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At that price point shopping used and local might be the best move. I see these devices come up pretty cheap as people switch to "jailbroken" firesticks, smart tvs, or other smart device ecosystems (ex. Google to Amazon).
If you haven't seen it already you might want to check out the LTT video on Android boxes. It basically talks about cheap Android boxes containing malicious materials and advising people not to connect them to their home networks.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I've owned four different android TV boxes from AliExpress over the years, from different manufacturers, different sellers, and different versions of Android. None of them ever came with malware. I'm a member of the CoreElec community forums where thousands of people own android TV boxes, hundreds of different models and hundreds of different firmware versions, and nobody ever once talked about having malware on their device. That LTT video is ill-informed and out of proportion. Anyway, nobody ever buys the Android TV box to use whatever crappy old version of Android they include, they immediately wipe the partition and install CoreElec on it, with kodi and all the plugins you'd ever want.
I have two of them running CoreElec for my media centres, and one with Armbian OS with HomeAssistant installed, running my home automation. They're the best bang-for-buck ARM powered Linux hardware you can get, miles better than a raspberry PI.
I do agree it's out of proportion. Most people are just them to stream content after all not do their taxes and send corporate emails. I mentioned it because the possibility is there for something malicious and some people consider that due to security or privacy concerns.
Anyway, nobody ever buys the Android TV box to use whatever crappy old version of Android they include, they immediately wipe the partition and install CoreElec on it, with kodi and all the plugins you’d ever want.
I feel like the average consumer uses their Android TV boxes the way that they come. This is the first time I've even heard of CoreELEC despite using LibreELEC. Thanks for mentioning it. I have doubts every obscure cheap Android box is supported though.
This is the first time I've even heard of CoreELEC despite using LibreELEC. Thanks for mentioning it. I have doubts every obscure cheap Android box is supported though.
LibreElec reduced official support for SBCs with Amlogic Cpus (like the Odroid C2, Odroid C4, and Odroid N2) in 2018, that spawned the fork called CoreElec. Then LibreElec removed Amlogic support entirely in 2019 (they wanted to just focus on Raspberry Pi SBCs). That caused a mass exodus of users and most moved to CoreElec. That was around the same time cheap TV boxes started appearing on AliExpress, and a lot of them happened to have Amlogc CPUs like the s905X, s905X2, s905X3, and s922X, these are the same CPUs in Odroid C2 and Odroid C4 and Odroid N2, so CoreElec was able to add support for most of them.
CoreElec remains tied to LibreElec upstream, receiving the same updates.
They have a comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date hardware compatibility list. They don't support all Chinese TV boxes, but if it has an Amlogic CPU, there's a high chance it is supported. If you're unsure, just look at any one of the hundreds of "will this cheap TV box work?" threads on their forum.
Thanks for the heads up. I was trying to install LibreELEC on some SBC a while ago but support for ended before hand so I ended up using some old computer. I might have to give it a go.
I feel like the average consumer uses their Android TV boxes the way that they come.
The average consumer doesn't buy android TV boxes from AliExpress. They use a Google Chromecast or a NVidia shield, or Amazon Fire TV.
The people who buy these devices from China are those deliberately looking for specific hardware to use for a specific application.
I would say they are buying them from Amazon, not Ali Express. From what I've seen they've become less common as smart TVs have become more popular but people still buy them instead of Chromecasts, Fire TVs, and Nvidia Shields. It might have to do with them falling for the marketing claims of a 6K resolution and being great for gaming but a majority of the time it seems like they just need a burner device to add some kind of additional feature to their TV.
They'll plug in an external hard drive and watch movies, use them for emulation, or use it for Netflix because they have an older "dumb" TV.
I don't typically see people going through the effort of installing another OS. Maybe we are just in different circles.
Where do you currently store the video? You could get a cheap Chromecast with Google TV (the one with a remote) and use Jellyfin on your computer to make the video files available over the network.
I store them on my pc but I think my internet connection is too bad for that
It doesn't depend on your Internet, it all works through your local network.
The router is far away from both devices so I think connection might be bad. But I guess I can try with my phone on the spot where the TV is. Will do that tommorow. Thank you for the advice!
You don't need the one with the remote. Jellyfin will cast to google devices from the client.
I know but I prefer to get the one with the remote, since you can also cast to it, and having a remote for guests is nice.
Can I chime in for another question? What is the cheapest way to watch physical 4K UHD blueray?
If you already have a PC the cheapest way would be to get one of the 4k drives that can be flashed (https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19634)
You can then either rip your blu-rays via MakeMKV directly or play them in VLC/Kodi via libmmbd.
PlayStation 3?
I don't think the PS3 has a UHD drive (or can output 4k).
Hmm, you seem to be right. I haven't used mine in a long time but knew it has a blu ray drive.
What about a Xiaomi TV Box S?
Go Av1, much better support: all recent amazon fire sticks support it, I am am using one and loving it.
Jellyfin ofc
H264 is great, but h265 is basically feels like a dead end. Av1 instead is picking up lots of steam. I am betting on it instead of h265.
Thank you for your comment. This made me reconsider. I already bit on ebay for an nokia stream box 8010. If I loose I might then go with the orbsmart s 87 plus since it has av1 :) Edit:
Nvm 8010 has av1 too. I previously bit on the 8000 which doesn't but I thankfully lost.
Why not just get a big monitor and connect it to your computer as a secondary display?
I already have a big pc monitor but I prefer watching movies on my TV. But your comment got me the idea to just buy a very long hdmi cable 🙂
Make sure it's a 2.1 one
This is my preferred setup, would recommend. If you route the HDMI through an AVR you can also get lossless surround.
The ps3 still gets updated to be able to play the latest blu-rays. You could probably find one for under 100 at your local ebay/craigslist pretty easily.
The PS3 doesn't support 4K resolution I suppose.
I'm probably going to do something similar soon, I've made a few attempts at stopping my Fire TV cube from updating.
Somehow it still is, and Amazon are really doing their absolute best to wreck it to the point that if I don't kill background apps after a reboot it will crash within 5 minutes or so.
Google made it mandatory for any box past 2022 to be able to play av1. There are a lot of boxes that can play x265. There are boxes from chinese sellers for 15 bucks that can play 265
I wouldn’t recommend most of the cheap Android boxes. Most of the are full of malware. LTT did a video comparing most major Android boxes: https://youtu.be/sdLnieL90d0?si=6nAX8E0d9c4OZXqM
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/sdLnieL90d0?si=6nAX8E0d9c4OZXqM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.