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Pivos XIOS-DS Media Play! : The *Semiofficial* Thread

post #1 of 220
6/7/12 at 11:11am
Thread Starter 
Hi there,

Been using it for a week and I feel its good enough product to blow the whistle on (especially after the ICS update).

xiosds3.png

xiosds1.png
xiosds2.png
Edited by aasoror - 6/7/12 at 11:31am
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post #2 of 220
6/7/12 at 11:11am
Thread Starter 
Unboxing:

DVD used to get an idea about the size of every thing in comparison.

The retail box ..
xiosds001.th.jpgxiosds002.th.jpgxiosds003.th.jpgxiosds004.th.jpgxiosds005.th.jpgxiosds006.th.jpg

No quick start leaflet included, quick start guide printed on the inner box.
xiosds007.th.jpgxiosds008.th.jpgxiosds009.th.jpgxiosds010.th.jpg

Package contents, and the 5V/2A adapter.
xiosds011.th.jpgxiosds012.th.jpg

The XIOS (3xUSB, LAN, mSD slot, power button, firmware recovery/upgrade hole, and the ONLY output is HDMI).
xiosds013.th.jpgxiosds014.th.jpgxiosds015.th.jpgxiosds016.th.jpgxiosds017.th.jpg

XIOS .. the ICS update ..

For those interested, ICS is already out.

The good ..
  • Once ICS is installed there was no issue running MKVs up to 1080p/11GB (over wired network).
  • After that size (will get quote media info of the files that did play in the morning), things gets pretty unstable. The majority of my rips past that size are ISOs which isn't supported any way.
  • YT HD is running without any issue, Flash HD is running fine in Dolphin browser (stick the preloaded 10.2).
  • Wireless keyboard/mouse combo works fine with the box, but there is no way to turn the box off without the original IR remote (even the motion remote doesn't have a power button) unless you reach for power button the box itself.
  • ICS comes with the latest Google Play store, app visibility is on bar with all other android devices I have owned.
  • Experiance is as rich as you expect from any ICS based device, Plex works mighty fine additionally there is reports about limited support for webcams and USB microphones.

The bad ..
  • Couple of inconveniences, video playback apps doesn't seem to respect scaling settings, you wouldn't notice this issue if you have a display with no over/under scanning, in which cases you can use a "screen size" setting to adjust the output to your screen size, that said, once video app loads it will automatically revert to the original scale.
  • Another minor is windowed playback (YT or flash in YT app or web browser), once the video starts, it automatically revert to full screen then "crops" (not minimizes) back to window size, if you would then click on the full screen button at any time you would get proper image.
  • There is currently no multichannel audio passthrough support (DTS/DD and their HD versions are stereo downmixed).
  • Some reported issues with the ICS NF app (pausing for buffering after 5 minutes of playback).

XIOS vs. AIOS
Android is what makes this box shine (and similar boxes), for example when you capture a picture/video with you Android phone while doing your grocery it gets automatically uploaded to your dropbox accounts which is then immediately accessible on your TV with your android media box.

Its not meant to be a power horse (thus lacking with higher bit rate files that the AIOS plays it without a problem), but its meant to offer a way better overall experience. Not to mention I was able to hit 13 mbps MKVs without a problem (which isn't even half bad).


So its a better device all around, but what can the AIOS do that the XIOS can't do ?..
In a nut shell ?
- Not enough power to process high bitrate MKVs (over the network XIOS panic at > 13 mbps while AIOS panic at > 25mbps)
- No ISO playback support (Android thing).
- No BDMV playback support (Android thing).
- No DTS/DD/DTS-MA/DD-TrueHD passthrough/bitstreaming (Android kernel thing).

If you have further questions or test materials let me know,

For those running the GB firmware and complaining about long strart ups, just move as many apps as you can from main storage to external storage.

Set up ..
  • Playback done over wired network.
  • Accessed SMB shares are mapped using the included CIFS manager.
  • All playback attempts were done using the moboplayer app.

