CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 13, 2015April 13, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 31 Comments

How to Program STMicro STM8S $1 Board in Linux

In January, I discovered there was such thing as a one dollar development board based on STMicro STM8S103F3P6 8-bit MCU with 1KB SRAM, 8KB flash, and 640 bytes EEPROM, some GPIOs as well as I2C, UART, SPI, ADC, and PWM signals. Links to documentation and source code were provided, but development tools were only Windows based. However, one of my reader informed me SDCC (Small Devices C Compiler) supported STM8, and development in Linux should be feasible. So I decided to buy the board on eBay for $1.62, as well as an ST_link V2 programmer for STM8 / STM32 for $4.52 in order to flash the firmware. The board came pretty quickly, i.e. within 2 to 3 weeks. But due to a lost package, the programmer took nearly 3 months to reach me, as the seller had to re-send after I failed to receive it within 2 months. It comes […]

April 13, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Perseus Video Codec Claims 2 to 3 Times Better Compression than H.265 using Legacy Hardware

H.265 (aka HEVC) is supposed to half the video bandwidth / bitrate required compared to H.264 by delivering the same quality, and VP9 should also offer equivalent compression, but it’s just not as broadly supported in media processors. UK based V-Nova claims its Perseus codec can even beat that, by providing 2 to 3 times better compression than H.265 thanks to a new approach to video encoding, that allow the codec to leverage existing hardware, meaning it can be encoded with existing computers, and decoded by leveraging the CPU and GPU parallel processing capabilities in existing mobile & computing devices. Perseus codec highlights: Highly efficient – >3x compression vs. state-of-the-art in practical use cases. Benefits further increase with increasing resolutions & frame rates. Extremely fast – Significant processing time reduction thanks to massively parallel architecture. Designed to take advantage of modern hardware Multi-scale (continuously hierarchical) – Single bit stream for […]

April 12, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

ARDHAT adds Arduino Shield Compatibility, an ISM Band Radio to Raspberry Pi and ODROID-C1 Boards (Crowdfunding)

NinjaBlocks created Pi Crust add-ons board adding a 433MHz radio and Arduino compatibility to the Raspberry Pi Model A & B a few years ago, but the product has since been removed from their store. But a startup called ubIQio has now created a similar product compatible with Raspberry Pi Model A+, B+ and B2, as well as ODROID-C1 which also comes with a 40-pin R-Pi header. The ARDHAT board is a HAT compatible add-on board with an Atmel MCU, Arduino headers, as well as an optional long range mesh ISM radio (433, 868 and 915 MHz) and various sensors. There are four versions of the board: Basic Ardhat, Ardhat-I, and Ardhat-W and Ultra, which share the following specifications: MCU – Atmel MCU @ 16MHz Headers and I/Os Arduino compatible header accepting 5V Arduino shields 12 ch PWM O/P, 6 ch analog I/P Real-time Clock Programmable Power/Navigation combo switch Programmable […]

April 11, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Open Hour Chameleon RK3288 TV Box Gets (Partial) DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD HDMI Pass-through Support

People owning AV receivers capable of outputting 7.1 channels or more have had a hard time finding Android TV boxes that supports HD audio pass-through via HDMI. Many devices can pass through 5.1 codec like DTS or Dolby Digital (AC3 / E-AC3), but so far, none of the boxes I’ve tried could manage content with DTS-HD (MA / HR) and Dolby TrueHD with 8 channels properly. The one that came close was Zidoo X9 with support for Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and 7.1, but it downmixes 7.1 channels to 5.1 channels. So the only cost effective options to get proper 7.1 channel pass-through were Intel based mini PCs running Linux such as Asus Chromebox M004U or Intel NUCs. But recently, I’ve seen some progress. For example, yesterday Cloud Media released a new firmware for their Open Hour Chameleon media player based on Rockchip RK3288 processor. Their Android 4.4.2 firmware (version 1.0.23) […]

