S905 builds - general discussion

  • ...the wifi-performance of the Beelink Mini MXIII is poor ( 290MB file @ 1.6MB/s), but I have 10 different WiFi-Networks of my neighbours in the direkt surrounding and the have bad influence on each other, expecially when using my NAS or HD-IPTV. Therefore I always use the LAN-port of my TV-Boxes. Moreover the Gigabit Ethernet of the Beelink Mini MXIII, tested with a large file, is much better in both direction (flash to SAMBA, and SAMBA to flash) with an average transfer rate of 16.2 MB/s.


    Cheers
    Mark

    Yeah
    I dont know if this will be cleaned up by kszaq as it is pretty weak in Android as well.
    No idea what chip is in the MiniMX or whether the drivers are up to date.

    Really surprised you used 64gb sd card with success.
    Specs say up to 32gb. for the Beelink.
    Thanks for the info.

    Edited once, last by kostaman (July 9, 2016 at 1:41 PM).

  • Yes I wondered about this as well! Swaying towards the Beelink at the mo, although I have no money!!

    Dont rush PatrickJB
    I have only one + for the s905 so far and i know it is only early development.
    The s905 produces Richer Colour and that is only evident on my 70 Inch TV
    The s805 is faster loading thumbnails fanart and gui.
    Wifi on our s805 is nearly twice as fast tested same spot in my house.
    4K videos are near useless to me as my TV is not 4K.
    I wont be Buying an UHD 4K TV as i sit over 4 metres away from the screen in my room.
    That means a Human Eye cannot pick the difference between UHD 4K and high def 180P at that distance.
    A lot of people dont realise this but it is a fact.
    Funny enough the best thing about the s905 is the 5.1 Android OS.
    Its a major improvement over Kit-Kat.
    Ive tested a 2gb / 16gb Android s905 running SPMC with repaired permissions for refresh rate adjustment and
    it is really good.
    A 2gb/16gb s905 running LibreELEC off SD card is a great box in my opinion.


  • I agree about not rushing but I figure 64bit has got to be a big improvement over 32bit once bottle-necks have been sorted. I also agree about 4K TV's and as I already have 2 1080p TV's that were quite expensive I won't be rushing out anytime soon to spend that money I don't have!!

    I also suspect that the prices of S905's will drop as many people will be shy of upgarding if their current box does the job. I'm just really picky about picture quality and even though K's recent S805 builds seem to be almost perfect I haven't really had time for a month or two to notice if there;s still the odd frame drop.

    Regarding picture quality I have noticed that my Panasonic Plasma is much better than my LCD which I put down to 600Hz and the quality dithering. Reading about it here, quite complex stuff: Panasonic Plasma - great picture produced by heavy dithering | AVForums

    And for the record:
    Panasonic Plasma 42" five years old
    LG LCD 37"100Hz five years old

    Panasonic really good, probably the peak of the technology before they stopped making them although I did have to get a new A board, long story. The LG is really sharp but 100Hz isn't really good enough in my opinon but on a 37" screen it's OK. I think modern LCD's are upto 400Hz which has to produce a much smoother image and motion if they get the dithering right.

    And lets not talk about all that smart frame creation stuff! I try and try to get used to it but always have to turn it off, it makes me shudder!

  • One word of advice "Dont go looking for frame drops or your eyes will start to trick your brain"
    Look at the screen as if you are watching the movie and not for frame drops. You will send yourself
    mad. I've been there during calibrating my Sharp Aquos when i first got it. I was fixated and then i started to see things that weren't there.
    Obvious frame jumps etc i wont tolerate.
    Kodi 17 wont be supported in Kit-Kat and if that is true ? The s905. is flooding into the chinese seller market.
    Buyer Beware cheaper boards and no Brand Kaos. HA
    S805 boxes will be $20 everyday.


  • Really surprised you used 64gb sd card with success.
    Specs say up to 32gb. for the Beelink.

    ...I had a 64GB and an 8GB MicroSD at home. I read about the Specs "up to 32GB" before, too. But I decided to test it with the 64GB MicroSD first...and it worked
    Unfortunately I forgot to look, if the 64GB are recognized with Android until now. So I`ve to tell you later.

    Cheers
    Mark

  • so have Tronsmart Telos with bables OE written to memory ( not SD card)

    This should work by just grabing the 4 files and putting them in the update folder and reboot ?

