Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments on Upcoming MeLe and Egreat A-Series 4K Android Media Players to Feature Realtek RTD1195 SoC

Upcoming MeLe and Egreat A-Series 4K Android Media Players to Feature Realtek RTD1195 SoC

AndroidPC.es has reported that Mele is preparing to launch a new set-top boxes based on Realtek RTD1195 STB SoC with a dual core ARM Cortex A7 (or A9) and a Mali GPU (TBC), and Egreat will also launch their A-Series STB based on the same SoC according to a video by charbax which also features older Realtek and Rockchip Android TV Boxes, and an RK3188 based game console (Egreat K3). RTD1195 supports 4K, H.265 video decoding, and products usually come with USB 3.0 and Gigabit Ethernet ports, and in some cases, even a SATA drive bay.

Egreat A9 Media Player
Egreat A9 Media Player

Here are the preliminary specifications from the the upcoming (and unnamed) Mele boxes:

  • SoC – Realtek RTD1195 dual core ARM Cortex A7/A9 @ 1.2GHz with Mali-400 GPU (TBC)
  • System Memory – 1GB DDR3 
  • Storage – 4GB flash (8GB optional), internal bays for 2.5″ or 3.5″ SATA drives up to 3TB
  • Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.0.
  • USB – Support USB 3.0 
  • Digital TV – Optional DVB-T/DVB-T2/DVB-S2
  • Video Playback – Supports ISO Blu-ray 3D MVC, H.265, 4K (up to 3840 × 2160p)
  • Audio – Supports Dolby Digital Plus / True HD pass-through DTS–MasterAudio

The media players will run Android 4.4, and XBMC with hardware decoding support. The new Mele boxes will be available in June.

Egreat will launch their A-series media players soon as well. I contacted the company for some more details, but since the product is still in development, there are not willing to disclose complete details at this stage. Nevertheless, I could notice Egreat A3 and A9 models in the videos, and the devices are pretty big compared to today’s standards but come with lots of connectors. Here are the specs I could gather for Egreat A9:

  • SoC – Realtek RTD1195 dual core ARM Cortex A9 processor
  • System Memory – N/A
  • Storage – N/A. Possibly a SATA bay is also present (Unclear)
  • Video Output / Input – Composite, Component and HDMI output (MHL). HDMI input
  • Audio – HDMI, Stereo output (RCA), and S/PDIF
  • Video Playback – 3D Blu-ray video playback + full video format support. H.265 decode support.
  • Audio Playback – 7.1 raw audio output “framepacking”.
  • Connectivity – Ethernet, WiFi with dual high-gain external antennas, and Bluetooth (TBC).
  • USB – 1x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0

Egreat A-series media player will also run Android 4.4 Kitkat.

Clear details are lacking for both MeLe and E-great products, and there are still unclear specs even for SoC (Cortex A7 or A9, which GPU), but we do know these products should be able to transfer data quickly and play high bitrate 4K videos smoothly thanks to high performance interfaces such as Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 and SATA. CPU and GPU performance will however be greatly inferior to the new application processors from Amlogic S802, Rockchip RK3288, or AllWinner A80.

[Update: There’s now another video about Mele RTD1195 media player, shot at their office by Charbax. It seems to confirm the RTD1195 is an ARM Cortex A7 with Mali-400 GPU. They’ll have versions with and without SATA, and it can be used as a NAS / Media Center too. MP scheduled for July according to the guy in the video]


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19 Replies to “Upcoming MeLe and Egreat A-Series 4K Android Media Players to Feature Realtek RTD1195 SoC”

  1. Well that’s an interesting turn of events as Realtek more or less quit the media player SoC business some years back.

    Their video core is still probably pretty good along with the new additions but many other Arm SoC’s have closed that gap in the intervening years.

    CPU/GPU are on the lower end for XBMC though and I’d treat any claims of XBMC support as suspect, ideally Realtek would bypass Android video decoding like Amlogic do but it’s probably just going through the native Android system.

    Reply

  2. I’ve added a link to the Egreat video which is now available for all, and embedded a new video, by Charbax again, showing the board at Mele’s office.

    Reply

  3. Maybe it’s just my assumption, but my guess is that this Realtek SoC, just as SoC’s from Sigma Designs, probably have better high quality video processing display output circuits than all the Chinese ARM SoC manufacturers like Allwinner, Rockchip, and MediaTek.

    Realtek and Sigma Designs can probably also offer better video quality than even AMLogic, Nvidia, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm.

    So while it is true that SoCs from Realtek and Sigma Designs do not offer as fast CPUs as SoCs from other manufacturers, for media players like these then video quality is probably more important and fast CPU and fast GPU, unless you want a gaming console or a multipurpose computer instead of a just a media player with great video quality.

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  7. So far it seems like you still have to choose one of:
    – fast processor (eg comparable to rk3188)
    – fast interfaces (eg USB 3.0/SATA)
    – half decent linux support
    ?
    Or are there SOCs that offer 2 or more?

    Reply

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