[GTALUG] little Android set-top boxes with HDMI in

D. Hugh Redelmeier hugh at mimosa.com
Wed Jan 27 13:30:00 UTC 2016


Scott brought his Tronsmart Pavo M9 to the last GTALUG meeting.
<http://www.tronsmart.com/products/tronsmart-pavo-m9>

This looks like one of many Android TV boxes.  But it has a unique 
feature: it has HDMI-in as well as out.

So, Scott, how's the hacking going?

I ask because there seems to be a very good deal on these for the next 
3.666 days:
<http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Tronsmart-Pavo-M9-4K-TV-BOX-Android-4-4-2-Mstar-MSO9180D1R-1GB-8G-802-11-b-g-n-LAN-H-265-USB3-0-HDMI-347691.html>
US$49.99.  Free shipping (slowly, from China).

This is based on the MSTAR MSO9180D1R chip.  There is a theoretically 
better box based on this chip (and also with HDMI in), the
Zido X9.  It has 2G of RAM (vs 1G) and might have better I/O (I haven't 
checked).  But it seems to be ~US$120.00.

I guess (without making any attempt) that hacking on these cheap Android 
boxes is more trouble than it is worth.  Especially since hacking on cheap 
Windows boxes is so much easier (at least the ones with 64-bit UEFI).  But 
nothing else that I know of has HDMI in.

Scott: can you summarize what you've learned about the box and how you 
feel about it so far?


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