Minix Neo-U1 Review

[parambir]

Hello

I received my Minix Neo U1 today from USA along with A2 Lite and could not wait to open and plug it in... This is my first streamer.

The 7.1 setup - Yamaha RX V-671, Sanen Towers (put up for sale), PA CS10 centre, Sony Sub, PA OWM 3 surround and PA RM8 rear. Borrowed a 32" LED from a friend. (My wife would have killed me if I removed the one from bedroom for my trials !!! )

I plugged in the device and booted it up. I connected the Ethernet cable from my WiFi modem. Yes, I did not connect it on wifi to the modem. Why? I will explain that.

First thing to do is check for updates... Mine was Dec 15 vintage and it took three more updates till Apr 16 before I got it running.

Now this being my first streamer, I took my time to get the hang of it. It was a breeze getting it going. First I tested was playing Youtube content. No problem. Enjoyed HD or 720p videos.

Next I plugged my USB hdd with HD movies DTS 5.1. Started playing the movies. This was the first time I was playing 5.1 content on my home theatre since I did not have a 5.1 player before I got this streamer.

I must say... I purely loved it. Watched Fast and Furious 7 again on the home theatre and the sound was amazing. Played through XBMC which came bundled.

I also loaded couple of apps from the play store. Air mouse requires some getting used to, but not that tough. I did not unpack the stock remote at all.

Now the part, why not on Wifi... well I wanted to use the 5 dBi antenna of Minix as a wifi hotspot. So in a sense it acted like a repeater for my wifi which is in one part of house and I do not get good strength in living room.

On the bluetooth I connected my mobile though I did not find much use of it.

Here I have a question too for others who have been using streamers... Up untill now I used to play my songs through the BT from my mobile to a BT receiver connected to Audio port of Receiver. Can I use Minix to play my songs from my mobile or I connect mobile on BT to minix and with some app play songs which are further played through Minix. I mean I would like to do away with this BT receiver.

I know the experimentation has just begun. Shall keep you all posted as and when I make some progress.

Thanks for reading. Cheers...

 

[captainrizal]

Congrats! Post some photos as well. Suggest uninstall on board XBMC and install latest Kodi for better UI. Even I am planning to purchase one this but since I have HTPC I wonder if this will be of any use to me. I just love the look of it and air mouse. Are there any apps to control the system remotely from your mobile? What capacity external HDD did you connect?

 

[parambir]

Congrats! Post some photos as well. Suggest uninstall on board XBMC and install latest Kodi for better UI. Even I am planning to purchase one this but since I have HTPC I wonder if this will be of any use to me. I just love the look of it and air mouse. Are there any apps to control the system remotely from your mobile? What capacity external HDD did you connect?

Thanks Rizal. Will surely post some pics soon. I don't see any reason to remove XBMC and use Kodi. Though I have installed Kodi but I have felt the same experience using both. Yes there are apps to control but due to work I am not able to focus much on this. Maybe this weekend.

 

[Audiodoc]

Xbmc and kodi are the same thing. The latter being the new name of the former. Minix has refined Xbmc to run smoothly on its players

 

[parambir]

Agreed Doc. I have used both and there is no difference. Just the name. I am planning to install Nova launcher on it. The stock is took "tilled" and Launcher 3 is not so flexible. Nova seems to be most popular out there.

 

[sidhumohan.kc]

Hello

I received my Minix Neo U1 today from USA along with A2 Lite and could not wait to open and plug it in... This is my first streamer.

The 7.1 setup - Yamaha RX V-671, Sanen Towers (put up for sale), PA CS10 centre, Sony Sub, PA OWM 3 surround and PA RM8 rear. Borrowed a 32" LED from a friend. (My wife would have killed me if I removed the one from bedroom for my trials !!! )

I plugged in the device and booted it up. I connected the Ethernet cable from my WiFi modem. Yes, I did not connect it on wifi to the modem. Why? I will explain that.

First thing to do is check for updates... Mine was Dec 15 vintage and it took three more updates till Apr 16 before I got it running.

Now this being my first streamer, I took my time to get the hang of it. It was a breeze getting it going. First I tested was playing Youtube content. No problem. Enjoyed HD or 720p videos.

Next I plugged my USB hdd with HD movies DTS 5.1. Started playing the movies. This was the first time I was playing 5.1 content on my home theatre since I did not have a 5.1 player before I got this streamer.

I must say... I purely loved it. Watched Fast and Furious 7 again on the home theatre and the sound was amazing. Played through XBMC which came bundled.

I also loaded couple of apps from the play store. Air mouse requires some getting used to, but not that tough. I did not unpack the stock remote at all.

Now the part, why not on Wifi... well I wanted to use the 5 dBi antenna of Minix as a wifi hotspot. So in a sense it acted like a repeater for my wifi which is in one part of house and I do not get good strength in living room.

On the bluetooth I connected my mobile though I did not find much use of it.

Here I have a question too for others who have been using streamers... Up untill now I used to play my songs through the BT from my mobile to a BT receiver connected to Audio port of Receiver. Can I use Minix to play my songs from my mobile or I connect mobile on BT to minix and with some app play songs which are further played through Minix. I mean I would like to do away with this BT receiver.

I know the experimentation has just begun. Shall keep you all posted as and when I make some progress.

Thanks for reading. Cheers...

Good to know that it worked for you. I would like to know what was the size of your hard disk, file format and do you have partitions in it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sidhumohan.kc]

Hello

I received my Minix Neo U1 today from USA along with A2 Lite and could not wait to open and plug it in... This is my first streamer.

