I read the following on another forum, regarding using XBMC with Amazon's new Fire TV. Hopefully some of you will find this helpful:
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I'm starting to seriously warm up to the Fire TV as a low-cost "do most anything" media player. XBMC Gotham RC1 works really well on it, interface is fast, content plays well (note: Make sure you disable MediaCodec and only use Libstagefright for acceleration, the former doesn't work with the FTV yet) Live TV works very well (if you are sourcing h.264; MPEG-2 still needs work on the FTV) and despite some absences like HBO Go (which is coming) the streaming media experience with the FTV proper is quite nice. Throw in XBMC for local media/Live TV and you have a $99 all in one client.
It's still got a few kinks to work out (both FTV and XBMC), doesn't support 24p playback (a big deal to some people who are sensitive to 3:2 pulldown - if you don't know what any of this is then you aren't) and because Android in general doesn't allow apps to switch refresh rates on their own it may sometimes not appear to play content - particularly content from different regions, ala PAL/NTSC - as "smooth" as, say, an Intel-powered NUC - but you get a nice streaming box that XBMC works very well on for $99, including a nice remote, so take the good with the bad. Also I don't know about 10-bit playback or whatever it is you Anime nerds seem to love so someone else will have to answer that.
Anyway I have two now and spent some time tweaking things so I thought I'd share my little guide (pointers to other, better guides really). Here you go:
XBMC on the Amazon Fire TV: Quick overview.
• Step 1: Read the official F.A.Q. - wiki.xbmc.org
Walks you through sideloading XBMC and settings (easy as pie with WinADB). Seriously, it's dead simple to do and if you have an existing XBMC install it's easy to port your configs over too.
As of this post, I recommend using the official RC1 Gotham release for Android - it works really well and has a lot of improvements over Frodo (and SPMC, which is based off Frodo right now). Stay away from the nightlies for now unless you actually want to help test - they don't offer anything "better" for the FTV than RC1 does and can be unstable.
• I strongly recommend following the optional steps listed to sideload and configure Llama as well - if you enable steps 1, 2, and 4 you'll end up with an install that you can launch from the FireTV homescreen (I use the Plex app/icon for this myself) so that when XBMC is running the "home" button returns you to the FTV interface, and when you are running the main FTV home screen, the home button launches XBMC. In other apps (Netflix, etc) home works as normal, i.e. it takes you to the FTV home screen.
This will give you about as seamless experience as is possible between the two - it's really easy for family members and others who use your setup who don't dick around with it like you do to figure it out. The only drawback - and it's a minor one - is there's no "official" XBMC icon on the home screen/app section. This isn't likely to change - the XBMC group is dead-set against "gimping" XBMC for specific devices, and patent/IP issues mean XBMC will not ever be accepted to the official Amazon/Google Play stores as-is - however, at least one person is working on a "launcher" app for the FTV, which will essentially place an XBMC icon in the Apps section and launch the sideloaded XBMC proper app. Whether Amazon goes for this or not is an open question at the moment.
(Yes, Ouya did release a "gimped" version of XBMC for their store, because they are lame, and it lacks DTS/DD support and is generally useless. It's also not an official XBMC build. This is why everyone on Ouya sideloads SPMC instead).
• For skins, I recommend Eminence (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=187071) which looks awesome, is fluid and works really well on the FTV, and in general just rocks. It's still a Work In Progress, so some stuff (like music widgets) aren't in it yet but overall it's very usable day to day. And, if it just doesn't float your boat, there are many others to choose from - the FTV generally works well with most skins, even "heavy" ones like Aeon Nox, thanks to its speedy CPU and memory.
• Remote: I use FLIRC (http://flirc.tv/) with one of my FTV since I already had the previous box setup with my Harmony remote. Flirc is a "keyboard" dongle that you can easily program to accept remote commends from any IR remote and is particularly popular with Harmony Universal remote users. If you want IR integration with your FTV this is the best and easiest (though not only) way to do it.
The XBMC/Fire TV Wiki section 4.3 goes over FLIRC setup options.
• With my other FTV I just use the Amazon remote. I highly recommend following the directions listed here: wiki.xbmc.org
And configuring an alternative keymap for XBMC/FTV remote. I use a slightly modified keymap 3 in case you wondered.
Doing this makes the FTV remote in to something quite useful for XBMC, despite it's limited keys, and since it is specific to XBMC it won't muck with the rest of the FTV interface. As it happens I am warming up to this approach over the Harmony remote - my family/friends actually prefer the simpler FTV remote - the lack of buttons is a deliberate choice by Amazon for a reason - and since it's BT you don't have to point it anywhere. It's not a great choice if you have a complicated setup with an AVR, multiple inputs, etc but it is great for "second TV's" or less complicated setups.
Finally I recommend a few other tweaks for XBMC and the FTV:
• Video Caching (local is Gotham Only). Local source buffering is a major change for XBMC Gotham - previous versions only buffered "internet" sources meaning local LAN streaming was direct. If your LAN/WiFi network isn't all it could be or you stream a lot of high bitrate content (like BD rips or Live TV) you will be interested in this.
Check out this wiki page: wiki.xbmc.org for instructions on modifying/creating an advancedsettings.xml file (which you can transfer easily to the FTV following the ADB instructions in the FTV wiki, posted above). I personally found that "Example 3" in section 3.3 (all sources cached, 50mb) works fine though I may bump it to 100mb - the FTV has enough memory to handle it.
This tweak alone greatly improved Live TV streaming (from my NPVR server) to the point where I've enabled it on my non-FTV XBMC box as well.
• If you store content on a local NAS, like a Synology box, many users report that NFS shares work "better" than the standard SMB/CIFS shares those boxes output by default. Personally, my internal network is good enough that I can't see a difference (the biggest difference for me was enabling the video buffer, above) but again, if your WiFi is an edge case already it may help. Most consumer NAS's like Synology allow you to configure shares for both. If you are using a Windows server for sharing don't bother, stick with SMB.
Final tip:
• If you use the default skin (Confluence) or Eminence/a few others, you can create shortcuts to favorites right on your XMBC home menu. And you can favorite Android apps like Netflix. This means you can put a "Netflix" button in the XBMC menu that launches the Android app and returns to XMBC when you are done. Or games. Or whatever.
For this, you'll need to make sure you have script.favorites installed: mirrors.xbmc.org
And then insure you make the apps you want favorites (go to programs, Android apps, highlight the one you want, bring up the context menu, select favorite).
Then in your skin settings (for those that support it) just edit your main menu and add the favorite. Done.
Hopefully some of you find this helpful. |
