Pivos XIOS-DS Media Play! : The *Semiofficial* Thread - Page 7

I just ordered one of these to be a streamer for my wife's craft room. It's good to see one of these players with constant updates.

I was thinking of replacing my livingroom HTPC with one but the only sticking point for me is does either the android or linux XBMC port support bitstreaming? DTS Master? AC3? DTS?

Dang, guess I stick with my HTPC in the living room for now.

Has the android version caught up to be as good as the linux one yet or do you recommend going with the linux version?

Hey i was wandering if you could help, im looking at setting up a media centre i was looking at the pivos and the atv1200 which would be better is the atv1200 better at playing 1080p because of the dual core.

I've got a few TB's of tv shows movies and cartoons cheers thanks a lot

The number of cores has no effect on hardware acceleration. There are no official hardware accelerated XBMC builds for the ATV1200. If you only care about android, get the ATV. If you want XBMC, especially running on Linux, get the Xios.

Is anybody here actually using it? I'd love to see some discussion about performance/bugs. I was thinking of getting one but it's not available at Amazon which means returning it will be a PITA if it's still a buggy mess.

I just got one and I can say the WAF is super high. It's tiny it run XBMC really well. The TV series and DVD rips all play wonderfully over my CAT5E. The only thing I am struggling with right now is my BluRay 1080p 1:1 rips. I have a post over on the Pivos forums, so I am just waiting for some suggestions, because it sounds like it works for most people. I know the experts are all busy, so I am being patient, although it is killing me, because I am really excited about this thing - mainly because the wife loves it, especially if it plays her BluRays.

Is this a support thread as well, or strictly just a thread to talk about it?

Could use some help, but don't want to clutter the thread if it's not for that here.

I went ahead and got one of these. Immediately installed linux XBMC on it.

My inital impressions are good, with a few huge caveats. First, I don't care about a ton of "high-end" features - my collection is almost all compressed rips with no HD audio, and I've been using a Neo 550 with almost no issues since they launched - so keep all that in mind. Compared to the average poster here, I'm pretty easy to please.

First off, the remote is total jank. I have a harmony, so no big deal to me. The box gets quite warm during use, and I'm a bit concerned about overheating but I have nothing to back up that worry yet.

I immediately installed the Jan. 29th linux XBMC image (the latest one on Pivos' site), which was painless, except for having to dig up a SDcard (my unit didn't offer to install from a USB device).

My initial impressions are pretty good. The unit is very responsive and the UI is faster than my NeoTV550. During library updates it slows down significantly but it's still quite usable. The audio choices were a little confusing at first, but that's because the install automatically assumes it's going to be putting out audio over HDMI, so instead of selecting audio output you simply choose what your receiver can handle. I didn't check about HD audio passthrough, but as mentioned I don't really care about that. Otherwise it's pretty much XMBC and all that it entails. I installed a couple "official" add-ons with no issue.

No problems with playback on any of my formats, including a bluray .iso structure. No buffering issues that I can see, but my media collection is all compressed formats (no 1:1 BR rips).

My big issue right now is the box just doesn't seem stable. Over the course of the night I had at least 5 hardlocks/reboots. Two were from trying to use Airplay, which worked great for about a song then quit working, and the others were during media playback. Additionally, I saw what looked like some playback stutter - every ~5 minutes or so I'd see some sort of stutter. I don't know if it's 3:2 pulldown or a display timing artifact, but it was quite noticeable.

At this point I'm on the fence. $120 for a full functioning XMBC setup is really nice, but it's still beta-quality stability. I'm going to figure out how to grab the one of the recent nightly builds and see if they've fixed the hardlocks, but if not I'd have to say it goes back.
Edited by jvarisco - 2/13/13 at 7:33am

Well, doesn't seem that anybody really cares about this thing, but in any event, mine has been packed up for return. It's so close, but it's been worked on for 6+ months and there's still some basic playback issues. The "stable" linux release would lock up occasionally on playback, I got frame "jumping". A few nighties fixed the playback problem but then introduced audio dropouts.

I see there haven't been any posts to this thread in a while, but in case anyone is interested...

