[The Ultimate Amlogic Kodi Box] - I Will Build It

    does this site has any public proposal for hiring its developer, such as how much money one need to spend for supporting a single product for one year, lets say something like this
    kszaq only > $1000 /year
    escalade only > $2000 / year

    team work > $5000 /year
    not so much but its better thank coffee donation, isn't it
    if it does this way, maybe all company or start up would consider ask them for help

    I like the idea but not sure how profitable it is
    The only option is to hire kszaq & his team full time and to kill the open source development, to allow it only on YOUR device that way his builds will support only your devices.
    The reason is because once you do finish your device, it will just be between the known Chinese devices, since the hardware is not that different, and the software support [LibreELEC] is also free, there wont be much of a difference, the disadvantage is that others like Beelink can buy the chips much cheaper due to their order being huge.

    I think you need to aim to the crowd that is waiting for the ODROID-C3 or the RPI4[since the latest versions were released 10 months ago, people are definitely holding themselves back from buying them since they expect something new to pop out soon], something like the ODROID-XU4 with LibreELEC support at a cheaper price [Amlogic instead of Exynos5422]


    OR
    Just a personal fun project, to make just 1 device, and enjoy the free already developed support, with the right quality and price you might even sell few pieces like 100 tops

    Edited once, last by vitalero (December 6, 2016 at 12:13 PM).

    Quote from 2ami


    does this site has any public proposal for hiring its developer, such as how much money one need to spend for supporting a single product for one year, lets say something like this
    kszaq only > $1000 /year
    escalade only > $2000 / year

    team work > $5000 /year
    not so much but its better thank coffee donation, isn't it
    if it does this way, maybe all company or start up would consider ask them for help


    I think you will need to multiply your numbers by a lot :)

    Quote from xsi

    It's not so much that the response is negative, it's more that you dont have any differentiators for the product your pitching. You wont be able to compete on price with the vast array of Chineese made android devices which already offer very good hardware specs for very little money.

    - Amlogic S905/S905X
    - 2gb RAM
    - 16GB Flash
    - 1 Gig Ethernet
    - Dual band wifi

    The above specs can frequently be found in budget China devices for well under 50 USD, the majority of these devices work very well with Kszaqs LibreElec builds once the driver and device trees have been sorted out. The majority of DIY tinkerers will take a punt on a budget device because the prices are so low.

    Then above this you have the likes of Odroid C2 - development boards and Wetek, so where exactly are you pithching yuor product to sit ? Inbetween budget china boxes and the higher priced devices ? Maybe if you can get Widevine Level 1 certification and DRM approvals from Google/netflix etc in a low priced device people will be interested i.e: in budget device terrotiry.

    Xiaomi do have a android box on the market at the minute that offers DRM capibility and Widevine level1 at a decent price, but anyne that follows Xiaomi will know that they make good hardware but theire software support is useless, thats why it's never recommended to buy a Xiaomi android phone....great hardware...rubiish software, very slow reaction to software updates, bug fixes just dont happen a lot of the time...

    Well that is what is troubles me, I can't seems to find a combination of features that will entice people into buying our products. Good manufacturing quality with moderate support doesn't entice people.

    All the products out there seems to be a subsets from the big pool features. We were hoping we could concatenate a list of features and designs from all the best mind here and develop it. There doesn't seems to be a clear winner for a product with 'XYZ' features.

    There is no way we can be profitable if we try to 'manufacture' the old fashion way. That is the regular development, manufacturing, marketing and then to the mass customer.
    Well of course, forking out a huge amount to get it started won't be very profitable, so we thought we could crowd fund it. Unlike some dishonest "inventors" in Kickstarter, we are not scammers. We 100% legit and we do have the mind and resources to build it. We want to build a product that people will use.

    Right at this moment, we are trying to convince our self that it is a feasible business. If we spend USD10k and if we target USD20 profit a per unit, we would have to sell 500 units!
    It seems a product in 'middle' territory between those cheap China boxes and high prices doesn't catch on well.
    [hr]

    Quote from vitalero


    I like the idea but not sure how profitable it is
    The only option is to hire kszaq & his team full time and to kill the open source development, to allow it only on YOUR device that way his builds will support only your devices.
    The reason is because once you do finish your device, it will just be between the known Chinese devices, since the hardware is not that different, and the software support [LibreELEC] is also free, there wont be much of a difference, the disadvantage is that others like Beelink can buy the chips much cheaper due to their order being huge.

