I Continue To Play

We have a few showers about today, drizzle mainly and pretty cool to boot.  I received $100 for sorting out the computer I set up the other day.  Needless to say I had a trip to the Home Brew shop today where I discovered another $50 had been left on my 'tab' there for me.  I also grabbed 3 x 16GB USB drive for $27 available from the post office.  This is a pretty good deal I reckon and those USB sticks are always handy to have.

The learning curve I have been undertaking with the new Android TV Box is huge at the moment.

It appears the Android Box doesn't like my Yamaha Amplifier.  Sometimes it registers as there being a sound track and other times it doesn't.  So I have reconfigured things to 'bypass' the problem.

Usually all connected devices I have (Pay TV, Media Player etc) connect to the Amp via HDMI leads.  The connected devices include the Media Player I have been using for years, The Pay TV Box and the new DVD Player, all connected by individual HDMI leads to the amplifier which in turn sends the audio to the surround speakers and the video to the TV screen on the TV's connection HDMI 2. The Amp has the ability to take up to 4 different devices.  It all works nicely .... usually!

The sound from Free to Air TV comes via an optical cable from the TV back to Amp so when we are watching FTA TV the video goes direct to the screen and the audio passes to back from the TV set to the Amp and plays out through the speakers.  The TV's own sound is set to 'mute' so all audio is controlled via the Amplifier.

Originally I had the Android TV Box connected to the Amp via a HDMI lead but I had the resultant audio issues, namely 60% of the time it didn't work!

The TV itself has several HDMI inputs.  Up until recently I was just using just the 1 input on the TV, HDMI 2 from the Amplifier to take all my connected devices.  So what I have now done is disconnect the Android TV Box from the Amp and connected it directly to the TV on the TV's HDMI 1 connection.  Now the audio comes from the Android TV Box to the TV which then uses the same optical cable the TV does to return the sound to the Amplifier and in turn out through the surround speakers.

The TV has no problem at all accessing the audio from the Android Box and then passing it on to the Amplifier.  The only hassle is the TV sound quality is 'ordinary' so the audio we are getting is stereo.  90% of the stuff we watch on the Android TV Box is in stereo, it is the remaining 10% of shows with great sound we cannot access.

It appears the sound issue is one being experienced by many buyers of this box (and other brand boxes).  The technicians have been hard at work trying to improve the problem and sooner or later (hopefully) there will be an 'update' which will fix the problem.

Currently we are watching a series streamed over the Android TV Box called "Hand of God".  We are enjoying it very much.  It tells of a Judge's son who has committed suicide and is in a coma.  The Judge has suffered a bit of a breakdown and though still working, he now believes he is "God" and is wielding his power in a Godlike manner to try to get his son out of the coma.  The son has been diagnosed as 'brain dead' and only remains alive because of life support machinery.

The Judge wants his son to snap out of the coma and is prepared to use his judicial powers to ensure the life support machinery isn't turned off despite the wishes of most of his family.

Meanwhile he is having people killed as he tries to solve what he suspects is a murder!