Geniatech showcased the Enjoy TV Stick ATV100 at Computex 2012. This is yet another HDMI stick running Android 4.0, but instead of being powered by AllWinner A10 like most others, it is based on AMLogic AML8726-M3 (Single core Cortex A9) clocked at 800 MHz.
The device also comes with 1 GB DDR3 memory, 2GB NAND Flash and features 2 USB ports (Standard USB 2.0 Host + mini USB OTG), a microSD slot and a port for an IR extension cable. Contrary to all HDMI dongles I have seen, there is also an external Wi-Fi antenna, as you can see on the picture above. An InfraRed remote with 6 keys is also included.
The first part of the video below is about Geniatech ATV1200, an Android 4.0 set-top box based on AMLogic AML8726-MX (Dual Core Cortex A9), and the part about ATV100 starts at 2:23.
I think there is a misunderstanding when Charbax ask him if they will open the source code for the device, as he just talk about software development with 3rd parties and I could not find any GPL source code released for previous Geniatech products.
Geniatech ATV100 will be available by the end of this month, and will have the “same cost level as other solutions”. You may find more information on Geniatech ATV100 page.
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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I believe Geniatech are the source for pretty much all Android TV boxes with Amlogic 8726 chips, either licensed or unofficially cloned. Some of the apps used in the build of Android that runs on Geniatechs boxes are unique like the “Network” app used for playing media from samba shares so it’s easy to spot re-brands/clones.
Though I do wonder if Amlogic is really the source for this version of Android, that said it’s always Geniatech who release the latest builds of Android for 8726 chips.
Amlogic are a bit more open it seems for some, apparently Davilla from XBMC team was given access and has ported XBMC to the Amlogic 8726 series, Pivos Group have hinted at XBMC coming to their box which is 8726-M1 based.
@ Dan
Thanks for the info. Yesterday, I could not find anything when searching for Geniatech gpl or geniatech open source, but maybe they just provide another method to release their software, or they only release it to selected partners (which is not really open source).
Not directly related to Geniatech, but after searching for a while, I found that AMLogic is quite open as they have an open source sub-domain: http://openlinux.amlogic.com/wiki/index.php/Arm
They appear to have released most source code (u-boot, the kernel), have decent documentation explaining how to build all that and use AMLogic processor media capabilities. Information about AML8726-MX (Dual cortex A9) is still missing for now.
Qt 5 is also being ported to AML8726-M (http://qt-project.org/wiki/AML8726-M) with Open GLES support.
Just an update if any one happens to read this I got my hands on an ATV100.
The first problem is the firmware update does not work, via online (returns error) or manually via the built in software Android update and via the manual flash, all other Amlogic boxes have a reset button that allows you to manually flash the firmware update even if the soft update fails.
There is no reset button on the ATV100 stick so your stuck. Geniatech have released newer Android M3 builds on their website but there is no way to use them as far as I can see.
As for the build of Android that runs on it, well doesn’t run that great at all which is why I was hoping for the firmware update.
Lastly the CPU was clocked at 600Mhz not 800Mhz and there is only 512MB of RAM present not 1GB as advertised, but when I took apart the stick the RAM modules after looking up the part numbers appear to be 512MB modules and there were two of them so not sure what’s going on.
XBMC runs on the ATV100 naturally and it works okay but a bit slow and took forever to install.
If someone knows how to force an update on an Amlogic stick I’d love to know and see if the other M3 firmwares resolve most of these problems and I just got some wonky early dev build on mine.
Running linux/XBMC on it would be even better once a build is out there for 8726-M3 devices.