TV Box ergonomics

[Neofit]

Hello,

I currently have what used to be called a "Multimedia Hard Disk" from DVico. I am rather tired of it not understanding modern codecs like E-AC3 or h265, so I want to get me something more modern. After a bit of searching, the equivalent today is called a "TV Box". There seem to be a few models with hundreds of variants on Amazon.

I am worried about the ergonomics of the thingy. My DVico comes with a large remote control with almost as many buttons as on a universal remote. I am watching movies and series in English but am not a native speaker, so I love that the remote has special buttons to skip ahead/back 10 seconds as well as a special button to open the subtitles menu. I use those a few times per show, so having these options 3 menus and 10 clicks deep will drive me mad rather quickly.

From what I am seeing in screenshots and reviews, Android TV Boxes use an app called Kodi to show movies on attached media. I have no idea what it does nor whether it even interacts with the remote. But I am wondering, how many clicks does one need to perform to enter the subtitles menu, turn them on/off, change the language? How many, if at all possible, to skip 10 secs ahead or back? Does Kodi on these Android boxes allow one to load a subtitle file (.srt, .ass, .sub) from the disk/share where the movie file is, or does it have to be the exact same name as the movie file so only one can be used?

Thank you.

 

[jsmithepa]

I wish reviews have a special section for Ease of Interfacing, but NOOOOOooooo, that will require that reviewers ACTUALLY spend time playing with it.

Fortunately, many of these can be ameriorated via a smart universal remote, as u can program buttons to execute a complicated sequence of clicks.

 

[Neofit]

Fortunately, many of these can be ameriorated via a smart universal remote, as u can program buttons to execute a complicated sequence of clicks.

Not as simple as it sounds. I do have a Logitech Harmony One universal remote. I programmed it to work on my TV, amplifier and multimedia HD. But it only works well because the DVico TVix media center already has this actions that can be activated by a remote. It has actions like "Subtitles", "Skip Ahead 10 secs", "Skip Back 10 secs", "Next movie", "Previous Movie", "File Info", "Next Audio Track", "Source", etc., on the remote already.

Heck, the Logitech software even showed me some actions that are not on the remote. The latter only has an On/Off toggle button, while the device also has separate On and Off actions. This is nice for when you program a macro to "turn on all my devices" and off.

But, I've checked this Logitech software on what they have on 3-4 of these boxes, which looked to be different ones according to the remote they used (i.e. not all rebrands of the same chinese device), and they show no actions besides the most basic ones their remote has. The most advanced ones, or, more accurately, the least dumbed down ones have some kine of FForward/Rewind actions, but I'm not sure whether it is for skipping or moving onto another file. Hence my question about the menu system. I don't even know if Kodi can be controlled by the stock remote.

 

[americanaudiophile]

Kodi is a much more complicated animal than your old media player. It does a lot more than play files. The remote that comes with an Android box will control Kodi but not the way you are used to. There is a way to assign Kodi functions to an IR remote for Windows. I tried it once and could not get it working. I suspect that any Android app is going to be less than friendly with a hard button remote.
You can use the VLC app for Android which is much closer to what you are used to and is certainly very flexible. It doesn't require the configuration that Kodi does and plays everything.