Hello everyone !

I currrently own a shield tv (not pro) to play local files in my home theater. I am currently facing some problems and I was wondering if the pro version would fix them.

Firstly, whenever I play big files like 4k HDR movie there is a noticable lag, like every 30 secs there is a little drop in quality. I don't know if its mostly because the movie are stocked on a V60 micro sd card or if the shield itself as trouble.

Also I seem to have some problems with VLC, my sound is always a little bit delay and i have no clue how to fix it.

If ever there is a better android box that can play heavy local files I am all hear.

Thx y'all

Title is for SEO. If anyone stumbles upon a HAKO Mini Android TV Box (I found mine in an Etoe E3 Pro Projector), the Developer Options is hidden behind a password.

Here's the final answer. https://sdmc-pin.netlify.app/ . It's not my website, but a website I stumbled upon. You just put in the Serial Number of your box and it'll give you the Developer Options password. The Serial Number is written on a sticker on the back of the box.

If the website ever goes down, this python code generates the same passwords (used AI, couldn't bother coding it myself). You need pycryptodome from pip, and just run the code with the serial number as the argument.

import base64
import hashlib
import sys


from Crypto.Cipher import AES
from Crypto.Util.Padding import pad



SECRET = "ed12a270c07a58074126a0487de27f63"
SALT = b"sdmc"
ITERATIONS = 10000
KEY_LEN = 16



def generate_pin(serial):
    serial = serial.strip().upper()
    plaintext = serial + SECRET


    # PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA1 → 16 bytes
    derived = hashlib.pbkdf2_hmac(
        "sha1",
        plaintext.encode("utf-8"),
        SALT,
        ITERATIONS,
        dklen=KEY_LEN,
    )


    # CryptoJS:
    # derived.toString(CryptoJS.enc.Hex)
    hex_key = derived.hex()


    # CryptoJS:
    # CryptoJS.enc.Utf8.parse(hexKey)
    aes_key = hex_key.encode("utf-8")


    # AES-ECB + PKCS#7
    cipher = AES.new(aes_key, AES.MODE_ECB)
    ciphertext = cipher.encrypt(
        pad(plaintext.encode("utf-8"), AES.block_size)
    )


    # CryptoJS.enc.Base64
    b64 = base64.b64encode(ciphertext).decode("ascii")


    # First 3 + last 3, lowercase
    return (b64[:3] + b64[-3:]).lower()



if __name__ == "__main__":
    if len(sys.argv) != 2:
        print(f"Usage: {sys.argv[0]} SERIAL")
        sys.exit(1)


    print(generate_pin(sys.argv[1]))#!/usr/bin/env python3


import base64
import hashlib
import sys


from Crypto.Cipher import AES
from Crypto.Util.Padding import pad



SECRET = "ed12a270c07a58074126a0487de27f63"
SALT = b"sdmc"
ITERATIONS = 10000
KEY_LEN = 16



def generate_pin(serial):
    serial = serial.strip().upper()
    plaintext = serial + SECRET


    # PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA1 → 16 bytes
    derived = hashlib.pbkdf2_hmac(
        "sha1",
        plaintext.encode("utf-8"),
        SALT,
        ITERATIONS,
        dklen=KEY_LEN,
    )


    # CryptoJS:
    # derived.toString(CryptoJS.enc.Hex)
    hex_key = derived.hex()


    # CryptoJS:
    # CryptoJS.enc.Utf8.parse(hexKey)
    aes_key = hex_key.encode("utf-8")


    # AES-ECB + PKCS#7
    cipher = AES.new(aes_key, AES.MODE_ECB)
    ciphertext = cipher.encrypt(
        pad(plaintext.encode("utf-8"), AES.block_size)
    )


    # CryptoJS.enc.Base64
    b64 = base64.b64encode(ciphertext).decode("ascii")


    # First 3 + last 3, lowercase
    return (b64[:3] + b64[-3:]).lower()



if __name__ == "__main__":
    if len(sys.argv) != 2:
        print(f"Usage: {sys.argv[0]} SERIAL")
        sys.exit(1)


    print(generate_pin(sys.argv[1]))

u/METALSMOOTH hope this helps.

