[Q] Can OUYA work as a full-feature mediacenter?

Alexsandra said:

Thanks for your detail reply. Can you please tell me the place where you downloaded XBMC you are currently using? It seems that there are two versions of XBMC. One is Android version, another one is Ouya version.

Thanks

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I use the hardware accelerated version of xbmc for android (stagefright).
See the official repository: http://mirrors.xbmc.org/test-builds/android/
Mine is from july 14.

There is also a xbmc version on ouya store, but I do not have tested it.

dalamario said:

I use the hardware accelerated version of xbmc for android (stagefright).
See the official repository: http://mirrors.xbmc.org/test-builds/android/
Mine is from july 14.
There is also a xbmc version on ouya store, but I do not have tested it.

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The Ouya store version (now at 12.3.3) has removed DTS/Dolby decoding (licensing issues) - otherwise it's working just fine.
The older version 12.3.2 is floating around for sideloading...does not have the restriction above.
On my setup (12.3.2) the receiver source flip works for DTS once I start the movie...it's not convenient, but it's only 3 clicks of a button.

Question for you dalamario: the Gotham betas, do they show an error for audio passtrough (in System/Audio) as every Frodo I tried?
And I suppose I can't flip between 12 and 13 without a reinstall - PITA to set everything up again or copy the data folder.

Ipse_Tase said:

Question for you dalamario: the Gotham betas, do they show an error for audio passtrough (in System/Audio) as every Frodo I tried?
And I suppose I can't flip between 12 and 13 without a reinstall - PITA to set everything up again or copy the data folder.

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I suppose that the Gotham beta I use do not show any error as I never saw errors coming from xbmc. Which kind of errors do you have on system/audio?
One time I had to uninstall xbmc before upgrading it because the updating was giving me error, but I don't remember if it was when I switched from xbmc 12 to xbmc 13 or not.

dalamario said:

Which kind of errors do you have on system/audio?

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When I look at the System/Audio page, I see "Error, no device present" next to the "Passtrough" selection. I don't get error messages, maybe should have made that clearer.

Just curious: if you have not installed in a while, how do you keep the size of the data folder in check? Do you run one of those clean-up scripts that wipes out the thumbnails and cached images?

TIA

Ipse_Tase said:

When I look at the System/Audio page, I see "Error, no device present" next to the "Passtrough" selection. I don't get error messages, maybe should have made that clearer.

Just curious: if you have not installed in a while, how do you keep the size of the data folder in check? Do you run one of those clean-up scripts that wipes out the thumbnails and cached images?

TIA

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My system/audio page is as screenshot below:



I don't run any script, my data folder on data/data/org.xbmc.xbmc is around 100Mb, the one on storage/sdcard0/android/data/org.xbmc.xbmc is around 150Mb, not much to bother me. Perhaps my movies collection is too small to give problem.

dalamario said:

My system/audio page is as screenshot below:

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Much appreciated...I'm actually at work (yeah, I know, I should not be posting on XDA ) but I can definitely tell you the 12.3.x screen has a ton of other options/selections.
I might give XBMC 13 a shot after all - I don't remember when it's going in beta/ RC stage.

PS. The thumbs and image cache are mostly from Navi-X and YouTube (i use those daily, unlike my NAS movie collection, for which I set NO THUMBS). Personally I wish there was an option to stop this image grabbing as I usually don't care about movie sheets and or posters.
My XMBC folder in on Ouya is 600MB and growing - I do have a ton of addons.

I run a 519r2 StockPlus ROM on the Ouya and with CIFS attach to my NAS to stream HD and SD material with XBMC Gotham (using the alpha nightly builds). These builds include libstagefright hardware decoding, and since 1.0.519 firmware, I can now stream interlaced/non-interlaced SD and HD stuff with no problem.
High Bit Rate 1080p HD material is fine across wired ethernet, but I only have Analog audio output (over HDMI).
Also, the old 'tuxbox' source streaming feature of XMBC works really well (especially as broadcast HD is 1080i format), so I can stream from Linux based Enigma2 satellite receivers.
This is all really shaping up well on the Ouya.

nchantmnt said:

Dont mean to be rude but i dont think you are objektive here.

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My guess would be that someone is asking if xbmc on ouya is good media-player solution or not. As the sideloaded (read non Ouya version) of XBMC isnt playing a LOT of movies correctly which my raspberries plays without any problems i deem Ouya+XBMC not a proper media solution atm. In addition the still missing CEC support is a killer by itself. And if you use a lean skin for xbmc the lag is absolutely ok (try "Bello" skin or use the stock skin)

Then having to succumb to the most draconic and moronic TOS and company behaviour on the market is a big minus in my opinion too. (i know you can run custom firmware)

I dont know what files you are unable to play but i am using mine a lot for Multimedia and didnt have any issues with audio at all. I know that some special dts Formats are incompatible for now. Surly there are some things about ouya that many of us don't like but that's not the point here.

