Unboxing of HD18T Android Media Player with DVB-T2 Tuner

Shenzhen Tomato has sent me a sample of HD18T, an Android TV box powered by Amlogic AML8726-MX dual core processor that features a DVB-T2 tuner with In and Out antenna connectors. This is quite timely as Digital TV in Thailand has just started on April 1st of this year. Today, I’ll go through the specs, unbox the device, and show some pictures of the box, the board and DVB-T2 tuner.

HD18T Specifications

The device enclosure and specifications are very similar to EM6-S2 DVB-S2 Android TV box I covered previously, expect the DVB-S2 tuner is replaced by a DVB-T2 tuner:

• SoC – AMLogic AML8726-MX dual cortex A9 @ 1.5 GHz + Mali-400MP2 GPU
• System Memory – 1GB DDR3 RAM
• Storage – 8GB NAND FLASH + SD card reader
• Video & Audio Output – HDMI 1.4, AV
• Audio Output – HDMI, AV, and optical S/PDIF.  Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD pass-through.
• USB – 2x USB host ports
• DVB-T2 support with DTV IN and OUT
• Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi
• Misc – Power Indicator (LED). ON :blue, Standby :Red
• Power Supply- 12V/1.5A

The box runs Android 4.2.2, and XBMC 12.2 Frodo is pre-installed.

HD18T Unboxing

I’ve received the device in the following package via Fedex with icon with DVB support, Skype, Youtube, Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, and Android Jelly Bean, which are all pre-installed.
Inside the package, we;ll find an IR remote control (2x AAA batteries not included), the user’s manual in English, the device itself, an AV cable, a plug adapter, and a European-style 12V/1.5A power adapter.

Since Shenzhen Tomato caters to wholesale customers, options may vary for retail packages, and you may end up with an HDMI cable too for example. Let’s have a closer look at the media player’s connectors.

There’s a SD/MMC card slot, two USB host port, and an Ethernet port on one side, and a 12V power jack, optional S/PDIF output, AV output (composite + stereo audio), HDMI, and IN and OUT antenna connectors for digital TV. There’s also a LED and an IR receiver on the front panel which can’t be seen on the pictures.

You can also watch the unboxing video below.

HD18T Board and Tuner Pictures

Time to check out what’s inside the box. After removing 4 sticky rubber pads at the bottom, and untied four screws, we can see there are two boards: the mainb oard and the DVB-T2 tuner connected via a flat cable.

There’s not much else to see here, except the Wi-Fi & Bluetooth module is Broadcom AP6181.

After removing three more screws, we finally get to see to boards up close. There’s a heatsink on the RAM, flash, and Amlogic SoC, and you’ll also noticed a recovery button at the back of the AV jack. The main board is marked HD18T v1.1, and the DVB-T2 tuner board marked HD18T-T2 V1.1, both designed in October 2013. I assume they just change the latter for DVB-S2 tuner, or ASTC tuners and keep the main board identical between different products.

I’ve removed the shield from the tuner, and taken a picture of the board. There are two ICs. The smaller inside the shield is NM120AA (origin unknown, but found in other models) but I could not quite clearly read the markings on the larger one, but it might be Silicon Labs Si2168 DVB-T2/T/C digital demodulator.

If you are a reseller, you could consider purchasing the box in quantity via Shenzhen Tomato, who provided this sample for review. Individuals can buy the device from Geekbuying for $93 (called EM6-T2), on Aliexpress for $70 and up (mostly known as Vigica C6), or DealExtreme ($85.28) among others.

I plan to focus mainly on DVB-T2 features: scanning, live TV, and PVR functions using the provided DVB app in my review, but it may take a while, as the box only has auto-scan settings for France, Taiwan, Australia, the UK and Italy, so I may need to do a manual tuning after finding out what the right frequencies are… I’ll also need to buy an antenna… So you may have to be patient 🙂

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

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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