Please recommend me some android tv boxes that can play local .mkv h.265 video files :)

My current tv is so old that the netlfix app isn't supported anymore. From an usb stick it can only play h.264 videos so I always have to run them through hand brake first. That is why I want to buy an streaming box. Preferably under 50€

Alternatively if someone knows about a blu ray player under 100€ which can do all of the above plus play blu ray dvds please recommend me one :)

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- Why is a 5 year old device still the best bet? It's frustrating that nothing better exists on the market.
  
  The Android market sort of split into cheap streaming sticks vs more expensive but niche boxes (like the Zidoo or Dune players). The former are meant for streaming but lack power. The latter are more capable players but often can’t stream from legit services due to DRM.
  The Shield sits in this weird middle ground where it’s actually good for a variety of use cases….but unlikely to get an update due to small market demand.
  Although I’d argue that unless you need atmos audio passthrough for Bluray rips…the AppleTV 4K is the best option these days. Super fast processor, no ads or bullshit in the OS, reliable frame rate matching, good track record of software updates and vendor support, and apps like Infuse which is a superb Plex and Jellyfin client. It’ll do 4K REMUX playback with lossless 7.1 audio, and the UI never lags…ever. Just a shame about no audio passthrough which prevents it from being an enthusiast player.
  
  Most of what these devices do is fairly light compute-wise. There's no real need to have the most powerful hardware when all it will really do is add to cost. Are there use cases for more powerful hardware, of course but for most people what we have is good enough. That said, I would love an updated Shield or competitor.
  
  Because it's good shit.
  Much less than the $150 for the smaller shield and you don't have a lot of margin for a decent chip in there.
  
  I use the 2017 edition and it works great. Has the same SoC AS a switch Lok but supports 4k
  
  i'm still running a hardware steam link for our in home streaming (and have another one as backup should it die). the shield and the SL were the best options back then, and everything afterwards kinda sucked
  
  It's going to be cheaper and fulfills OP's need. I don't know what else you'd want, what better things were you looking for?
  
  Old hardware is cheaper, and these devices don’t need to be expensive.
  Even when newly manufactured they’ll still use ancient CPUs because nobody wants to spend $500 on an android TV stick.
  Even the latest shield pro uses a CPU from 2015 and it’s $200 brand new.
- Or even better flash LineageOS on it!
Where do you currently store the video? You could get a cheap Chromecast with Google TV (the one with a remote) and use Jellyfin on your computer to make the video files available over the network.
- I store them on my pc but I think my internet connection is too bad for that
  
  It doesn't depend on your Internet, it all works through your local network.
- You don't need the one with the remote. Jellyfin will cast to google devices from the client.
  
  I know but I prefer to get the one with the remote, since you can also cast to it, and having a remote for guests is nice.
At that price point shopping used and local might be the best move. I see these devices come up pretty cheap as people switch to "jailbroken" firesticks, smart tvs, or other smart device ecosystems (ex. Google to Amazon).
If you haven't seen it already you might want to check out the LTT video on Android boxes. It basically talks about cheap Android boxes containing malicious materials and advising people not to connect them to their home networks.
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  LTT video on Android boxes
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
- I've owned four different android TV boxes from AliExpress over the years, from different manufacturers, different sellers, and different versions of Android. None of them ever came with malware. I'm a member of the CoreElec community forums where thousands of people own android TV boxes, hundreds of different models and hundreds of different firmware versions, and nobody ever once talked about having malware on their device. That LTT video is ill-informed and out of proportion. Anyway, nobody ever buys the Android TV box to use whatever crappy old version of Android they include, they immediately wipe the partition and install CoreElec on it, with kodi and all the plugins you'd ever want.
  I have two of them running CoreElec for my media centres, and one with Armbian OS with HomeAssistant installed, running my home automation. They're the best bang-for-buck ARM powered Linux hardware you can get, miles better than a raspberry PI.
  
  I do agree it's out of proportion. Most people are just them to stream content after all not do their taxes and send corporate emails. I mentioned it because the possibility is there for something malicious and some people consider that due to security or privacy concerns.
  Anyway, nobody ever buys the Android TV box to use whatever crappy old version of Android they include, they immediately wipe the partition and install CoreElec on it, with kodi and all the plugins you’d ever want.
  I feel like the average consumer uses their Android TV boxes the way that they come. This is the first time I've even heard of CoreELEC despite using LibreELEC. Thanks for mentioning it. I have doubts every obscure cheap Android box is supported though.
Can I chime in for another question? What is the cheapest way to watch physical 4K UHD blueray?
- If you already have a PC the cheapest way would be to get one of the 4k drives that can be flashed (https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19634)
  You can then either rip your blu-rays via MakeMKV directly or play them in VLC/Kodi via libmmbd.
- PlayStation 3?
  
  I don't think the PS3 has a UHD drive (or can output 4k).
Why not just get a big monitor and connect it to your computer as a secondary display?
- I already have a big pc monitor but I prefer watching movies on my TV. But your comment got me the idea to just buy a very long hdmi cable 🙂
  
  Make sure it's a 2.1 one
  
  This is my preferred setup, would recommend. If you route the HDMI through an AVR you can also get lossless surround.
Go Av1, much better support: all recent amazon fire sticks support it, I am am using one and loving it.
Jellyfin ofc
H264 is great, but h265 is basically feels like a dead end. Av1 instead is picking up lots of steam. I am betting on it instead of h265.
- Thank you for your comment. This made me reconsider. I already bit on ebay for an nokia stream box 8010. If I loose I might then go with the orbsmart s 87 plus since it has av1 :) Edit:
  Nvm 8010 has av1 too. I previously bit on the 8000 which doesn't but I thankfully lost.
What about a Xiaomi TV Box S?
The ps3 still gets updated to be able to play the latest blu-rays. You could probably find one for under 100 at your local ebay/craigslist pretty easily.
- The PS3 doesn't support 4K resolution I suppose.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSq7jojhTA0BRoFm-wZAeWoT_8NyFe8iMP15AfrB8j65LUlLcZgxSttQtam5t6V_xiyssk5SEV9mCd8/pubhtml
I'm probably going to do something similar soon, I've made a few attempts at stopping my Fire TV cube from updating.
Somehow it still is, and Amazon are really doing their absolute best to wreck it to the point that if I don't kill background apps after a reboot it will crash within 5 minutes or so.
Google made it mandatory for any box past 2022 to be able to play av1. There are a lot of boxes that can play x265. There are boxes from chinese sellers for 15 bucks that can play 265
- I wouldn’t recommend most of the cheap Android boxes. Most of the are full of malware. LTT did a video comparing most major Android boxes: https://youtu.be/sdLnieL90d0?si=6nAX8E0d9c4OZXqM
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://piped.video/sdLnieL90d0?si=6nAX8E0d9c4OZXqM
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

50 comments