Testing Category - Page 97 of 177 - CNX Software

March 26, 2017September 5, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 28 Comments

NanoPi NEO2 Board, NanoHats, and BakeBit Starter Kit Review – Part 1: Hardware Overview & Assembly

NanoPi NEO 2 development board is an update of NanoPi NEO with a quad core 64-bit Allwinner H5 processor + 512 MB RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, and an extra audio header, which can be a great little board for headless application since there’s no video output. FriendlyELEC ask me whether I wanted to review to board with some of their NanoHATs add-on boards, and while I asked for NanoHat PCM5102A audio board and NEO Hub which I intended to use with Grove modules from my Wio Link Started Kit, I get a bit more than expected, as the company included sets of NEO 2 boards and accessories, NanoHATs, two serial debug board, and their BakeBit Starter Kit with several Grove modules to play with. Since I have so many things to look at in this first post, I’ll just describe the hardware, assemble it, quickly check the paper documentation, and give […]

March 22, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 115 Comments

Mecool KIII Pro Hybrid STB Review – Part 2: Android Firmware, TV Center, and DVB-T2 & DVB-S2 App

Last year I reviewed K1 Plus T2 S2, an Android TV box powered by Amlogic S905 quad core processor with DVB-T2 and DVB-S2 tuner support, which worked with some caveats. VideoStrong has now send me an updated model with Amlogic S912 octa-core processor, which I presented in the post entitled Mecool KIII Pro Hybrid Android STB Review – Part 1: Specs, Unboxing and Teardown, where I listed the specifications, and showed photos of the device and the boards (main board + tuner board). I’ve now had time to play with the device, and in many respects the user experience is very similar to the one I got with KI Plus T2 S2 models, but there are also some tweaks, and a few bugs which I’ll report in the second part of the review below. KIII Pro Hybrid TV Box Setup, Settings, & Power Consumption The four USB ports are really […]

March 20, 2017March 20, 2017 by Ray - 28 Comments

Xtream Codes IPTV Panel 2.4.2 Review – Part 4: Tutorial to Change the Main Server, Backup & Restore the Database

This is the fourth part of a review about Xtream Codes IPTV Panel, software to become your own content provider, and manage streams, clients, and resellers. The first three parts: Review of Xtream-Codes IPTV Panel Professional Edition – Part 1: Introduction, Initial Setup, Adding Streams… Xtream Codes IPTV Panel Review – Part 2: Movie Data Editing, Security, Resellers, Users and Pricing Management Xtream-Codes IPTV Panel Review – Part 3: Updates and New Features for Version 2.4.2 Main Server Change – Part 1: New Server Changing your Main Server could bring you troubles, if you do not know what you are doing. Many different reasons to change the Main server such as crashes, new one. making a Load Balancer to be a Main Server… Remember, it’s all about the existing backup, and you’ll restore your backup later, after successfully changing the Main Server. That is not difficult and everybody can do […]

March 17, 2017March 17, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Google Releases Guetzli Open Source JPEG Encoder Generating 20 to 35% Smaller Files Compared to Libjpeg

Google has been working one several front to make data and images smaller, hence faster to load from the Internet, with project such as Zopfli algorithm producing smalled PNG & gzip files, or WebP image compression algorithm that provides better lossless compression compare to PNG, and better lossy compression compared to JPEG, but requires updated support from clients such as web browsers. Google has now released Guetzli algorithm that improve on the latter, as it can create JPEG files that are 20 to 35% smaller compared to libjpeg with similar quality, and still compatible with the JPEG format. The image above shows a close up on a phone line with the original picture, the JPEG picture compressed with libjpeg with the artifacts around the line, and a smaller JPEG picture compressed with Guetzli with less artifacts. You can find out more about the algorithm in the paper entitled “Guetzli: Perceptually […]

March 13, 2017November 8, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 56 Comments

Mecool KIII Pro Hybrid Android STB Review – Part 1: Specs, Unboxing and Teardown

K1 Plus T2 S2 review has been a popular post on CNX Software, as many people tried to improve their experience with the device. VideoStrong has just send an updated version of their DVB-T2 + DVB-S2 TV box with Mecool KIII Pro octa-core Hybrid STB powered by an Amlogic S912 processor combined with 3 GB RAM and 16GB storage, and the same dual tuner configuration. I’ve started the review by posting some pictures of the hardware, inside out, before reporting my experience with Android, especially the DTV part, in a few weeks. KIII Pro Specifications SoC – Amlogic S912 octa core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.5 GHz with Mali-T820MP3 GPU System Memory – 3 GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot up to 32GB Video Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60Hz with support for HDR10 and HLG, and 3.5mm AV (composite […]

March 12, 2017March 23, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments

How to Control Your Air Conditioner with Raspberry Pi Board and ANAVI Infrared pHAT

Leon ANAVI may be a full-time software engineer, but in his spare time he has started to develop open source hardware project with the help of others and by himself. Last year, I got hold of his RabbitMax Flex HAT for Raspberry Pi, and tested it with the provided LCD display, one temperature sensor, and a Raspberry Pi 2 board. The board also featured IR receiver & transmitter, and I tried to use it with my aircon remote control, but at the time I did not find a way to do it easily, and control my TV with LIRC instead. Leon has now made a simpler, smaller, and cheaper add-on board for Raspberry Pi Zero, and other Raspberry Pi boards with a 40-pin header, with 3x I2C headers, two IR transmitters, and one IR receiver. He sent me a sample of “ANAVI Infrared pHAT”, and after quickly describing the board, […]

March 8, 2017March 8, 2017 by Ray - 1 Comment

Xtream-Codes IPTV Panel Review – Part 3: Updates and New Features for Version 2.4.2

This is the third part of Xtream-Codes IPTV Panel review. IPTV Panel Professional Edition is a software to build your own IPTV Server from scratch. It supports all common Streaming Protocols as an Input and it is powered by FFmpeg & nginx. If you have not done so already, you may consider reading the first two parts: Review of Xtream-Codes IPTV Panel Professional Edition – Part 1: Introduction, Initial Setup, Adding Streams… Xtream Codes IPTV Panel Review – Part 2: Movie Data Editing, Security, Resellers, Users and Pricing Management Here are the major changes since Part 2: And part of the company’s announcement of the release: Why choose IPTV Panel Pro? IPTV Panel is powered by many Open Source Tools. These are only few reasons why we believe our software is different from our competitors: Stability: Our software is powered by FFmpeg to do the Restreaming & Transcoding of your streams. […]

March 8, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Salute EL24D1: Evaluation Board with Russian Processor ELVEES 1892VM14Ya for Harsh Environments

This is a guest post by Promwad, an electronics design house with development centers in Belarus and Russia, as well as sales offices in Europe and North America. They also evaluated Baikal T1 development board previously. Engineers at Promwad Electronics Design House have got a new Russian board to experiment; it is an evaluation board Salute EL24D1 which is based upon multicore 1892VM14Ya SOC designed to be used in the Arctic and in space. Let us have a look what it is able to do. Board Salute EL24D1 is designed to investigate CPU abilities, develop and debug software. The developer, R&D center ELVEES began deliveries of Salute at the end of 2015. One of the main application areas of 1892VM14Ya is machine vision systems, processing of video and audio streaming in severe conditions, in manufacturing and in space. So the CPU is mainly aimed at the industrial sector rather than […]