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See above. I think its a good thing a potential buyer who just wants a good media player solution knows about the current limitations and also about the "non-open" company policies.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that XBMC on Ouya does regulary crash too while my OpenElec on Raspberry is rock solid. And Audio passthrough is not working at all.

I have been using my ouya for about a month as my living room media center, mainly for XBMC but also some lite game usage. As someone mentioned, the 12.3.3 build does indeed disable DTS and AC3 decoding support, but 12.3.2 works brilliantly (if you need the apk pm me). OUYA claims that passthrough support can work and is being worked on, but I don't use a receiver so meh.

As for stability, mine is on almost all day and have never seen a crash to date. I did try the Gotham alpha8 and 9 builds and they seem to work nicely except the controls are a bit lacking and some of the widgets are broken, but this should be fixed in the future from what I understand.

Loving my OUYA, Cheers

disregard

Hi all, does anyone know if there is a power off timer option ?


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Confirm support for rmvb.

Hi all,

Can some one please confirm the OP question whether Ouya XBMC supports rmvb playback?

Thanks.

I use my Ouya as my media center. All of my movies (DVD rips, bluray rips, and some digital downloads I converted using AVC) are in .mp4 format, encoded with x264 video and 128kbps stereo aac audio, in 320p (with the horizontal resolution changed to matched the aspect ratio)

I don't have a surround sound system, and I aim for smaller file sizes, since I also use these videos on my phone and tablet, which is why I am using 320p x264 with stereo, rather than 5.1, audio. But I've heard it works fine with high-bitrate media, too. I just don't personally use, or need, it.

Although, the 8gb internal storage is abysmal. I recommend getting an external flash drive, or hard drive, and using that.

I no longer use optical media at all - I find my Ouya with XBMC does make for a good media center. The interface is smooth, I've experienced no choppiness, and with the promises of HDMI audio pass-through in future updates, running a 720p bluray rip with 5.1 audio shouldn't be a concern. Being that the Tegra 3 isn't the most powerful chipset, I'm not sure how it would fare with extremely high bitrates, such as high-bitrate 1080p or 3D movies, but even then...is that really necessary? A 4:3 dvd with a cinema-ratio movie encodes to 304x720...so even 304p is "DVD quality" and easily watchable, if encoded right.

I also understand that XBMC can read disc image (iso) files, although for space concerns - I just rip the DVD itself. I don't find the extra features and menus necessary, and I'm willing to toss them for the benefit of an entirely digital library, so I haven't tried this functionality. If someone else here has, they can probably chime in on how well it works - if at all - on the Ouya build.

Hi people

I've not read the entire thread, but I'm wondering if anyone could stream 1080p movie through ethernet to OUYA using the Plex Media Server and the plex ouya app?
If so, can any share settings, or recommendations?
I'm getting lots of hiccups even with 720p or less, and I have an i5, 16gb ram, etc.

Thanks

I've chimed in before on this topic, but figure it is time for an update. I have a number of OUYA devices, about 20 to be exact, that I use in my home, church, and classes; all of which I use with XBMC—now named KODI—to play various videos. I could not be happier with the performance of these devices, well I could, but my improvements are slight so meh.

The device can do 720P brilliantly and 1080P as well, though I do see hiccups from time to time with 1080P. I, like bluesy, have most of my media on HDDs, but I also have a fair bit on DVD/Bluray. For those that use optical media to store files, consider sharing the disc on your network from a PC; this way you get the benefit of using optical media, without the need for a kernel module (of which I have never seen to date.) One thing to consider is the OUYA does NOT do hardware MPEG2 playback, this means that DVDs and the like are likely to not playback smoothly. One could use Handbrake or another app to make a backup of said media and stream that to your OUYA.

On the network side of things, I suggest using an Ethernet connection, this is not due to a limitation on the device, since WiFi often introduces a fair amount of lag and has horrible throughput compared to an Ethernet connection. Additionally, stay away from sharing files via SMB (Windows Shares) as the service has a huge amount of overhead that is simply not needed, instead, try out NFS. HanewinNFS is a FREE NFS server for windows that works remarkably well and I have included my config setup for those that are interested. Do note that it is optimized to run with my computer (Quad-core Atom), so you might benefit from further tweaking.



As for a way to start it automatically on boot or return to it from any other application, check out BootyCall. Not only am I the author of it, but also a user.