Sample video details of the 1080p rips that worked ..
Code:
Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 5 frames
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 2h 26mn
Bit rate                         : 9 205 Kbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 800 pixels
Code:
Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 4 frames
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 1h 17mn
Bit rate                         : 13.3 Mbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 1 080 pixels
Code:
Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 4 frames
Muxing mode                      : Header stripping
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 1h 42mn
Bit rate                         : 14.0 Mbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 798 pixels
Code:
Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 5 frames
Format settings, GOP             : M=4, N=48
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 1h 57mn
Bit rate                         : 9 169 Kbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 816 pixels
Code:
Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 5 frames
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 1h 54mn
Bit rate                         : 8 020 Kbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 816 pixels

MKVs that didn't work smoothly (some would require repeated buffering, others would cut and skip randomly)
Code:
Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 5 frames
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 2h 34mn
Bit rate                         : 8 849 Kbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 800 pixels
Code:
Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 5 frames
Muxing mode                      : Header stripping
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 2h 11mn
Bit rate                         : 15.8 Mbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 816 pixels
Code:
Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 4 frames
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 1h 27mn
Bit rate                         : 20.8 Mbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 800 pixels

Edited by aasoror - 6/11/12 at 8:49am
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post #3 of 220
6/7/12 at 11:12am
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Resources:
Edited by aasoror - 6/7/12 at 11:19am
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post #4 of 220
6/7/12 at 11:54am
Other than the nice form factor, this player seems like several steps backward for local media playback. I'm guessing also no hd audio. Maybe more as a Roku or ATV2 alternative. But, even on that front, I'm not sure it succeeds as there is PLEX for Roku to complement all the Internet apps, and XBMC for ATV2, once jailbroken.
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post #5 of 220
6/7/12 at 12:07pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brajesh View Post

Other than the nice form factor, this player seems like several steps backward for local media playback. I'm guessing also no hd audio. Maybe more as a Roku or ATV2 alternative. But, even on that front, I'm not sure it succeeds as there is PLEX for Roku to complement all the Internet apps, and XBMC for ATV2, once jailbroken.

Its answering a different question Brajesh, its bringing android to your big screen, Plex is also running fine on it as well as the thousand apps from "Google Playstore".

Android is what makes this box shine (and similar boxes), for example when you capture a picture/video with you Android phone while doing your grocery it gets automatically uploaded to your dropbox accounts which is then immediately accessible on your TV with your android media box.

Its not meant to be a power horse (thus lacking with higher bit rate files that the AIOS plays it without a problem), but its meant to offer a way better overall experience. Not to mention I was able to hit 13 mbps MKVs without a problem (which isn't even half bad).

Regarding DD/DTS and their HD versions, though I am not sure that there is an android app out there to support bitstreaming, but I know that DD/DTS is supported on the hardware but disabled on the kernel level pending licensing.
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post #6 of 220
6/7/12 at 12:28pm
Makes sense. This unit should be fine for a non-dedicated home theater, maybe the family room or bedroom. And if you can PLEX, you can at least play the high bitrate stuff via its transcoding. Do you know how much onboard memory and storage this has for horsepower and apps? Also, what is the ICS update you refer to? Thanks.
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post #7 of 220
6/7/12 at 1:10pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brajesh View Post

Makes sense. This unit should be fine for a non-dedicated home theater, maybe the family room or bedroom. And if you can PLEX, you can at least play the high bitrate stuff via its transcoding. Do you know how much onboard memory and storage this has for horsepower and apps? Also, what is the ICS update you refer to? Thanks.

There is 512MB main memory on it and 1.67GB internal on board storage (not to mention microSD expansion)
The unit ships with Android gingerbread, and the Android ICS update is already posted on Pivos forums.
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post #8 of 220
6/7/12 at 1:14pm
"Ice Cream Sandwich"...got it smile.gif. Google and their wacky OS names. rolleyes.gif
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post #9 of 220
6/7/12 at 1:54pm
Why do you think AIOS is powerful?

