WeTek was one of the first manufacturers to launch Android set-top boxes with built-in tuners starting with WeTek Play, later followed by WeTek Play 2 model a few years later. In recent years, the company also introduced other Android media devices for the business sector with WeTek Hyperion 4G LTE Android TV TV box, and WeTek Nix with all DRM required for the IPTV market. But it appears WeTek is coming back to the consumer market with their Google certified WeTek Air TV box running Android TV, and equipped with DVB-T2/T/C (Europe), ATSC (US), or DVB-S2 (Worldwide) tuner. WeTek Air hardware specifications are pretty similar to their WeTek Play 2 model, but with various improved features thanks to a new processor: SoC – Quad core Arm processor (Likely S905D, TBC) System Memory – 2 GB DDR4 Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot Video & Audio […]
FOSSASIA Summit 2018 Schedule – March 22-25
FOSDEM is the “Free & Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting” takes place the first week-end of February every year in Brussels, Belgium. It turns out there’s an event in Asia called FOSSASIA Summit that’s about to take place in Singapore on March 22-25. There are some differences however, as while FOSDEM is entirely free to attend, FOSSASIA requires to pay an entry fee to attend talks, although there are free tickets to access the exhibition hall and career fair. There are also less sessions as in FOSDEM, but still twelve different tracks with: Artificial Intelligence Blockchain Cloud, Container, DevOps Cybersecurity Database Kernel & Platform Open Data, Internet Society, Community Open Design, IoT, Hardware, Imaging Open Event Solutions Open Source in Business Science Tech Web and Mobile Since the event is spread out over four days, it should be easier to attend the specific sessions you are interested in. I’ve […]
VideoStrong Introduces Low Cost Version of KI Plus T2 S2 Hybrid Android TV Box with Amlogic S805X Processor
VideoStrong K1 Plus T2/S2 is an Android 5.1 set-top-box with DVB-S/S2 and DVB-T/T2 tuner that was launched roughly two years ago with Amlogic S905 quad core processor. Since then, the company has now launched variant of the model with Amlogic S912 (e.g. KIII Pro hybrid TV box) or Amlogic S905D (e.g. KI Pro set-top box) processors. But now, provided the information on Alibaba is correct, the company has launched a new version of KI Plus T2/S2 with Amlogic S805X which should be cheaper, run a more recent Android 7.1 operating system, at the cost of losing support for 4K decoding, since the processor only support Full HD (1080p60) decoding at most. Since the company updated an existing product, some specific details are wrong on Alibaba, but KI Plus T2 S2 (2018) specifications should be as follows: SoC – Amlogic S805X quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.2 GHz with […]
Building a Compact Digital TV Transmitter with Raspberry Pi Zero, Pi Camera, and LimeSDR Mini USB SDR Board
There are few affordable standalone systems that allow you to transmit video over the air, and back in 2016, I had the chance to check out V-Bridge Muses-β MPEG-2/-4 encoder and DTV modular taking HDMI or composite video input. It was easy to use and worked fine, but it would still cost close to $600, and might have been a little smaller. Evariste Okcestbon has now created its own digital TV transmitter prototype, combining LimeSDR Mini USB SDR board with Raspberry Pi Zero board, and instead of supporting external input from HDMI or AV ports, he used an official Pi camera for video, and was able to transmit the video over a 1.2 GHz connection to a Raspberry Pi 2 with an RTL-SDR dongle, with the Pi 2 board also taking care of displaying the video signal. The full flow of transmission can be summarized as follows: Video from […]
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 […]
Dune HD Unveils 5 Entry Level to Premium 4K HDR Linux + Android Media Players & Set-Top Boxes
Dune HD is known to make high-end digital media players that often costs several hundred dollars such as Sigma Designs based Dune HD SOLO 4K or Dune HD Solo Lite. The company has now sent out an email announcing new models classified into three categories with most models based on Amlogic processors: Neo Series – Entry level Dune HD Neo 4K – 4Kp60 HDR media player + Android Smart TV box Amlogic S905X 1GB RAM, 8GB flash 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 100Mbit Ethernet, Bluetooth Dune HD Neo 4K T2 – 4Kp60 HDR media player + Android Smart TV box + DVB-T/T2/C receiver Amlogic S905D 1GB RAM, 8GB flash 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 100Mbit Ethernet, Bluetooth Dune HD Neo 4K T2 Plus – 4Kp60 HDR media player + Android Smart TV box + DVB-T/T2/C receiver Amlogic S905D 2GB RAM, 16GB flash 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 100Mbit Ethernet, Bluetooth Sky series – Models with satellite receiver Dune HD […]
How to Use Khadas VIM2 Board with VTV Expansion DTV Board as a Live TV Streaming Server
Khadas VIM2 is the first and only Amlogic S912 based hobbyist development board on the market, which makes it interesting by itself, but the company also added some interesting features such as an SPI flash for network boot, Wake-on-LAN support, and more. Last month the company sent me a sample of the Khadas VIM2 Basic (2GB RAM/16GB flash) together with VTV Extension DTV Board featuring a DVB-T2/C and DVB-S2 tuner. I’ve already checkout the hardware and shown how to assemble the kit, so for the second part of the review it seemed like a good idea to use the board as a Live TV streaming server broadcasting satellite, cable or terrestrial TV to devices connected to the local network. At first I wanted to use Linux operating system, because I could have run other Linux server services, but SuperDVB, the company that makes and supports the tuner board, only have […]
Magicsee C300 is a $70 DVB-T2/C & DVB-S2 Android Set-Top Box Powered by Amlogic S905D SoC
Amlogic S905D processor is an evolution of Amlogic S905X with Gigabit Ethernet support, and TS interfaces for digital TV tuners. That explains why most devices launched with the processor come with tuners. So far, we’ve covered or reviewed a few including Sen5 STB (2x DVB-T2/C), Mecool KI Pro (T2/S2), and TX95D TV box with a single DVB-T2 tuner. Magicsee C300 is another Amlogic S905D Android STB that comes with DVB-T2/C (Terrestrial & Cable), and DVB-S2 (Satellite) tuners, and sells for just under $70 on Aliexpress, and can be found on other shops such as GearBest. Magicsee C300 specifications are quite similar to the ones for Mecool KI Pro: SoC – Amlogic S905D quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.5 GHz with penta core Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 2 GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot up to 32GB Video Output – HDMI 2.0a […]