Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

October 5, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Unboxing of MXQ S85 Android Media Player Powered by Amlogic S805 Processor

Gearbest sent me MXQ S85 Android media player powered by Amlogic S805 quad core processor with 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage, and Ethernet/Wi-Fi/Bluetooth connectivity. MXQ S85 looks very similar to EM6Q-MXQ, another Amlogic S805 based Android STB, which I reviewed last week, but these are two distinct hardware platforms. Today, I’ll take some pictures of the devices, and the board to see which components are used, and who made the board, and I’ll write a full review in a few days. MXQ S85 Pictures I’ve received the parcel via DHL in the nameless package below where they just indicate it’s and Android TV box with a quad core processor, quad core GPU, pre-loaded with XBMC, and supporting HEVC / H.265 The package contains the box, HDMI and AV cables, an OTG adapter, a 5V/2A power supply, an IR remote requiring two AAA batteries, and a user’s manual in English. The […]

October 4, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Current Performance and Stability Issues on AllWinner A80 OptimusBoard Development Board

Sine A80 OptimusBoard is the first ARM hardware that supports both USB 3.0 and Gigabit that I’ve ever owned, so I though it might be interesting to see what performance I could get with a USB 3.0 hard drive through the USB 3.0 OTG port of the board. For testing purpose, I bought a USB 3.0 OTG adapter on Ebay, but I did not look closely enough as it turned out to be only a USB 3.0 OTG to USB 2.0 female adapter capable of USB 2.0 speeds… Kind of useless item since you can plug a standard USB 2.0 OTG adapter into a USB 3.0 OTG receptacle. But I tried my hard drive anyway, and quickly realized write performance was very poor at 3 MB/s on the NTFS partition, whereas most other devices can handle at least15 MB/s, and usually over 25 MB/s. So I contacted Allwinner with this […]

October 4, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

How to Upgrade Allwinner A80 OptimusBoard Firmware

After informing Allwinner I had some rather slow write speed (3MB/s) to the NTFS partition of my USB drive on my A80 OptimusBoard, they kindly provided a new compressed Android firmware image (sun9iw1p1_android_optimus_v1.2_20140930.img.7z) with some NTFS optimizations that can be downloaded from baidu (password: x2tz), mega.co.nz or simos.info (please only use this link, if the other two do not work as it’s a private website and monthly bandwidth may be limited). I vaguely remember tools like LiveSuit (Linux) or PhoenixSuite (Windows), and I ended up on sunxi-linux Livesuit wiki as I’m running Ubuntu 14.04 on my PC, but you should be able to flash the firmware with PhoenixSuite if you run Windows. The instructions below can also be used for other Allwinner based devices. First you need to install LiveSuit, and build Allwinner USB drivers as follows:

sudo apt-get install dkms git build-essential
git clone https://github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-livesuite.git
cd sunxi-livesuite/awusb
make
sudo cp awusb.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/
sudo depmod -a
sudo modprobe awusb
cd..

sudo apt-get install dkms git build-essential

git clone https://github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-livesuite.git

cd sunxi-livesuite/awusb

make

sudo cp awusb.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/

sudo depmod -a

sudo modprobe awusb

cd..

In order to use LiveSuit as a normal user, you also have […]

October 3, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 23 Comments

Review of Tronsmart Orion R28 Meta 4K/H.265 Android TV Box

It’s been a little while since I unboxed Tronsmart Orion R28 Meta Android TV box, but since the product was still consider “beta” by GeekBuying, I wanted to wait for a OTA firmware update (109k4), which was released at the beginning of the week. Since I’ve already listed the technical specifications, and showed pictures of the board and device, I’ll focus on feature tests and benchmarks results in the review. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions I quickly tried the basic infrared remote control, inserting two AAA batteries, and it does the job, but for Android, you really need a pointing device, so I switched to Mele F10 Deluxe air mouse during testing. I’ve connected a whole bunch of cable, and peripherals to the box including an HDMI cable, a USB hard drive, an Ethernet cable, a USB webcam, and a USB hub with RF dongles for my air mouse […]

October 2, 2014October 2, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Tronsmart T2000 EZCast Pro Dongle Supports MHL, Split Screen, Improves Wi-Fi Performance

EZCast dongles, tiny HDMI streaming Wi-Fi stick with support for Airplay, Miracast, DLNA, and their own proprietary EZCast protocol first appeared about a year ago. I’ve reviewed a few including Tronsmart T1000 and MeLeCast S1, and found them to work relatively well, with some caveats, in Android. There’s now a new EZCast Pro wireless adapters that adds features such for four split screens display, conference control via web browser, and content broadcast to multiple screens, as well as improved wireless performance thanks to 2T2R Wi-Fi. Tronsmart T2000 is the first device I’ve heard of, that’s EZCast Pro capable. Tronsmart T2000 hardware specifications: SoC – Action Semi AM8251 @ 500MHz (MIPS) System memory – 256 MB DDR3 RAM Storage – 128 MB NAND Flash Video output – HDMI 1.2 / MHL 2.0 Wi-Fi – Single band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi 2T2R up to 300 Mbps Standards – Miracast, Airplay, DLNA, and EZCast […]

October 2, 2014October 2, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Atmel Introduces SAMA5D4 Embedded MPUs With 720p Video Decoder And TrustZone Support

Atmel has expanded its SAMA5 Cortex A5 embedded processor family with SAMA5D4 series adding an optional video processing unit capable of decoding H264, VP8 and MPEG4 at 720p / 30fps, as well as support for ARM NEON and TrustZone technology. There are also some other changes with regards to connectivity: no Gigabit Ethernet, more UART interfaces, less SPI interfaces, etc… Key features listed of Atmel SAMA5D4 series:: ARM Cortex-A5 core up to 528MHz (840DMIPS) with NEON & TrustZone support, 2x 32KB L1 cache, and 128KB L2 cache. Optional 720p hardware video decoder supporting H264/263, VP8, JPEG, and MPEG4. Graphic LCD TFT controller with overlays for image composition, resistive touchscreen controller. CMOS image sensor interface. Three high-speed USB ports (configurable as three hosts or two hosts and one device port). Dual EMAC 10/100 with IEEE1588 support (Precision Time Protocol). Other I/Os – 8x UART, 8x SPI, 4x TWI, 2 HS SDIO/SD/MMC, […]

October 2, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

STMicro STM32F4 (Cortex M4) vs STM32F7 (Cortex M7) Graphics Demo

STMicro announced their latest STM32F7 micro-controller family based on ARM Cortex M7 last week. As ARM Techcon 2014 is now taking place, the company has uploaded an infomercial on their YouTube account, where STMicro and ARM representatives are interviewed about the new family, and talk about its performance, power consumption, target applications, business prospects, and so on. But there’s also an a short demo with two development kits one with a STM32F4 cortex M4 micro-controller, and the other with a STM32F7 micro-controllers. Since both MCU families are pin-to-pin compatible, the hardware is identical except for the MCU. Both kits are pre-loaded with a 3D graphics demo (ray tracer), and the board with STM32F7 completes the demo in about half the time of the one with STM32F439, allegedly with about the same power consumption (7 coremarks / mW). The video is about 8 minutes long, and the demo starts at 1:25. […]