AIOS: 500 MHz MIPS processor
XIOS: It was around 850MHZ ARM

Is there a different in GPU ?
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post #10 of 220
6/7/12 at 2:28pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by vasanth View Post

Why do you think AIOS is powerful?
AIOS: 500 MHz MIPS processor
XIOS: It was around 850MHZ ARM
Is there a different in GPU ?
Something along these lines, its more related to how does the Mali400 fares vs. the RT1185 SoC.
I think the Realtek SoC is more optimized for HD playback, beside, running a single playback application on top of the already light weight busybox is way less challenging than running fully Android instance (even if the CPU is theoretically faster).
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post #11 of 220
6/7/12 at 2:50pm
WHy is flash not supported on AIOS if it is powerful? Does flash need licensing which is available in XIOS?
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post #12 of 220
6/7/12 at 2:58pm
is it the stock android blocky UI every android player has been running? or did they customize it at all? While an android player is nice they still have a long way to go most of the apps are pointless on a the big screen. How does it compare to the nixeus and the ac veleo, besides lacking the local playback power they have.
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post #13 of 220
6/7/12 at 3:03pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by vasanth View Post

WHy is flash not supported on AIOS if it is powerful? Does flash need licensing which is available in XIOS?

But flash is supported on the AIOS, you can run any FLV video file from the file manager as well as play many flash games.
That said, flash is just not supported through the web browser, reason is Adobe flash is not supported by the HTML5 specs.
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post #14 of 220
6/7/12 at 3:08pm
Also when I compare the SUpported audio codecs shown in the pivos group website, I see that the audio codecs for AIOS are a subset of XIOS? What exactly is missing in XIOS compared to AIOS?
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post #15 of 220
6/7/12 at 3:31pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by halfelite View Post

is it the stock android blocky UI every android player has been running? or did they customize it at all? While an android player is nice they still have a long way to go most of the apps are pointless on a the big screen. How does it compare to the nixeus and the ac veleo, besides lacking the local playback power they have.

While this might be true for Andriod GB or earlier (even though you can use proper launcher to give an almost proper big screen experience), I beg to differ when it comes to ICS, the ICS interface is made for big screens, so that shouldn't be an issue, the trick is find ICS optimized apps and there is enough to cover everything you want to do.

For example:
- there is HD versions of file managers optimized for big screens.
- there is Desktop settings in Opera and Dolphin browsers so you get the same experience as you would on a PC.
- Ultimately, you want to navigate through your media collection smoothly enough till you reach "full screen" media playback, you don't even need ICS to do that wink.gif
- I am not sure why would nixeus or ACR veleo be assumed to be more powerful for local playback, as far as I can tell both of these devices are running a phone OS (froyo) on a big screen wink.gif (I haven't seen detailed tests but I doubt the tad faster CPU would translate to that much better performance improvement), not to mention local availability (it would cost me about twice the price of XIOS to get the Veleo shipping to my door), and the nexius though available locally is $40 pricier, with a phone OS and no market support (that said, specs says its supports HD-Audio passthrough which is a VERY good point on their favour).
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post #16 of 220
6/7/12 at 3:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by aasoror View Post

While this might be true for Andriod GB or earlier (even though you can use proper launcher to give an almost proper big screen experience), I beg to differ when it comes to ICS, the ICS interface is made for big screens, so that shouldn't be an issue, the trick is find ICS optimized apps and there is enough to cover everything you want to do.
For example:
- there is HD versions of file managers optimized for big screens.
- there is Desktop settings in Opera and Dolphin browsers so you get the same experience as you would on a PC.
- Ultimately, you want to navigate through your media collection smoothly enough till you reach "full screen" media playback, you don't even need ICS to do that wink.gif
- I am not sure why would nixeus or ACR veleo be assumed to be more powerful for local playback, as far as I can tell both of these devices are running a phone OS (froyo) on a big screen wink.gif (I haven't seen detailed tests but I doubt the tad faster CPU would translate to that much better performance improvement), not to mention local availability (it would cost me about twice the price of XIOS to get the Veleo shipping to my door), and the nexius though available locally is $40 pricier, with a phone OS and no market support (that said, specs says its supports HD-Audio passthrough which is a VERY good point on their favour).

They support HD audio and the nixeus has the Qdeo processor for local playback of sd material, OS has nothing to do with playback power for players like the nixeus that run the marvell 1000 that is a built media processor with a specialty built android player, The only thing ICS will gain you in terms of playback is direct hardware acceleration using in off the shelf ARM chip with any player.