    Thanks


  • your problem just like mine, read my post #7, perhap might work on your machine too

    Your solution it has worked perfect. Sorry I hadn't read your post #7 with attention. Thank you very much for your information.
    Maybe it's something to put somewhere to help another people who want to migrate from Alex's OE builds.


  • okay, i see the commits you have done yourself, are all those for running the s905 or did you pull most of them from your s805 tree, or do you use the same 3.14 kernel on both ?


    For S805 there is only 3.10 kernel. I have ported some commits forward from 3.10 kernel and introduced some fixes for 3.14 to run properly. Some commits I authored myself, others I take from these repos:



    Also i don't quite understand where your 3.14 source comes from (codesnake fork?) and more important where do all those other older commits come from ? Is codesnake actually updating amlogic kernel with mainline patches ?


    This is the kernel base I am using right now: Commits · surkovalex/linux · GitHub

    For what I know from Surkovalex, this source comes from Amlogic SDK.

    Codesnake has not made his S905 public yet.


    Works great on my QuickPlay MXQ pro thanks kszaq.

    Any chance of Bluetooth in the future?

    The Bluetooth drivers are already in and it's working on my box. If you can provide me with log from your box, I can have a look if this can be fixed. It would also be nice if you can start a new thread for Bluetooth-related issues. I undestand that BT works on Android?


    so have Tronsmart Telos with bables OE written to memory ( not SD card)

    This should work by just grabing the 4 files and putting them in the update folder and reboot ?

    Thanks

    No, you have to apply aml_autoscript using toothpick method. If you don't want to lose your data, do the following:

    • download NAND installation zip and unpack it to an SD card
    • delete factory_update_param.aml from the card
    • insert card to the box and apply toothpick method
    • your box will boot to recovery - install the ZIP from recovery menu



    Your solution it has worked perfect. Sorry I hadn't read your post #7 with attention. Thank you very much for your information.
    Maybe it's something to put somewhere to help another people who want to migrate from Alex's OE builds.

    Yeah, I put that to instruction in OP. Thanks.

    Edited once, last by kszaq (July 9, 2016 at 5:06 PM).

  • kszaq

    Congrats with a generic s905 LE !!!

    If eventually you can post build instructions that would be awesome.

    For now I run (sometimes own built) 'alex' OE on Mini-MX-G.
    That firmware supports pvr.hts and thvheadend for my USB DVB-T stick.
    It's the dvb_usb_v2/dvb_usb_af9035 module FYI. I hope to migrate to LE, but not without same DVB-T comfort.
    If build instructions are available I might be able build such support myself.

    have a nice day

    Edited once, last by Nofan Tasi (July 10, 2016 at 1:30 AM).

  • Cant get this to boot on my mxq pro 4k v1 blue board. This board has an issue with the toothpick button (not soldered), i can get into recovery via adb or ssh and had my own custom OE from alexs sources.

    When installed from SD or flashing from recovery i always get the below not sure how else to install aml_autoscript from the zip

    Code
    Error in mount_flash: mount_part: Unknown filesystem


    Edit:

    I flashed back to Android put aml_autoscript and libreelec....update.zip on SD card (without factory_update_param.aml), launched Backup&Upgrade app in android selected the libreelec.zip and proceeded with the upgrade. Box rebooted and started flashing and once complete it booted LE successfully.

    Edited once, last by JonSnow (July 10, 2016 at 7:59 AM).

  • The issues i have with this build:

    1) wiping data/cache via recovery = no more LE and drops you to the LE shell instead, which explains my above post.
    2) remote is not 100% functional however all buttons worked 100% with android prior to flashing. Now only OK, arrow keys, home buttons work and Back and volume +/- do not do anything once on LE. Copying the remote.conf from my working OE build (based on alex sources) or the remote.conf from alexs github for the mxq = nothing works dead remote. Anyway to fix the back button?
    3) power off and reboot work when using the Kodi soft buttons, after selecting 'power off system' the box powers off and turns back on when the power button is pressed on the remote. However if you press the power button on the remote while the box is already on it looks like it powers off but no longer powers back on with the remote. I suspect the device goes into suspend and gets stuck in limbo which was the same issue with all OE builds i tried. I'm hoping suspend can be disabled completely and once you press the power button on the remote it just powers off the box instead. Suspend seems useless and breaks things so hoping this can be addressed in a future build.

    I will test hd audio 3d etc in the coming days.

    Edited once, last by JonSnow (July 10, 2016 at 8:19 AM).


  • If eventually you can post build instructions that would be awesome.

