The Geek on Vacation with an Android Mini PC

 

You can take the Geek out of his element, but you can't take the geek out of the Geek.

So I'm taking a camping trip with the family in our travel trailer(can you really call it camping if your trailer has a 42" TV?), and we need to bring along our Movie, TV and Music selections as there is a slight lack of reception.
So a while back I asked my wife for a Uhost2  made by Smallart for my birthday.  It is basically a Android mini pc that connects via HDMI to a TV.  It provides a number of possibilities, including being used as a Media Centre which is why I wanted one.
The conversation kinda went like...
 
Wife:  What exactly does it do?
 
Me:  Well, you hook it up to your TV and you can watch Movies and TV on it and can listen to music among other things.
 
Wife:  So, it does the same thing as the Apple TV I bought you?
 
Me:  Ummm, yes and no.  The Android box lets me plug in a USB hard drive with our movies and music on it and take it with us.  It doesn't need to be connected to the Internet to work.
 
Wife:  Hmpf...
 
Long story short, I received a Uhost2 and Air Mouse for my birthday.  There is a specific version of XBMC for the Rockchip and the like ARM processors that makes use of the hardware video processing, it's called Libstagefright .  I've been installing new versions as they get released and it's really come a long way usability wise.  Video use to stutter and get out of sync due to the GPU not being utilized, but it's quite usable now.  I still tend to use Mx Player if I'm watching a movie, but I still love XBMC.
I got one of these Air Mouses for controlling the Uhost2, works pretty good though if I were to get another I'd probably go for one of the Mele ones  as I've heard good things about them.
Anyway, here we are in our trailer with our selection of movies, tv shows and music to keep us entertained when we want.  Life is sweet!