Experience with the Pivos XS and XBMC

[donschjr]

Thanks, I thought about one of the Pi's but I'm not comfortable ordering from overseas so I was hoping this would work.

[mvallevand]

I personally don't think the RPi is generally what people are really looking for anyway.

Martin

[donschjr]

These are $90 at newegg with the code on the page until the 5th, I just ordered 1.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6815645003

[mvallevand]

These are $90 at newegg with the code on the page until the 5th, I just ordered 1.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6815645003

I believe I saw your posts and frustration with wireless. If I had known you wanted to use wifi for the client, I would have told you or anyone else not to bother, even if the Pivos XIOS design flaw makes it potentially worse. I don't know one extender that has good enough wifi buffering with to stream HD reliably, in my house even internet radio is difficult. Adding the fact that the client is going to be slower than a PC, I know that the experience is going to be poor.

Martin

[donschjr]

That was me, I can stream HD over wireless to my laptop, which is only G, using Xnewa in XMBC and it works great. The pivos being wireless N I thought would work ok but I can't get the wireless to stay connected well enough to do anything. I can't pull cable to the room I need an extender so I have to come up with a wireless solution. I'll probably just get I of the mini pc's and load windows and use the npvr client, just was looking for a less expensive solution since dollars are tight.

[mikeh49]

How about powerline networking or MOCA (ethernet over coax) to your extender location? Powerline adapters seem reasonably priced these days (Linksys has some new ones), not sure about MOCA hardware. I've heard good reports about powerline networking for audio, but of course video is another kettle of fish.

[donschjr]

I want to use it in a detached garage so I can watch the race when I'm out working on my vehicles so I dobt the powerline thing will work and I'm not impressed with the comments I've seen about them.

[martint123]

I have powerline ethernet running down to a detached garage, the attic and an IP camera at the bottom of the garden. Works fine for the PC in the garage for watching TV (or glancing at) when working in there.

[mvallevand]

Here is an update on YouTube with the XBMC PVR Addon running on the Pivos XS http://youtu.be/mRVLj4KI_98 You can jump to 1:25 or so for the more exiting stuff.

I captured from program start so there is a blank at the beginning, you also need to for the box to boot. The M1 can be 30 seconds or more and the M3 quite a bit faster. You can see that it takes about a minute to load my large 200 channel guide. This can take 30 seconds on my i7, it can get irritating if you stop and start a lot.

I start with with analog SD channel changes, you can see it is very fast

Moving to ATSC HD you can see the first flaw in the Pivos PVR (maybe NextPVR?) implementation (this is still beta). When you change channels with resolution changes the first time it doesn't work. Afterwords moving between these 3 1080i channels isn't too bad, but it is a little slower since more data has to be transferred

Then the final test is HDPVR changing. With the first problem (resolution change) you have the 5 second+ change typical for the HDPVR even in NextPVR and some real problem changing channels. However if you stop and start channels from the main guide things are fine.

Another nice change from my first post is EDL files are working really will for comskip. Skipping in my HDPVR recordings work very well.

Surprising for me anyway, I watched a full episode of Homeland (720p 5:1) over wifi as a test, and I didn't have any problems.

Martin

[mvallevand]

Pivos have made some updates and channel changing between different stream types works much better, here is an updated video http://youtu.be/4QZOhtMvhY0 I start with some SD move through some HD digital a mix 720p and 1080i and then on to 720p HDPVR, with slow channel changes. I do expect that though it takes 15 seconds on an i7 PC client.

Martin