I published pictures of Amlogic S912 TV box boards just over a month ago, and it appears companies have started to take orders from resellers for Amlogic S912 TV boxes with products such Videostrong KM8 Pro, or the one I’m going to cover in this post: QINTAIX Q912.
QINTAIX Q912 specifications:
- SoC – Amlogic S912 octa-core ARM Cortex A53 processor @ up to 2.0GHz with ARM Mali-820MP3 @ up to 750MHz
- System Memory – 2GB DDR3
- Storage – 8GB or 16GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot
- Video Output – HDMI 2.0 and AV ports
- Audio Output – HDMI, AV, and optical S/PDIF
- Video codecs – VP9 profile 2 up to 4K @ 60 fps, H.265 MP-10@L5.1 up to 4K 60fps, H.264 AVC up to 4K @ 30 fps, H.264 MVC up to 1080p60, MPEG-4, WMV/VC-1 SP/MP/AP, AVS-P16(AVS+)/AVS-P2 JiZhun Profile, MPEG-2 MP/HL, MPEG-1 MP/HL, and RealVIDEO 8/9/10 all up to 1080p60
- Audio codecs – MP3, AAC, RM, FLAC, Ogg, support for 7.1/5.1 down-mixing; dual stereo output
- Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band WiFi 802.11 b/g/n + Bluetooth 4.0
- USB – 3x USB 2.0 ports
- Misc – IR receiver, power button, front-panel LCD display, LEDs
- Power Supply – 5V/2.5A
- Power consumption – 5 watts typical; less than 0.02W in standby mode (TBC)
- Dimensions & weight – N/A (aluminum enclosure)
The TV box runs Android 6.0, and by default ships with one IR remote control, one HDMI cable, a power adapter, and a quick install guide.
If you’ve checked QINTEX Tech Alibaba page linked in the introduction, you may have noticed their enclosures are very similar to EWEAT TV boxes, so it’s quite possible both companies use the same manufacturer, or one of them is the actual manufacturer for the device. I should also be getting an early S912 TV box sample from Shenzhen Shiningworth this week or next, and GeartBest is taking pre-orders for Beelink GT1 for $80.22, so that likely means Amlogic octa-core TV boxes will start shipping to end-users by late August or September.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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S905 has been great due to the Linux/OpenElec/etc options. As long as there’s no Odroid based on S912, I don’t think this SoC is going to be equally attractive.
Why is there no USB 3.0?
@GanjaBear
OpenELEC (and now LibreELEC/) firmware images have been released since Amlogic AML8726-M single core processors, so that part does not really relies on Hardkernel work.
Now if you plan to run Ubuntu or other Linux desktop distributions, an ODROID S912 would really help, although they’ve alreadydone a lot of the hard work with ODROID-C2 because it was their first 64-bit ARM board.
Крутая вещь !
Пососи мою залупу хуёбанный дурак! А потом высосывать говно из моей сраку!
What brand name makes the dual band wifi?
don’t realy know if the S912 has much advantage over the S905 for just a media center, 4 core’s should be more then enough
@Jeroen
It will not make much difference between S905 and S912 if you just want to play videos, except possibly for the codec relying on software decode (e.g. 10-bit H.264).
The GPU is much faster on S912, so if you want to play games too, that will be a better option.
@Jeroen
and s912 has x265 1080p encoding if you ever require such feature, provided it’s ever supported by any software of course..
but i agree, in a classic mediacenter case it offers very few advantages, and i’m pretty sure s905 can software decode 10bit h264 in 1080p.
@Jeroen
S912 is big.LITTLE so depending on Run-state migration (kernel feature) you might end up with 4 useable cores anyway (since only heterogeneous multi-processing / global task scheduling mode would allow the use of all 8 cores at the same time which makes not that much sense given that the quad-core predecessors already suffer heavy from throttling).
For my use cases doubling the count of USB host ports from 1 to 2 would be way more important than this octa-core marketing chitchat but I wouldn’t be surprised if just one USB port will be used in OTT boxes and USB receptacles are all behind an USB hub.
Trouble with all these devices is lack of forward shelf life means most software does not get optimised. In the old 8 bit days, overtime programmers got more out of less code but video, browsing boxes get left behind by forward moving Android, with no backwards up dates for older boxes. Boxes are treated as cheaper to replace at sub £50 market.
Hence the buggy software problems persist as there is no best of breed passing the DNA what works forward.
@GanjaBear
Yes, the lack of USB 3.0 is a glaring omission. It seems likely that S912 will soon be overshadowed by the RK3399 in many respects, USB 3.0 being one of them.
What about the exotic audio formats? DTS-HD and Dolby True HD? Does it play properly?
@Jordy
In theory, all boxes can support it, but in practice very few do, at least the ones I get for review. So this needs to be tested.
Yes I know, had several boxes. They always advertise as it can. But in real life always messy. Looking forward for your review always pleasant to read. Thanks
Qintaix Q912 is now listed on Aliexpress for $98 including shipping -> http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Android-6-0-Marshmallow-OS-S912-TV-BOX-Octa-Core-CPU-Amlogic-S912-media-player-Pre/1851562_32709110006.html
Have you tested 4K@60 with this? Just wondering how well it performs?
@Tat
I have a sample of the box @ http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/08/30/qintaix-q912-android-mini-pc-review-part-1-unboxing-and-teardown/.
But I have not started it yet. It should be able handle 4K @ 60 as well as M12N, another Amlogic S912 box -> http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/08/15/4k-vp9-h-265-and-h-264-video-playback-in-amlogic-s912-m12n-tv-box/
@theguyuk
Android TV boxes have proliferated and matured to the point that there is not so much to be gained by improvement in the CPU/GPUs than there is in more refinements and upgradability of the software. My experience with the under $120 USD boxes is that they work comparatively well at the time they are released. However, over time incompatibility or glitches/faults are revealed and the aftermarket moves on to newer devices leaving the task of upgrading in limbo.
The field is ripe for a low-cost box maker to set themselves apart in providing better OTA (or otherwise) software upgrades with the similar convenience of applications and setting migration as is now found on mobile SmartPhones.
Looking for user guide more tgan the quick guide that comes with box!
@Heather
There’s no such thing, but maybe the review of the device can help you @ http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/09/18/qintaix-q912-android-box-review-part-2-android-6-0-kodi-17-benchmarks-etc/