Can you install bsplayer from the market and does it run?
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post #17 of 220
6/7/12 at 3:49pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by vasanth View Post

Also when I compare the SUpported audio codecs shown in the pivos group website, I see that the audio codecs for AIOS are a subset of XIOS? What exactly is missing in XIOS compared to AIOS?

In a nut shell ?
- Not enough power to process high bitrate MKVs (over the network XIOS panic at > 13 mbps while AIOS panic at > 25mbps)
- No ISO playback support (Android thing).
- No BDMV playback support (Android thing).
- No DTS/DD/DTS-MA/DD-TrueHD passthrough/bitstreaming (Android kernel thing).
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post #18 of 220
6/7/12 at 4:11pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by halfelite View Post

They support HD audio and the nixeus has the Qdeo processor for local playback of sd material, OS has nothing to do with playback power for players like the nixeus that run the marvell 1000 that is a built media processor with a specialty built android player, The only thing ICS will gain you in terms of playback is direct hardware acceleration using in off the shelf ARM chip with any player.
Can you install bsplayer from the market and does it run?

Just to be clear, I am not saying the OS running on the nixeus has anything to do with playback power, all I am saying is that the phone OS its running makes the whole experience inferior to any other device running an OS optimized to a big screen (HC/ICS).

And regarding SD material (whether local or remote) is not an issue (just didn't mention it because I thought everyone thinks SD is so last season wink.gif )

For bsplayer, yup it installs and runs fine from the market (as well as tons of other players). And I can easily get over the "no HW acceleration over the network" by using the "CIFS manager" to mount my SMB shares locally and access them with full HW acceleration.

Here the players I have tested (which also comes with the optional ICS apps installation):
- BSPlayer.
- DICE Player.
- MoboPlayer (my favourite).
- mVideoPlayer.
- MX Player.
- QQ Player.
- VPlayer
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post #19 of 220
6/8/12 at 11:25am
I bought this two days ago and still cannot get it to see my files on my window 7 box. did the network thing adding the folders also updated to ICS as well but only drives it will see are non networked. It will not see my OPEN nas folders either. Any suggestions? Thinking about returning it as i need network playability. O and ot does not matter if it is hardwired or wireless still will not see drives. Even tried running a plex server and plex on the XIOS and still no connections
Regards
Dew

mad.gif
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post #20 of 220
6/8/12 at 2:41pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by dewman65 View Post

I bought this two days ago and still cannot get it to see my files on my window 7 box. did the network thing adding the folders also updated to ICS as well but only drives it will see are non networked. It will not see my OPEN nas folders either. Any suggestions? Thinking about returning it as i need network playability. O and ot does not matter if it is hardwired or wireless still will not see drives. Even tried running a plex server and plex on the XIOS and still no connections
Regards
Dew
mad.gif

If you have plex server running on your PC and yet plex client on the XIOS can't see it while XIOS has working internet access then I would double check the firewall settings on your PC I would also check how the DHCP server on your router assigned IP to the XIOS.
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post #21 of 220
6/10/12 at 4:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by aasoror View Post

- Not enough power to process high bitrate MKVs (over the network XIOS panic at > 13 mbps while AIOS panic at > 25mbps)

So just to be clear, the issue is with the bitrate as opposed to the actual MKV file size? Any easy way to determine the bitrate of an MKV file?
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post #22 of 220
6/10/12 at 4:54pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by broadwayblue View Post

So just to be clear, the issue is with the bitrate as opposed to the actual MKV file size? Any easy way to determine the bitrate of an MKV file?

True, size is irrelevant.

Easiest way is to pass the file through media info.
http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

Best of luck,
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post #23 of 220
6/10/12 at 6:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by aasoror View Post

True, size is irrelevant.
Easiest way is to pass the file through media info.
http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en
Best of luck,

Thanks.

