mecool News - Page 3 of 4 - CNX Software

July 4, 2018July 9, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Top 10 Best Selling TV Boxes (on GearBest)

I’ve already written articles such as the “Best Android TV boxes in 2018” to help people select a TV box that matches their requirements, but today it will be a little different. GearBest provides a speadsheet with discount and coupons to bloggers and YouTube reviewers (sadly not shareable link here), and this time I noticed they also list the top 10 best sellers in the TV box category. Those may not necessarily the best TV boxes, but at least many other people bought them, and you may get unofficial support via communities such as Freaktab or LibreELEC. Withoutany further delay, here’s the list in no particular order and with prices for reference only as listed in the spreadsheet: Mecool M8S PRO L 4K TV Box (Buy Link) – Amlogic S912, 3GB RAM, 32GB flash, Android 7.1 – $75.99 W95 TV Box (2GB) (Buy Link) – Amlogic S905W, 2GB RAM, 16GB flash, […]

January 19, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

$38 MECOOL M8S PRO W “with Voice Control” TV Box Runs Android TV 7.1 OS

There was a time when most TV boxes would run Android operating system for mobile with lots of modifications to make it suitable for the big screen, except for a few models that would run the official Android TV operating systems. But things are now changing, with announced from Geniatech, WeTek, and others all announcing certified Android TV set-top boxes and media hubs. We’ve even been told Amlogic will now only provide Android TV SDK from now on with no support for “normal Android”, and the good news is that inexpensive TV box running Android TV will become common place, and one of those devices, MECOOL M8S PRO W is the cheapest I’ve seen so far going for $37.99 shipped with coupon DSJMVRWB (pre-order) MECOOL M8S PRO W specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905W quad core ARM Cortex-A53 processor with penta-core Mali-450MP3 GPU @ 750 MHz System Memory – 2GB DDR3 […]

December 31, 2017December 31, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Year 2017 in Review, Top 10 Posts, and Some Fun Stats

2017 is coming to an end, and as I do every year, I’ll take a look back at the year that was on CNX Software. The pace of development boards launches has not slowed down this year, and we get an even wider range from the low-end with Orange Pi or NanoPi boards, to much more powerful ARM boards, and some new entrants like Libre Computer. The same is true for TV boxes, most of which now support 4K HDR, ranging from ultra cheap models selling for less than $20 to higher end Android TV boxes, while mini PCs were dominated by Intel Apollo Lake models, although some Cherry Trail products were also launched. Processor-wise, Amlogic launched more Amlogic S905X derivatives with S905W/S905D/S905Z, which are popular in the TV box market. Rockchip’s most interesting processor this year was RK3328 quad core Cortex A53 processor designed for 4K HDR Android TV […]

December 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Mecool KII Pro Set-Top-Box Upgraded to Amlogic S905D Processor, Android 7.1.2

VideoStrong is making some of the most popular – at least on this website – Android set-box boxes with digital TV tuner on the market with products like Mecool KIII Pro, or KI Pro, mostly because of their affordability. Software may be hit or miss depending on your local requirement (e.g. AC3 on DVB-T2, language encoding issues, etc..), so there’s fairly large number of users and some community tools or firmware such as DVB Channel Editor or Vitmos OS that may make them better devices. Most models are based on Amlogic S905 or S912, but Amlogic launched S905D processor some time ago with better tuner support (multiple demodulator support) which for example allowing me to watch terrestrial TV (DVB-T2) while recording satellite TV (DVB-S2) on Sen5 TV box. VideoStrong decided to upgrade their KII Pro Android set-top box with S905 processor, DVB-T2/T/C and DVB-S2/S tuners to the new Amlogic S905D […]

December 26, 2017June 26, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

What’s the Best Android TV Box (2017/2018 Edition)?