    For now I run (sometimes own built) 'alex' OE on Mini-MX-G.
    That firmware supports pvr.hts and thvheadend for my USB DVB-T stick.
    It's the dvb_usb_v2/dvb_usb_af9035 module FYI. I hope to migrate to LE, but not without same DVB-T comfort.
    If build instructions are available I might be able build such support myself.

    have a nice day

    The driver for your DVB stick is included in my build although I can't promise it'll work. I suspect if it's working with Alex's build it should also work with mine. For the next release I will include DVB drivers from Linux Backports which should broaden DVB support a lot.

    If you want to build yourself, grab source code (link is there for every build) and follow build instructions from LE Wiki. You should build for PROJECT=S905 ARCH=aarch64.


    The issues i have with this build:

    1) wiping data/cache via recovery = no more LE and drops you to the LE shell instead, which explains my above post.


    Not an issue. This is explained in OP.


    2) remote is not 100% functional however all buttons worked 100% with android prior to flashing. Now only OK, arrow keys, home buttons work and Back and volume +/- do not do anything once on LE. Copying the remote.conf from my working OE build (based on alex sources) or the remote.conf from alexs github for the mxq = nothing works dead remote. Anyway to fix the back button?


    Please post your remote.conf from Android (I assume that it worked 100% in Android?) and tell me which Alex's build you were using. I will look into the files and include more remaps to make your remote functional.


    3) power off and reboot work when using the Kodi soft buttons, after selecting 'power off system' the box powers off and turns back on when the power button is pressed on the remote. However if you press the power button on the remote while the box is already on it looks like it powers off but no longer powers back on with the remote. I suspect the device goes into suspend and gets stuck in limbo which was the same issue with all OE builds i tried. I'm hoping suspend can be disabled completely and once you press the power button on the remote it just powers off the box instead. Suspend seems useless and breaks things so hoping this can be addressed in a future build.


    This is a known issue and I'm looking into how this can be fixed. I can't promise I'll be able to make it work for the next build but for sure at some point in the future it'll work.

  • k installed this on a mxq pro 1gb/8gb and a t95n mini m8s pro 2gb/8gb

    Both flash and boot fine

    i have the t95n running at the mo and seems spot on (i think a few buttons are not working but will get the keymap editor addon later and see if that will sort)

    thank you kszaq


  • The issues i have with this build:

    1) wiping data/cache via recovery = no more LE and drops you to the LE shell instead, which explains my above post.
    2) remote is not 100% functional however all buttons worked 100% with android prior to flashing. Now only OK, arrow keys, home buttons work and Back and volume +/- do not do anything once on LE. Copying the remote.conf from my working OE build (based on alex sources) or the remote.conf from alexs github for the mxq = nothing works dead remote. Anyway to fix the back button?
    3) power off and reboot work when using the Kodi soft buttons, after selecting 'power off system' the box powers off and turns back on when the power button is pressed on the remote. However if you press the power button on the remote while the box is already on it looks like it powers off but no longer powers back on with the remote. I suspect the device goes into suspend and gets stuck in limbo which was the same issue with all OE builds i tried. I'm hoping suspend can be disabled completely and once you press the power button on the remote it just powers off the box instead. Suspend seems useless and breaks things so hoping this can be addressed in a future build.

    I will test hd audio 3d etc in the coming days.

    For point 2: I've never had an issue copying the remote.conf from the Android firmware that came with the box to OE/LE - strange that your remote isn't working 100%. You can also try installing 'Keymap Editor' program addon from Kodi repository. You can map/re-map most of your remote keys - worth a go - takes seconds to install. I use it on OE/LE and most of my remote buttons are now mapped to useful functions within Kodi.

    Edited once, last by ukmark62 (July 10, 2016 at 12:08 PM).

  • 7.0.2.002 Work-in-progress build 002
    7.0.2.002

    Commits from 7.0.2.001 to 7.0.2.002: Comparing 7.0.2.001...7.0.2.002 · kszaq/LibreELEC.tv · GitHub

    Changelog:

    • fixed frame rate automation - now it can be switched in Kodi and with automation turned on 23.976fps videos play smoothly
    • added media drivers from Linux backports - this includes all DVB drivers from 4.4.2 kernel
      Please note: support for DVB drivers is highly experimental, I appreciate your feedback on this
    • small adjustments in Broadcom WiFi driver parameters to improve performance a little bit

    Edited once, last by kszaq (July 13, 2016 at 9:09 AM).