Miscelleneous by stefan @ 2013-04-23
The Xios DS is a small, but well optimized Android Media Player that can run XBMC in good conditions and features enough ports in order to plug in multiple storage devices or wired/wireless keyboards and mice. With the player we also get a simple remote for navigating through the menus.
At first we would like to thank Pivos Technology Group for offering a sample of their XIOS DS Media Play Smart TV Companion for testing and reviewing
“Pivos Technology Group, Inc. is a global pioneer in media peripherals and embedded technologies founded by a group of industrial veteran and renowned platform developers in Fremont, California. We set to challenge the curve of our conversation with today's technology to breathe innovation, performance, creativity and human engineering. With over decades of combined industrial experiences and award winning development team, our company is committed to provide a full line of embedded digital solutions where computing technology joins today's rich internet contents.
Our mission is to provide cutting edge digital enhancement for today's multi-platform consumer and commercial platforms worldwide. Revolutionizing the interaction between user and devices to achieving 100% customer satisfaction.
Our solutions focus on IPTV STB/ OTT, Internet Video Streaming, VOD, multimedia playback, and digital display technologies. Partnered with the world's leading embedded manufactures, our platform is an ideal solution for today's demanding consumer and commercial technology. With development professionals World Wide, we thrive to deliver the latest "human" technology products to every corner of the world.”
Supported Video Codecs
MPEG 1/ 2/ 4, H.264, VC-1, WMV, M2TS, TS, RMVB, AVI, MKV, MOV, TS, MPEG, FLV, DivX, Xvid.
Supported File Types
AVI/ MKV/ TS/ TP/ TRP/ M2TS/ MPG/ MP4/ MOV/ M4V/ VOB/ IFO/ DAT/ WMV/ ASF/ RM/ RMVB/ FLV/ XVID/ DIVX 3,4,5 for up to 1080p resolution.
MP3/ OGG/ WMA/ WAV/ AAC/ FLAC
HD JPEG/ BMP/ GIF/ TIF/ PNG
Supported Audio Codecs
MP2/ 3, OGG Vorbis, WMA, WAV, WMA PRO, PCM LPCM, MS-ADPCM, LC-AAC, HE-AAC, COOK, RA-Lossless, RM/ RMVB 8/ 9/ 10./li>
Supported Connections
1 x HDMI A/V out
1 x 10/100 Ethernet
1 x 802.11 b/g/n built in wireless
3 x USB 2.0 ports
1 x MicroSD/SDHC Memory Slot (upto 32GB)
Supported Audio Output
MP2/ 3, OGG Vorbis, WMA, WAV, WMA PRO, PCM LPCM, MS-ADPCM, LC-AAC, HE-AAC, COOK, RA-Lossless, RM/ RMVB 8/ 9/ 10.
Supported Languges
Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Latvian, Norwegian-Bokmol, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Swedish, Thai, Tagalog, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Simplified & Traditional Chinese
Supported Subtitle Types
SRT, SMI, SSA, ASS, IDX/SUB, SUB
Requirements
REQUIRED: High Definition Display device with HDMI input (up to 1080p resolution for best results).
* Recommended: Wired or Wireless network connection is required for network or internet content. Audio amplifier is required for digital surround sound.
Contents
XIOS DS Media PLay
Remote Control
HDMI A/V out
A/C Power Adapter
Pivos Technology Group were nice and have offered their latest XIOS DS Media Play Android device for us to examine; the product is shipped inside a cute cardboard box of small dimensions and right from its top we can learn that this is an official platform for XBMC. This should practically mean that XBMC runs flawlessly, no matter what we would throw at it:
Some more info about the product can be observed on the laterals:
On the bottom side of the box, we will find the generally supported file extensions, some views of the available ports, supported resolutions and also interface languages:
By removing the top cover, we will find other pictograms on the box:
The manufacturer informs us that we should update to the latest software version before using the product for the first time, an operation that can be done really easy if we follow the specified instructions:
Besides the main product, inside the box we will also find an User Guide, one HDMI cable, a power adapter and a white remote:
Inside the User Guide, we will find the necessary information to get started:
The supplied power adapter is rated on the output 5V, 2000mA:
The remote is similar to the one that we have found with the iconBIT Toucan SX and with it we can navigate easily through the menus:
On the bottom we will find the battery compartment:
On the front we have the IR sensor:
The remote works with a 3V CR2025 Lithium battery:
On the top side of the unit we have one DS Media Play! Logo in center, along with a small Android green robot on the sides:
The front comes with the activity LEDs and the IR receptor:
On its right side we have a slot for microSD cards and also two USB 2.0 ports:
The back side has a LAN port, an additional USB 2.0, one HDMI port, the DC-IN and a Power button:
The left side has a product serial number, along with the MAC listed:
The bottom side is covered by a layer of grey rubber and here we will find a secondary product serial number, along with the Reset button (helpful when flashing different firmware versions). From the serial number we can find out that the sample we have received has M3 hardware revision:
After the Android OS has been loaded, we will be welcomed by the main desktop interface, which has some of the widgets active, along with a custom wallpaper:
Besides AirDroid (which is an application which we have installed in order to take snapshots), the unit has been preloaded with an application installer, a file browser, the XBMC app, but also YouTube:
The application installer will scan apps from either the internal flash or the mounted SD card:
If the flash does not contain any installable apks, we will get the following message:
The File Browser will let us explore the contents of the internal flash or the SD card:
The Movie Player comes with a similar interface and with it we can play most file formats:
The Settings menu is organized as on any other Android tablet. Inside the Wireless & Networks menu, we will find sections like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or Ethernet. Bluetooth interface does need a separate dongle since XIOS DS does not offer native support:
Some other options can be configured from the “More” section:
The Sound menu will let us specify the Volumes, or select the Digital Audio Output type:
From the Display menu, we will be able to set a wallpaper, adjust the screen resolution, customize the display position, adjust the font size or enable/disable HDMI-CEC:
The Storage menu tells us the big picture regarding available space for extra apps; we think that the remaining NAND storage space is very little even only with the default applications installed, but there are some workarounds. From the same screen we will be able to monitor the inserted microSDHC card and USB storage:
From the Apps section, we will be able to see the downloaded apps (not included in the ROM), the ones located on the SD Card and also a list of the currently running applications:
The Location Services menu will allow us to enable Google’s Location service or Location & Google search in order to improve search results:
The Security tab will show different options regarding passwords and we also have the possibility to tick the Unknown sources option in order to install non-Market apps:
Language and Input menu will allow us to specify the default language, enable or disable spelling correction, choose the input method or configure the text-to-speech output:
The Backup & Reset menu will allow us to save our settings and data to Google Servers, but also to perform a Factory reset:
The Date and Time can be adjusted from the next tab:
Some Developer options are also available to be modified from the next menu:
The About tab comes with information like installed Android version, kernel version or build number:
The latest XBMC version available for the XIOS is 12, codename “Frodo”. The first start-up will be quite slow, but after it has completed, the future launches will be much faster:
The application will show us initially the stock dashboard, but a lot of customizations can be made:
From the System Info menu, we will be able to find out more information regarding the system like free memory, screen resolution, OS version, CPU usage and more:
Further information regarding the video interface can be found in the next tab:
From the Hardware tab, we will be able to see that the unit comes with an AMLOGIC MESON3 8726M CPU:
In order to try bringing the small Android box to its knees, we have run some very stressful video files, with high bitrate (found on www.auby.no/files/video_tests ). The first test was “Monsters”, with a resolution of 1080p and a video bitrate of 10mbps which ran perfectly. Secondly, we have chosen to run the “hddvd” demo, also at 1080p, with a bitrate of 18mbps; the small box came out victorious again, succeeding to run the video without a hitch. The most stressful file was “Birds”, with the 1080p resolution again, but a bitrate or 40mbps; this video ran perfectly on the last QNAP NAS we have tested, but with this box we could see some hiccups from time to time.
To test out the performances of the mini-PC, we have installed some freeware benchmark applications from the Google Play Store in the internal memory (did not transfer them to the Sdcard). Afterwards, the applications were ran one-by-one, and we recorded the final results; the obtained scores were also compared with the dual-core Samsung Galaxy S2 mobile phone and other platforms tested in the past, to observe the performance differences.
We haven’t encountered any serious issues while working with the Pivos Xios DS and we were impressed that the system felt snappier inside the menus than the Toucan SX, which had similar test results. As with the Toucan SX, the space remaining for installing other applications is really small, which becomes even less after XMBC gets installed. There are some workarounds though, one of them would be using AppMgr III for offloading the applications to a separate microSDHC card.
Besides the good overall Android optimization, we were also surprised to see that XBMC runs quite well, even with the video files that sport higher data rates. When trying the same software on the previous Android-based mini-computers, we have experienced a very low framerate and also encountered difficulties when trying to close the application.
If we have no need of installing other 3rd party software from Play Store, Pivos also has available a Linux Firmware which boots right into XBMC. We can use the recovery procedure in order to install this one. We must be careful when installing both Android and Linux firmware versions since they are built for two separate hardware revisions (M1 and M3). The version that has arrived in our test labs was the M3, which is also the latest.
Pivos also has a distributor for Europe now and it can be bought from the website for about 119 Euros.
We would like to thank again to Pivos Technology Group for making this review possible!