    I think you need to aim to the crowd that is waiting for the ODROID-C3 or the RPI4[since the latest versions were released 10 months ago, people are definitely holding themselves back from buying them since they expect something new to pop out soon], something like the ODROID-XU4 with LibreELEC support at a cheaper price [Amlogic instead of Exynos5422]


    OR
    Just a personal fun project, to make just 1 device, and enjoy the free already developed support, with the right quality and price you might even sell few pieces like 100 tops

    Well, I don't have an ODROID-C2 but I do have a RPI2 and RPI3 at home. I like it the RPI series but it always lacking some features. For example RPI3 lacks NAND storage and no bluetooth. RPI2 running Raspbian and trying to browse the web nearly made me throw my keyboard at the TV! ORDOID-C2 is great but it too doesn't have a WIFI. Buying an option for WiFi is pricey.

    What I have in mind is a product that has all these features combined. I feel that a media/server hub that serves as a media center and acts as a future bridge to IoT is the way of the future.
    [hr]

    Quote from 2ami


    does this site has any public proposal for hiring its developer, such as how much money one need to spend for supporting a single product for one year, lets say something like this
    kszaq only > $1000 /year
    escalade only > $2000 / year

    team work > $5000 /year
    not so much but its better thank coffee donation, isn't it
    if it does this way, maybe all company or start up would consider ask them for help

    If kszaq is up for hire for USD1000 a year, I would throw him another free flight ticket to Penang and fly him here for holiday, :).

    Edited once, last by mmk (December 6, 2016 at 2:05 PM).

    My opinion is:

    - Amlogic S905X (because VP9 and HDR)
    - 2gb RAM
    - 8GB Flash (keep the cost low, cheaper then 16GB and it doesn't need that much for a media player)
    - 1 Gig Ethernet (important! there is no S905X with gigabit LAN on the market)
    - ac wifi for those who don't want to bother with cables (maybe it could be an optional part to keep cost down)
    - sd card slot or make sure it could boot from USB
    - minimum 2 USB slot (but 3-4 would be better)
    - noiseless remote (I hate that cheap clicking ones like MINI MX's remote) with dedicated play/pause, stop, ff, rw buttons

    If you make this hardware it will immediately work with existing LE software

    Edited once, last by Pelican (December 6, 2016 at 4:16 PM).

    That sounds exactly like the Beelink minimxiii ii, other than the remote . it comes with 1000Mbps LAN and ac wifi.

    Quote from vpeter


    I think you will need to multiply your numbers by a lot :)

    yup i apologies if i hurt someone or make people thing this was a joke, but i completely didn't mean to degrade someone capacity, i'm fully aware kszaq skill is wonderfull, he's one the good person who dedicate his skill to develop LE for amlogic devices and freely sharing to others, and i dont know wether amlogic gave him special "credit" or not at all, or even many user here feel oblige to donate him coffee although he deserves it, i refer "him" as the representation of the whole fantastic Kodi, LibreElec team, former Openelec team, Alex, Kerber, Codesnake, etc.

    well if one box maker contribute something to him and to Libreelec/Kodi as well, then they could put their brand into their site announcing that this box has supported the development, so all of us would consider purchasing what brand and recommendation the developer here suggested, that's it, instead of nothing what other Chinese boxes does. Well the salary skill is something to consider "really carefully", because we're gonna fight with those cheap Chinese boxes here.

    here's another thought
    * in satellite hobbies there is a lot potential customer, if you could make a little survey how many sat stb sales in a year, you are gonna be surprise. while this amlogic processor has the capability to be a satellite receiver, so why don't you grab their customer, you could even make a proposal to cable provider to become their cable stb designer, imagine cable stb with LE capability, fyi enigma2 sat boxes twice the wetek play prices.

    * another segment, not really audiophile freak, but if you could just make this box as a music and karaoke player, where we could just plug a flash and push play on remote button and the music start playing without the hassle to see menu on the screen, then this could an incredible portable player, i dont want to buy karaoker player, but kodi boxes with karaoker player that's a plus.

