I just got the OUYA - sweet :)

[yoda313]

One word:

EMULATORS!!!!!

Yep I won't get into the nitty gritty here, just look it up online and search ouya and emulators and you'll find all you need to know.

Dude this is worth it just for that alone. I've ordered the usb adapter cables for the classic 8bit and 16bit video game consoles so I can play them properly.

It s a slick little unit and only about the size of a rubix cube like they say.

It does have a lan port so that is good but has built in wireless which is how I am connected right now.

I paired my bluetooth headphones to it and it worked right away.

I plan to check out video players that will work on the ouya. It doesn't have google play built in but you can SIDELOAD stuff on to it so I will be doing that in the near future.

I'm planning on using this as basically a wdtv live that plays games. I'm assuming I'll be able to get an android video app to play ripped dvd isoss which I can't do on my wdtv gen 1. I am also interested to see what kind of bluray rips it will play - ie what I need to do to get them to play on it. Than I can replace my wdtv gen 1 with this unit.

I'm definitely intrigued by it. I look forward to making it sing and dance.

It would be cool if they have a kinect mod for it. I don't have a kinect but I could see making your tv a giant tablet with just swiping your hand over it. Granted I could do that with a kinect and my xbox 360 but they wouldn't be genuine tablet games, they'd be kinect games which don't really appeal to me.

Anyhow I'll be doing a lot of exploring with this.

I want to know if I can hook up a usb dvd drive to it. I have the xbox hddvd drive which is a perfectly usable dvd rom drive. That would be sweet if that works.

I'll keep you update. This is a neat little toy.

Edit - forgot to mention how I got it. I went to my local gamestop last week on the 4th (the one I always go to). I knew that store didn't have it but I asked the guy behind the counter if they could ship it from another store in the state. They did!

It just came this morning and I picked up after work. A+++ to gamestop for doing that

Edit 2 - oh and I haven't even checked out a regular game yet in the ouya store. That will be for later

[Joe The Dude]

Once you've had a chance to use the standard wireless OUYA controller for a while, be sure to post back, and let us know if it's really as good, or as bad, as they say on the interwebs.

[yoda313]

check your private messages joe the dude - got one waiting for you on symphonia -

----------------

I haven't used them for gaming so much as I have for navigating the console. I don't have a bluetooth mouse or keyboard yet so I have to use the controller.

Its actually fairly responsive. I'd say its in the middle as far as controllers go. It doesn't feel cheap but it doesn't feel as substantial as either the xbox 360 or ps3 controllers do (yes I have both systems).

The trigger buttons on the top are a bit funky though. THey are kind of rickety but not bad. Again its a cross between the ps3 and 360. The bottom triggers aren't the narrow pistol grips of the 360 style nor are they the paddle type on the ps3.

I haven't played with them on a downloadable game yet. I've been testing out its other capabilties and haven't had much play time with it as far as actual games go.

But I'd say its an average controller on the surface of it. Not superb but not subpar either.

Best thing is with it being bluetooth you can use either the ps3 or use the xbox 360 usb wireless adapter and you can use your wireless xbox 360 controller with it via the usb port (the adapter plugs into the usb port, then you synch the controller to it).

Edit - forgot to mention the touchpad.

I actually really like that for navigating. Its like a built in mouse. I think I have to play around with the sensitivity of it though. The responsiveness isn't exactly what I want but I think I just need to tweak the sensitivity and I'll be fine.

Its nice to have the touchpad since so many apps are touch based and not necessarily set up to be run with a controllers d-pad.

------------------------

Do they have a bluetooth keyboard with a touchpad on it?

[yoda313]

Do they have a bluetooth keyboard with a touchpad on it?

To answer my own question yes they do.

After a bit of searching last night and two store visits today and just about an hour of online searching this afternoon I have just settled on a keyboard for the ouya.

I got the logitech bluetooth keyboard for the ps3. Its bluetooth so I'll be able to pair it up with the ouya. And it has a touchpad which is critical. Using the joystick knobs on the ouya controller is not a preferable way to navigate on the web or in some apps.

This way I'll get a full sized (or nearly full sized) keyboard with a touchpad. And more importantly since its bluetooth I won't take up a usb spot (I'll be setting up a usb hub shortly but this will keep a slot open).

I have done dts over a dvd iso rip just fine (though with a little fiddling with the receiver, have to turn it on and off or something like that to get it to read it).

I will be testing a bluray rip to a folder. XBMC did not read a bluray iso rip. I don't know if there are any settop units that can read a bluray iso rip or not.

My final goal is to get it to play a bluray rip with the original audio. Once I can do that I will have everything I want with it.

I have even downloaded some game demos that aren't too bad. Ravensword or something like that (kind of a skyrim clone I think) and final fantasy 3. I may buy final fantasy 3, I do like the demo so far.

I have gotten the emulators to do everything I want. After getting the usb adapters for the nes and snes controllers the other day they perform flawlessly.

