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zaidrockso · (This post was last modified: 2014-06-16, 15:19 by zaidrockso.)

Ok so i have an ouya, hate it with a passion due to the crashes. Thinking chromebox now

Question i have about chromebox :

Can i have 2 different external hard drives in both usb ports in the chromebox?
How good is the wifi on the chromebox? ( ouya is beyond terrible )
Does chromebox have a sleep button?
What does the chromebox come with? Any keyboard/mouse/remote?
If it doesn't come with a remote , What's the best remote to get with it ? I have an xbox 360 controller, will that be ok?
What's better Openelec ? or xbmcbuntu ? ( in terms of stability and playback , which of them has less bugs )
How hard is it to setup either of the os' on the chromebox ( I'm not techsavvy at all , but i follow instructions fine )
Do i need to upgrade anything of the hardware on the chromebox? Or does it come fine ?
Is Upgrading it easy?
Which one should i get? Celeron ? i3 ? i7?

Last but most imp for me, does it ever bug? Crash? Only reason i'm moving from ouya to chrome is due to crashes, I realize i'm asking many questions, but last time i didn't do my research before getting this shitty box ( Ouya ) and i regret getting it. This time i want to make the right decision!

Thanks so much !

**hdmkv** · 2014-06-12, 23:59

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=185329

calev · 2014-06-13, 00:16

Yes you can hook up two different hard drives.
Just go with openelec if all you want is xbmc.
It will be a little harder to set up than a regular computer. But if you can follow direction you will be fine.
Bugs should be minimal. It should crash less than ouya.

teki4u · 2014-06-13, 00:41

but last time i didn't do my research before getting this shitty box

Then start reading there are 2 threads full of info. To sum up there are issues with dual boot, you'll be better with OpenElec because it has support for this BOX. Haven't heard much of xbmcbuntu, only one person that states is working flawless. As xbmcbuntu is based of Ubuntu you may get some issues (if you're the lucky one to get the buggy box like some of us including me). The bug is the box will freeze while browsing the menus or during playback in XBMC, apparently Intel devas have to fix that driver bug.
This bug can happen eather in a *buntu standalone setup (most common) or OpenElec.
So good luck!

noggin · (This post was last modified: 2014-06-13, 01:20 by noggin.)

And if you go down the OpenElec route - check out the Chromium add-on in the unofficial repository. That gives you a pretty nifty web browser within OpenElec (which has been the holy grail for some for a while!)

I'm in the UK where we can't buy the new Chromebox yet - but have bought one on eBay from the US, hopefully now in transit.

The C720 Chromebook based on the same CPU is a great fit for OpenElec, and I have one of those. I use it with a cheap Windows Media Center remote and USB receiver when travelling (HDMI to hotel TV and DVB-T/T2 USB TV tuner for use with TV Headend usually blows hotel TVs out of the water) Chromebox is going to replace Celeron 1007U Revo RL80 which has gone to a good home.

zaidrockso · 2014-06-16, 15:19

Half of the answers i can't find on there Sad

there's 80 pages joint between setup and announcement, i'd really appreciate if someone can just answer the questions i have.

Matt Devo · 2014-06-16, 16:43

(2014-06-12, 23:53)zaidrockso Wrote: Can i have 2 different external hard drives in both usb ports in the chromebox?

yes

Quote:How good is the wifi on the chromebox? ( ouya is beyond terrible )

no issues at all

Quote:Does chromebox have a sleep button?

no dedicated button, but you can put it in suspend via XBMC

Quote:What does the chromebox come with? Any keyboard/mouse/remote?

nothing for the celeron version, KB/mouse for i3 version

Quote:If it doesn't come with a remote , What's the best remote to get with it ? I have an xbox 360 controller, will that be ok?

depends. Do you have a universal remote now? or a PS3 remote? The Xbone remote works well and is clean/simple, but you'll need an IR receiver to go with it.

Quote:What's better Openelec ? or xbmcbuntu ? ( in terms of stability and playback , which of them has less bugs )

OpenELEC

Quote:How hard is it to setup either of the os' on the chromebox ( I'm not techsavvy at all , but i follow instructions fine )

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=194362

Quote:Do i need to upgrade anything of the hardware on the chromebox? Or does it come fine ?
Is Upgrading it easy?

no. yes. yes.