    * let the retro games and HTPC thingy become kszaq and LE headache.
    * if you have completed the production, don't forget to list all the potential developer and send them the box for free, let them play with your box as they will share to the world with their finding

    less but not least I've got to say excuse me for my English and USD is not my main language and currency :)

    Edited once, last by 2ami (December 6, 2016 at 5:34 PM).

    Guys, what about if we add a RF transceiver into the unit? Those RFM69HW transceiver are used commonly pairing with Arduino for wireless hobbyist. If we can get OpenHab automation software (Smart Home) to run as well, you guys can use it to control the smart appliances in your home with it. Will this make you guys open your wallet to buy it?

    openHAB
    [hr]

    Quote from Pelican

    Please give a link where I can buy that! I haven't find ANY S905X box with gigabit LAN...

    Well, I think we will be changing the SOC to 905x for the sake of 10bit 4K encoding features. So, yes, Gigabit Ethernet feature as well.

    Edited once, last by mmk (December 8, 2016 at 1:04 AM).

    Quote from 2ami

    * in satellite hobbies there is a lot potential customer, if you could make a little survey how many sat stb sales in a year, you are gonna be surprise. while this amlogic processor has the capability to be a satellite receiver, so why don't you grab their customer, you could even make a proposal to cable provider to become their cable stb designer, imagine cable stb with LE capability, fyi enigma2 sat boxes twice the wetek play prices.

    Openbox Combo box all-in-one in the market already have all these features like Satellite Receiver HD DVB-S2 + DVB-T2 for terresterial, DVB-C for Cable and IPTV through ethernet or wifi.

    Edited once, last by edragon (December 8, 2016 at 1:15 AM).

    Whilst I applaud someone taking the initiative here is the thing. Cheap AML S905 hardware is "good" enough for most.

    Its the Firmware and Software development support that kills most S905 boxes. Simply put. Its virtually non existent for budget Android devices.

    And then we come to the very vital aspect of GPL Open Source Software. That being the AMLogic Kernel and LibreELEC / Kodi Open Source Code.
    Any exclusive code modifications to support commercial LibreELEC boxes, MUST be published for all to see and then everyone else gets to use and improve on your code.

    There is no greater way to piss off a development community than infringing upon Open Source development code.

    Where is your exclusivity then ?

    You need something in a product that no one else has.
    WeTek for example have Widevine Level 1 DRM and Netflix in an easy as, Dual boot box. ODROID release an Open multi purpose platform with high quality componentry with great developer support.

    A good example of recent GPL infringement issues concern Xiaomi HERE

    Edited once, last by wrxtasy (December 8, 2016 at 12:23 PM).

    wrxtasy, thank you. Although we haven't started the project yet but we do feel good when someone does acknowledge our effort to make something better.

    I am not familiar with GPL open source infringement but I will read it up. But if we do develop a hardware and 'if' we managed to work out a deal so that Libreelec supports our hardware, I don't see any reason why we won't want it to be open-source. Many minds makes great work with little effort.

    After all, we don't plan to develop a hardware where we want to control the software behind it. We are a small team and we all have full time jobs, we want to make money but of course we want to do it with as little as effort as possible. And definitely not pissing off the development community along the way.

    But it has been several days since this thread started, there hasn't been any strong indication that there are 'MAGIC' features or options that could make KODI even better. Sure, more ram, bigger NAND or faster Ethernet is great but that seems to be a trivial matter to most users.

    Well, we could throw in an aesthetic value like full anodized aluminium body with bright color that will look great on the user's table top. That is easy to make but is that what user wants? Who knows. Honestly, that is why we need input from the forum user.

    We want to make a great hardware where we try to cram in as much flexibility/features as possible. Even going beyond the media center boundary. Then grows the software support and update it over the web.

    Edited once, last by mmk (December 8, 2016 at 9:20 AM).

    I really think that you are serious. To be honest I wasn't sure at first. Anyway, in my opinion if you want to build something and you want LibreELEC to support your hardware a forum thread is not the right way to go. Create your company, build some kind of product. Read this: Sponsor – LibreELEC
    And get in touch with the LibreELEC Team by email.