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Google ADT-3 is a Developer-Focused TV Box for Android TV on Android 10

Back in 2014, Google killed Google TV and announced Android TV, and as a result, introduced ADT-1, the first developer kit specifically designed for Android TV.  Since then ADT-2 was introduced in 2018 in an HDMI stick form factor, and now the company has announced the launch of Android TV on Android 10 together with ADT-3 devkit targetting Android TV app development for Android 10. The “developer kit” just looks like a standard TV box, although It’s really tiny and comes with what looks like a voice remote control. Google did not provide the full specifications, but ADT-3 is equipped with a quad-core Cortex A53 processor coupled with 2GB DDR3 memory, and supports 4Kp60 HDR video playback and output via an HDMI 2.1 output port. That probably means the box is powered by an Amlogic S905X2 processor since few other TV box SoCs combine 4x A53 cores with HDMI 2.1. […]

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Beelink GT-King and GT-King Pro Android 9.0 TV Boxes to Ship with an 8GB CoreELEC MicroSD Card

Beelink GT-King is a TV box based on Amlogic S922X Cortex-A73/A55 processor, while GT-King Pro is an updated version with Amlogic S922X-H processor that adds Dolby and DTS licenses. Both models ship with Android 9.0 operating system. But Kodi 18.4 based CoreELEC 9.2.0 Linux OS released last September supports various Amlogic S905X2/S922X/A311D devices including Khadas VIM3 SBC and Beelink GT-King TV boxes. That means you should be able to download CoreELEC and flash it to a MicroSD card to run either Android 9.0 from the eMMC flash or CoreELEC on the SD card. But Beelink posted on Freaktab forum that they’d ship Beelink GT-Link and GT-King Pro TV with an 8GB MicroSD Card pre-loaded with CoreLEC to allow for dual-boot systems. So you’d know even need to do anything. One way to select between CoreELEC and Android is to insert or remove the MicroSD card before booting, but it’s not […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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MINIX NEO T5 Google Android TV Certified Media Hub Launched for $85

MINIX has been pretty busy in the last few months with the launch of their NEO J50C-4 (64GB) and NEO G41V-4 mini PCs, and the company has now just officially launched MINIX NEO T5, their first Google Android TV certified media hub for $84.90 on Aliexpress or Amazon. MINIX NEO T5 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X2 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage –  16GB eMMC 5.1 flash, microSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.1 output up to 4K @ 60 Hz with HDR10+ support Audio – 3.5mm audio jack, optical S/PDIF, HDMI digital audio; Dolby Digital support; Dolby TrueHD / Atmos and DTS-HD pass-through is also supported Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band 802.11ac WiFi 5 2×2 MIMO, Bluetooth 4.2 USB – 1x USB 2.0 port, 1x USB 3.0 port Power Supply – 5V/2A NEO T5 ships with an IR remote […]

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Amlogic S805X2, S905X4, and S908X AV1 Full HD/4K/8K Media Processors to Launch in 2020

AOMedia AV1 open, royalty-free video codec has come a long way since it was first introduced in 2016, and we’ve recently seen AV1 hardware video decoding integrated into higher-end STB SoCs such as Broadcom BCM7218X or Realtek RTD1311/RTD1319 processors. But AV1 codec is also coming to lower-cost media processors as shown by Amlogic 2020 roadmap below. We should expect at least three new AV1 capable processors in 2020. Amlogic S905X4 Specifications: CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor GPU Arm Mali-G31MP2 Video 4Kp75 H.265, VP9, AVS2 4Kp120 AV1 HDR support Smart Audio Voice Activity Detector (VAD) Asynchronous Sample Rate conversion (ASRC) Equalizer (EQ) Dynamic Range Compression (DRC) 2x DSP for audio front end (AFE) and wake word engine (WWE) Amlogic S905X4 looks like an update to Amlogic S905X3  with AV1 codec support, and maybe extra audio features. Amlogic S908X We’ve previously seen Rockchip RK3588 with Cortex-A76 / A55 cores, 8K video […]

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Khadas VIM3L (Amlogic S905D3) Benchmarks, Settings & System Info

Khadas VIM3L is the first Amlogic S905D3 SBC on the market and is sold as a lower-cost alternative to the company’s VIM3 board with a focus on the HTPC / media player market. Shenzhen Wesion was kind enough to send me a sample for review, and I’ll start by checking out benchmarks and system information in Android 9.0 Pie operating system. I also plan to perform a more detailed review with Android 9.0 and CoreELEC with a focus on media playback. I received the bare board only, and the first thing I did was to install it the heatsink I received for VIM3 and in turn, install it in the acrylic case. The company told me the heatsink is not really necessary “for normal purpose using like watch TV”, but it should be installed for performance tests and heavy workloads. I’d still recommend purchasing the heatsink to make sure it […]

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X96 Air Amlogic S905X3 Android 9.0 TV Box Sells for $30 and Up

Amlogic S905X3 is the first Arm Cortex-A55 processor from the company, and we’ve seen it does not differ that much from the previous generation in our S905X3 vs S905X2 comparison. The Cortex-A55 cores have similar performance compared to Cortex-A53 cores., but S905X3 SoC does provide support for DDR4 memory up to 3200 MHz which may improve 4K HDR video playback and 3D gaming, as well a 1.2 TOPS NPU for AI workloads such as voice recognition. The first Amlogic S905X3 TV box launch we covered was Beelink GT2 Mini with price starting at just under $50 for the 2GB/16GB version and $70 with 4GB and 64GB RAM. Prices have now somewhat come down, but if you’re looking for a cheaper model X96 Air is now offered on Aliexpress for $29.39 including shipping with 2GB RAM, 16GB flash, while the 4GB/32GB variant is sold for $38.01, and up to $40.95 with […]

Intel Arc Graphics Technology
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Beelink GT-King Pro Android TV Box Features Amlogic S922X-H Processor with Dolby and DTS Licenses

Amlogic offers variants of their processors depending on whether they come with Dolby and/or DTS licenses. For example, we’ve recently seen Amlogic S922XJ with Dolby license only for the upcoming MINIX NEO N22XJ TV box. Beelink has used another variant, namely Amlogic S922X-H, with both Dolby and DTS licenses in their GT-King Pro TV box as an upgrade to their Beelink GT-King TV box which Karl reviewed a few weeks ago. Beelink GT-King Pro specifications: SoC – Amlogic S922X-H hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 4x Arm Cortex A73 cores @ up to 2.21 GHz, 2x Arm Cortex A53 cores @ 1.8 GHz, Arm Mali-G52MP6 GPU; 12nm manufacturing process System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage – 64GB eMMC flash, SD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.1 up to 4K @ 75 Hz Video – AVE-10 engine with 4K UHD H.265/VP9/AVS2 video decoding up to 60 fps, Dolby Vision, Advanced HDR10, […]

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AFRd Auto Frame Rate Daemon Works with 64-bit Amlogic Processors

Automatic frame rate switching in TV box ensures video output matches the video frame rate in order to avoid skipped frames (judder) from time to time, and makes the videos much smoother to watch, especially to trained eyes. The problem is that the feature is not always implemented, and/or does not work for all apps. AFRd auto frame rate daemon aims to solve this issue by automatically switching video output to match the video framerate – e.g. 23.976 fps or 59.94 fps – on Android TV boxes powered by one of Amlogic 64-bit processors, be it S905, S905X, S905X2, S912, S905W and other more recent Armv8 processors from the company. Developed by Andrey Zabolotny (anpaza), AFRd is Linux daemon can be linked to either bionic for Android, or glibc for Linux operating systems, and the source code can be found on Github. It relies on two techniques to detect the […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC