I have been looking at getting a mi box as a cheaper alternative to the Nvidia Shield, for different TVs in my home.

I have been looking online but am having difficulty finding where to buy and what version to get, in the UK.

Any help would be appreciated.

I write this post because I am sick and tired to bash the Mi box and Android TV OS. Thank God an inexpensive full Android TV experience with Google Assistant on all my house and personal office rooms at 1/3 price of Shield and Apple TV. I have a Nexus Player, Nvidia Shield TV and 4 Mi boxes. Nexus Player at Android 6 was decent fast. At Oreo I have the fastest Assistant but the navigation is sluggish and app launching is slow. I disabled the window and transition animations to 0x, set animator to 0.5x and it's passable now. Nvidia Shield was always fast but it's an overkill and it had their own problems. Let's continue to Mi boxes. They were fast at 6.0 without any problem for me. But the Android TV 6 was the phone Android with the custom launcher Leanback. It's oversimplification I know. If you looked at the system many components that took ram and CPU resources were useless for the TV experience. Android TV 8.0 is a real streamlined version for TV and it broke in pieces to core components to be updatable through Google Play Store. Finally! After the update on all of my devices the performance is faster on booting, launching apps, navigation and playing videos. Specifically on Mi boxes after boot on 6.0 I had 350-550mb of RAM available. I update to new OS on top of old and on first boot I have 900mb RAM and ~1GB of internal storage freed. So the new OS is lighter. Also days after the update launching apps without reboot or memory optimizer apps etc I have constantly 600-800mb RAM. Clearly it cleans up memory automatically at idle. But the ram management is way better than 6.0. At 6.0 2-3 apps the next was relaunching. The leanback was a disaster and the new homescreen is now faster and take less space and ram. I have 14 channels at homescreen (video and audio homescreen autoplay disabled) and I have 53 apps installed. Again available memory 700mb, at Nexus Player 250mb... I have set to 0x window and transition animations and animator to 0.5x to get even faster navigation without any lag. Also 8.0 behaves much better if you want to disable some animations. At 6.0 disabled animations especially on leanback launcher create problems and dropped frames. It is not a change of need but for speed. At 6.0 I had sporadically dropped 5-10 frames on 4K 60p on Youtube if I skipped too fast videos. Now a nice round 0. HDMI CEC is usable now. I have installed all apps on USB sticks. At 6.0 the app that was moved at USB stick was noticable slower. Now its almost like launching from internal. The set up process streamlined and it is faster. Also the format to adoptable storage and moving apps between internal and external difference in speed is huge. The same with app downloading and installation. I have very good 64GB USB sticks, huge USB, believe me guys. I have paired Sony Bluetooth headphones at bedroom and living room without any problem. But I think the Bluetooth audio could be louder. Also at kitchen it paired with 2 JBL Clip 2 for music at backyard. Now let's talk about the problems. After the last update if they are sleeping more than 8 hours they lose connection with the remote and you cannot wake them up. The HDMI CEC wake the living room Mi box always but the HDMI CEC at kitchen sometimes. So no HDMI CEC enabled out of luck. But I find a solution. They transmit Bluetooth signal and they are connected to Chromecast and WiFi while sleeping. If you go to Bluetooth settings on your phone and you are in range of the device you can find it under Bluetooth devices with the name you gave like dining room, playroom etc. The phone tries to pair and failed. After second or third attempt the Mi box wakes and the remote is connected. The whole process takes me 1 min. So no reboot for me. Also Google Assistant understand me what I said exactly but sometimes Google sanitaze it to another similar phrase. It's frustrating but constant Google updates for the last 3 months improve the situation. For the last I am not sure maybe it's a placebo. Also after waking sometimes Assistant is sluggish. On 6.0 I had sideloaded Assistant on Mi box and it was super fast. So problems with Bluetooth remote on all 4 devices. I was since 1998 through 2016 an exclusive Apple products user. I transition to Google ecosystem and I amazed with the everyday innovation and little tweaks on apps and services. Changes that take Apple months and years. For justice I tired to hear complains for the Android and to hear how much stable is Apple OS. I transitioned as an experiment and I was expecting a hell of instability and problems. I recognize that I change in a good era for the Android OS and my first interaction was 7.0 and above. Also my Wear OS journey is horrible. But Android phone, tablet, TV, smart speakers, Assistant and Chrome OS experience is superb.

Hey people.

I'm not really must of a poster on reddit, more of a browser. But I kind of need some help.

So for a long while I've wanted an Nvidia Shield TV Pro. But was unable to get in in the UK. I've now got one, and I'm in lover with it. I'm still trying to set it up so that I have the same functionality as I did from by DroidBox. And thus why I turn to you guys.

Basically I'm stuck. I'm not as good as I thought I was and I suck at using terminal to do what I need.

The latest update for the Shield doesn't allow you to enable draw over other apps. I'm aware that this can be changed using the SDK and terminal. But other than navigating to the relevant folder I don't know what to do. I've managed to get the device hooked. Confirmed the permission required on the Shield. But after hours of research, searching through archived posts and cans of monster, I've come to a grinding halt.