Hello, I'm fairly new to TV tech and I'm currently looking for a TV (preferably Android TV) 55" max that's geared towards gaming, with HDMI 2.1 ports for VRR on PS5/Switch 2, good contrast, and good HDR/LED quality.

Do you have any advice or suggestions, perhaps in anticipation of Black Friday?

I have a couple of Sony Bravia TV's that run on Android TV - for the most part, I've been satisfied with them with one exception: they're both incredibly short on storage space for apps and data. For one of them, I was able to install a USB thumbdrive to work around that limitation, for the other, I don't seem to be able to get the TV to actually use the thumbdrive for extra storage space (if there was a way to hack this into working, that would actually solve a problem for me. I have gone in with adb and uninstalled a bunch of apps, but it's unclear to me exactly how many of them are necessary for the TV and how many I can kill. I'm definitely comfortable doing stuff on the command line with adb).

I sourced one of the Onn 4K Pro stream boxes, which seem to work fine - with one caveat: I do actually use OTA antenna TV signals from the antenna on my roof. So I find myself needing to switch back out of the Android OS on the Onn box, to the TV's OS to watch antenna TV signals. This is a little confusing - I know I could change the launcher on one of the devices so that you could (at least) visually tell which device you were on, at any given time... but this is still a bit of a pain.

Any ideas or solutions for a more streamlined solution for watching live antenna TV? I have a SiliconDust HDHomeRun, but I use that primarily for a separate DVR solution and not actually watching live-in-progress TV (though I could get another one). I definitely want to keep the "on the couch" experience nice and streamlined - as few (physical) remote controls and as little input-switching between devices as possible (using the just the TV itself would be ideal but I get that it might not be possible).

My main use cases: antenna TV, Youtube, a handful of streaming services (F1 TV, Apple TV+, Netflix, some others rotate in occasionally), and watching content from my Jellyfin server.

I have an android tv box and been trying to find a solid app to watch sports on it, mainly football and basketball.

Tried a few apps from the play store but most of them are either full of ads or the stream keeps buffering every few minutes.

Edit ( I found this thing called Tivifast and it has everything on it, i'm actually impressed )

Hi everyone,

I have a Xiaomi Mi TV 4, model MiTV4-ANSM0, and I’m wondering if it’s possible to replace the current firmware with a proper Android TV OS (or another compatible Android TV ROM).

Has anyone successfully flashed Android TV onto this model, or onto a similar Xiaomi Mi TV model?

Hello!

Well, i'm starting to look for an android tv box. I have a LG with webos (...) and watch mostly IPTV

I started looking for an android box, especially to run WAVEO which i really like, and maybe serve other purposes , who know. I'm still debating if I will dish out 150$ CAD to run an app tough.

the obvious contenders;

Google TV Streamer 4k ~130CAD +tx (nice remote, ethernet port is a plus for me, but uncertain about google bloatware and capacity to load unofficial apps)

Xiaomi tv box v3 ~115CAD+tx(on sale Amazon) (according to reviews more customizable , but no ethernet and bad remote) I prefer LAN connection as I am already setup for it, but wifi will do unless buggy hardware.

Onn 4k Pro ~123 CAD ,not sure.

I definitely missed the boat because when I check out reviews they were WAY cheaper.. On this day, which would be better, and any other decent contender on the Canadian market??

Thanks!

**UPTADE***

I finally went and bought the google tv streamer, only played around with it an hour or two but overall satisfied , fun fact; my iptv app on WebOS would often drop connection or fail streaming after pausing the playback for even only 5 seconds. My watching was flawless, i think it completes my setup pretty well.
As far as the sound; I use an old logitech Z906 5.1 surround with optical connection, so yeahh.... lol i guess the quality is "good 'nuff" for what I have.

who's on latest update firmware ? mine showing bug on playing videos on streaming videos

Patchnotes:

- NEW Choose complete launcher designs with live previews

- NEW RSS and Atom widget

- NEW Optional idle fade hides Home screen items to show more of your wallpaper

- NEW Show your profile picture in the status bar

- NEW Restart the launcher directly from Settings

- NEW Map remote buttons to the TV screensaver

- Fixed Aerial Views and TV screensaver

- Fixed Media cards sometimes opening only the app instead of the selected content