I have the newer M3 version h/w Pivos Xios which I purchased about 2 weeks ago. I was looking to upgrade my older Popcorn hour streamer which has served faithfully for many years.

I ran the installed Anroid OS for about 30 mins, and ditched it for the Linux distribution. I also update with the latest "nightlies" pretty frequently, so I tend to play with the latest updates.

I am very impressed. Here are some observations:

1) This box seamlessly merges my four (4) USB attached drives into one huge 8Tb library.
2) Interface is very quick (except for about 1.5 seconds) to load the video library (containing over 1000 titles). HOWEVER - you must install a SD card and move the "user data" to that location
3) Stock remote is crap. Download the XBMC IOS app on your iphone (really awesome) or program up a harmony or other Universal Remote (like my MX800)
4) Playback is perfect at 720p, but I have an issue with my B&K processor syncing at 1080p that has not been resolved yet. Not tested at 1080p yet, but my 1080p mkvs are playing fine.
5) Excellent support from Pivos through the support forum.
6) Samba Server can be installed (manually) to share all USB attached drives. This makes the Xios look like a NAS.
7) I particularly like the XBMC's ability to grab Bluray/DVD cover art, movie descriptions, actors and then Jump out to You Tube to play the movie trailers.
8) Great base of users that exchange ideas and hacks on the pivos forum.

Anyway... just thought someone might be interested. Best $99 I've spent lately.

great review thank you. Do you have any updates on HD video quality? I am contemplating purchasing this. One other question is do you know if it can do HD audio pass through for my receiver to decode I thought I read that they were working on it in old posts but was curious.

Thank you for the response. My HD comment was referring to his personal experience with it sense he said he hasint watched HD content. Thank you also for the update on HD audio hopefully they will figure it out soon bc Im going to order one in the next week

I thought the reason why the HD audio isn't supported is due to hardware. If it is a hardware issue then the HD audio support will never be fixed.

Never underestimate the coding wizard Davilla, if there's one reason why the XIOS is better than any PCH/Dune/WDTV box is because he's working on it. That said it is a waiting game but I'm certain they will get there eventually.

I would go out on a limb and say that Pivos were probably still feeling their way through whats possible on the Amlogic chipset that powers it when that original comment was made, this isn't some turnkey solution from Sigma Designs but something being built from scratch software wise.

I supposed everyone entitle to their opinion, but the Xios isn't even close to be in the same league as Dune, PCH or even the WDTV.

How long has it been since the Xios came out, and it still can't play HD sound probably due to licensing or hardware or both. In my honest opinion, I don't think Xios will ever play HD sound. If it was possible, it would of happened already.

I think Dune will come out with their new media player, which will support XBMC before the Xios can support HD sound even if it is possoble.

None of the top media players are sub $100. That's why you pay a premium for them. The Dune TV303D is $200 dollars, which has an excellent Jukebox and support HD sound. Again, you get what you pay for.

I've used HTPC and many other media players, and I kept going back to the Dune + Zappiti jukebox because my kids and wife like it, and it's easy to maintain.

I do agree that the Xios is more suitable for people without a home theater system that supports HD sound.

Again you can't compare the Xios to Dune, PCH, Mede8er not even WDTV. The only thing the Xios got going is support of XBMC. If it didn't have that no one would consider buying it.

Again you can't compare the Xios to Dune, PCH, Mede8er or WDTV, which can at least decode True HD, and the new one appears to play DTS-MA.

I'm glad that we agree on two things. 1- Xios will never decode HD sound and 2- Xios isn't suitable for HT that support HD sound.

No problem. It appears I hit a nerve. I just don't understand how can Alx330 say that the Xios is better than Dune or PCH. Somehow you got into, but it's all good. Once the Xios can compete with the too media players let me know.

XBMC Linux on the XIOS is actually really nice. I moved to a win 8 NUC for XBMC but I can see the appeal of the XIOS, especially for the price. Don't know much about Dune except for the lack of Mac support, few places to buy it and pricing. Prefer the PCH family though both Dune and PCH seem to have a bleak future given the inability to secure premium streaming rights.

philip