CNXSoft – Embedded Software Development

Asus announced the Qube at CES 2013 with a rather laconic press release:

Qube with Google TV – Bring the world of entertainment to your TV

Instantly add Google TV to your HDTV with the ASUS Qube. Qube with Google TV offers both motion control and voice search that integrates Google Play, Chrome™, YouTube™in one compact device. With access to over 100,000 movies and TV shows* from Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, plus numerous apps, videos and games from Google Play, ASUS Qubewith Google TV is the perfect media content device.

ASUS has developed the unique Qube interface, which displays functions via a rotating on-screen cube shape. The advanced remote control supports motion sensing for gaming and other applications. Customers can also control Qube with Google TV from their Android smartphones and tablets using the Mobile Remote app, available through Google Play. ASUS includes 50GB of WebStorage cloud space with every Qube with Google TV.

Anandtech reports that the device is based on Marvell Armada 1500 Google TV platform. They also spent some time on the device on Asus booth, and noticed the transition animations weren’t really smooth on this demo system.

The remote is dual sided with a a full QWERTY keyboard on one side, and a simpler remote on the other including a navigation button and a Netflix button.. The remote also comes with a built-in mic for voice control, and an integrated gyro.

The board features two HDMI ports, an ethernet port, WiFi, and a USB port as well. The Qube will ship with an IR blaster for $129 at the end of Q3, according to CNET.

Back in 2011, SolidRun unveiled the CuBox, a miniature open source development platform based on Marvell Armada 510 SoC (88AP510) and aimed at applications such as multimedia, set-top-box, network attached storage (NAS), thin client, digital signage, automation… SolidRun has now announced an upgraded version called CuBox Pro based on the same platform but with 2 GB RAM, and a redesigned casing.

Here are the specifications of this development platform:

• Marvell Armada 510 SoC – 800 MHz dual issue ARM PJ4 processor, VFPv3, wmmx SIMD and 512KB L2 cache.
• 2GByte DDR3 at 800MHz
• 1080p Video Decode Engine
• OpenGL ES 2.0 graphic engine
• HDMI 1080p Output (with CEC function)
• Gigabit Ethernet, SPDIF (optical audio), eSata 3Gbps, 2xUSB 2.0, micro-SD, micro-USB (console)
• Standard Infra-red receiver for 38KHz based IR controllers.
• No JTAG required. Unbrickable for Developers (i.e. you can’t brick the device to the point you have to physically remove the flash, burn it and solder it again to repair it)
• Linux based distributions like Ubuntu, Debian and others
• Android
• Chrome with flash 10.1
• Gstreamer with GPU acceleration
• XBMC Media Center

XBMCHUB has announced the launch of a giveaway to promote XBMCHUB.com and expand this community that provides third party add-ons for XBMC, and the most active members of the community will get one of the 4 Jynxbox Android HD media players available. But before going into details about XBMCHUB “competition”, let’s have a look at the hardware.

Specifications:

• SoC – Amlogic AML8726-M3 Cortex A9 CPU @ 1.2GHz with Mali 400 GPU
• System Memory – 1GB RAM DDR3
• Storage – 4GB Nand Flash + MicroSD slot (Up to 32GB)
• USB – 3x USB 2.0 Host ports
• Connectivity
  • Wifi – 802.11b/g/n
  • 10/100 Ethernet
• Video Output – HDMI 1.3
• Misc – IR Sensor for remote
• Video container formats – AVI, MKV, TS, TP, TRP, M2TS, MPG, MP4, MOV, M4V, VOB, IFO, DAT, WMV, ASF, RM, RMVB, FLV, XVID, DIVX 3/4/5 up to 1080p resolution
• Audio formats – MP3/ OGG/ WMA/ WAV/ AAC/ FLAC
• Audio codecs – MP2/3, OGG Vorbis, WMA, WAV, WMA PRO, PCM LPCM, MS-ADPCM, LC-AAC, HE-AAC, COOK, RA-Lossless, RM/RMVB 8/9/10
• Dimensions – 100 x 100 x 17 mm
• Weight – 160g

Jynxbox Android HD runs Android 4.0.4, supports XBMC with hardware accelerated video decoding, and you can connect a USB ATSC Tuner, USB keyboard/mouse, a USB Bluetooth dongle, etc.. to extend the capabilities of the device.

