Xiaomi Box S 3rd Gen: Budget Player w/Dual-boot CE + DV FEL & Google TV

Got my 3S this afternoon and spent about 6h to set up and play around.

I used to use Google TV on my TV, which cannot passthorough Dolby TrueHD Atmos and obviously cannot decode Dolby Vision Profile 7. I bought this TV box basically for those two, and both work. The sound improvement is a bit more obvious to me with more details and better bass, the visual improvement is sutble.

Here comes the cost, at least to my experience of the current setup:

  • It takes quite a while to set up and make sure everything works
  • Every time I turn the TV back on, 3S takes extra time to boot into CoreElec
  • 3S remote doesn’t work in CoreElec so I have to use the TV remote through CEC
  • And for the first several seconds after CoreELEC boots, CEC does not work, so I have to wait even longer
  • Wifi sometimes does not work on boot, I have to manually reconnect
  • Now, booting the TV box + waiting for CEC + reconnecting wifi can sometimes take more than a minute…
  • Sometimes the machine will auto restart when I play a video

Is it worth the hassle? You can decide for yourself. I’m just gonna keep it for movie nights.

Tonight i tried again, surprisingly, all I did was turning on the tv, switched to hdmi, and after several seconds, mi box went back on where i was with internet connection, and CEC remote worked great. Amazed

Hi everyone,

After reading through this discussion, I bought a Mi Box 3rd Gen and configured everything as suggested.

I’m using a UGREEN Gigabit Ethernet hub.

Everything works quite well overall, but I’m experiencing one issue.

While playing 4K WEB-DL files with the following profile:

Dolby Vision, Version 1.0, Profile 8.1, dvhe.08.06, BL+RPU, no metadata compression, HDR10 compatible / SMPTE ST 2086, Version HDR10, HDR10 compatible

I randomly get short interruptions of about 1 second, after which the video resumes normally.

This happens both when streaming the file via SMB from a network folder and when playing it directly from a powered external hard drive.

The same movie in an Untouched version, with a different profile and a much higher bitrate, does not have this issue.

If I disable Dolby Vision in the CoreELEC settings, the problem completely disappears.

I have tried both TV-Led and Player-Led, but there is no difference.

Thanks a lot to everyone for any suggestions or ideas!

Can you extract & share a 2-min sample?

Thank you very much for your interest and support.

I have created two samples that reproduce the issue described above in my setup.

I noticed that they are always files with that profile at 24 fps.

Link: Unique Download Link | WeTransfer
Pass: Test12092026

Thanks again!

SOLVED

Hi everyone,

After some thorough research, I’ve confirmed that the cause is a bug in my LG OLED B36 TV. It’s a known bug that affects 24 fps content.

I fixed it by: Turning on TruMotion and setting it to Cinematic Movement.

I hope this helps someone avoid going crazy trying to figure it out, like I did.

Best regards, and have a great weekend everyone!

Was about to test for you, but glad you figured it out. TruMotion I assume is LG’s MEMC implementation, or maybe it’s actual 24p mode.

Good morning everyone,

I am currently using my LG TV remote to control the box via CEC, but the response to button presses is very slow.

For this reason, I am considering purchasing a Bluetooth remote.

I am looking into CoreELEC compatibility and have come across the G20S Pro BT, which also comes with a USB dongle.

Do you think it would work?

Would a configuration file such as remote.conf or .hwdb be required?

Thank you all!

I have a G20S Pro remote (the older version, not the Bluetooth one), and it works exactly as it should.
The remote can’t turn the box on because the power button uses IR, and the box doesn’t have an IR receiver.
You have to turn the box on using CEC—or simply not turn it off at all.
All the essential buttons work right out of the box.
You can also assign functions to the number keys using a keymap editor (gen.xml)—for example, toggling subtitles, switching audio tracks, etc.

Thanks a lot

It might be a stupid question, but how do you access the TV’s settings or change the input type when the TV remote is linked to CoreElec through CEC?
Also, are you using CE on the eMMC or on a USB stick?

