Evo xfinity - initial thoughts and a couple of questions.

Hi guys.
So after unwrapping my new box it seems like a promising (if a little slow and buggy) littledevice. This would completely do away with having several devices if you could put them all under one roof. That is the theory anyway.

Alas I had a pretty painful experience with a recording that refused to stop - every time I rebooted it reappeared but eventually managed to get the cache cleared. But the picture is pretty good and pvr wise the recording (on an initial look) appears to work OK.

But I stumbled into a major problem - my samba shares over SMB are not working. This is a major setback for me as I have a NAS server. I tried adding the shares manually after the auto function failed but no dice.

Another issue is that some of the mkv files stored on my usb drive are without sound. I thought this may be an XBMC audio set-up issue but the same files have no audio on the native Media Player on the Android dash. Anyone experience this or have an idea how it could be resolved?

And one last question. I probably should have clarified this before buying but does this box support a motorised dish set-up?

Thanks in advance guys.

Just thought I would update this thread having played about for a while. The issue with cetain MKV files not playing sound is an issue with dts audio. The box does not like it and that includes xbmc and the native video player. So using a programme called popcorn audio convertor I have changed the sound from dts into Dolby in the appropriate mkv files and they play fine. Not ideal but it is a workaround. A simple read of the instructions would have confirmed the box does indeed support a motorised dish - I havent got around to testing yet. The third party firmware has also made the addition of a c-line easy though i havent entered one yet and have been testing with freeview. I have managed to get some extra plugins installed and they appear stable. Playback of movie files is stable and painless. Alas the smb is a no go for now. Adding shares just hangs the box and it needs a power off to reboot. The PVR function appears to work pretty well and the recordings are good quality.
Overall this is a very cool little box with a lot of potential. It is certainly not the most advanced box out there and can be a tad slow but for the money you cant expect perfection.

Quote from carlos99

For playing of mkv's give (android app- from the market) MoboPlayer a try- I haven't actually tried it on this box but i use on my phone- not sure if it will handle dts though.

If your on the latest firmware- when the box appears to hang if you keep the power button on the remote held down for ~8 seconds it will force a restart of xbmc, which is much quicker than a full restart.

I also had issues with it automatically finding smb shares, but found i could manually add them through file manager.

Nice review - good to see this box getting some attention

Display More

My smb shares are now working fine - I think it was an issue with my home network. I replaced some ethernet cables, rebooted the network and I am running fine from my nas server. I am intending to buy an optical cable to see if that will resolve the dts audio issue.

I have however uncovered another issue with this box which, if not fixed, will prove to be a deal breaker. The pvr function refuses to work with pay channels running on a softcam. It spits out an error message along the lines of 'channel scrambled, recording cannot be started. This means only freeview can be recorded which is obviously poor.