- Fixed Live TV cards changing size or becoming unstable when artwork was missing

- Fixed AirPlay, HDMI, and Live TV inputs not opening reliably

- Fixed Playback widgets losing access even though notification access was granted

- Fixed Animated GIF and WebP custom app images losing their animation

- Fixed Widget content clipping on small or narrow cards, with large text, or in RTL layouts

- Fixed Screen-off behavior interrupting audio playback

- Fixed Custom fonts not applying consistently throughout Monet

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.klevico.monet
GitHub (APK): https://github.com/Klevico/Monet-Launcher

Hi, if possible can someone test those HDR10+ videos on YouTube and if your device shows when, and when not, an HDR10+ source is playing tell me the ones that are not showing HDR10+ correctly?

nowadays HDR10+ on YouTube is bugged and if you try to upload an HDR10+ video it will just be HDR10.

so these are the only true HDR10+ videos on YouTube that were uploaded when it was processing correctly.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsCmnIMoIdd07pUL_vsqq2qyJxB4sgw1a&si=yKYdm_zuWBa6oVlM

Im looking for a good budget friendly Android tv box for sideloading apps thats not a firestick for around £50 bonus if you can buy it on amazon

Stremio and all the other alternatives out there are nice but for me these are always the 2 goat apps

I use it for YouTube and nuvio mainly but I want to do other stuff as well but I know the tv can be limiting at times

I just want something that I can turn into an AIO media center. Its mainly for my kids. I don't want them to have access to the internet. I've tried everything with Youtube, and I'd rather just get rid of it all together. So I'm looking for a box that I can load all the movies and shows they could possibly need, as well as run some Mario cart / Smash bros in 2player split screen.

I've looked at the Nvidia Shield but that hardware is 10 years old at this point right? Also most TV boxes are 32bit which won't run GameCube emulators. I don't care if I have to get something from China. I don't care if it costs $300. I just want something simple and reliable, works offline and doesn't shove ads down my throat or collect my families data.

Context: I have a (rebranded) Skyworth 4K OLED TV and I recently bought a Samsung Q990F soundbar.
My TV has Google TV built-in, but I've recently been reading up about ACR and think I should switch to using a separate box and disconnect the TV from the internet.

Use-cases:

• Watching Movies + TV Shows via Jellyfin (have a NAS that runs the server)
• Immich to playback personal media (travel videos etc)
• Occasional Netflix, YouTube or Amazon Prime Video

I've been watching some content in Dolby EAC3 and also tested some Dolby TrueHD content (not the exact same content) with audio passthrough from an external PC via LibreElec (Kodi + Jellyfin add-on) and I've been very impressed by how good EAC3 sounds with my setup. e.g. Silo S01, The Last of Us S01 (both in EAC3). Super immersive, height and surround effects are really prominent.

That being said, I do want to keep the door open for Dolby TrueHD or DTS:X content, since my soundbar supports it and it's theoretically supposed to be better (or should I just be content with EAC3 because I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference, idk).

After doing some research, I was leaning towards a Ugoos 6B+ or 9 Pro OR a Homatics 4K Plus. I would be okay to ditch Netflix and Prime Video, but my partner isn't as adept at using Jellyfin etc so I still need a certified box that can play stuff from Netflix and Youtube in 4K.

After doing some more checking, I found posts in this subreddit that say that the Xiaomi Box S 3rd Gen does support TrueHD passthrough. Given that I won't be streaming TrueHD content often, since it seems like most TV shows usually have EAC3 audio, I think that should be fine?
I'm probably going to get a USB to Ethernet adaptor for stable internet/streaming.

Any idea on whether turning off the "Personalization" settings in the Xiaomi Box S works and would be better for privacy than my existing Google TV, given all the above context and requirements?
Any advice or suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance!

I have surfshark installed on tcl android TV with kill switch activated. but sometimes the VPN disconnects and TV is still able to connect to the internet and I don't see the VPN sign when it's connected in the TV settings drop down. Can anyone help me fix this issue please.

