Computer Stick Windows 10 Pro & jw.org

[rocket]

Because I could no longer get video or audio to play on JW.org with our Samsung not-so-smart TV, today I installed a: Mini PC,Intel Atom Z8350 Computer Stick Windows 10 with a keyboard. It is slower than slow. Worst part is that the audio is not in sync with the video playing jw broadcasting programs or any other video on jw.org. I don't know if this can be fixed or not but I will keep playing with it.

[jwhess]

If you are going to use an "add-on" approach, how about an HDMI cable from your tablet to the TV?  It should play just like the image on the tablet screen.

[rocket]

2 hours ago, jwhess said:

If you are going to use an "add-on" approach, how about an HDMI cable from your tablet to the TV?  It should play just like the image on the tablet screen.

I was mirroring from my tablet to the tv and that was working fine but the picture is only 3/4 screen size. I was hoping the PC stick would be like connecting a laptop via HDMI  without the HDMI cable.  Tomorrow I am going to try Google Chrome browser and see if that makes a difference. I know nothing about Win 10 so it will take some time to figure everything out.

 

Edit:

So I installed the Chrome browser and jw.org video's are synced with audio better but still off maybe 1/4 of a second.

Edited October 27, 2019 by rocket

[Thesauron]

I was mirroring from my tablet to the tv and that was working fine but the picture is only 3/4 screen size. I was hoping the PC stick would be like connecting a laptop via HDMI  without the HDMI cable.  Tomorrow I am going to try Google Chrome browser and see if that makes a difference. I know nothing about Win 10 so it will take some time to figure everything out.
 
Edit:
So I installed the Chrome browser and jw.org video's are synced with audio better but still off maybe 1/4 of a second.

Why. It try a cheap ROKU stick instead?

[AH173]

I use the Byte plus from azulle for my large screen tv, roku and nvidia shield for my large screen tv's. I have multiple options and no problems but being out of some money. LOL

😃

[Old]

Roku has proved trouble free for us.

[Zebra555]

[rocket]

1 hour ago, Old said:

Roku has proved trouble free for us.

Yes, we have a Roku but it is an older one. The problem with Roku is that it only does video and we like to access the weekly audio Bible from jw.org as well as the audio reading of the workbook with links to the videos for that week and link to the Bible Study book and it's audio reading. The Samsung browser was useless for any of that after the jw.org merge. All of that works great with the PC Stick. It's only the video that is out of sync.

Worse come to worse, by installing a 128 GB micro SD card I can download to the PC Stick the Monthly JWB Program. 

[Zebra555]

Roku does do audio.

[rocket]

On 10/27/2019 at 11:04 AM, Zebra555 said:

Roku does do audio.

 

Yes but it doesn't do what I need.

 

The solution to my audio/video sync problem was to install FireFox browser.

 

Life is good now, all is in sync. In Chrome and Edge, when the Bible, Workbook or Bible Study Publication was being read the text color for the given paragraph was red. In FireFox, the Workbook text does not turn red but the others do.

[Myew]

From what I've seen, those compute sticks slow down very quickly with Windows 10 primarily due to the 2GB of RAM. Windows 10 is just not designed for so little RAM, it's a desktop OS running on mobile hardware there. In that range, you'll find they run much better with Android, Linux or Chrome OS to squeeze a little more performance headroom in for the browser and smoothness of loading. You can try opening Task Manager on it via Ctrl+Shift+ESC to see exactly where yours is bottlenecking, in CPU, RAM or Disk. Personally I would prefer a Raspberry Pi 4 running Raspbian Linux or an Android box to a compute stick, but the Intel Atom CPUs do have a bit more punching weight given the right circumstances.

Here are some fairly involved guides on 'debloating'/lightening Windows 10 for the Compute Stick, which could potentially break the OS or remove some functionality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU5F01oOzQQ

I like to use the GUI in https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater for removing a lot of Windows 10 built in apps and background junk like OneDrive that can cause your Compute Stick to grind to a halt.

[rocket]

On 10/29/2019 at 2:13 PM, Myew said:

From what I've seen, those compute sticks slow down very quickly with Windows 10 primarily due to the 2GB of RAM. Windows 10 is just not designed for so little RAM, it's a desktop OS running on mobile hardware there. In that range, you'll find they run much better with Android, Linux or Chrome OS to squeeze a little more performance headroom in for the browser and smoothness of loading. You can try opening Task Manager on it via Ctrl+Shift+ESC to see exactly where yours is bottlenecking, in CPU, RAM or Disk. Personally I would prefer a Raspberry Pi 4 running Raspbian Linux or an Android box to a compute stick, but the Intel Atom CPUs do have a bit more punching weight given the right circumstances.

Here are some fairly involved guides on 'debloating'/lightening Windows 10 for the Compute Stick, which could potentially break the OS or remove some functionality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU5F01oOzQQ

I like to use the GUI in https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater for removing a lot of Windows 10 built in apps and background junk like OneDrive that can cause your Compute Stick to grind to a halt.

Yes, 2GB of Ram would not be sufficient but mine has twice that of which I still have to delete all of the unneeded programs I can and do a disc cleaning every week. I just finished Family worship where I used the internet with three tabs open in jw.org. One for the Bible Reading, one for the Workbook and one for the weekly videos linked in the Workbook. I don't use the links in the workbook because anytime I leave the page of the internet version of the workbook and go back I have to find my place in the audio file I left off. If I were studying by myself, I would just use JW Library on my tablet but for family worship, wife and I like to do it different. The PC Stick is about 10 times faster than the browser on the TV when the TV browser was working right, that part I like.

 

This is the PC Stick I have.

Fanless Mini PC, Intel Atom Z8350 Computer Stick Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit, 4GB DDR 64GB eMMC,4K HD,Bluetooth 4.2,Dual Band WiFi AC

I also installed a 128GB micro SD card for things I might want to download.

 

Thanks for the debloating links.