kodi News - Page 23 of 35 - CNX Software

March 9, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Meet Estuary and Estouchy, The New Default Skins for Kodi 17 and Beyond

I’ve only known XBMC / Kodi since the open source media center started to show up on ARM based Android and Linux mini PCs around the mid of 2012, and in most devices the default skin called Confluence was used with Kodi/XBMC. It has been used as the default since 2009, and Kodi developers have decided a refresh would be good for Kodi 17 Krypton which will feature two new skins: Estuary for media players and HTPCs, and Estouchy for devices with a touchscreen such as smartphones and tablets. Estuary does away with the horizontal menu found in Confluence, and instead moves the main menu options to the left. Several widgets have also been added for movies and TV including Random, Recently added, In progress and, Random, and similar options are available for Music too. The media library has also changed the way it displays movies and TV show information, […]

March 6, 2016March 6, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Zidoo X5 TV Box Review

Zidoo X5 is TV box running Android 5.1 powered by Amlogic S905 processor like so many competing products on the market. I’ve already listed the full specs and taken pictures of the Zidoo X5 case and hardware, so today we’ll see how the device performs against the many Amlogic S905 mini PCs I’ve reviewed so far, and if it fixes some common bugs. First Boot and First Impressions Before starting the media player I’ve connected all cables and made sure to fill the two USB ports with a bunch of peripherals including a 1TB hard drive, keyboard, webcam, and so on. There’s no power button, and the device boots immediately once you connect it to the mains, with a standard boot time being around 40 seconds. The company has used the exact same Zidoo launcher as in their X6 Pro TV box, however they’ve decided to use a 1280×720 framebuffer, […]

March 4, 2016March 4, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Zidoo X1 II Android Media Player Powered by Rockchip RK3229 SoC Supports 4K 10-bit H.264 & H.265 Videos

Rockchip RK3229 is a low cost 4K SoC that supports 10-bit H.265 up to 4K @ 60 fps and 10-bit H.264 and VP9 up to 4K @ 30 fps, and found in inexpensive TV boxes such as MXQ 4K. Zidoo has decided to design a new product based on the processor, with the same enclosure as Allwinner H3 based Zidoo X1 TV box, and aptly called Zidoo X1 II. Zidoo X1 II specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3229 quad core ARM Cortex A7 processor @ 1.5 GHz with ARM Mali-400MP2 System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot up to 32GB Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K2K @ 60 fps, and 3.5mm AV output (composite) Connectivity – 100Mbps Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports Misc – IR receiver Power Supply – 5V/2A […]

March 1, 2016May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 71 Comments

Raspberry Pi 3, ODROID-C2 and Pine A64+ Development Boards Comparison

Raspberry Pi 3 and hardkernel ODROID-C2 launched the same day, and together with Pine A64/A64+, are the only ultra low cost (<$40) 64-bit ARM development boards available or soon-to-be available, so I’ve decided to make a comparison of the three boards the same way I did with ~$10 boards with a Raspberry Pi Zero, C.H.I.P, and Orange Pi One comparison. I’ve used features of Pine A64+ instead of Pine A64 since features and price are closer to the other two boards. Text highlighted in green means a board is clearly better than the other two for a given features, while a red highlight means it’s the weakest of the three. Raspberry Pi 3 ODROID-C2 Pine A64 Plus Processor Broadcom BCM2837 quad core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.2 GHz(4x ~2760 DMIPS) Amlogic S905 quad core Cortex A53 processor @ 2.0 GHz(4x ~4600 DMIPS) Allwinner A64 quad core Cortex A53 processor @ […]

February 28, 2016November 4, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 231 Comments

Review of K1 Plus Android TV Box with Combo DVB-S2/DVB-T2 Tuner

VideoStrong has launched K1 Plus TV box powered by Amlogic S905 processor last year, and I had the chance to review their model last November. But here I am reviewing K1 Plus again. Why? That’s because the company’s has several K1 Plus models: the “standard” version that’s just like any Android TV boxes, and the DVB version with DVB-S2, DVB-T2/C, or DVB-T2/C + DVB-S2 combo, and the latter is the one I’m reviewing today. K1 Plus DVB combo teardown revealed that the main board was exactly the same as K1 Plus “standard”, and that only a tuner card was added. So I’ll have a two part review with the first part checking if they fixed any of the bugs found on K1 Plus “Standard” with “November 2015” firmware in the new “January 27, 2016 DVB” firmware, and the second part will focus on testing DTV app with DVB-S2 and DVB-T2, […]

February 26, 2016 by Karl Johnson - 20 Comments

Eny EM95 Amlogic S905 TV Box Review

CNXSoft has already taken some pictures of Eny EM95 Amlogic S905 TV box, so I’ll take over from here as I received my ENY EM95 today and I was excited. I have not got a new Android device in a while. First Impressions I opened it up to find a tiny box that has a display on it. Seems interesting. While booting it says boot and the rest of the time it shows the time in 24 hour format and a few other indicators that I didn’t find particularly useful. In the retail box is the device remote and HDMI cable and power supply. I noticed no micro or mini USB port to flash firmware. I don’t have a type A to type A cable so will need to pick one up. I was working from home today so I was able to open immediately and play with it for […]

February 21, 2016February 21, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Kodi 16 “Jarvis” Release

This morning, I saw Kodi installed from Google Play get an update in one of my Android device, and that means that Kodi 16.0 “Jarvis” has now been released. As usual it’s available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Android, and iOS, with specific Linux ports for Raspberry Pi boards, and several Freescale/NXP i.MX6 boards such as Wandboard or EzeeCube. You can get the full Changelog in the Wiki, but some of the main changes against Kodi 15 include: Various new features for Live TV and PVR (Personal Video Recorder) Added RDS Radio, FM radio, scheduling recordings of TV shows… Various improvements such as speeding up EPG database access. Added, updated, and improved PVR backend clients addons for all popular third-party external PVR backend platforms: FilmOn, HDHomeRun, Enigma 2, Tvheadend HTSP Client, and so on. Add-ons Framework, API, and Manager improvements Platform Independent Playback improvements : software DTS-HD decode with libdcadec, […]

February 17, 2016June 5, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 122 Comments

Voyo V3 Intel Atom x7-Z8700 mini PC Review with Windows 10

Voyo V3 is one of the first Cherry Trail mini PCs based on Intel Atom x7-Z8700 quad processor that promises both higher CPU and GPU performance, and more I/O connectivity compared to Intel Atom x5 platforms. I’ve already posted pictures of the device and its guts in the first part of the review, so today in part 2 of the review, I’ll focus on testing how the device perform with its pre-installed operating system: Windows 10 Home. Setup and System Information There’s no much to say about setup for this device, since all you have to do is to connect the cable, and press the button to access Windows 10 desktop. There are however two interesting aspect of the boot process: As you connect the power supply, you’ll see the power button blue LED lit, but it does not mean it has started. I could see the power consumption was […]