Questions for someone with Android TV

by mrhansenable

Hi, can't seem to find answers to the questions below anywhere online, so I resort to the Reddit community (thanks in advance!)

Considering buying Android TV (either Mi Box or Nexus box). I want to know a little more about Backdrop, or about daydream or whatever app is available to display photos as a screensaver.

Wondering what comes built in with the stock setup? Is it Backdrop? Are there alternatives?

so my questions:

  1. Can I display photos from either google photos, flickr, or even a USB?

  2. I have about 2000 photos in 40 albums, I want to randomly scroll through these so I get good variation. Is that possible?

  3. Along with an onscreen clock, is it possible to also display meta information such as the date the photo was taken, and the title of the album (or some other descriptor)?

thanks!

3r0z

You can do this in Kodi. Not only is Kodi a media player it also serves as a launcher for other Android apps. You can't really customize leanback but once you go into Kodi technically you don't have to leave as you can access everything from right in there.

fervidfly

it comes with a stock screensaver app that has a clock that pulls images from national museums/art galleries/NASA/etc. So assume that there are comparable apps that would let you do similar but never fiddled with it myself.

speakxj7

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3140098/personal-technology/google-photos-screensaver-android-tv.html

atv backdrop can't naturally do google photos like chromecast backdrop (yet), but since backdrop is just an android daydream app, you can replace it with any other daydream app. (daydream in the older android sense [screensaver] not in the newer sense [vr])

jaydd

You should be able to customise it via the Google Home app (former Chromecast app).