Pimp my box

[Chairman]

Hey guys,

I'm beginning to get fed up with this thing and am considering buying an ODROID N2+ but thought I'd give this forum a shot before spending cash I don't have on something that likely won't give me much improvement.

My setup:

Q10 Pro running pcristi custom firmware 2.16
Yamaha HTR-2071 AV Receiver
Panasonic GZ1000U TV

Previously I was streaming stuff from my PC using Universal Media Server but it seemed to have intermittent issues. Same thing with NFS, the Q10 media player would just randomly cut out mid stream and I'd have to switch it off to reset it, very annoying. I could never get files to play over LAN either, not sure why.

I'm now just downloading stuff onto an external hard drive and then plugging it into the Q10 direct so I'm not having to stream from the PC, I use Kodi for add-ons (it won't play the files on the HD in Kodi for some reason, it uses the wrapper and freezes up, plays fine on the native Q10 player though, odd) and even the add ons are having problems now with streams freezing up unless I disable audio passthrough which is also weird.

I like Android because I can also use the box to play music through soundcloud and watch YouTube, use my VPN app, etc which I don't think is easily possible with an ODROID N2+ running CoreElec. I'm using the Nova Launcher which is more aesthetically pleasing than the regular launcher. I do recall a thread on here where a dude had a really pimpin theme set up but he deleted all the stuff he used so I couldn't recreate it.

I guess what I'm asking is how do I breathe new life into this box? How are other people using it? Games / themes / peripherals / streaming setup? It seems like I'm missing something here and this old girl is probably capable of doing some cool stuff I'm not aware of, but the firmware support from Himedia seems almost non-existent now and I keep having difficulties getting it to work as intended.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[futeko.com]

The firmware support from HiMedia over the past 4.5 years since Q10 Pro release has been vastly better than you'd get from ODROID. If you want good future firmware support I'd recommend Zidoo or Dune.

[stl]

If you want a different look and feel, Android TV custom firmware is the the way to go:
https://www.futeko.com/newforum/index.php?topic=2219.192

[Chairman]

If you want a different look and feel, Android TV custom firmware is the the way to go:
https://www.futeko.com/newforum/index.php?topic=2219.192

Have you got any other advice for getting the most out of this device? I don't mind the look or feel of the custom firmware with Nova Launcher, just seems like I'm not getting the most out of it somehow?