Posts by Shoog

Quote from baalho

Thanks for your insight Shoog.

Definitely gonna pick between VIM3 or N2 if I were to get one now.

N2 has a special deal on a media pack with CE on SD at the moment, makes it very attractive.

Shoog

It would have been useful if the announcement were a little bit more informative, ie only Kernel based dvb drivers are enabled.

Shoog

It seems that your box is arriving at end of life and hasn't got the chops to do anything but the basics. Its time to upgrade.

Forget about the S912 because even though its a good piece of hardware its not well supported by Linux and has been dropped by AMLogic for future support.
The latest S905D3 looks to be a good bet at a reasonable cost. Khadas have released a nice board which will do all you could need for the next few years at a very good price.

Khadas VIM3L | Amlogic S905D3 HTPC (SBC)

They have released a media pack version with case and installed CE.

If you want better performance and a longer useful life then one of the S922 boards such as the VIM3 or N2 is the best thats available at the moment. Any of the Android boxes are tricky in terms of getting them to run anything but Android so are best avoided. The Beelink gt-king has definitely had hardware issues with its LAN port killing its transfer speeds. This will probably get resolved in later iterations but each board upgrade has the potential to break software support.

Shoog

Does this release support the VIM2 dTV board ?

Shoog

This maybe informative:

Webgrab+ addon - Add-ons - CoreELEC Forums

Shoog

Coreelec is listed as not supported by this repo so will not download addons directly. However if you download the addon zip file directly to your CE box and install from ZIP it works.
The latest versions of MONO and Webgrab+ are broken in CE so you have to use archive versions to get them working and then disable auto-update on the addons to ensure they don't update and break.

Shoog

Waveform would unexpectedly lock up my system on a very regular basis. This has been the state of affairs for over a year at this stage. I think the code must be well broken and not well maintained.

I use Shadertoy exclusively now and it never really gives me trouble apart from not launching initially until I access the GUI and then cancel the GUI, which brings it in.

Shoog

Am I correct in saying that there was a decision to pull MONO - which in turn has killed webgrab+ ?

Shoog

The Odroid N2 is the best available hardware in the AMLogic boards and it works with CE for full functionality. A bargain if you are based in the USA but a bit more expensive in Europe. Until mainline support is achieved you can forget LE on any of the ARM chips except for the Pi's.

Shoog

Quote from lumpi

I'm having an s912 box collecting dust i tried the other elec with it but I have to say I'm not impressed. With 3.14 it limps ahead, stability is far from what I'd call so. My only chance is mainline with panfrost period. 3.14 might work for 905 but not for ALL AML boxen.

So please stop the FUD and appreciate what the devs are doing in their scarce spare time. Or use what better fits your needs, but let us enjoy the world revolve regardless there's an ancient 3.14 rotting alive some place out there.

I don't know what universe you are in but I have been using it on a S912 for over a year at this stage, since version 8.95.4 its been as good as any of my other media boxes, with a few occasional regressions which were quickly been corrected. i think its yourself who has the bad case of FUD.

Shoog

I think its totally wrong to say there is no short term future in 3.14
I think even those using the 3.14 kernel want us to move forward to mainline support - but as has been clearly stated that doesn't work yet and is unlikely to be fully mature for a good while yet - so hang all those AML user out to dry.
As I said it didn't have to develop this way - that was a policy decision that LE made all on its own.

If Mainline support where the great bugbear that is claimed why release a Rpi4 none mainline Leia build of LE - its simply inconsistent and that tells the lie.

Shoog

Quote from powerarmour

It's not working though, that's the point. Digitial passthrough has been broken for quite some time on the LE 3.14 kernel images.

Obviously the images for the other team are fine, but LE should be about running as close to mainline as possible IMHO.

Digital passthrough can work perfectly on 3.14. As to the other, its a matter of opinion. I don't think its the right decision to drop support for a platform before the replacement is ready for prime time (especially when there were people who offered to maintain support in the transition) - but thats just my opinion. Duty of care to your loyal user base and all that.

Shoog

Quote from lumpi

Shoog I hope you are kidding - 3.14 in 2019... Who will keep the security patches coming? Amlogic?

This is a bit of a red herring since anyone hacking your media box can what "steel your media", "crash your box", "hack across your badly setup SAMBA network". The security benefits a newer kernel will bring will not prevent any of these scenario's from happening. Get serious.

There are literally millions of Android devices running these kernels and the sky isn't falling in on those users.

Shoog

Quote from powerarmour

That's fair enough, but it's easy to see how folks lose hope with this Amlogic hardware.

I'm just glad we won't see yet another 3.14 kernel release.

Why ? If another 3.14 kernel release works why should you care ?

Amlogic hardware offers the best bang for buck relationship on the market and yes there still is software that fully supports it.

As a developer I can understand the desire to0 move on to better things - but as a user you are just shooting yourself in the foot.

Shoog

Quote

This would be an issue on N2 because s922x SoC supports h.264 4k only up to 30fps. This is from s922x datasheet:

H.265 HEVC [email protected] up to 4Kx2K@60fps
H.264 AVC [email protected] up to 4Kx2K@30fps

So the N2 would half cut it.

It seems that the only reliable tick all boxes solution would be Intel based. No point buying an ARM board/box without the prospects of support.
However - when you can demonstrate a real world need for H.264@60fps you might be justified in shelling out the extra.

Shoog

Quote

I bought Asrock J4105B-ITX board for ~70€, ITX case: ~25€, 2x2Gb DDR4 SO-DIMM: ~20€. So the final price was around 115€. Power supply (PicoPSU + external 12v) was included with the case.

This board generally costs 2x this amount so would bring in the price at nearer €200.00

The N2 is the Odroid N2, very affordable if you are in the USA - not quite so everywhere else. Works out at about €120 in the UK with emac, case, power supply and Bluetooth Dongle. Still it is fully supported on CE and is intrinsically better than any S922 Android box for various technical reasons. It has a massive passive cooling solution and an open bootloader which makes recovery from corruption a breeze (not so on Android boxes). The clincher though is its capabilities are far in excess of what is required to run a top performance Kodi box with TVheadend server and file server to the network. If a Gemini Lake is better spec'd (thats a big if) then that extra grunt is totally wasted on a HTPC.

Shoog

N2 running CE is your best bang for bucks at the moment.

I just bought a Atomic pi and it makes a decent enough LE machine but its not as high spec as the N2.
I have always found the Vorke V5 to be an interesting offering with high enough specs

Shoog

All this VIM3 tom foolery is going to add to the fun of software support especially when they dump it on the market with just the standard Android. A bit of a mess really.

Shoog