The 7.1 setup - Yamaha RX V-671, Sanen Towers (put up for sale), PA CS10 centre, Sony Sub, PA OWM 3 surround and PA RM8 rear. Borrowed a 32" LED from a friend. (My wife would have killed me if I removed the one from bedroom for my trials !!! )

I plugged in the device and booted it up. I connected the Ethernet cable from my WiFi modem. Yes, I did not connect it on wifi to the modem. Why? I will explain that.

First thing to do is check for updates... Mine was Dec 15 vintage and it took three more updates till Apr 16 before I got it running.

Now this being my first streamer, I took my time to get the hang of it. It was a breeze getting it going. First I tested was playing Youtube content. No problem. Enjoyed HD or 720p videos.

Next I plugged my USB hdd with HD movies DTS 5.1. Started playing the movies. This was the first time I was playing 5.1 content on my home theatre since I did not have a 5.1 player before I got this streamer.

I must say... I purely loved it. Watched Fast and Furious 7 again on the home theatre and the sound was amazing. Played through XBMC which came bundled.

I also loaded couple of apps from the play store. Air mouse requires some getting used to, but not that tough. I did not unpack the stock remote at all.

Now the part, why not on Wifi... well I wanted to use the 5 dBi antenna of Minix as a wifi hotspot. So in a sense it acted like a repeater for my wifi which is in one part of house and I do not get good strength in living room.

On the bluetooth I connected my mobile though I did not find much use of it.

Here I have a question too for others who have been using streamers... Up untill now I used to play my songs through the BT from my mobile to a BT receiver connected to Audio port of Receiver. Can I use Minix to play my songs from my mobile or I connect mobile on BT to minix and with some app play songs which are further played through Minix. I mean I would like to do away with this BT receiver.

I know the experimentation has just begun. Shall keep you all posted as and when I make some progress.

Thanks for reading. Cheers...

Good that you are happy with the device. Curious to know what's the size of your hard disk and what's the file format & do you have Partitions ?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sidhumohan.kc]

What's the hard disk size and what kind of file format you are using ?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[captainrizal]

Xbmc and kodi are the same thing. The latter being the new name of the former. Minix has refined Xbmc to run smoothly on its players

Yeah agreed. But XBMC is replaced by Kodi and does not get updated. Kodi gets updated regularly and keep adding new features.

 

[captainrizal]

Agreed Doc. I have used both and there is no difference. Just the name. I am planning to install Nova launcher on it. The stock is took "tilled" and Launcher 3 is not so flexible. Nova seems to be most popular out there.

Can you use other skins of XBMC in Minix? Or only default skin Confluence?

 

[Audiodoc]

Yes you can use skins. Minix does update xbmc though not as frequently as kodi although if one goes through the minix thread you we get to know that minix has tweaked it's xbmc to work flawlessly on it players. On rest of my devices pc or mac or android l also prefer the latest version of kodi.

 

[sidhumohan.kc]

What's the size of your hard disk and what's the file format which you are using ?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sam9s]

Here I have a question too for others who have been using streamers... Up untill now I used to play my songs through the BT from my mobile to a BT receiver connected to Audio port of Receiver. Can I use Minix to play my songs from my mobile or I connect mobile on BT to minix and with some app play songs which are further played through Minix. I mean I would like to do away with this BT receiver.

I know the experimentation has just begun. Shall keep you all posted as and when I make some progress.

Thanks for reading. Cheers...

I will reiterate what I said in your other thread, your best bet, all in terms of ease of use, flexibility, compatibility and audio quality is using DLNA.

Minix supports DLNA, download BubbleUPnP on your Android and use it to stream music on your phone to Minix(which is connected to your receiver) ... Assuming both your phone and Minix is connected to same home wifi network.
If you do not want to purchase BubbleUPnP, even though I strongly would advice for the same, try finding any UPnP/DLNA player from Playstore. But any good DLNA player would be paid ....I have purchased version and its worth app. Another worth paid app I would recommend worth purchasing is AirAudio

 

[captainrizal]

Yes you can use skins. Minix does update xbmc though not as frequently as kodi although if one goes through the minix thread you we get to know that minix has tweaked it's xbmc to work flawlessly on it players. On rest of my devices pc or mac or android l also prefer the latest version of kodi.

I think you can uninstall XBMC and install latest Kodi. Kodi's UI is any day better than XBMC.

 

[Audiodoc]

Minix supplies kodi only just keeps the older name. There is no significant difference in ui.

 

[parambir]

What's the size of your hard disk and what's the file format which you are using ?


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You seem really desperate sidhumohan. Tge hdd is 1 tb Seagate and NTFS format I think. I only have windows computers with me. Hope this helps.

 

[parambir]

Having been experimenting with minix neo U1. Need a clarification. I am playing hd movies with 5.1 audio from ext hdd connected to minix on usb port. Xbmc shows hd 1080 and 5.1 in information bar. I keep yamaha receiver setting at dolby movie. But when I select straight it just switches front two speakers. In yamaha onscreen information it shows input stream as pcm 2 ch. I thought straight should pay all channels the way they are. Can someone throw some light on this please?

 

[Audiodoc]

You have to go into the settings pane of XBMC and when you have clicked the advanced settings in the lower left corner. You will get an option of passthrough. As soon as you select that minix will Bitstream 5.1 to your yamaha.

Hope this helps.

 

[parambir]

You have to go into the settings pane of XBMC and when you have clicked the advanced settings in the lower left corner. You will get an option of passthrough. As soon as you select that minix will Bitstream 5.1 to your yamaha.

Hope this helps.

Great. That worked. However now on receiver I can only opt straight or sur decode straight. I think that's ok?

 

[Audiodoc]

Straight will give you unadulterated 5.1 in the movie audio stream however multiple reviews of these recievers prefer using drama or standard profile when using the yamaha DSP.

Surround decode should only be used when up covering 2 channel audio to 5.1 using dolby pro logic II movie.