Since I was often asked which TV box to buy, I wrote a guide entitled “What’s the best Android TV box?” in April 2016. Time has passed, new products have launched, I tested more devices, and got further reader feedback, so it’s time for an update. There’s still no device that rules them all, and since everybody has different requirements and price points, what could the best Android TV box ever to one person, maybe be a piece of junk to another. Before purchasing a TV box, you should consider what you plan to do with it, and find the device with matches your needs and budget. So first, I’ll provide a list of things to look for – beside the SoC/RAM selection – before selecting three TV boxes that stand out (in no particular order), as well as alternatives worth looking at. Things to Look for The list is […]

November 27, 2017November 27, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Sub $20 TV Box, and 14% Discount on TV Boxes and Mini PCs (Promo)

Black Friday is over, but companies still offer discounts for Cyber Monday, and GearBest has some specific deals for TV boxes and mini PCs. If you are after the cheapest TV box model around, Sunvell T95D based on Rockchip RK3229 with 1GB RAM and 8GB RAM is sold for $18.99 with coupon Bfriday303. But they also have other models sold at a discount: Zidoo X10 Media Center based on Realtek RTD1295 with 2GB/16GB configuration, HDMI input, and 3.5″ SATA bay – $164.99 shipped with coupon Bfriday289 Mecool M8S PRO W TV Box (S905W / 2GB / 16GB) – $25.99 shipped with coupon Bfriday284 Xiaomi Mi Box (International) – $66.99 shipped You can also use GBTBMP coupon on any TV box or (Intel) mini PC to get a 14% discount on any model, but bear in mind this is limited to China warehouse, and if the product is already discounted, the […]

September 27, 2017October 4, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Mecool VS-RK3399 Board Linux Benchmarks

I’ve just showed how to install Debian, and build a Linux image from source on VS-RD-RK3399 board (aka Mecool VS-RK3399) last week-end, but at the time I did not run any benchmarks on the board. We already have plenty of benchmarks for Rockchip RK3399 in Android, so instead I started by installing the latest Phoronix Test Suite in Debian:

sudo apt install php-cli php-gd php-xml php-zip 
wget http://phoronix-test-suite.com/releases/repo/pts.debian/files/phoronix-test-suite_7.4.0_all.deb 
sudo dpkg -i phoronix-test-suite_7.4.0_all.deb

sudo apt install php-cli php-gd php-xml php-zip

wget http://phoronix-test-suite.com/releases/repo/pts.debian/files/phoronix-test-suite_7.4.0_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i phoronix-test-suite_7.4.0_all.deb

… and ran the tests I did on NanoPi NEO 2 earlier:

phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1704029-RI-1704017RI65

1	phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1704029-RI-1704017RI65

For whatever reasons OpenSSL and Mafft failed to download, but we still have the other benchmarks to compare with. Note that the Debian image is likely not optimized, and while the system runs an Aarch64 kernel, the rootfs is only 32-bit, which may have affected some of the benchmarks.

linaro@linaro-alip:~$ file /bin/ls
/bin/ls: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, ARM, EABI5 version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, BuildID[sha1]=f10ece941515bd40f6aa48dd28ba481c8a17cace, stripped
linaro@linaro-alip:~$ uname -a
Linux linaro-alip 4.4.55 #474 SMP Tue Sep 5 09:09:33 CST 2017 aarch64 GNU/Linux
linaro@linaro-alip:~$

linaro@linaro-alip:~$ file /bin/ls

/bin/ls: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, ARM, EABI5 version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, BuildID[sha1]=f10ece941515bd40f6aa48dd28ba481c8a17cace, stripped

linaro@linaro-alip:~$ uname -a

Linux linaro-alip 4.4.55 #474 SMP Tue Sep 5 09:09:33 CST 2017 aarch64 GNU/Linux

linaro@linaro-alip:~$

But let’s see what’s we’ve got, starting with John the Ripper password cracker, a multi-threaded benchmark. We’d normally expect hardware platforms based on Rockchip RK3399 SoC to […]

September 25, 2017September 26, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 35 Comments

Checking Out Debian and Linux SDK for VideoStrong VS-RD-RK3399 Board

VideoStrong VS-RD-RK3399 (aka VS-RK3399) is a features-packed development board powered by Rockchip RK3399 hexa core core processor which offers an alternative to Firefly-RK3399 board. The company sent me a development kit for evaluation, and I’ve already looked into VS-RD-RK3399 hardware and SDK in the first part of the review. Today, after shortly looking into the pre-installed Android 7.1 OS to make sure the board boots fine, I’ll report my experience with Debian 9, and building it from source. A Quick Look at Android 7.1 I connected the board to my HDMI TV, added an Ethernet cable, and after powering it, VS-RK3399 promptly booted into Android 7.1 with the following launched. It just has a few apps pre-installed, and lack Google Play store, but as I’ve seen in the new version of the SDK, a patch for Google Play store is provided, if that’s something you need for your use case. […]