The media players comes with  with a 2.4Ghz motion remote with Gyro (So the IR sensor might be kind of useless), and a 120V/240V A/C power adapter. It can be bought directly on Jynxbox website for $119.99 + $20 shipping, or on Aliexpress for the same price but with slightly cheaper shipping (at least to Thailand). You may be better off going with Mygica A11 instead which has similar specs (it could even be the same hardware…) and is sold for ~$65, especially if you already have a 2.4GHz gyro remote control. I’m not sure about ATSC Tuner support in the Mygica firmware however.

But if you want to get a change to get it for free, you should to go to XBMCHUB forums and enter one and more of the four contests:

1. Show your XBMC setup on Facebook. Winner selected at random.
2. Tweet your XBMC setup to @XBMCHUBCOM with #freetvcontest tag. Winner selected at random.
3. Most valuable member. The winner will be the member who begins to show the most improvement in participation on the forums during the contest period. Criteria include number of new posts, post quality percentage, and follow up on technical support, so don’t expect to be spamming your way to a free device.
   
4. Forum signature on other forums. If you’re an active member of other forums, you can put a link to XBMC in your signature, and the winner will be decided based on the amount of referrals among other things (not very clear to me).

You can participate in all four contests if you wish. One Jynxbox Android HD will be given per contest, and you have until January 31st, 2013 at Midnight New York Time to enter. Good Luck!

Full-sized set-top boxes based on AMLogic AML8726-M3 processor have the potential to support XBMC Linux & Android with proper hardware support, but are not always priced very aggressively. But today, I’ve stumbled upon MyGica A11 Android 4.0 media player powered by AML8726-M3, with 1GB RAM and 4GB flash that sells for $65.10 on DealExtreme including shipping, and just 339 RMB (~55 USD) in China.

Mygica A10 Specifications:

• SoC – AMLogic AML8726-M3 (Cortex A9) processor @ 1.0GHz with Mali-400 GPU
• System Memory – 1GB DDR3
• Storage – 4GB Flash + microSD slot (Up to 32GB)
• Video Output – HDMI 1.3 (Up to 1080p)
• Video Formats – AVI, RM, RMVB, Ts, TP, TRP, Vob, Mkv, Mov, WMV, IOS, AFS, FLV, DAT, MPG, MPEG & SWF
• Video Codecs – MPEG1/2/4, H.264, AVC/VC-1, Xvid ,DivX3/4/5/6, and Real Video 8/9/10
• Audio Formats – MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, FLAC, ALAC, APE, AAC, AC-D, DTS & Real Audio
• Subtitle – pgs, srt, smi, sub, ssa, ass, and sub+.idx
• USB – 3x USB 2.0 Host ports
• Connectivity – 10/100 Mbit Ethernet

Beside the media player, the package contains a power adapter (100~240V / US plug), an infrared remote control, and a user manual in Chinese. You may have noticed Wi-Fi is missing, so you’ll need to use a WiFi USB dongle if you intend to connect to your router that way. However, if you don’t plan to connect via Ethernet, you are probably better off with one of those AML8726-M3 HDMI TV dongles.

Davilla, one of XBMC developers, is working with Pivos to port XMBC Linux to their AML8726-M1 and M3 set-top boxes, and they’ve released a new beta firmware last week. However, this firmware is tailored for the Pivos STBs, and most probably, it won’t work directly on Mygica A11. But since the source code is available, it should be feasible to adapt it to this low cost STB.

You can find more information on Dealextreme, or directly on Mygica website (in Chinese).

