XIOS DS Streaming Media Player for TVs (with XBMC capability)

Update 01/08/14: Official XBMC Gotham nightlies (Android) now comes with XIOS full hardware acceleration support. Happy New Year :)Update 05/07: Netflix aspect ratio issue on M3 fixed check yt=v=3P8hpt5iyqM , user accessible space on M3 increased to 1GB.Update 01/28: Netflix issues fixed for ICS, check yt v=hdCNZrStoYgUpdate 10/09: Major updates for XBMC both Linux and Android, synced with XBMC mainline, most add-ons now work without issues.Update 8/13: XBMC Linux port releasedUpdate 8/6: Latest GB based released with support for Bluetooth devices.Update 8/6: More elaborate review for XBMC (most recent version has compatibility for usb pointing devices), check YT video v=6SnPveEkNPcUpdate 8/5: The wifi antenna reception issue fixed, check YT video v=cQysHr8mcJgUpdate 7/14: Pivos got XBMC running on the XIOS-DS, check YT video v=y4o-k1DxF5wPivos just released an Android based super slim box to complement its successful  AIOS HD Media Center, Full HD 1080p, Gigabit Network, USB 3.0 data, Flash Reader, 3.5" SATA 2  ? Is Android really the holy-grail of media players ?! well ... read on and tell for yourself.Unboxing:-------------Check my pictures in the gallery section, a DVD used to get an idea about the size of every thing in comparison.The retail box: though small and humble is huge compared to how small the actual XIOS is.Package contents: No quick start leaflet included, quick start guide printed on the inner box. You get an HDMI cable (for the only output port on the box), XIOS itself, an IR remote (modest with only few buttons to navigate, change volume and turn on/off the box) and the 5V/2A adapter.The XIOS: 3xUSB, LAN, mSD slot, power button, firmware recovery/upgrade hole, and the ONLY output is HDMI.XIOS .. the ICS update ..-------------------------------The box comes with Android GB out of the box, I am not going to even bother with that GB is not meant for a big screen display, ICS is already out (posted on the official forums) and takes about 10 minutes to apply, the rest of the review is of Android ICS running on the box.XIOS .. The good ..----------------------------- Once ICS is installed there was no issue running MKVs up to 1080p/11GB (over wired network).- After that size, 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 (alternatively you can install widgets from the market to reboot and turn off the box right from the home screen).- ICS comes with the latest Google Play store, app visibility is on bar with all other android devices I have owned.- Experience 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.XIOS ..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).- No output A/V outputs beside HDMI.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.Final words----------------Its really refreshing to be able to get Android on your big screen, compared to other GoogleTV devices the XIOS is priced right, comes pre-rooted with full Google Playstore access. True the ride is as rough as any other Android tablet/phone but its for sure a step in the right direction.XIOS .. Set up .. (for the techies)---------------------------------------------- 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 ..----------------------------------------------------VideoID : 1Format : AVCFormat/Info : Advanced Video CodecFormat profile : High@L4.1Format settings, CABAC : YesFormat settings, ReFrames : 5 framesCodec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVCDuration : 2h 26mnBit rate : 9 205 KbpsWidth : 1 920 pixelsHeight : 800 pixels========================================================VideoID : 1Format : AVCFormat/Info : Advanced Video CodecFormat profile : High@L4.1Format settings, CABAC : YesFormat settings, ReFrames : 4 framesCodec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVCDuration : 1h 17mnBit rate : 13.3 MbpsWidth : 1 920 pixelsHeight : 1 080 pixels========================================================VideoID : 1Format : AVCFormat/Info : Advanced Video CodecFormat profile : High@L4.1Format settings, CABAC : YesFormat settings, ReFrames : 4 framesMuxing mode : Header strippingCodec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVCDuration : 1h 42mnBit rate : 14.0 MbpsWidth : 1 920 pixelsHeight : 798 pixels========================================================VideoID : 1Format : AVCFormat/Info : Advanced Video CodecFormat profile : High@L4.1Format settings, CABAC : YesFormat settings, ReFrames : 5 framesFormat settings, GOP : M=4, N=48Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVCDuration : 1h 57mnBit rate : 9 169 KbpsWidth : 1 920 pixelsHeight : 816 pixels========================================================VideoID : 1Format : AVCFormat/Info : Advanced Video CodecFormat profile : High@L4.1Format settings, CABAC : YesFormat settings, ReFrames : 5 framesCodec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVCDuration : 1h 54mnBit rate : 8 020 KbpsWidth : 1 920 pixelsHeight : 816 pixels========================================================MKVs that didn't work smoothly (some would require repeated buffering, others would cut and skip randomly)--------------------------------------------------------------------VideoID : 1Format : AVCFormat/Info : Advanced Video CodecFormat profile : High@L4.1Format settings, CABAC : YesFormat settings, ReFrames : 5 framesCodec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVCDuration : 2h 34mnBit rate : 8 849 KbpsWidth : 1 920 pixelsHeight : 800 pixels========================================================VideoID : 1Format : AVCFormat/Info : Advanced Video CodecFormat profile : High@L4.1Format settings, CABAC : YesFormat settings, ReFrames : 5 framesMuxing mode : Header strippingCodec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVCDuration : 2h 11mnBit rate : 15.8 MbpsWidth : 1 920 pixelsHeight : 816 pixels========================================================VideoID : 1Format : AVCFormat/Info : Advanced Video CodecFormat profile : High@L4.1Format settings, CABAC : YesFormat settings, ReFrames : 4 framesCodec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVCDuration : 1h 27mnBit rate : 20.8 MbpsWidth : 1 920 pixelsHeight : 800 pixels========================================================

