TV box News - Page 9 of 108 - CNX Software

September 15, 2020October 28, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Low-cost Amlogic S905L2 TV Boxes Show Up on Aliexpress for $20+

Amlogic has plenty of variants to its S905 processors, and so far I had never heard about Amlogic S905L2 processor that can be found in some Android 9.0 TV boxes sold for a little over $20 including shipping. [Update: I’ve been informed people are not getting boxes with S905L2, but just S905L, nor the advertised amount of memory or storage, notably from Shop5779464] There are only two such TV boxes listed with the quad-core Cortex-A53 processor so far, and they are basically the same X7 model except for different storage and memory configuration. X7 TV box specifications: Amlogic S905L2 quad-core Cortex-A53 with Arm Mali-450 MP GPU System Memory – 2 or 4GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB or 32GB flash storage Video Output – HDMI up to 4Kp60 with HDR support, and AV port Video Decoding – 4K H.265, H.264 Networking – 10/100M Ethernet and dual-band 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 USB – […]

September 9, 2020September 9, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Amlogic S905X3-B SoC Powers Android 9.0 TV Boxes with Dolby Audio License

Amlogic S905X3 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor has been found in various TV boxes and single board computers such as ODROID-C4 for about a year. But I’ve just been informed some new TV models come with Amlogic S905X3-B processor adding a Dolby Audio license. AX95 DB is one of those with the S905X3-B Android 9.0 TV box equipped with 4GB RAM, up to 128GB storage, HDMI 2.1 output up to 4Kp60, as well as Fast Ethernet, and USB 3.0/2.0 ports. AX95 DB specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X3-B quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ 2.0 GHz with Arm Mali-G31MP2 GPU, Dolby audio license System Memory – 4GB DDR3 Storage – 64GB flash (32GB or 128GB optional), MicroSD card slt up to 32GB Video & Audio Output HDMI 2.1 up to 4K @ 60Hz or 8K @ 24Hz 3.5mm AV jack for composite video and stereo audio Optical S/PDIF with Dobly Digital audio support Video […]

August 27, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Testing Hercules OTT Realtek RTD1395 4K Android STB Development Board

This is a guest post by Promwad, a software and hardware product development company with DTV & STB development expertise and know-how. Recently, they received a package from Realtek, their partner in Taiwan. There was a Realtek RTD1395 development board inside – Hercules 32-bit OTT – with 2 GB RAM and pre-installed Android 9 OS. Promwad team tested what it’s capable of and how it can be used by hardware and software engineers who design new TV set-top boxes and develop embedded software. Hercules OTT board is an Android IPTV box that plays videos of any formats with a maximum resolution of 4K. Streaming services such as Youtube, Netflix, etc. are supported via Dash and HLS. Also, the board supports other Android apps, including audio/video calls and conferencing. Realtek introduced RTD1395-based boards back in 2018. IP and cable TV operators used them in their subscriber devices. The RTD1395 chip with […]

August 3, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Linux 5.8 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS, and RISC-V Architectures

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 5.8: So I considered making an rc8 all the way to the last minute, but decided it’s not just worth waiting another week when there aren’t any big looming worries around. Because despite the merge window having been very large, there really hasn’t been anything scary going on in the release candidates. Yeah, we had some annoying noise with header file dependencies this week, but that’s not a new annoyance, and it’s also not the kind of subtle bug that keeps me up at night worrying about it. It did reinforce how nice it would be if we had some kind of tooling support to break nasty header file dependencies automatically, but if wishes were horses.. Maybe some day we’ll have some kind of SAT-solver for symbol dependencies that can handle all our different architectures and configurations, but right now it’s just a manual […]

July 26, 2020July 26, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Beelink GS-King X Review with Android 9 – Video & Audio Playback, NAS/File Server Function, and Benchmarks

Last month I received Beelink GS-King X for review and started with an unboxing and teardown to check out the hardware. I’ve now had time to test the device with Android 9 including the file server function, a key selling point since of the device since it supports up to two 3.5″ SATA drives internally. A Tedious and Frustrating Start Eventually, I managed to boot the TV box and access the launcher, but it was no pleasure cruise. The first time, I connected the power, there was nothing at all, with the LED turned off, and no noise from the device. I thought the device was dead. The company asked me to check the power supply, and indeed a quick check with a multimeter confirmed it was dead despite the blue LED (on the power supply) implying the contrary. Nevermind, bad things happen, and the company sent me a new […]

July 23, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Dune HD AV1 4K TV Box To Run AOSP or Android TV for Android 10 on RealTek RTD1319 Processor

4K TV boxes capable of playing AV1 content are coming later this year. Many of the entry-level models will feature Amlogic S905X4 processor, but some higher-end set-top boxes will instead be equipped with Broadcom BCM7218X or Realtek RTD1319 processor with better video post-processing capabilities and often more extensive DRM support which can be important to operators. Dune HD AV1 4K TV box is coming later this year with Realtek RTD1319 media processor, and support for either Android 10 AOSP or Android TV for Android 10. Dune HD AV1 4K TV box specifications: SoC – Realtek RTD1319 quad-core Arm Cortex A55 processor with Mali-G31 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2 API support System Memory – 2 GB RAM Storage – 16 GB flash (32 GB or more as an option) Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.1 up to 4Kp60 with HDR support, 3.5mm AV port with composite video and analog stereo […]

June 30, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Ugoos X4 Cube Android 9.0 TV Box Plays 4Kp120 AV1 Videos

AOMedia AV1 video codec has been in the works for several years, and has strong industry backing since it’s open-source, royalty-free and delivers compression similar or even superior to H.265. Some services like YouTube and Netflix have already started using AV1 on PCs where the CPU is powerful enough to handle software video decoding. But relying on software video decoding is not ideal on typical Arm-based devices, either because of battery life concerns (e.g. phones) or simply impossible because the processor won’t be able to cope. The latter is especially the case on TV boxes who are not usually fitted with Arm Cortex-A53 cores leaving hardware video decoding to a video processing unit (VPU). Since AV1 is still fairly new, most VPU doesn’t support the new video codec, and while we have seen several AV1 capable processors including Broadcom BCM7218x, Realtek RTD1311/RTD1319, and Amlogic S905X4. as well as at least […]

June 18, 2020July 26, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Beelink GS-King X Review – Part 1: Unboxing & Teardown

Beelink GS-King X is a 3-in-1 media center that works as an Android 9.0 TV box, a NAS with support for two 3.5″ hard drives, and a HiFi audio system with two ESS9018 audio DACs powering RCA and balanced audio outputs. The company sent a review sample, and I’ll start by checking out the hardware and accessories, show how to install the hard drive(s), and attempt to tear down the device to check what it’s really made of. Beelink GS-King X Unboxing There’s no mention of TV box nor Android on the package, just “STORAGE” and DTS plus Dolby Audio… The bottom of the package lists the Beelink GS-King X specifications which we already discussed in our previous articles. There’s a red ribbon that helps to take the device out of its package. I wish more companies would do this. Accessories include the voice remote control, an HDMI cable, a […]