I also picked up a ioscade bluetooth arcade stick for a 1.00 at a garage sale the other day (the one that is a wooden cabinet made to look like an old arcade cabinet and you stick your ipad in the middle to play retro games with the joystick and six arcade style buttons - the type you'd see on a street fighter 4 arcade stick).

I was able to pair it up on the first try. Once I got the buttons mapped it worked just fine.

Though its not quite like the old nes advantage joystick as the buttons aren't really made to be held down for running and stuff like that. So I may use it just for certain game types and not as an "everyday" controller.

All in all though I am defintely happy with my ouya.

I even got the ffmpeg coder app for android to work on it. THough my idea of it being a speedy encoder isn't quite what I was thinking. Though truth be told I only tried one video and didn't even finish the encode. So I'll have to play around with it again.

I would recommend the ouya to anyone that wants an extra computer that can do lots of stuff but don't need a ton of power. Its very useful and can do video very well too.

Feel free to ask me any questions. I'll try to find the time to test something if you have something specific in mind. Might take awhile for me to respond though, I'm not online everyday, fyi.

Edit - SWEET! I got xbmc to work with a bluray rip - no alterations to the bluray, a straight rip!

It turns out the xbmc for android app doesn't have hardware acceleration yet. There is an experimental build that does. I had downloaded that but it was still stuttering badly on the m2ts main movie file. However after reading more closely the previous installation of xbmc had to be uninstalled before loading the new one. Once I did the movie played perfectly!

I was getting a solid 24fps according to the debugging info that was part of the test procedure to make sure the experimental build was working properly.

And I got the dts core out of the dts-ma! No reencoding needed! Awesome, simply awesome.

And I finally figured out what was going on with the audio signal. I had to set it to optical out and not hdmi out even though the ouya itself doesn't have fiber optic out. THat let the 5.1 signal pass through the tv onto the fiber out I had hooked up to my hdtv and into my sd digital amp. Then presto - 5.1 SOUND!!!

This is great. All I have to do is rip the whole disc to my hdd and turn on my ouya. No reencoding anywhere on the path.

I still haven't tested my sony bluray player yet with dts in a m2ts container like it says it is supposed to play but I will soon - however I'm ripping another bluray right now to my hdd.

Now I really love the ouya.

Only thing left is to check out my bluetooth headphones again. On my one trial it seemed like there was quite a bit of a delay on the sound, some kind of synch problem - not with the headset but the audio video synch over the headphones.

Perhaps this new install of xbmc might even cure that, or it wasn't really there in the first place, I'll have to find out to be sure.

Anyway definitely glad I picked this up.

One other I want to check out is if it plays flv files natively, my wdtv gen one doesn't. If it does, as I assume it will, this will be a nearly flawless unit for what I want it for - a htpc and game console all in one - mainly for emulators mind you

[yoda313]

I just got my logitech ps3 bluetooth keyboard today.

At first I didn't like it because the space bar was nearly impossible to press. However after fiddling with it it turns out it was pryed out of place ever so slightly. This was a refurb model bought online fyi.

Once I got it snapped firmly in place it works like a dream.

I love the touchpad that is on it. That was one of the main features as to why I bought it - along with being a bluetooth keyboard.

The touchpad has a spot on the right to use it as a mouse scroll wheel which is nice. The touchpad is immensely more sensitive then the ouya controllers touchpad. Even if the controllers touchpad does have a sensitivity control I haven't found it lacks a physical click button, you have to tap it to activate a link.

The real left and right mouse click buttons under the touchpad are infinetly more practical and responsive then a tap requirement.

Overall i am very happy with the keyboard. I can now surf reliably and comfortably on the ouya. Right now I am typing this with the firefox for android app which I downloaded through the amazon app store which is on my ouya - downloaded straight off of amazon.com.

About the only other addition I need to make is to download the android youtube app and I pretty much have everything I want on the ouya.

--------------------------------

My final recommendation for the ouya is to buy one if you want a micro computer running a customized android os that can be rooted. Also most apps can be sideloaded.

The gaming seems to be on par with the last generation of consoles - ie the original xbox and ps2. Games that would look great on a tablet but so-so on a tv. I haven't tried all of the games but the few I have tried haven't been comparable to halo or uncharted, nor did I expect them to be.


But if you want a fun little gadget that has hdmi out, wifi built in and tons of potential right out of the box I'd say go for it. For a 100.00 you get the equivalent of a basic wdtv live model that has the benefit of being able to play games and surf the net as well.

Please note xbmc needs to be installed for the full video experience, and as mentioned earlier for now the experimental nightly build needs to be loaded for the hardware acceleration to work for hd playback (ie bluray rips as mentioned).

Feel free to ask about the ouya. I'll be happy to test stuff (to a point).

[yoda313]

One other note I didn't include here was that I can play aac 5.1 in 5.1 on my standard def regular old sd amp. It reads as ac3 5.1. No conversion needed.

That's a pretty nice bonus to have. It turns my regular old sd digital amp into a aac 5.1 amp.

Plus I just used it the other night in another room to stream youtube wirelessly. Perfectly ok.

So it is definitely a nice little gadget to have. Though as mentioned not perfect but versatile.