I bought this solely for the purpose of XBMC in an effort to replace an ailing Xtream SideWinder 2. I don't want Android apps on my TV, and I don't want a keyboard. I have a lot of media on a server, and I want to get it off the server onto my living room TV.Upon opening the package, there is a note from the manufacturer to update immediately. The packing is fairly nice. The unit is amazingly tiny, about the size of a large wallet and weighs next to nothing.Updating the unit was a pain. You will need to have a MicroSD card handy. I attempted to update by using the button method: press the update button, hold the power, should put you in update mode. Unfortunately this never worked for me. In fact, the power button on the until doesn't seem to do anything at all. Not sure if this is by-design or if my unit happened to have a dead power button. Finding the Linux XBMC firmware on their site was like a game of hide-and-seek.Once I updated the firmware with the latest Linux XBMC from their site, I thought I was in business. However, I quickly realized that setting up several SMB shares would take me forever using the small, 9-button remote. Thankfully, I had a USB keyboard lying about, and that made the process much quicker.Thats when I ran into problem #2: The networking does not work. I have a Timecapsule (Apple WiFi with built-in harddrive). Using DHCP, the device detected all the settings except the DNS, which it detects as my GW address (address of my Timecapsule). So, I try to switch it to manual, but the drop-down that controls that setting does not work. In essence, you are stuck in DHCP mode, and as I said not all of the settings are correct. I sent a problem ticket to the manufacturer, but their response was "Yeah, the XBMC firmware has bugs". Ok, so, is there a work around? Is there an ETA for a fix? Because of the networking problem, all the cool gadgets on XBMC, like downloading the information of your TV shows and Movies fails spectacularly, popping up error message dialogs in the middle of watching videos and generally being annoying.Now on to problem #3: The remote. It's slick, tiny, and looks nice. However, not enough buttons. I get to screens were I absolutely can't figure out which button I need to press to get out. The back button doesn't always work like you'd think. I, personally, will be looking to see if I can get a remote with slightly more functional buttons on it at some point, maybe even a keyboard and mouse on it.In conclusion: The device looks neat, and I think it has potential, but if you are buying strictly for XBMC functionality I think its a way off. Also, the remote could have more buttons, and the company doesn't really seem to support you rather than just stating the obvious.**Update**I wanted to give a quick update as to my extended experience with this unit.I am still running the XIOS in Linux/XBMC-mode using their latest Beta 2 firmware. I was never able to get the networking to work 100%. I can connect to my local SMB file share as long as I let the unit use DHCP and define all the shares by IP instead of hostname. DHCP still picks the wrong DNS server, which is odd because I have several devices on my network setup to use DHCP, and they all seem to pull the DNS server list just fine. At some point, the device decided to completely disable the ability to even try to put it in manual mode. I did try to SSH into the device and setup the networking manually via CLI, but as soon as I rebooted, XBMC stubbornly turned off the networking settings and I was back to square one. I did contact Pivos about it, and was basically told it's a known issue and to wait for the next firmware. Not much in the way of "support", but I guess that's what you get for running Beta software. As a result, you can't use any of the plugins, update skins, or get any info on any of the videos as the box will simply time out. This has become rather annoying. I have not tried WiFi, as most of my media is rather large and I feel it would not play back very well.Movie playback, for the most part, is Ok. I have a lot of MKV files, a few AVIs, most in at least 720p, some in 1080p. I have the device set to do pass through audio, which seems to work best through my Onkyo 5.1. I say playback is 'Ok' because I have had a few movies/tv shows that the audio did not sync with the video, usually because the video would stutter and loose tracking. On these videos, the audio track would be ahead of the video, but would eventually snap back after a minute or so. It does get to be annoying when it happens. The other issue we have seen with playback, which seems to be a known issue when I read the forums, is that every once in a while a video will have the sound randomly cut out. Usually stopping and restarting will cure this.The next problem we have ran into is with the remote. I mentioned earlier in my review that the lack of buttons makes it hard to operate. I do have to retract that a little, as it's mostly comes down to learning curve. Also, since I have an iPhone, I downloaded the XBMC controller, which adds a lot of functionality. The problem is the box's IR seems to go to la-la land every now and then, refusing to respond. You spend the next 2+ minutes trying to determine if you are simply at a bad angle, or if the box is just ignoring your requests. Again, the XBMC remote for the i-Device seems to not have this problem.Bottom line: If you are looking for a plug-and-play solution to get XBMC on your TV, I think there are other devices that might be better. And judging from the date stamps on the firmwares available from the manufacturer, I don't think these problems will be fixed anytime soon. However, if you don't mind being an "early adopter", the box shows a lot of promise as a media hub, so it may be worth picking up if you can live with all the issues.