Quote:Which one should i get? Celeron ? i3 ? i7?

the celeron is more than sufficient for XBMC

Quote:Last but most imp for me, does it ever bug? Crash? Only reason i'm moving from ouya to chrome is due to crashes, I realize i'm asking many questions, but last time i didn't do my research before getting this shitty box ( Ouya ) and i regret getting it. This time i want to make the right decision!

all software has bugs. Right now, there's an Intel driver bug which causes occasion lockups for some people. You can mitigate that by disabling hardware acceleration for video playback. You can't wake from sleep with an IR remote due to a USB3-related linux kernel bug, but using a wifi-based remote (like YATSE) which uses wake-on-lan (WOL) to wake from sleep works fine.

Igor2014 · 2014-06-16, 20:16

(2014-06-12, 23:53)zaidrockso Wrote: Can i have 2 different external hard drives in both usb ports in the chromebox?

I have 3 hdds connected right now (1 WD MyBook + 2 Seagate 2.5" notebook drives in USB3 enclosures). No problems so far.

Quote:How good is the wifi on the chromebox? ( ouya is beyond terrible )

As good, as my Asus notebook. Good enough for getting +35 Mbit with two walls in between.

zaidrockso · (This post was last modified: 2014-06-17, 01:29 by zaidrockso.)

Thanks so much matt! and Igor. Last question before i make my decision!
If i decide to got Dualboot openelec, Is Celeron still sufficient ? Celeron ? celeron 4gb ? i3 ? i3 4gb?

And does Celeron have any advantages over i3?

Thanks!

Matt Devo · 2014-06-17, 02:41

(2014-06-17, 01:27)zaidrockso Wrote: Thanks so much matt! and Igor. Last question before i make my decision!
If i decide to got Dualboot openelec, Is Celeron still sufficient ? Celeron ? celeron 4gb ? i3 ? i3 4gb?

And does Celeron have any advantages over i3?

Thanks!

I suppose that depends on what you want to use the ChromeBox for. If it's just XBMC, then the celeron is sufficient. 4GB of RAM is preferred if you're dual booting due to bugs in the stock firmware. The only advantage the celeron model has is that it costs half as much as the i3 model.

zaidrockso · 2014-06-17, 02:44

Hmm, Ok thanks!

kdnoel · 2014-06-17, 02:51

(2014-06-17, 02:44)zaidrockso Wrote: Hmm, Ok thanks!

The celeron is more energy efficient.

teki4u · (This post was last modified: 2014-06-17, 18:28 by teki4u.)

I moved from a Ubuntu standalone setup to an OpenElec one and it is working great. I have all the goodies I needed too like plex media server, a browser (chromium), emulators and torrent server all working as expected.

What I would do if to first upgrade local storage rather than ram. Even more if you're dual booting, but it would be best if you upgrade both.

That way at list for me I can download my torrents locally, emulators and maybe have my music and photos too, so it only access my external HDD to play videos.

Edit: using Aeon MQ5 theme with fanarts as background and box is doing just fine

SDub · 2014-06-17, 19:11

Any particular reason you're not interested in building your own HTPC box? You seem tech savvy enough to build a PC (interest in replacing parts in the Chromebox), they have bluray playback options (a physical ODD), LAN adapter for reliable playback across the network, as many HDD slots as you want your case to have (within reason) for extra storage, have a variety of backend software options (XBMCuntu, OpenElec, Windows, OSX, Linux, you name it), have support for PVR, and you can add video game support to it as well, and have more options for hardware personalization. I get it costs more, but the cost just seems worth it for all the added functionality, simplicity, and reliability. I dunno, just my 2 cents, sorry to go off topic!

Matt Devo · (This post was last modified: 2014-06-17, 20:24 by Matt Devo.)

(2014-06-17, 19:11)SDub Wrote: Any particular reason you're not interested in building your own HTPC box? You seem tech savvy enough to build a PC (interest in replacing parts in the Chromebox), they have bluray playback options (a physical ODD), LAN adapter for reliable playback across the network, as many HDD slots as you want your case to have (within reason) for extra storage, have a variety of backend software options (XBMCuntu, OpenElec, Windows, OSX, Linux, you name it), have support for PVR, and you can add video game support to it as well, and have more options for hardware personalization. I get it costs more, but the cost just seems worth it for all the added functionality, simplicity, and reliability. I dunno, just my 2 cents, sorry to go off topic!

some people just want a simple media playback device without any of the hassle, and keep their media storage separate from the playback devices. A ChromeBox running OE has LAN support, PVR support (via USB or HDHomerun), etc. Plus, most people don't need playback of physical media anymore.