TV box News - Page 88 of 107 - CNX Software

April 9, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments

Rockchip RK3288 based Android Mini PCs and TV Boxes Are Starting to Show Up (Wholesale)

Rockchip RK3288 based devices should be available soon. At the end of last month, I read Pipo was about to introduce RK3288 Tablets at the Hong Kong electronics fair this month, and yesterday I’ve been informed some RK3288 mini PCs and TV Boxes had started to appear on Alibaba. RK3288 HDMI TV Dongle (D368) D368 mini PC is said to come with the following specs according to a product page on Alibaba: SoC – Rockchip RK3288 quad core ARM Cortex-A17 with Mali-T7xx 3D GPU (OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 /3.0,and OpenCL 1.1) System Memory – 2GB DDR3 (Optional:1GB) Storage – 8GB NAND Flash (Options: 4GB and 16GB), micro SD card (up to 32GB) Video & Audio Output – HDMI 1.4a (Resolution 4K and 1080p60 support) Connectivity – Dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and 802.11ac, optional Bluetooth 4.0. Video Codecs Decode – H.265, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4,H.263, H.264, AVS, VC-1, RV, VP6/VP8, Sorenson Spark, MVC […]

April 4, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

New ARM Set-Top Box SoCs – Sigma Designs SMP8734 / SMP8756, STMicro STiH312 / StiH412, and Entropic EN7310 (Videos)

Broadcom and STMicro has the two companies that dominate the set-top box SoC market with respectively 44.7% and 34% market share by revenue in 2012, followed by Ali, a distant third at 6.9%. Other companies include Entropic, who has acquired Trident Systems, (4.4%) and Sigma Designs (1.4%) which has suffered in recent years. MIPS was the predominant architecture in the STB SoC market, but with the advent of Android, most companies have announced ARM based STB SoC for better compatibility with Android apps. TV Connect 2014, an event gathering stokeholder involved in Connected TV such as STB manufacturers, content providers, and SoC vendors, took place on March 18-20 in London, and Charbax, armdevices.net, interviewed three companies who promoted their latest ARM based STB SoCs: Sigma Designs with their SMP5734 & SMP8756/58 SoCs featuring single or dual cores Cortex A9 and a Mali-400 GPU STMicro with their STiH312 Cannes and STiH412 Monaco […]

April 3, 2014April 3, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Amazon Launches $99 Fire TV Android Media Player Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon Quad Core SoC

After few months ago, news broke that Amazon was working on an Android STB. The company has now launched Amazon Fire TV media player featuring Qualcomm Snapdragon 8064 quad core Krait processor with 2GB RAM, and supporting Amazon Prime Video, as well as a host of other popular online video and audio streaming services such as YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo, Pandora, and more. Let’s go through the specifications first: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 8064 quad core Krait 300 processor @ 1.7 GHz with Adreno 320 GPU. (Part of Snapdragon 600 family) System Memory – 2GB LPDDR2 @ 533 MHZ Storage – 8 GB internal Video Output – HDMI 1.4b output, w/HDCP. Resolution: 720p and 1080p up to 60fps Audio Output – HDMI, optical SPDIF Video Codecs – H.263, H.264, MPEG4-SP, VC1 Audio Codecs – AAC, AC-3, E-AC-3, HE-A, PCM, MP3, Dolby Digital Plus, 5.1 surround sound, 2ch Stereo and HDMI […]

March 27, 2014March 27, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

Review of Mele X1000 Blu-Ray Android TV Box (Telechips TCC8935)

Mele X1000 is an Android media player based on Telechips TCC8935 dual core Cortex A9 that is said to support Blu-ray video playback. You can refer to Mele X1000 specs for more technical details, as well as my previous Mele X1000 Unboxing post for pictures of the device, as well as the PCB. Today I’ll review Mele X1000, by showing off the user interface, and going through the different settings, test video playback including a Blu-ray ISO, wi-fi performance, and report whether all other features such as Bluetooth, USB mass storage, USB webcam, etc… work as expected. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions This media player comes with an infrared remote and corresponding AAA batteries, but during most the tests I’ve actually switched to Mele F10 RF remote (not included) as it’s just more convenient to navigate menus, and I’ve also test an Android Remote app compatible with the device, […]