Between the AllWinner A10 and AllWinner A13 processors, there’s now an alternative. AllWinner A10s is based on AllWinner A13 architecture (sun5i), but adds HDMI and Ethernet MAC which makes it suitable for mini PCs and set-top boxes. The first time I heard about this processor was in August with IP878 mini PC, and in October, one reader (Alex) informed me AllWinner had posted more details about his new processor.

Allwinner A10s Block Diagram

Here are the key features of this (relatively) new SoC:

• CPU/GPU – ARM Cortex-A8 Core with 32KB D-Cache/ 32KB I-Cache / 256KB L2 Cache, and Mali-400
• VPU
  • HD Video Decoding 1080p@30fps of VP8/6, H.264/H.263, WMV9/VC-1, WMV7/8, MPEG-4/2/1, Xvid codecs
  • HD Video Encoding 1080p@30fps with H.264 codec
• Video Out – HDMI 1.4 (1080p),
• Memory
  • Up to 1GB DDR2/DDR3 up to 533MHz (16/32 bits Data Bus)
  • MLC/TLC/SLC/EF-NAND
  • ECC 64-bit
• Peripherals:
  • USB2.0 OTG, USB2.0 HOST （OHCI/EHCI）
  • SD Card V.3.0, eMMC V.4.2
  • SPI, TWI and UART
  • TS Port
  • EMAC
  • CSI
  • I2S
  • IR interface, GPIOs, etc…
• Audio Codec:
  • Integrated Audio Codec
  • MIC/FM/LINEIN Input

As usual, Android should be the main (and only) OS supported directly by AllWinner (The company), but work is done on sun5i kernel and u-boot by sunxi-linux.org developers’ community. AllWinner A13 support should be pretty good at this time, but I’m not sure about the status of A10S support.

Olimex is currently working on an AllWinner A10S development board with 512MB RAM, micro SD-card socket, SD-MMC card socket for WIFI card or storage, 100Mbit Ethernet, HDMI, USB Host & OTG, LCD Connector, Audio In/Out, UEXT connector and GPIO headers. Since the company works closely with sunxi-linux community, it’s virtually a certainty Linux will be properly supported on this platform. The next AllWinner SoC will be a quad-core Cortex A7 processor codenamed AllWinner A40, and should be announced later this month.

[Update: AllWinner A10S datasheet  and preliminary Olimex A10S-OLinuXino schematics are available on github.]

Wise Tivi is a new company that recently launched 3 Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) products based on what appears to be Rockchip RK3066 processor:

• Wise Tivi Camera ($89.99) – A set-top box with a front camera that can be conveniently placed on top of the TV.
• Wise Tivi Portable ($79.99) – The mini PC / PC-on-an-HDMI-stick version.
• Wise Tivi Box ($59.99) – A standard Android set-top box with IR remote control.

Wise Tivi Camera

According to the company website, all 3 devices share the following specifications:

Wise Tivi Portable

• SoC – Dual Core ARM Cortex A9 1.6Ghz with Quad-core ARM Mali-400 MP (Rockchip RK3066)
• System Memory – 1GB DDR3 RAM
• Storage – 4 GB Nand Flash (up to 16GB) and microSD card slot
• Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Video Output – HDMI 1.3 (up to 1920×1080 resolution),
• USB -  1 x micro USB OTG, 1x SB 2.0 HOST and 1x micro USB for power.
• Video -  RM/RMVB, MPEG, MKV, AVI, MP4,MOV,FLV, H.263, H.264,VC-1,DivX, Xvid, TS,RealVideo,VP6,VP8. Support Multi-format 1080P video decoding, stereoscopic 3D H.264 MVC video coding
• Audio – MP3/WMA/APE/FLAC/AAC/OGG/AC3/WAV…
• Power Supply – 100~220V AC Input, 5V DC Output 2A

That is until you start to look at the pictures / renderings… So the camera version appears to have a full SD card slot, one USB host port and an HDMI output (but there’s no info about the camera), the mini PC matches the specifications above, and the Wise Tivi Box comes with HDMI & composite output, Audio RCA stereo output, Ethernet, 2x USB host ports and a full size SD card slot.

