S905x advice

1st Official Post

    Hello,

    I could use some advice regarding S905x devices and what to look out for.

    Is 1GB RAM enough?
    Can I just order the cheapest one from AliExpress?

    My requirements:

    I want to stream H.264, H.265 and VP9 movies from a NAS (using Samba) via Ethernet to a FullHD non 3d projector.

    I have an Onkyo HDMI TX-NR609 receiver that can deal with audio by itself.

    Various people will no doubt comment accordingly, but I bought the cheapest S905 box at the time and recently the cheapest S905X box recently. Both 1GB/8GB and I'm more than happy with the performance.

    I'm using them on ethernet mostly and couldn't be happier.

    Well, as soon as it's more than 26€ I have to pay 19% extra for tax (maybe not if I order from GearBest).

    But if 1GB RAM is enough... why spend more?

    Right now the cheapest one I can find on GearBest, Banggood, AliExpress is one called Scishion V88 PRO for 24.19€ from AliExpress

    Do they all support DTS passthrough?

    Edited once, last by Inesca (December 11, 2016 at 8:10 PM).

    I would advise spending the extra $10 and getting 2G of RAM. Even if you never touch it with the particular setup you might be using, it's nice to have a little headroom for the future.

    Also, pay close attention to audio outputs. A lot of boxes omit an optical output which might be key to you if your TV does not passthrough audio to your AVR properly.

    If you will be using wireless be sure to do some research and make sure the device you are getting has a good chance of being supported in LE. Also, do not assume that in 2016 all boxes will come with 1G ethernet connections.

    Just a niggle, but I really hate boxes that use a standard size SD card slot. They are not recessed and so 75% of the card just hangs out the side. Doesn't affect performance, but looks a bit clumsy.

    And if you want the *least* hassle get a Wetek or OdroidC2. They are not without issues, but there is a boatload of documentation and support available.

    There is a memory leak problem in 64bit libre Elec builds that causes RAM to fill up on devices which results in the boxes becoming sluggish and non responsive once the memory is fully utilised. 1gb boxes are affected more by this issue as 1gb gets filled quicker than 2GB.

    This is one reason why 2gb boxes were recommended. However I believe that this memory leak issue may be resolved on the new 32bit libre Elec builds using arm 32 bit colour space. If this memory leak issue is fixed than yes 1gb should be enough.

    • Official Post

    I advise buying an S905 device from a company that actually supports software development like hard kernel or Wetek. All the other companies just milk their hard work.