April 10, 2015May 6, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

How to Compare Systems Benchmarked with Phoronix Test Suite

Phoronix Test Suite is an open source benchmark for Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows & BSD operating systems, but in practice it’s mostly used for Linux OS since other benchmarks solutions are available in Windows, while choices are more limited in Linux. There are many benchmarks to choose from, and you can select the ones you want by running a “batch-benchmarks” from the command line. I’ve done so when testing performance of ODROID-XU3 Lite and Cubieboard4 boards in Ubuntu, and once the tests are completed, the results will be automatically uploaded to openbenchmarking.org. From there, it’s quite easy to compare recent results as you’ll get an “add to comparison” option on the site, and you can pick a few results. You can select a few systems, and then click on “Compare Results” to get a side-by-side comparison. If you want to compare your system to an existing system, you […]

April 10, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Mediatek LinkIt Assist 2502 Open Source Hardware Board Targets Wearables and IoT Applications

After LinkIt ONE, Mediatek Labs has introduced a new IoT development kit based on their Aster M2502 ARM7 processor with LinkIt Assist 2502 comprised of AcSiP MT2502A IoT SiP Core module, a 802.11b/g/n module, a GNSS module, and an exchangeable 240×240 16-bit color capacitive touch LCM Board. The AcSiP module can also be purchased separately, so you could use LinkIt Assist 2502 board for early development, because moving to your custom hardware based on AcSiP MT2502A module. LinkIt Assist 2502A specifications: MCU – AcSiP AI2502S05 module with MT2502A (Aster) ARM7 EJ-STM processor @ 260MHz, 4MB RAM, 16MB flash Display – 240×240 LCD module; 16-bit color depth; transflective; based on ST7789S driver IC. Connectivity Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n via AcSiP CW01S module based on MT5931 SoC Bluetooth 2.1 SPP and 4.0 GATT dual mode (part of MT2502A) GPS via AcSiP CW03S module based on MT3332 chip supporting GPS, GLONASS, and BeiDou. GSM […]

April 9, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Mygica ATV586 Amlogic S805 Android TV Box Comes with DVB-T2 or ATSC Tuner

One of the first quad core Android DVB-T2 receiver was VideoStrong K1 that now sells for $80 on Aliexpress, but there’s now some competition from Geniatech, with the same Amlogic S805 processor, thanks to Mygica ATV586 Android TV box featuring either a DVB-T2 or ATSC tuner. ATV586 Specifications: SoC – Amlogic S805 quad core ARM Cortex A5 @ 1.5GHz with quad core Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 1 GB DDR3 Storage – 4 GB NAND flash + micro SD slot (up to 32GB) Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi Video & Audio Output – HDMI 1.4 Video Codec – H.265, H.264 etc.. up to 1080p60 Tuner DVB-T & DVB-T2 standard with single input terminal (75 Ohm); Frequency – 48.25 – 863.25 MHz; Bandwidth: 6, 7 or 8 MHz ATSC also supported (with a different tuner) USB – 2x USB 2.0 ports Misc – IR sensor Power Supply – 5V/2A […]

April 9, 2015April 10, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

ALi M3733 Dual Core Processor Finds its Way into DVB-T2 & DVB-S2 Android and Linux Set-top Boxes

Ten years ago, I remember ALi was in big player in DVD players, but I had not much heard about them since then. Thanks to a ARMdevices.net I found out they are still around, and their latest Ali M3733 dual core ARM Cortex A9 processor will soon be found in DVB set-top boxes like Uyesee L100T2 with a DVB-T2 tuner, or EKT DSD7045 DVB-S2 hybrid set-top box. The former is running Android 4.4, but the latter is likely based on Linux since it only has 512MB NAND flash. The EKT receiver runs SolidTV middleware with HbbTV, conditional access, and more features, and it does look like an interesting product, but I’ll focus on the Uyesse for this post: SoC – ALi M3733 dual core Cortex A9 processor with a dual core Mali-400 GPU System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 (Option: 1GB) Storage – 4GB NAND flash (Options: 8 to 32GB) […]