Considering you can get a device with the same specs for $50 to $60, I don’t find Wise Tivi Portable particularly interesting at $79.99, although the anodized aluminum case makes it look nicer than most other mini PCs.

The Wise Tivi Camera on the other hand is an interesting innovative product, and could be of use for people watching to do video-conferencing / use Skype regularly with their HDTV. Wise Tivi Box is the only regular set-top box featuring Rockchip RK3066 I’ve ever seen. Ethernet connectivity will allow you to play high bitrate videos (>10 Mbps) and at $59 this is much cheaper than equivalent AMLogic media players.

Wise Tivi Box

The company will also provide an Air Mouse and a Game PAD (but only go to those 2 products pages if you are interesting in UFOs…) , which would make it an alternative to the OUYA (excluding OUYA game marketplace).

The company has just started accepting pre-orders for the 3 media players. Prices include free shipping, but I could not find estimated delivery date, and since all they have on their website are renderings, this could be a few months away. You can find more information (including the UFO part) on Wise Tivi webpage.

Via: Android Guys

J1nx (Peter Steenbergen) has spend a lot of time together with XBMC developers to try to bring XBMC (Linux) to ARM based set-top boxes, and initially AllWinner A10 processor seemed like a good candidate, unfortunately due to the lack of proper video engine libraries for Linux, progress on this SoC has been extremely slow. Then when Pivos and XBMC announced Pivos Xios DS set-top box based on AMLogic aml8726-M(1) would support XBMC natively, and the kernel and bootlooader (u-boot) source code was made available both on Pivos github account and AMLogic open source website, AML8726 series of processors appeared to be an ideal solution for this purpose.

Instead of AML8726-M (aka AML8726-M1) which is limited to 512 MB, it was decided instead to use a faster processor AML8726-M3 that supports 1 GB RAM. The STB of choice is based on “MBX – f16ref” which should be some kind of development board. You would think that since a lot of source code is already it should be feasible to simply use the existing source to run it on this hardware. However, some hardware config files (e.g. def_config) are missing, and attempts to reverse-engineer the configuration has failed. This is mainly a problem for u-boot, and to lesser extend for Linux.

This is why j1nx has decided to contact several Chinese manufacturers who would be willing to release the full source code for their STB based on AML8726-M3. After several week, he managed to find one, but there’s a condition: ordering 500 pieces. This is where crowdfunding comes into play with “Open up the AMLogic box” campaign on Indiegogo, where you can either donate or commit funds to buy a STB with the following specs:

• Amlogic-8726M3 Cortex A9, CPU Max 1GHz.
• Mali-400 GPU
• 1 GB memory
• 4 GB flash storage
• WiFi: 802.11b/g/n
• 10/100Mbps LAN
• 2 USB
• Cardreader slot
• Coaxial Jack / Optical Socket / HDMI Socket
• Remote control

Getting the box via Indiegogo will cost $99. You may think it is expensive, but since it is imported into Europe, it will already include VAT, import duties and shipping. With taxes around 35%, this is equivalent to $74 if you buy through websites such as Aliexpress and Dealextreme assuming individual buyers also pay VAT and import duties. It may also be the small price to pay to get a better XBMC ARM Linux media player.

If the campaign is successful, you’ll get the following:

• The Set Top Box with external wifi antenna
• A populated UART connector on the inside
• FULL software build system
• Linux kernel sources and drivers
• The U-Boot bootloader system sources including the proper def_config file.

The UART board (debug board) can be connected the same way as it is in the Mele A1000/A2000, and no soldering is involved.

If you have questions/comments, you can post them below or directly in j1nx’s blog.