[mythtv-users] Recommendations needed for new FE box

[David Engel]

On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 02:03:16PM -0500, Ashu Desai wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 1:05 PM John P Poet <jppoet at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 11:47 AM Ashu Desai <ashu.desai at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 10:59 AM Jeremy D Eiden <
> >> theonlyrealperson at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 07/26/2018 10:46 AM, George Poulson wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On 26 July 2018 at 16:07, Ashu Desai <ashu.desai at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Is there something that folks here have - i am open to buying bare
> >>>> metal and building one up myself...
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> If you're open to it as a solution the Raspberry Pi 3 makes a pretty
> >>> darn good (and very cheap!) frontend.
> >>>
> >>> You'll find various articles both on the mythtv wiki and elsewhere.
> >>>
> >>> George
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I second this.  LibreElec on a RaspPi 3 B+ has nearly flawless
> >>> playback.  Some menus are great, but others (like Recordings) I find a
> >>> little clunky.  Not terrible, just clunky.
> >>>
> >>> And it just worked. Install, enable Myth's plugin and configure the
> >>> plugin to point to the backend - and it was good to go.
> >>>
> >>> The playback looks nicer than my NUC's, I think. But really, it's hard
> >>> to tell.
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> Does this also play H.265 HEVC content?  Are there any "step by step
> >> installation" guide I can follow please?
> >>
> >> Thank you!
> >>
> >
> > The next version of MythTV should have decent support for running
> > mythfrontend on an Android TV box.  There is active development happening
> > on the nVidia Shield, and it reportedly is usable in the current "master"
> > version of MythTV.
> >
> > A Raspberry Pi is a bit more stable (at the moment), but the nVidia Shield
> > is going to be more powerful.
> >
> 
> Can you recommend a (or few) Android TV boxes? I would like to compare
> their form factor, etc with RP 3 B+ here...

The only one I'd recommend at this point is the Nvidia Shield.

If you don't care about timestretch, an Amlogic S912 box with at least
3 GB or RAM is functional, but kind of slow with the MythTV frontend.
Using Kodi and its MythTV PVR client would be a better choice on such
boxes as it's much less resource hungry.  Also, unless you want
Android TV, an RPi 3 would be a better choice.  If you still want one
of these boxes, be sure to look for one that is well supported by its
manufacturer or has an active community behind it.

David
-- 
David Engel
david at istwok.net