S905 or RK3368 for video streaming?

[delajr]

S905 comes out late, yet TV Box running S905 has a lower price than that running RK3368, I usually use TV Box for video streaming, which one is the better pick? just ran into this S905 TV Box, pretty cheap with a free gift, the glitch is that it has only 1GB RAM.

[mo123]

S905 comes out late, yet TV Box running S905 has a lower price than that running RK3368, I usually use TV Box for video streaming, which one is the better pick? just ran into this S905 TV Box, pretty cheap with a free gift, the glitch is that it has only 1GB RAM.

If you care about firmware updates to fix bugs and introduce new features, RK3368 is better.
There are already several custom firmwares including dual-boot firmware available for RK3368.
Rockchip also constantly update their Kodi version unlike S905 that has to use outdated Kodi from Vido for streaming.
RK3368 devices also have double the RAM & storage, a better GPU and faster CPU.
2 GB RAM should be a minimum to use Kodi smoothly and set it to cache to RAM. With 1GB RAM Kodi will have to cache to EMMC storage which will wear it out over a period of time.

[clarkss12]

If you care about firmware updates to fix bugs and introduce new features, RK3368 is better.
There are already several custom firmwares including dual-boot firmware available for RK3368.
Rockchip also constantly update their Kodi version unlike S905 that has to use outdated Kodi from Vido for streaming.
RK3368 devices also have double the RAM & storage, a better GPU and faster CPU.
2 GB RAM should be a minimum to use Kodi smoothly and set it to cache to RAM. With 1GB RAM Kodi will have to cache to EMMC storage which will wear it out over a period of time.

I find those comments to be untrue. Rockchip does not complete any of their firmware, and leaves the customers hanging. I have several Rockchip devices including one of the first Tronsmart RK3368 and it is pathetic, and doubtful it will ever be any good, and no more firmware updates for it.

On the other hand, I have several Amlogic boxes and they are far superior to the Rockchip based devices.

To be noted, I have purchased all my boxes with my own $$, so no biased information.

[mo123]

I find those comments to be untrue. Rockchip does not complete any of their firmware, and leaves the customers hanging. I have several Rockchip devices including one of the first Tronsmart RK3368 and it is pathetic, and doubtful it will ever be any good, and no more firmware updates for it.

On the other hand, I have several Amlogic boxes and they are far superior to the Rockchip based devices.

To be noted, I have purchased all my boxes with my own $$, so no biased information.

I think the problem is Tronsmart. They give up on support after 2 firmware updates no matter for which box they sell and move on to the next one.
Other Rockchip manufacturers like UGOOS, Firefly, Zidoo & Geekbox have far better support and most open-sourced their source code.
But AMLogic is noted for good video playback and they are cheaper.

[clarkss12]

I think the problem is Tronsmart. They give up on support after 2 firmware updates no matter for which box they sell and move on to the next one.
Other Rockchip manufacturers like UGOOS, Firefly, Zidoo & Geekbox have far better support and most open-sourced their source code.
But AMLogic is noted for good video playback and they are cheaper.

If it wasn't for you and some other devs, these Rockchip devices would be junk and dropped in the trash can. I really can't believe that any Rockchip based boxes can perform flawlessly, no matter how much they have improved. Today's market for these boxes would include the HD audio passthrough cababilites as well as flawlessly video play back. However, Zidoo and I assume other manufactures have to rely on a special version of Kodi to work half way decent. I would expect to get HD audio from any version of Kodi, not just a special version that does not have the addons that I use.

Also, these boxes should play live mpeg2 TV streams without any hiccups, but they don't. Amlogic SoC's are the closest to getting everything working, but not counting the Nexus Player or Nvida Shield, which all these boxes should be gaged by.

[JustMe]

new firmware for 905 fixes allot of issues in streaming I think latest update is 29012016

[mo123]

AMLogic's new S905 boxes also uses a special Kodi from Vidon for HD Audio, also with some bugs.
Also using special Kodi's are Himedia, Realtek, Mstar & Allwinner.
Official pass-through code for Kodi has now been merged for Android in latest Kodi 17 Alpha 1 versions so I hope all Android manufacturers & chipset makers can now contribute in making official Kodi work on their devices

[clarkss12]

AMLogic's new S905 boxes also uses a special Kodi from Vidon for HD Audio, also with some bugs.
Also using special Kodi's are Himedia, Realtek, Mstar & Allwinner.
Official pass-through code for Kodi has now been merged for Android in latest Kodi 17 Alpha 1 versions so I hope all Android manufacturers & chipset makers can now contribute in making official Kodi work on their devices

Thanks for the information.

Looking back 3 or 4 years ago, these Chinese Android boxes were the only game in town, and they were pathetic. If it wasn't for Finless and you and others that seem to have disappeared from this forum, these boxes would have died a fast death. I have had Allwinner, Amlogic and Rockchip devices and even one of the Google developers box the ADT-1, and they all had their short comings. Today, they are going to have to compete with the Nvida Shield, Nexus Player, Apple TV4 and an assortment of other devices, or they will die a slow death, which I do not wish to happen.

Don't get me wrong, I like these devices, but my expectations have greatly increased, and if they don't meet those expectations, I will look else where. Two or three years ago, I was glad that they would only crash every few hours instead of every hour.

[Dirkie]

Amlogic is better, because of firmware support. One of the best boxes, Wetek, come with Amlogic.

[acemaxtec]

amlogic solution recommended

[theguyuk]

AMLogic are being outed for GHz cheating on Hardkernal and Cnx-software.

Amlogic S905, S905X, and S912 Processors Appear to be Limited to 1.5 GHz, not 2 GHz as Advertised

http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/08/28/amlogic-s905-and-s912-processors-appear-to-be-limited-to-1-5-ghz-not-2-ghz-as-advertised/#comment-530952