Sen5 Dual Tuner Android Set-top Box Review – Part 1: Unboxing and Teardown

There are only a few companies manufacturing Android TV boxes with tuners with names like VideoStrong and WeTek coming to mind. Shenzhen Sen5 Technology is another one, and the company sent me one of their DVB combo Android TV boxes for review without providing that many details. So let’s have a look at what I received.

Sen5 Android Combo STB Unboxing

The product might be not ready for retail just yet, as I received it in an old carton box.

Once I remove all the bubble wraps, I ended up with the device, an IR remote control, and a 12V/1.5A power supply. Once the product is actually launched I’d expect you’d receive a retail package and a user’s manual too.

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The box itself is made of plastic with plenty of randomly arranged (ventilation) holes on the top. The front panel comes with an IR window and a “Standby button”, one of the side includes a “mirco” SD slot, two USB host ports, and the other a Smart Card slot named CA for Conditional Access. The rear panel comes with a coaxial connector where we’ll plug the TV aerial antenna, and a F type connector for the satellite dish, as well as Ethernet, HDMI and the power jack.

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The bottom of the case show it can be wall-mounted, and the recovery pinhole is easily accessible. We can also some information aboit product including the model name: SH6B7FA.

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Sen5 SH6B7FA TV Box Teardown

After removing the four rubber pads, and loosening four screws, I could remove the top cover to have a closer look at the board.

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The processor is covered by an heatsink, so I had to start the box to find out it’s an Amlogic quad core ARM Cortex A53 processor with a Mali-450MP GPU, so probably  Amlogic S905D since we have two demodulators on the board with Availink AVL6211LAX DVB-S2/DVB-S channel receiver IC,  and Availink AVL6762TA DVB-T2/T/C demodulator, which should mean each tuner is independent, and you should be able record live TV on DVB-S2, while watching a channel on DVB-T2.

We have two 4 Gbit Samsung K4B4G1646E-BCMA DDR3 chip (1 GB RAM) on this side of the board, and an 8GB Samsung KLM8G1WEPD-B031 eMMC flash. That’s the lowest Samsung eMMC 5.0 flash available with theorethical 140/8MB/s R/W sequential speed, and 5K/0.6K R/W IOPS. Performance in Android may not always be optimal. Since the box is now only for distributors/resellers, it’s possible some will update to a faster model.

Networking is achieved with Ampak AP6212A module for 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (2.4 GHz only) and Bluetooth 4.0 LE, as well as Realtek RTL8211F transceiver and TNK QT24A03 transformer for Gigabit Ethernet.

The serial console should be accessible via CN7 or CN4 both of which are 4-pin headers. The board name is SMB.150.01 manufactured on February 2017, so it’s pretty new.

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It took out the shield on top of the circuitry for the coaxial connector, and it’s using Rafael Micro R836 digital TV tuner for DVB-T/T2/C, ISDB-T/C, DTMB, ATSC, J.83B. I could not easily remove the other shield so I skipped it.

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I still removed the board completely from the enclosure, and we can see a thermal pad placed right under the processor connects to a thick metal plate for cooling, There’s also tow more RAM chips bringing the total memory to 2GB, a micro SD slot and the recovery button.

So to summarize, Sen5 SH6B7FA set-top box must be powered by Amlogic S905D processor with 2GB RAM, and 8 GB flash + micro SD slot, supports HDMI 2.0a output, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi + Bluetooth 4.0 (likely upgradeable), and comes with three USB ports (but only two exposed by the case, why?), independent DVB-T2/T and DVB-S2/S tuners, and a smart card reader for conditional access/premium content.

I also booted it to check the processor, but I also quickly had a look at the software, and it’s running Android 6.0.1 with Kodi 17 pre-installed, and a separate TV app is used to watch live TV.

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NesTV launcher looks quite prettier than many of the other launcher I’ve used. But we’ll find out more about the software and how the box performs in the second part of the review which I’ll probably publish sometimes in May.

I don’t have pricing, nor availability information yet, and beside their HKTDC page, the company also has its  own website, but it has not been updated for a while…

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11 Comments
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Ravi2078
Ravi2078
7 years ago

(Offtopic)
Hi,

Please suggest me a board to build SATIP server (using mini-satip). If on this board, can I install Linux.
Cheapest if possjble, wifi/bt and hdmi not required.
I will directly hook it into router thru Ethernet.

This is for personal use. So inbuilt tuners should be fine?
Dvb-T2/C/S2 independent at least 2.

Thanks

ovi
ovi
7 years ago

@ravi2078

Odroid C2 with minisat compiled for it should do the trick
http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php
https://github.com/catalinii/minisatip

Ravi2078
Ravi2078
7 years ago

@ovi
Indeed. But I want all in one solution (demodulator/tuner onboard) like above

taki
taki
7 years ago

no producer add Dvb s2x tuner. Amlogic support 2 ts interface. But K2 plus and pro use only one tuner.

ovi
ovi
7 years ago

@taki

There is an hisilicon box with s2x which will probably show off on the market in the next 4-6 months.

Paul
Paul
7 years ago

Why they use allways those cheap availink demods?
No MIS,no DVB-s2x,no VCM etc,etc….
All is avaiable by using an multidvb-demodulator from silicon labs like the
SI2183-b60. It is anoying.

ovi
ovi
7 years ago

@paul

Because avalink it is cheap ,
Silab / ST / Bcm demods are not cheap

taki
taki
7 years ago

may be acemax and videostorng sell selectable tuner for K2 plus/ pro, K3 Pro. (like wetek) board tuner pin out of K1/2 pro/plus support twin tuner. one tuner for play other tuner for record.

@ovi
hisilicone device look very good. I read about forum of kodi. no hw accelaration on linux. All time need producer software update after dead 🙂 but based amlogic device support linux hw accelaration and if we find e2procfs driver. all amlogic device use enigma2. openatv, openpli etc.

Paul
Paul
7 years ago

@ovi
Sorry, these argument i can not accept ,we are not talking about of hundreds $ what these chips
costs….The question is:who is the customer and who want to sell ?But i think those chinese box makers will
never learn what this means

tim
tim
7 years ago

Dear Folks, I obviously own a SEN5 box which is labeled as XORO HST 260S (Sat) running Android 6.0. I would like to flash the genuine SEN5 Firmware with NesTv launcher as my box has a crappy launcher. Can someone help out ? even root and custom recovery`? Kind regards

Sa dsa
Sa dsa
5 years ago

lol BeoutQ ripped these guys off

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