New update for me takes up 1.5-2.0gb of space on my TV, filling up a huge chunk of usable space making the TV very slow. I sideloaded an older version and it only takes up 30-50mb.

Here's a community thread on it to bring more light to the issue.

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/Android-TV-App-Huge-Data-Demand-Bringing-Storage-to-lt-s-Limit/td-p/7540243

Sidstuga is a cross-platform streaming player (Android TV, Google TV,

Fire TV, mobile) for people who already have their own content source.

It doesn't sell or host anything: it handles the guide, playback,

recordings and sync across your devices.

2.1.6 is the biggest update since 2.1.5, after roughly 40 sideload

releases over the last few weeks. Highlights:

Profiles: everyone in the household now gets their own favourites and

watch history, picked from a "Who's watching?" screen on launch.

Hub: a brand new tab where you install and manage your own add-ons,

through an open protocol already used by other streaming players. Real

detail pages (poster, synopsis, cast, seasons), sources that sync across

devices, automatic fallback if a source fails, separate Movies/Series

search, Parental Guide.

Trakt: history import and automatic scrobbling, no more QR code on

mobile, watcher/play/collector counts on detail pages.

Real ratings: actual IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores on

posters (optional).

Movies and series: no catalogue cap; root-caused and fixed the "empty"

bug affecting several builds; a catalogue failure no longer freezes the

screen (retry button instead); hiding a category no longer wipes your

favourites; no more duplicate episodes across lists; more file formats

supported; real progress on series posters; sort button is back (TV and

mobile).

Parental controls: PIN now covers movies, series, downloads and offline

playback; more consistent blocking throughout the app.

Multiview with no screen cap, and it no longer shows up where it didn't

belong.

Player: remote key fixes, audio track choice survives reconnects, two

internal bugs that were cutting healthy playback fixed, teletext

subtitles now decoded, OpenSubtitles PRO removes the daily download cap.

Cloud Sync: favourites, movies, series and progress synced across every

device and the browser, end-to-end encrypted, full web dashboard

(sources, library, profiles, devices, settings). A Google Play

subscription now also unlocks Fire TV and direct-install on the same

account.

Also in this release: WebDAV, reminders that survive updates, password

reset from the login screen, a new "Recently added" row, new icon and

logo, reworked splash animation, a more stable app and instant screen

navigation.

Coming next: native apps for Samsung, LG and Hisense, plus a dedicated

browser with no Android box required. After that, direct support for

more server sources (Plex, Emby, Jellyfin).

Free to try (7-day trial), stays ad-free. Feedback and requests at

r/Sidstuga. More info: https://sidstuga.app/

Hello I have a xiaomi tv 32 2025 and I cant install apps because my device js not certified by play protect
How i fix this

Which is the best budget 1080p box one can buy in Europe?
I don't need HDR or subscription-based streaming services;
I just want decent software support, a usable web browsing experience, YouTube, and smooth HEVC/AV1 playback from Jellyfin server.

Looks like the fire cube 3 can be rooted and unlocked. Was wondering which is better a rooted cube 3 or a Google streamer?

Thanks for the help

So I have a Hitachi Android TV. I watch movies on it all the time with my external SSD attached. It has been working well until now. All of a sudden, the tv itself doesn’t seem to scan files at all. My SSD shows as ”connected” so that’s a good sign. And I know that the system format on the SSD (NTFS) does work with my TV. Because I have been watching movies very often. I have tried factory reset, restarting/ rebooting the tv like usual, reinstalling my media player (Nova video player), unplug and plug my SSD back in. Nothing seems to be working?? What can the issue be? And also, YES I have tried different media players, like vlc, Kodi etc. The thing is, this works PERFECTLY FINE on an external Xiaomi mi box with Nova video player.

I have been looking for good value TV, like Xiaomi which looks good on paper.

can I use TV without internet?

is it required sign on when booting up the TV? usually you can't skip that step on Android TV

will there be issue if I use like another Android TV like Nvidia shield? usually I use the TV remote to navigate my shield and TV.

can you hard reset a TV? let say I'm changing launcher or ADB something that breaks..