrypt]

I own a ATV2, EnjoyTv520, Pivos and a Jynxbox. My ATV2 still runs better then the other 3 and have not even had to tinker with it in over a year as it runs perfectly. The EnjoyTv520 runs very well and plays everything in the native xbmc player..its nice to actually have a box that I can use the android system on as well. I was very disappointed in the Pivos and Jynxbox as they were very slow and using them for android was a joke. I was ready to get rid of them until I flashed them to Linux and now they run ok but not worth the $ compared to other units.

In my opinion I would stay away from both Pivos and Jynxbox until they release better hardware. The EnjoyTv520 is dual core and runs so much smoother and sells for $80. From looking at performance reviews the Gbox MX2 seems to be one of the best boxes out right now and they are only $99.

[clayfree]

+1 for pivos xios w/ Linux....however, u may have to consider swapping out the remote or using a wireless usb touchpad\remote... I also own an ATV2, and just like Ned Scott said, the cost is overwhelming now and performace with the latest iOS versions is lacking..

+1 Agree

Longtime owner of 3 ATV2's. Over the past weeks I have tried Raspberry Pi, G-Box MX2 & Pivos Xios DS. Since version 12 of xbmc I have wanted to roll dvr into my system(ATSC/Mpg2) but the lack of support in the ATV's meant I need to look at other hardware. The jailbreak/upgrade situation also became too much of a hassle. What I loved about the ATV's was the size and cost. So I tried 3 solutions. Please note I had limited time with each so take my comments with a grain of salt:

Raspberry Pi: I loved the size and price and the openelec build ran great! It is not the fastest client but seemed very stable. In the end I was looking at the Pi, a case, SD card, power supply, usb IR receiver, usb thumb drive for metadata, possibly overclocking and needing a powered usb hub. With all the accessories the Rpi approached the price of some other more powerful all in one boxes. It was very stable and even did well with live tv. I'm amazed at what the little box can do. Some really great work from the developers.

G-Box MX2: Great specs and nice box. There is not Linux build for this yet so I ran android and it did not seen as smooth. I also wanted a box that booted directly to XBMC. I did not care for their 3D launcher. I bought this based on the many many great reviews on Amazon but in my limited time it did not seem right for me.

Pivos Xios DS: I immediately loaded the official Linux build (5/10) and it was smooth and snappy. It took me some time to get this running smoothly and it's entirely my fault. I upgraded the firmware which moved the user-data folder but did not let it copy fully. Finally I did it right and all seems perfect. My final setup is the very latest nightly firmware with Frodo 12.2 and a micro SD card with my user data on it. I now own 3 of them and the second unit took about 15 minutes out of the box to load the new firmware. Once I have all of my addons configured I should be able to clone the setup in minutes. So this is the box I settled on. It does more than my ATV's could and I now have tv/dvr. I really appreciate all the development that goes into the Pivos. I can't wait for a dual core Pivos box.

My last ATV2 is up so sale

[Ned Scott]

I own a ATV2, EnjoyTv520, Pivos and a Jynxbox. My ATV2 still runs better then the other 3 and have not even had to tinker with it in over a year as it runs perfectly. The EnjoyTv520 runs very well and plays everything in the native xbmc player..its nice to actually have a box that I can use the android system on as well. I was very disappointed in the Pivos and Jynxbox as they were very slow and using them for android was a joke. I was ready to get rid of them until I flashed them to Linux and now they run ok but not worth the $ compared to other units.

In my opinion I would stay away from both Pivos and Jynxbox until they release better hardware. The EnjoyTv520 is dual core and runs so much smoother and sells for $80. From looking at performance reviews the Gbox MX2 seems to be one of the best boxes out right now and they are only $99.

The right mSD card in the Pivos makes all the difference in the world. It blows the ATV2 away in nearly every way, both in raw specs and in actual use. I've been using them side by side, and I couldn't be happier with the Pivos. The MX2 is still having issues outputting 1080, and they seem to completely die at an alarming rate. OUYA is the best ARM box for raw performance in XBMC that I've seen. It's the only ARM box I've used that can use Aeon Nox smoothly.

But yeah, the Pivos remote sucks. I had to repair mine last night when the screws inside that hold the board to the buttons ripped out of the plastic.

[clayfree]

Agree about the SD card. I originally used whatever I had laying around. Last night I received the 16gb class 10 and it's a noticeable improvement.

[Packetcrypt]

Agree about the SD card. I originally used whatever I had laying around. Last night I received the 16gb class 10 and it's a noticeable improvement.

I thought I read to avoid the class 10 SDcards and to go with the cheaper class 4 cards for better performance? I have yet to try this but will give it another shot. I assume that this should work just as well on the JynxBox and the Enjoytv as it does with Pivos?

EDIT : Here is the post that may help some

Ok, I got my XIOS two weeks ago. I didn't want to try the Android firmware so I started immediately from the Linux build. I used the xbmc-data folder scheme with microSD card, and I got kind of dissapointed very quickly because my Apple TV 2 was faster. Yes, I noticed the lag even just to load addons thumbnails. It was simple unbearable. I asked myself "What the hell did I buy?". Then I did a little research about microSD cards, and learned a lot. I was using a 16GB microSD class 10 because that was what I thought would be better for speed performance. I was wrong. I learned that there are two types of speeds in SD cards (microSD for this matter), one is sequential write speed; and the other being random 4K write speed. I learned also that microSD classes was the parameter related to sequential write speed; better the microSD class, better the squential write speed. BUT, when using a microSD cards to constantly accesing media, cache, running apps, etc, the speed that matters is actually the random 4K write speed.

So, just to wrap up, while buying a microSD card and planning on using it on any smartphone or any other device (like the xios) to keep and run apps, addons, cache, etc, always keep in mind this:

- most Class 4, 1/2 of the Class 6 cards, and very few Class 10 cards will do random 4k write at around ~1.5MB/s. it sounds slow, but its good enough for most applications
- most Class 10 cards will have a random 4k write of about ~0.01MB/s (that is not a typo). That means that most Class 4 micro cards are theoretically 150x faster than most Class 10 micro cards.

The end to my story was that I used a way more cheaper 16 GB SanDisk microSD class 4, and the performance on my Pivos XIOS was much better than my Apple TV 2. No more lags while browsing addons, thumbnails and fan art. I'm very happy so far. Yes, there are a few issues that have to been ironed out, but, this is a beta firmware, and I'm pretty sure that they will try to resolve all of them in the next firmware updates.

[j1nx]

It is not really about the class. It is all about the erasure blocksize. The smaller, the better (for this particular purpose)

There appears to be a relation between class and erasure block size, but gigh class does not necessary means better or worse than ...

[solamnic]

It is not really about the class. It is all about the erasure blocksize. The smaller, the better (for this particular purpose)

There appears to be a relation between class and erasure block size, but gigh class does not necessary means better or worse than ...

What is the optimal erasure block size? how can some check it ?
is there a recommended sd card - micro sd card?