In my case, the TV remote keeps its mapping for the menu button (to access TV settings) and the source selection button, even when running CoreELEC.

USB Stick

Good evening everyone, has anyone updated to the latest Android firmware?

Are there any issues with CoreELEC afterwards? I think I understood that I should use ‘Reboot to CoreELEC’ and select the first boot option (even though I don’t need to do anything to the USB flash drive I am currently using). Am I safe to go ahead? Thanks everyone!

Android updates should not break coreelec - since coreelec is a different os. Only time when this is true is when the android update also brings something at a lower level (think a SoC firmware upgrade, something similar to a bios upgrade on the PC)
It will impact default boot order and what not, but coreleelec should take care of that on its own - if you set the box in recovery mode (to force the usb boot)

I’ve been lurking in this forum for the last couple of days. I recently ordered the Xiaomi Box mainly because my OLED TV runs Fire TV, which I really don’t like.

From what I’ve gathered, getting Dolby Vision FEL playback working requires quite a bit of setup such as installing CoreELEC as a dual-boot option, configuring Kodi, setting up the remote (or buying a separate one), troubleshooting various issues, etc.

So my question is: Is DV FEL actually worth the extra hassle compared with simply letting the device convert DV Profile 7 to Profile 8 and play it that way? I know the improvement can vary from movie to movie, but overall, how much difference should I expect from proper FEL playback, especially given that my TV can reproduce the picture accurately?

Xiaomi Box is Excellent, with Player LED, or TV LED mode.

Go back and read the OP ,for install instructions. You don’t need to install to internal for Dual Boot. That method is unsupported in thus Forum.

Grab a USB HUB multi port with Ethernet. Also some just use Wifi with no issues. The problem is that Box only has one USB 2.0 port

Enjoy your Mi 3 Box is Excellent

Tbh I didn’t even change the settings, the CEC just worked like magic.

I use a cheap USB stick for around $5 bought on AliExpress with the Mi Box. But I’d be using eMMC if it’s stable because the system is quite sluggish and I suspect the USB stick is the culprit.

For those who have weird issues with their Xiaomi - it might be a HDCP problem.

I already have a working solution with a Xiaomi (that has HDCP 2.3), a HDCP 2.3 capable receiver and a HDCP 2.3 capable Philips OLED TV.

Then I remebered I have an old TV in my addict that was the very first LG 4K OLED TV with Dolby Vision functionality and at the same time the last to have a 3D function.

This was actually the first really good TV for watching 3D as you needed 4K resolution to be able to watch full 1080p resolution with their passive 3D technology and you got perfect blacks with OLED.

Some say that it was when 3D actually got really good was the same time it was “cancelled” and removed from every TV.

Anyway - since its old this TV has HDCP 2.2 and I got weird results and errors when connecting the Xiaomi box - from the log I can see that it is DRM/HDCP related:

Sep 14 21:27:41.129564 CoreELEC kernel: [drm] am_meson_crtc_atomic_disable-[0]:in
Sep 14 21:27:41.129602 CoreELEC kernel: [hdmitx:] hdmitx_set_drm_pkt: disable drm pkt
Sep 14 21:27:41.129638 CoreELEC kernel: [hdmitx:] DV H14b VSIF, switching signal to SDR

HDR10 movies lacks buffer and sound is stuttering - Dolby Vision seems to be working but Player.Process (amlogic.eoft_gamut) is reporting that its converted to SDR.

However - the DV FEL testmovie shows its working just fine (had some images but I was apparantly not allowed to post them)

But I am assuming that there are other DV parts that are not working at all.

I have tried to get it working using the CoreELEC wiki in every possible way (EDID dump etc), but in the end I ordered a HDMI splitter with HDCP 2.3 bypass functionality to see if it works.

Just a hint for people that have weird problems with the Xiaomi - check the HDCP version of your TV or Projector.

Anyone having DV playback issues suddenly? Any DV file suddenly freezes my box after a couple of mins - happens with the latest Nightly and Beta 2. SDR and HDR10 work fine, and don’t have the issue on my Minix U22XJ-Max running the same versions