Slightly OT, is there still a 4GB file size limitation for SD cards? I was thinking the XIOS could be the ideal portable movie storage device if I threw a 32GB SD card in it...the box is so small you could practically carry it in your pocket. BUT, then I remembered that pesky 4GB limitation of Fat32....and sadly that's not gonna cut it for most HD movies. frown.gif If I were to reformat the SDHC card to NTFS (is that possible) would the XIOS recognize it?
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post #24 of 220
6/13/12 at 2:30am
I checked the peak bitrate of some of my 1080p/24 MKV files using "Bitrate Viewer 2.3". Oddly, these files with at least brief peaks of 25Mbits/s+, some would play fine without stuttering, and some would stutter and pause during the demanding parts. I don't know why.
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post #25 of 220
6/13/12 at 5:48pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by broadwayblue View Post

Thanks.
Slightly OT, is there still a 4GB file size limitation for SD cards? I was thinking the XIOS could be the ideal portable movie storage device if I threw a 32GB SD card in it...the box is so small you could practically carry it in your pocket. BUT, then I remembered that pesky 4GB limitation of Fat32....and sadly that's not gonna cut it for most HD movies. frown.gif If I were to reformat the SDHC card to NTFS (is that possible) would the XIOS recognize it?

Just tested a 32GB Transcend mSD card, formatted in NTFS (4kb) and added an 8GB MKV to it.
The XIOS recognized the card properly (displayed size and free space correctly) and the video file played without a problem.
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post #26 of 220
6/14/12 at 12:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by aasoror View Post

Its answering a different question Brajesh, its bringing android to your big screen, Plex is also running fine on it as well as the thousand apps from "Google Playstore".
Android is what makes this box shine (and similar boxes), for example when you capture a picture/video with you Android phone while doing your grocery it gets automatically uploaded to your dropbox accounts which is then immediately accessible on your TV with your android media box.
Its not meant to be a power horse (thus lacking with higher bit rate files that the AIOS plays it without a problem), but its meant to offer a way better overall experience. Not to mention I was able to hit 13 mbps MKVs without a problem (which isn't even half bad).
Regarding DD/DTS and their HD versions, though I am not sure that there is an android app out there to support bitstreaming, but I know that DD/DTS is supported on the hardware but disabled on the kernel level pending licensing.

Why wouldn't someone just go with Google TV either with the Sony or even Logitech models? The Plex app on the Revue is very nice.

philip
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post #27 of 220
6/14/12 at 7:13am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmcd View Post

Why wouldn't someone just go with Google TV either with the Sony or even Logitech models? The Plex app on the Revue is very nice.
philip
Price ?!
Sony NSZ-GT1 is $300 @ sony store, logitech Revue has been discontinued so long ago (currently priced at $150 from unauthorized dealers if found), furthermore neither comes rooted out of the box (in fact you "theoretically" void your warranty the second you root either), so the question is why would someone pay double the price tag to end up with a rooted box with voided warranty ?!
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post #28 of 220
6/15/12 at 12:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by aasoror View Post

But flash is supported on the AIOS, you can run any FLV video file from the file manager as well as play many flash games.
That said, flash is just not supported through the web browser, reason is Adobe flash is not supported by the HTML5 specs.

This means I can't watch youtube videos directly through the browser but have to download them, right?

Thanks

George
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post #29 of 220
6/15/12 at 12:42am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by guiri View Post

This means I can't watch youtube videos directly through the browser but have to download them, right?
Thanks
George
Not at all, because there is a dedicated YT module on the AIOS (so you can log into your YT account, and work as if working on the website (but without any ads)).
It looks exactly like this ..
http://www.youtube.com/xl
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post #30 of 220
6/15/12 at 12:49am
Ooo, awesome.

Hey, I posted a long list of questions in your AIOS thread so when you have a chance, would you take a look at them?
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1387436/pivos-aios-hd-media-center-the-semiofficial-thread/570#post_22134537

Thanks again.

To be clear, I LOVE my WD TV unit but wouldn't mind a unit that does what it does plus the little things I want.
I'm not like some of these guys here and my needs are simple but I'm very impatient. I need something simple
that's pretty stable and will handle most files. From what I've read so far, I think the AIOS might be a better option
for me.

Hey, you're virtually in the same timezone as I am (NC). I guess I'm not the only night owl then?

smile.gif

George
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