Pivos is one of those companies that you might not have ever heard of unless your looking for the specific types of devices they offer. Being a major player in digital media playback and IPTV systems among many more emerging technologies we had heard of them a bit before looking at this unit.  The unit we are looking at today is the Pivos XIOS DS which is a multi function media player based on the Android OS.

Introduction – Pivos XIOS DS Media Player

Pivos Technology Group is a coalition of industry professionals which all collectively work toward a common mission of providing excellent digital cutting edge solutions to users who want the best experience from their home AV and multi-platform environments. With the Pivos XIOS DS unit we have today it is a multi function device which can basically turn your display or TV into a Android device very similar to a tablet. This is not a device style exclusive to Pivos as we have seen and used many Android based devices from both LG and Patriot which are all referenced as media players, but the Pivos unit definitely has some better hardware onboard.

 

 

The XIOS DS is available via Newegg at the time of writing at a street price of $109.99 which can be considered a bit high, but let’s see what it has to offer.

 

Key Features

Powered by Android 4.0 

Pivos has pre-loaded right out of the box the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS which is very good and smooth not to mention only a single version behind the most current version available on some smartphones and tablets. This lets you know that Pivos knows how to do this right by keeping up with quite current software as needed and this means a very good user experience along with smooth interface control.

Official XBMC Support Partner

Pivos is a exclusive partner with the XBMC team which for those who do not know XBMC is one of the most popular Home theatre software being used for HTPC’s or media devices. This once again is a very good sign as support for the XIOS DS is very strong and they have exclusive firmwares available for the best media player exerience

High Performance Components

The XIOS DS utilizes a powerful Cortex A9 processor which offers excellent horsepower for video playback but also for the various android apps you can download from the Android MArketplace. Also for graphics and video is the Mali 400 which is an OpenGL GPU capable of android gaming along with video playback. Also I see that this hardware is more than capable to run the new Jellybean 4.2 Android OS  i hope they update to that for the extended capability such as the even smoother interface.

Abundant connectivity

The XIOS DS comes with plenty of  external connectivity with the following.

-3x USB 2.0 ports

– HDMI port

-10/100 LAN port

-MicroSD card slot

-Internal WiFi antennae 

This kind of connectivity allows for streaming of media via a USB connected  devices such as thumb drives or external HDDs. Also with the wired or wireless network connections allows for easily streaming media via network shares or even internet locations such as youtube. Also apps can be downloaded from the play store to run most of the apps you would see on a tablet or smartphone you can use on this.

Supplemental Linux Firmware Available

Among the normal Android interface there is also an available Linux XBMC firmware which can be loaded should you only want to use this device for video streaming and this upon testing works very well but you do lose the capabilities of the Android OS and play store or other android apps. It is cool to have this sort of option as some have said that the Linux XBMC tends to run a little better as of now, although XBMC is constantly working on the android solution on the XIOS DS device to offer an even better experience. 

 

Spec Details

Supported Video Codecs

• MPEG 1/ 2/ 4, H.264, VC-1, WMV, M2TS, TS, RMVB, AVI, MKV, MOV, TS, MPEG, FLV, DivX, Xvid.

Supported File Types

• AVI/ MKV/ TS/ TP/ TRP/ M2TS/ MPG/ MP4/ MOV/ M4V/ VOB/ IFO/ DAT/ WMV/ ASF/ RM/ RMVB/ FLV/ XVID/ DIVX 3,4,5 for up to 1080p resolution.
• MP3/ OGG/ WMA/ WAV/ AAC/ FLAC
• HD JPEG/ BMP/ GIF/ TIF/ PNG

Supported Audio Codecs

• MP2/ 3, OGG Vorbis, WMA, WAV, WMA PRO, PCM LPCM, MS-ADPCM, LC-AAC, HE-AAC, COOK, RA-Lossless, RM/ RMVB 8/ 9/ 10./li>

Supported Connections

• 1 x HDMI A/V out
• 1 x 10/100 Ethernet
• 1 x 802.11 b/g/n built in wireless
• 3 x USB 2.0 ports
• 1 x MicroSD/SDHC Memory Slot (upto 32GB)

Supported Audio Output

• MP2/ 3, OGG Vorbis, WMA, WAV, WMA PRO, PCM LPCM, MS-ADPCM, LC-AAC, HE-AAC, COOK, RA-Lossless, RM/ RMVB 8/ 9/ 10.

Supported Languges

• Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Latvian, Norwegian-Bokmol, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Swedish, Thai, Tagalog, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Simplified & Traditional Chinese

Supported Subtitle Types

• SRT, SMI, SSA, ASS, IDX/SUB, SUB

Requirements

• REQUIRED: High Definition Display device with HDMI input (up to 1080p resolution for best results).

* Recommended: Wired or Wireless network connection is required for network or internet content. Audio amplifier is required for digital surround sound.

Contents

• XIOS DS Media PLay
• Remote Control
• HDMI A/V out
• A/C Power Adapter

Pre-Installed Apps

Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Air, AppBrain , Aptoide, Astro, AndroZip, App Control, App Installer, BubbleUPnP, Browser, Cache Cleaner+, Crackle, Calculator, Calendar, Clock, Downloads, Dolphin HD, DroidVPN, Email, File Browser, Facebook, File Expert, File Manager, Gallery, Global News, Go SMS Pro, IMDB, MoboPlayer, mVideoPlaye, MX Video Player, Messenger, mundu IM, mundu Radio, Music, Network, Opera Mobile, Radio, RockPlayer, SlideME Market, SSHDroid, Terminal Emulator, Titanium Backup, Titanium Restore, Ustream, Video Player, Youtube.

This is quite a sizable chunk of apps and definitely help get a good start on a nice solid Android experience with plenty of video apps along with streaming apps for other sorts of media and of course web browsing.