First time 'TV stick' user.

[900supersport]

So I decided to get my wife a TV stick as part of her Christmas present this year and thought I would post some of my experiences here.

Not having any background with TV sticks I asked around for recommendations as so brought a MINIX neo X7. This is to go with a 32 inch 1080p LCD TV with sky+ and DVD player using the two available HDMI ports. Also connected to the TV by coax cable is a sound bar.

For connectivity I have a wireless access point within a few feet of the TV (I already have some plans around some changes here).

I have a wireless keyboard with touch pad for input.

The main reason for getting this is for watching Netflix.

I purchased a cheap HDMI switcher, this can accept up to three inputs and has a single output. With this I've been able to use either the MINIX or my DVD player.

[900supersport]

Setting up the Minix

Connection was straight forwards, initially I did not have the 3 to 1 HDMI switcher so it was a case of unplugging one of my existing HDMI cables and connecting the MINIX. I started it up stock, connected to wireless and created a new account in Google for the TV box. The separate account is because I didn't want any chance of making purchases in app or otherwise. This means I'll be comfortable to let visiting children use the MINIX without having to worry about in app purchases etc.

While waiting for the MINIX to arrive I checked out the available ROMs. As I've learnt a lot from Finless over the years and his ROMs get good reviews, including the MINIX x7 it was an easy choice to flash his latest ROM. I'm reasonably handy when it comes to modifying ROMs so I did modify the build prop before flashing as follows using Bob's build prop as a starting point

• changed language, time etc to UK settings
• reverted the lines that spoof a Samsung back to the original Minix - RK3188 (I don't like spoofing, so far I'm happy with what is available)

That was the limit of my plans for changing the ROM, so it was time to flash. This was straight forwards, I already had rk3188 drivers set-up for my tab, though I'll note the following.

Its a little awkward putting the x7 I to boot loader, the trick here is to open Bobs flash tool and user the feedback this gives to confirm if I'd got boot loader.

Other than this it's just a case of following the instructions in Bob's read me.

Once booted to the desktop I entered settings and the wireless and Google account details I'd used to confirm the sock forward worked OK on my network. I then added in some apks I consider part of my standard android install

• From play I added esfileexplorer, lookout and terminal emulator
• I googled for and installed adaway
• From the MINIX website I installed the beta2 of the minix xbmc

On starting adaway and going through the process of updating the hosts file I ran into a slight issue in that there was insufficient space for the hosts file. The hosts file is within the system hierarchy and bob's system.img is densely packed so the space was not available for the required hosts file. It was easy enough for me to go back to my laptop and grow system as big as possible, but still to fit within the space allocated by the parameters. I then flashed this and completed my standard set-up without any further issues. With having the reboot app in bobs ROM its now simple to get into boot loader.

Now onto the reason for having the x7 in the first place, I installed Netflix from play and downloaded the MINIX xbmc beta2 from the MINIX website.

For Netflix it was simply a case of registering an account through my laptop then entering the account details into the Netflix.apk

For xbmc

• I first downloaded the repro from superrepro.org, this was a case of pressing the get started button then the all in one repro.
• I then started xbmc and selected
  • system
  • add ons
  • install from zip then browsing to the downloads folder and selecting the zip file just downloaded.
• Finally from xbmc I selected
  • video
  • add ons
  • get more
  • then selecting the channels I wanted (1channel and icefilms initially)

At this point I watched a film on each of Netflix and xbmc. I think I need to do some fine tuning of lip sync but overall I'm very impressed with the MINIX x7, Bobs ROM and the MINIX xbmc.

[900supersport]

that's enough for the moment but if there is any interest I'll post tomorrow about adding clockwork recovery and VPN access.

Cheers

Brian

[900supersport]

Adding Clockwork

I'd notices the Leolas has a version of Fun's Clockwork recovery that he has embedded an x7 kernel in. I use Fun's CWM on my tab so it was a no brainier for me to pick up Leolas's CWM. I transferred this (named cwm.img) and Fun's flash_image onto the sdcard on the X7.

Then using esfileexplorer I set system r/w and then replaced the existing flash_image from system/bin with Fun's flash_image. I then started a terminal session, used cd to select the folder I'd placed the cwm.img and then used

su
flash_image recovery cwm.img
reboot recovery

This rebooted into clockwork recovery.

[900supersport]

VPN

There are many reasons to consider using VPN, here's a few of them

• Much greater privacy about what is being viewed, downloaded and uploaded. I suspect that the NSA and British intelligence services etc will have compromised this as much as google, microsoft and our internet service providers but anything is better than nothing.
• For mobile devices (not relevant for the x7) using vpn means I can safely browse etc using open wireless connections in cafes etc.
• Using vpn you can spoof geo location. This could be used for example
  • so I can still get iplayer while out of the UK
  • I could use a US location and so access content only available in the US

After a little research I decided to try www.privateinternetaccess.com, this has an annual subscription of $33. It is US based so is likely to be compromised by the NSA but for my usage I'm not unduly concerned by this.

Set-up is pretty straight forwards, I first of all registered and set-up an account then installed their apk from play https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...access.android

I started this, added my account details and selected the VPN gateway I wanted. Once tested I went back into the setting and configured this to start automatically.

Whilst researching this I found that with a suitable router I could configure all my home internet access to use the VPN. This looks to be possible using a linksys e1200 flashed with dd-wrt firmware. This is too much of a geeky thing for me to miss out on so I have one on order together with a single port adsl modem. If this goes OK I'll post more on this later.