TV box News - Page 4 of 107 - CNX Software

July 30, 2022July 31, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 41 Comments

Allwinner H618 processor powers Android 12 TV boxes

Allwinner H618 processor has started to show up in several TV boxes running Android 12, and capable of playing 6K/4K VP9 and H.265 videos with devices such as T95Z Plus and T95 Max, which may be confusing, as companies are reusing those model numbers over and over. Featuring a quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, an Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU, and 6K video support, the Allwinner H618 looks exactly like the Allwinner H616 processor except it can run the more recent Android 12 operating system. There’s not much public information about Allwinner H618 at the time of writing, but let’s check T95Z Plus specifications to see if we can find any other new hidden features: SoC – Allwinner H618 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.5GHz with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB or 4GB RAM Storage – 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card socket Video Output HDMI […]

April 8, 2022June 13, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Amlogic T962E2 quad-core Cortex-A55 TV box board supports 4K HDMI input & output

Amlogic T962E2 is an upgrade to the Amlogic T962E quad-core Cortex-A53 SoC we first found in the Alfawise H96 Mini TV box with both HDMI output and HDMI input ports. The new processor offers similar features but comes with more efficient Cortex-A55 cores, a Mali-G31 MP2 supporting modern Vulkan and OpenGL ES 3.2 APIs, and some other improvements including 4K AV1 video playback. While mostly designed for Smart TVs, I found the Amlogic T962E processor in a TV box board with up to 4GB RAM, 32GB eMMC flash, HDMI 2.1 output, HDMI 2.1 input, Gigabit Ethernet, a wireless module, and allegedly running either Android 8, Android 9, or Android TV. TV box boards specifications: SoC – Amlogic T962E2 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU support OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1 and OpenCL 2.0, 1.2 TOPS AI accelerator, 2x HiFi4 DSP System Memory […]

March 23, 2022March 24, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Mecool KD3 Android 11 TV HDMI dongle supports 4K Netflix, Prime Video

We noted some Android TV dongles with Amlogic S905Y4 Cortex-A35 processor in January 2021, and one of the first Amlogic S905Y4 devices available in this form factor is the Mecool KD3 with a certified Android 11 TV operating system. The KD3 is equipped with 2GB RAM, 8GB storage, and the minimal design only offers only one HDMI 2.1 port and a Micro USB port used for power, and of course WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. Mecool KD3 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905Y4 quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 processor with an Arm G31-MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 Storage – 8GB eMMC flash Video Output – HDMI 2.1 port up to 4Kp60 Video decoder AV1 MP-10 @ L5.1 up to 4Kx2K @ 60fps VP9 Profile-2 up to 4Kx2K @ 60fps H.265 HEVC MP-10 @ L5.1 up to 4Kx2K @ 60fps AVS2-P2 Profile up to 4Kx2K @ 60fps H.264 AVC HP @ […]

March 21, 2022March 22, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linux 5.17 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 5.17: So we had an extra week of at the end of this release cycle, and I’m happy to report that it was very calm indeed. We could probably have skipped it with not a lot of downside, but we did get a few last-minute reverts and fixes in and avoid some brown-paper bugs that would otherwise have been stable fodder, so it’s all good. And that calm last week can very much be seen from the appended shortlog – there really aren’t a lot of commits in here, and it’s all pretty small. Most of it is in drivers (net, usb, drm), with some core networking, and some tooling updates too. It really is small enough that you can just scroll through the details below, and the one-liner summaries will give a good flavor of what happened last week. Of course, this means […]

January 20, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

MECOOL HomePlus – A 2-in-1 smart speaker and 4K TV box with DVB Tuner

We’ve reviewed MECOOL devices in the past, such as their hybrid set-top boxes with DVB-T2 and/or DVB-S2 tuners. But MECOOL HomePlus (aka MECOOL KA1) packs even more features as it serves as both a 4K Android set-top box with a DVB tuner and a smart speaker compatible with Google Assitant. Based on Amlogic S905X4 Arm Cortex-A55 processor, and equipped with 4GB RAM and 32GB storage, MECOOL HomePlus runs a Google-certified Android TV 11 OS with far-field voice and hands-free TV control. MECOOL HomePlus (KA1) specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X4 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor with Arm G31 MP2 GPU RAM – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash Video Output – HDMI 2.1 port with HDCP 2.2 Video Codes – 4K AV1, VP9, H.265, H.264 Audio Built-in two linear microphone array 2x 5W RMS speakers Tuner – RF antenna input for DVB T/T2/C tuner (optional) Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet RJ45 port Dual-band […]

December 27, 2021February 22, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

UGOOS UT8 PRO – An RK3568 TV box with 8GB RAM, 64GB storage

UGOOS UT8 PRO is the first TV box I’ve seen with a Rockchip RK3568 processor, if we exclude Firefly Station P2 that’s more like an Arm Linux mini PC. The device runs Android 11 and is equipped with 8GB RAM, 64GB eMMC flash, and offers WiFi 6 connectivity. There’s also the “UGOOS UT8” with basically the same features except it ships with 4GB RAM and 32GB flash, and a dual-band WiFi 5 and Bluetooth module. We previously had seen TV boxes and mini PCs with the similar Rockchip RK3566 SoC in T95 Plus, H96 Max, and Zidoo M6, and the only reason for going with RK3568 in UGOOS UT8 (PRO) should be the extra USB 3.0 host/OTG interface, adding to the USB 3.0 host interface found in both RK3566 and RK3568 processors. UGOOS UT8 (PRO) specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 with a quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 1.8/2.0GHz, Arm […]

October 17, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Zidoo M6 preview with Android 11

I’ve now had more time to play with Zidoo M6 Arm mini PC powered by a Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor. I intended to review the device with Ubuntu, but I misunderstood, and Android 11 was pre-installed on the device. I was also told since this model is mainly for industrial control, I might want to focus on performance and connectors rather than how well all functions work. So this will not be a review, but rather a preview of Zidoo M6, since as we’ll see below there’s still more work do to fix all issues. As an industrial platform. some features like Google Services may not be needed or even desirable. First boot and Settings I’ve connected a USB keyboard for screenshots, MINIX NEO A2 Lite air mouse, an HDMI cable to my 4K TV, and the power supply to get started. I also add two AAA batteries to […]

October 12, 2021October 12, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

$55 Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max supports 4K AV1 videos, Wi-Fi 6

Amazon will release new Fire TV Sticks from time to time, and most are only mildly interesting, but the Amazon Fire TV Stick TV 4K Max brings two new interesting features with 4K AV1 video playback, as well as Wi-Fi 6 connectivity which should prevent buffering for higher bitrate 4K videos. The new device builds upon the MediaTek MT8695 based Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K released in 2018, with a more powerful MediaTek MT8696 processor clocked at 1.8 GHz, more memory (2GB vs 1.5 GB), and the same 8GB of storage for the Android 9 based Amazon Fire 7 OS. Amazon claims the new stick is 40% faster, despite a frequency bump from 1.7 GHz to 1.8 GHz only, and MT8696 relies on Cortex-A73 cores Cortex-A55 cores (See comments), instead of the Cortex-A53 cores found in MediaTek MT8695, so the performance improvement probably refers to the faster GPU. Amazon Fire […]