March 6, 2014March 6, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

AMLogic S802 TV Boxes Board Pictures

AMLogic S802 Android TV Boxes are currently available for pre-order, and are expected to ship by the end of the month. Last time I wrote Tronsmort Vega S89 and Eny ES8 featuring the latest quad core SoC from AMLogic. Geekbuying currently has test samples for both Vega S89 and M8 (similar to ES8), has open them, and taken some pictures of the boards. The good news, if you want to tinker, is that both of them appear to give relatively access to the UART port. Tronsmart Vega S89 Board There are two models: Vega S89 and Vega S89 Elite. The former is the high-end version with dual band Wi-Fi (2.4/5.0GHz) and 16 GB flash, and the latter only supports 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and comes with 8GB flash. Price: $120 and $105. The serial port appears to be on the left side of the board (TBC), just above the two USB […]

March 5, 2014November 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

The New $50 Roku Streaming Stick Drops MHL, Gets a micro USB Port, and a Wi-Fi Remote

The first Roku Streaming Stick was announced early 2012 with an HDMI/MHL port. It turns out MHL did not take as Roku and others, including myself, expected, and even today MHL is not a prominent feature in new TVs, and seldom listed in the specifications. So they’ve just announced a new Roku Streaming Stick, HDMI version, that can be powered via the USB port of your TV, or a standard USB power adapter. The processor and memory have not been disclosed, but we can assume it’s probably based on a Broadcom processor. The rest of the specs are as follows: Video Output – HDMI (720p or 1080p) Audio Output – HDMI with 7.1 and 5.1 surround pass-through support Connectivity – 802.11 dual-band (a/b/g/n compatible) with WEP, WPA, and WPA2 support Misc – Status light, reset button Power Consumption – Less than 2W (typical) when streaming HD video Power Input – […]

March 4, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

AMLogic to Unveil M805 & S805 Quad Core Cortex A5 SoCs with Mali-450 GPU

As we are still waiting for retail availability of Android TV boxes and mini PCs based on AMLogic S802 quad core processor, rumors have started to surface about another quad core processor by the company called S805 to be used in media players, and probably it’s equivalent M805 for tablets. M803 and M805 were already part of AMLogic roadmap and were said to feature quad core CPU and GPU. It turns out M805 and S805 will feature four ARM Cortex A5 cores @ 1.5 GHz combined with a quad core ARM Mali-450 GPU (Mali-450MP2 ?). That means S805 will be cost down version of S802 with four cortex A5 cores instead of four Cortex A9r4 cores, and Mali-450MP2 instead of Mali-450MP6. The new processor will also support hardware decoded of H.265 @ 1080p, and embed a Gigabit Ethernet controller. If the features listed in the roadmap are still correct, we […]

February 25, 2014February 25, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

$65 Cheerlink B712 and B716 Android Media Players Powered by Actions Semi ATM7029

Actions Semi ATM7029 is a quad core ARM Cortex A5 class SoC usually found in low cost Android tablets. A manufacturer, which might be Egotronics, has decided to make Android STBs with the processor, and B712 and B716 are now sold for about $65 on dx.com under the brand Cheerlink. This price should make them one of the cheapest full size quad core Android TV boxes on the market, albeit with much lower performance compared to devices based on Rockchip RK3188 or AllWinner A31. Cheerlink B712/B716 specifications: SoC – Actions Semi ATM7029 Quad Core ARM Cortex A5 @ 1.2 GHz with Vivante GC1000 Plus GPU System Memory – 1GB SDRAM DDR3 (512MB as an option) Storage – 4 GB NAND Flash (8GB/16GB as options) + microSD slot up to 32GB Video & Audio Output – HDMI 1.4A, AV (3.5mm jack) Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi USB – 2x […]