Any help you guys can offer is greatly appreciated.

TLDR: please help enable 'draw over other apps' for my Shield TV. No idea what do to after navigating to the respective folder. Or even how to run and use ADB.

I like the Nvidia Shield but the trending videos haven't changed in a month, even after restarting the Shield. Does anyone else have this problem?

I have a mi box but I'm thinking of returning it to walmart and grabbing an Amazon fire tv 4k box. Wondering If the fire tv would perform streaming high bitrate files from a remote server better than the mi box. The mi box does okay, but you cant hardwire it. I assume the fire tv can perform better especially with it hardwired, right?

I have a MX box from a couple of years ago that I am trying to get to work. I powered it on and could navigate the menus and download things from the play store but couldn’t update the device.

I went into the options and tried to do a factory reset but it didn’t work and was left with a black screen. This device has a physical reset button inside the AV inlet so I followed the process of holding it down and then putting the power back in which brought up a menu. I selected factory reset there but again it just went to perma black screen. I was going to see what other options were available but now I can’t get back to that menu and it is just a permanent black screen.

The box appears to power up looking at the light but it is only showing a black screen.

Can someone assist me with this? I finally have internet good enough to stream netflix etc so I really want to get it to work!

Hi,

Recently i connected the miBox to my bluetooth speaker for better sounds, but it seems like the sounds is cutting (broken) all the time. I believe it is something wrong on the connectivity. Do anybody have the same issue? I tried it on live channel, youtube, netfliex. They all have issue. The issue didn't happen the first 2 days, it just happened recently. I wonder if there is some updated broke it.

I’ve been looking for a remote to buy for the mecool m8s pro l but I can’t find one with everything I’m looking for.

The main thing always missing is the fast forward and rewind buttons, I never find a remote with them.

For 2 years I've had a privilege of using my father's Sony TV which had Android TV on it, I got so used to it, but then I had to move out and I've decided to purchase a TV. However, I bought a Samsung TV and the app store.. it lacks a lot of things. I would love to use Kodi or VLC. I thought Chromecast was basically Android TV, but upon little research I found out it's just a way to stream things on your TV, and I don't find that necessary.

Then I found out about Nvidia Shield, a box that has Android TV in it and does much more things. However, when I have found out the price of it I wanted to cry! What's the best and cheapest 'Android TV' thing I can get that can do 4K HDR, with a possibility of getting apps like Kodi or VLC?

Thank you.

Been getting this error for almost a week now. Tried clearing the app cache/data, disabling and enabling it, rebooting. Anyone else get this or know how to solve it?

(Casting from my phone works)

I bought a Skystream Two box and everything is working great except the YouTube TV app. Streams work if I initiate them using a USB mouse. However, the app seems to ignore any input from the remote. I worked with their customer support and was told that app is not compatible with Android TV devices, which is BS as it works on my Nexus Player just fine. So, I've initiated a refund.

Question - anyone here a YouTube TV subscriber? If so, what Android TV device are you running it on? Was looking for a device capable of 4k and recommendations are appreciated.

I've heard of a few remotes that work, but have some shortcomings and don't offer voice search.

Is there a good alternative on the market?

Hi,

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I'm looking for an android box that can read mkv file on a external hard drive in 4k, x265 and DTS. I also want that it can read 10 bits files and HDR.

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In brief, I just want a Android Tv box that can read pretty everything on a external hard drive.

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Thank you very much

Does anyone know how to program a harmony remote so you can type in channel numbers in live channels using the harmony touchscreen?

Thanks!

After 2 days of messing with attempting to flash my mi box or even get it to boot back up, I ran to walmart to see if the mi box was on clearance, and it was. 3 locations sold out, I gave up and headed to Best Buy to see what they had, against everything holy I settled on the Shield TV with game controller.

Holy Hell it's awesome, it detected my 4K TV, HDR, no sound issues on Plex, all my cameras work without lag on my home camera app, and best of all I got to play Half Life 2 and portal for free. Ohh the memories.

I've been on the fence for a long time now, but I'm glad I bought it. Next I'll load my Plex library on an external drive and see how it works. Might give me a little time to rebuild the home server.

A month or two ago, reports surfaced about many Nexus Players failing (possibly due to storage failures)

Now it looks like a slew of Mi Boxes are experiencing the same issue

Does anyone suspect that Android 8 is causing these failures now that multiple devices seem to be having a similar issue?

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The remote with the new just-released 4k Fire TV stick meets all my demands for perfection.

• IR power and volume, with mute
• Play/pause buttons
• Voice control
• No excess buttons (airmouse, pg up/pg dn etc)
• Conventional Android TV layout
• Real click buttons, no sliders or touch nonsense
• AAA batteries

It's unbelievable that no remote fitting these requirements has ever been made (a couple have come close), is this finally the one?

Has anyone used it? Is it compatible with Nvidia Shield TV? If so, is it snappy and lag-free?

Has anyone experienced having some channels with no audio?

I have a Mid Box and Shield TV, and the same channel may have audio on Mi box but not on Shield and vice versa.