Hi,
I was considering buying the xiaomi mi box but I am still not sure if it can play them or not so does it or not ? If not is there an alternative in the same price range ? I am just looking for something that can play different formats and can play them from a removable media device.
Thanks
The AMLogic S905X in the Xiaomi Mi Box can hardware decode pretty much all video compression codecs including up to 8/10bit 720/1080p/4K HDR h.265(HEVC) from local (NTFS or Fat32 formatted) USB storage.
The only video codec you are likely to have trouble with is the very old VC-1 format found on a few pretty old Blurays that you would self rip into an RAW disk .ISO format. A lot of devices have trouble with this one. Old VC-1's are pretty rare as 99% of Bluray's use modern H264 compresssion.
Ignore the Plex comment below. You would not even be using that App for Local USB video content playback anyway. Plex is completely irrelevant and there are much better video playback options anyway.
I have personally tested video playback with these Apps on the Mi Box and they are fine for video playback:
VLC, MX Player, SPMC, Archos Player, Kodi Krypton
If you want a device that literally plays everything you throw at it - all automatically you should buy a dirt cheap AMLogic S905/S905X device and run LibreELEC Kodi Krypton on it from a SD card on it. Add a quality Wireless remote with its plug in USB mini dongle and you are good to go.
It will be a better personal video player setup than any Android Kodi/Plex device including the NVIDIA Shield. Far less Networking and file storage issues too vs Android. You can even Network transfer files to any attached USB HDD's very very easily.
The bonus is you get ultrasmooth video playback due to working Kodi auto refresh switching which the Xiaomi Mi Box cannot do.
If you need to play a lot of Hi10P aka 10bit H264 Anime buy a NVIDIA Shield - as that one needs software decoding using a strong CPU package because Hi10P is stupid non standard video compression.
I use moonlight to stream h265 1080p60 on my mi box and it works great, don't think you'll have problems..
Can you play x265 on UBOX?
I recently switched from a Raspberry PI 2 running LibreElec Kodi to an Odroid C2 (about $50) running LibreElec Kodi.
Plays h.265 / HEVC perfectly. One current advantage to the Odroid C2 is it is one of the few devices that correctly auto-switches resolution between 1080p and 2160p.
Hopefully they come out with a C2+ that does HDR and Dolby Vision.
Every time I try playing H.265 video on Plex, the MiBox always requests transcoding to H.264. Your best best is to avoid the MiBox like a plague and save up for a Shield TV, trust me I have a MiBox and it's garbage.
The MiBox plays H.265 beautifully for me at 720p. I don't know about 1080p though