And IPTV+OTA channels is an increasingly popular combo, specially for cordcutters. That's my other current use case, I'd love to have one of this plus ISDB-t full-seg reception. Microsoft also thought of this when designing Xbox One.

Right, but Shenzhen produces all kinds of shit-tablets with shit accesories that probably nobody wants, and this, which is still a niche but probably could stop being one if propery implemented by software, isn't.

What I don't get is, if this Mstar chipset, which I'd guess is really cheap, has by hardware ability to capture video thru HDMI (and with a Mali 450 GPU), why aren't we seeing that same capability on other SoCs by bigger factories like Rockchip and so on. If 75uss pays for complete system with this SoC, it's evident it is not a cost problem.

Yeah - I was thinking of the videoassist and similar - and I was factoring weight in as a consideration as well as cost - the screen + batteries should be substantially lighter/smaller than recorder + batteries + input device + screen + other batteries.

If it could record 4k, though (perhaps just save the frames as dng to an external usb ssd if the processor isn't fast enough to do realtime 4k prores encoding), the extra weight/inconvenience might be nicely offset by the money savings.

It's too bad that it's only able to record 1080p. Between the cost/weight of this + screen + batteries, one might as well just buy an inexpensive 5" monitor/recorder (if your goal is to record).

Sweet. So now we are looking for an android prores encoder, just like you said. :)

couldnt this with the right apps theoretically be used as an external recorder for cameras?

I know about that, I understood what you were saying, that is about recording properly from HDMI input which means understanding the HDMI protocol and making software for it. I was asking if this chipset, the one that is used in ALL of these TV-boxes (Mstar MSO9180D1R), had USB 3.0 for supporting the use-case you described some posts ago, and found the Kaiboer one. If the chipset didn't support USB 3.0, capture would be limited by the internal memory or the 20MB/s of the USB 2.0 protocol, right?

First, you do not need to "know HDMI protocol" :-)

As for USB 3.0, much more easy was to click on the links in first post and use pair of eyes to witness one.

@bigshotpp

Please read carefully that I was talking about.

HDMI in all this boxes is fully useless, until you are developer or want to hire them.

But no tablet of those has HDMI input. I've been searching for it for about two years now. Don't really know if the chipset used in these boxes has a special video input characteristic.

Core M is coming to the PC-stick format, would love one with video input on it. Or on a tablet, that could do monitoring and/or recording. It is pretty ridiculous to have to buy a monitor AND a separate recording device when sub, I don't know, 150uss chinese tablets have amazing IPS screens.

Right, I mean, the chipset supporting USB 3.0. Bay Trail doesn't supports it, for example.

http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/02/11/review-of-zidoo-x9-android-media-player-and-video-recorder/ Same chipset, I think.

It has some problemas with different multi-speaker sound types and I've read that it plays choppily its own DVR recordings, but getting HDMI input this cheap is amazing for lots of setups, one of them what Vitaliy has described, some Prores recording thru USB 3.0 or similar (if the chipset supports it, which if it's a budget one might be difficult).

that thing is beautiful! I still like my MXQ though. :)