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CHUWI HiBox Mini PC Android 5.1 + Window 10 Dual OS 64bit
I bought the device and wait for it
Can someone told me how i could get SPDIF (coax or toslink) with this device to get DD5.1 or DTS? Should i buy an adaptor ? USB ? HDMI convertor ? Any advices ?
Thank you very much
I bought the device and wait for it
Can someone told me how i could get SPDIF (coax or toslink) with this device to get DD5.1 or DTS? Should i buy an adaptor ? USB ? HDMI convertor ? Any advices ?
Thank you very much
The most popular choice for this kind of situation would seem to be USB to SPDIF converters and a quick search of Amazon or similar will get you many results for which you can then scan the reviews for the best one to buy.
The key here though is finding one that will work with Android as well as Windows.
Windows should be a certainly as there will be a driver but I don't know how well Android will support one out of the box, although since Lollipop I understand that USB DAC audio is natively supported.
Now that Christmas is out of the way, I can give some feedback from use of what is an impressive box for the price and versatility that it offers.
Android
It's running 5.1 Lollipop and is currently unrooted, with no specific method available.
There is no HDMI passthrough for Dolby/DTS audio and I'm not sure if Android X86 will ever support it on this SOC.
With the healthy 4Gb RAM and faster EMMC 5 storage, Android zips along very smoothly and copes well with pretty much any app that is thrown at it (bearing in mind the limitations of any Atom based SOC).
Despite there being dual band WiFi (no AC as advertised) it would only pick up the 2,4Ghz WiFi channel (Windows picks up both), so there is a bug that requires attention.
That said, the performance of WiFi was quite acceptable.
Running Kodi 16.1, 17 Beta 7 or 18 Alpha 1 resulted in clean, pretty much stutter/judder free playback across the range of supported formats (remember that the SOC does not support 10 bit or 4K@60fps), with the clarity of image clean, crisp and with excellent colour depth and reproduction,
Youtube playback at 1080p was almost flawless, although not quite perfect (95/100)
Ethernet performance was excellent, as you would expect from a Gigabit connection, although it does have to be said that whilst it easily surpasses 10/100, it's not quite full gigabit in speed, even though there were no issues whatsoever with streaming large files and high bitrate material.
I did find an issue with the SD card slot in that it would not recognise a high speed Sandisk 64Gb card, although it did see a generic class 10 128Gb one.
The write speed to external cards was nothing to write home about though and comparable with many of the Android boxes.
Unlike the Tronsmart ARA X5, which suffered from being underpowered when multiple devices were plugged in, the 12v/2a AC supply was more than enough to sustain connectivity of an SD card, USB flash drive and 2Tb bus powered external hard drive connected via the USB 3.0 port.
The supplied remote is basic in it's functionality but the fact that it is a truly wireless device with it's own dedicated wireless USB dongle is a step forward and hopefully something that we will see more of as a standard thing. Ideally it would be nice to see a combined keyboard/trackpad/gyroscopic controller but this is still far better than anything operated by IR, so a nice touch by Chuwi to think about things.
Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, today I booted to go into Android to attempt some modding but it will only boot as far as the Boot logo, so I shall have to wait for Chuwi to release a firmware image before I can restore this, although whilst I wait I am going to attempt to see if I can install a generic X86 of Marshmallow to test.
But whilst I had the Android experience, I found it to be perfectly usable, suitable and efficient.
It has to be said that whilst Chuwi do have their own forums, they are not really well supported at present, although they are undergoing some revamping in order to make them more usable and I can hope that this will include a more responsive support system from the manufacturer and their forum representatives.
One of the questions that often gets asked is why there should be a requirement for dual boot boxes.
Well one of the oft reported issues with Android is the number of apps for streaming services that fail to run under Android because of rooting, HDMI detection and the fact that many service providers see Android as a system more prone to hacking that allows recording of their copyrighted content.
This is one area where Windows comes into it's own because what Android cannot do, Windows almost certainly will when it comes to streaming apps.
Windows also benefits when it comes to plugging in other external devices, where a driver is almost certainly going to be available, whereas with Android it will definitely be a hit and miss situation.
So Netflix 1080p, Sky Go, Amazon Prime, Now TV, All4 etc will all run perfectly well within a Windows platform, sometimes through a browser and now that the Windows store is growing, also through more dedicated apps.
Once you have gone through the initial Windows setup wizard, Windows runs well, bearing in mind the limited speed of the Atom SOC but the faster EMMC and 4Gb RAM do make that little bit of difference between twiddling your fingers waiting for something to happen and seeing it in a more immediate fashion, although it has to be said that you will never see lightning fast responses from such a basic powered (compared to the i series) SOC.
Edge browser performs very well and the additional RAM does allow for more fluid use when having multiple tabs open.
Chomes performance is also improved although it is known that it does seem to struggle more when used with Atom SOC's than it perhaps should and when using a browser for video streaming, Edge is very much the preferred option.
There was a large update available and this downloaded fairly quickly and installed within a reasonable amount of time, even though, as many large Microsoft updates feel, still longer than you would hope.
At this point, based upon my experience of other X86 boxes, I would normally install a driver update program such as Iobit Driver Booster and update all the drivers, which I did (21 being updated) but quickly regretted it as it had a profoundly negative impact on Kodi performance.
I also found that the same Sandisk high speed SD card would not be recognized correctly and whilst the card was physically in the slot it made Windows so sluggish that it was practically unusable.
Replacing it with the Clas 10 generic 128Gb card yielded better results but unlike with Android, I did find that the card was not always seen after a reboot.
Other 16Gb/32Gb card were recognised without issue, regardless of class and speed, so there does seem to be an issue with larger cards in Windows, which may well be a driver issue.
Installing and testing Kodi 16.1, 17 Beta 7 and even 18 Alpha 1 yielded truly excellent results, with the best quality video playback that you could hope to see. Simply stunning.
Auto framerate works perfectly, as does HDMI passthrough, although you will likely need to change the default Kodi audio passthrough settings to get the sound output correct for all media.
Dolby and DTS are the only HD audio passthrough formats available right now, although Braswell has just been given a new lease of life with a Beta Intel driver update that supports other HD audio formats, so there may be hope for Atom to get the same treatment (although I would not hold your breath).
Streaming Youtube through Edge browser was equally excellent.
I also installed the Now TV app from the store (Sky by any other name) and the streaming of movies and TV shows through their service was sensational.
No buffering, no judder/stutter and the quality of picture was truly wonderful.
I cannot fault the playback quality at all, although dependent upon how you like your brightness levels, you may prefer to up the brightness level in the Intel graphics tool.
The tool also offers a great range of tweaking options to set your desired general viewing preferences.
Most of my streaming has been done through ethernet but from the testing that I did though both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz WiFi bands, they were not an issue either.
In fact WiFi, when using the 5Ghz band was excellent. Carrying out a number of speed and file transfer tests showed an average of 32MB/s and with such a consistent connection that it never went below this and surpasses the performance of any TV box that I have used (Android or Windows based) by a long way.
Bluetooth performance was also impressive. In past boxes, whilst Bluetooth would always work, it could sometimes take longer than expected to pair with a device but this one has a more immediate feel to it, which is replicated in general for all purposes.
For video playback, as long as your needs don;t exceed the limits of the SOC, then it is about as close to perfect as you could get.
As a general use Windows machine it will also run most basic apps (Office etc) with no issues, although don't expect lightning speed performance compared to more top end and highly expensive Core i series NUC's.
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