next010
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If anyone is interested here is some info on the Solidrun CuBox-i
What is it ?
If your familiar with the Raspberry Pi project then the CuBox-i is that on steroids, while the R-Pi used a very old Arm CPU, the CuBox-i use the 1Ghz quad core Freescale iMX6 series chip.
There are four versions but really only the i2 (dual core) and i4 (quad core) are worth getting.
Hardware features;
It is a fanless very small cube, it comes with HDMI, optical, ethernet, wireless, USB, and a micro SD card slot. You also get IR built in (no remote though) and support for HDMI-CEC.
Video decoding properties;
A wide range of media types is supported, all the common types are there and it can play DVD/Blu-ray video without issue. 3D (MVC) is also supported by the hardware but XBMC itself does not support decoding this format in hardware it can only CPU soft decode MVC video so 3D Blu-ray is ruled out I'm afraid. If XBMC gets MVC hardware support that should change things.
Audio decoding properties;
The hardware supports decoding Dolby, DTS, TrueHD, DTS-MA, currently HD audio bit-streaming is not functional but active work is being made in this area.
What can I run on it ?
XBMC distros
GeeXbox - alpha version available.
Openelec - alpha version available.
LinXBMC - still in development from creator of Raspbmc.
Xbian - for linux pros.
Music distros
Rune audio
Volumio
Android can run on it too but it's not so great.
To run these use 7-zip to extract the .img file from zip or tar then use win32 disk image writer to burn the image to a micro SD card, insert SD card into the device and it will boot the OS.
How well does XBMC run cause the R-Pi was slooowww ?
XBMC runs very speedy on it, feels like running it on a PC at least on the top of the line i4 model.
Is this ready for the average user ?
Probably not yet but it's getting close, support for Freescale chips is being merged into XBMC and its still very new, the XBMC distros above are all early development snapshots so it's not even in beta stage yet.
There are also other minor issues like it only does full range black levels over HDMI so your TV needs to support that and IR doesn't work properly out of the box with the XBMC distros it requires some linux knowledge to get going. I'd recommend the HDMI-CEC operation for now.
It is quite stable even in this early state as is media playback too but this is for those who don't mind being on the cutting edge, you will encounter bugs.
You will also need a basic 2 pin to 3 pin plug adapter for the device.
More reading;
CuBox-i Wiki
CuBox-i forums
Buy from here
What is it ?
If your familiar with the Raspberry Pi project then the CuBox-i is that on steroids, while the R-Pi used a very old Arm CPU, the CuBox-i use the 1Ghz quad core Freescale iMX6 series chip.
There are four versions but really only the i2 (dual core) and i4 (quad core) are worth getting.
Hardware features;
It is a fanless very small cube, it comes with HDMI, optical, ethernet, wireless, USB, and a micro SD card slot. You also get IR built in (no remote though) and support for HDMI-CEC.
Video decoding properties;
A wide range of media types is supported, all the common types are there and it can play DVD/Blu-ray video without issue. 3D (MVC) is also supported by the hardware but XBMC itself does not support decoding this format in hardware it can only CPU soft decode MVC video so 3D Blu-ray is ruled out I'm afraid. If XBMC gets MVC hardware support that should change things.
Audio decoding properties;
The hardware supports decoding Dolby, DTS, TrueHD, DTS-MA, currently HD audio bit-streaming is not functional but active work is being made in this area.
What can I run on it ?
XBMC distros
GeeXbox - alpha version available.
Openelec - alpha version available.
LinXBMC - still in development from creator of Raspbmc.
Xbian - for linux pros.
Music distros
Rune audio
Volumio
Android can run on it too but it's not so great.
To run these use 7-zip to extract the .img file from zip or tar then use win32 disk image writer to burn the image to a micro SD card, insert SD card into the device and it will boot the OS.
How well does XBMC run cause the R-Pi was slooowww ?
XBMC runs very speedy on it, feels like running it on a PC at least on the top of the line i4 model.
Is this ready for the average user ?
Probably not yet but it's getting close, support for Freescale chips is being merged into XBMC and its still very new, the XBMC distros above are all early development snapshots so it's not even in beta stage yet.
There are also other minor issues like it only does full range black levels over HDMI so your TV needs to support that and IR doesn't work properly out of the box with the XBMC distros it requires some linux knowledge to get going. I'd recommend the HDMI-CEC operation for now.
It is quite stable even in this early state as is media playback too but this is for those who don't mind being on the cutting edge, you will encounter bugs.
You will also need a basic 2 pin to 3 pin plug adapter for the device.
More reading;
CuBox-i Wiki
CuBox-i forums
Buy from here
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