We need a general TV Player FAQ! - Contest for contributors :)

[Finless]

Hello all. I am hoping to get some help making a TV player FAQ. I just do not have time to do this all myself. I also feel many of you are far more experienced than I on use of these devices, peripherals, etc. I think I can handle the ROM flashing, unbricking, etc parts. But feel free to add info here as well!

So I am asking you all to help us build a FAQ.

I will manage the input and build the FAQ. You all just make posts about items to go in the FAQ.

Now for incentive

The largest contributor to the FAQ, I will buy or get you a Android TV device of your choice!
It has to be limited to a Android TV stick or box and price of course has to be resonable (which they usually are). I am thinking less than $150 USD. But depending on contributions by the winner, this is variable and open to consideration.


So have at it! Make sure you post details! Just because you were the person to post the most here, does not mean you win! The winner is the person that puts in the most quality info that gets used in the FAQ!

Thanks,
Bob

[wapvirus]

Wow that is a most generous offer Bob that will get the job done

[neomode]

Hello Bob,

That´s a good Deal you have not to Pay alone ofcourse.
I hope we get a lot of Quality Input for that.

Ray

[leolas]

Good idea. I say about the general FAQ, I hope great contributions to make us knows better our tv sticks and how to setup them properly.

[rishidoshi]

yup..
im just a newbie owning a stick for less than 4 days now. so these FAQs are fresh..
my dilema were... (and some still are)
1. which is the best stick (so noob, but always u find such questions)
2. how to root
3. how to flash/ install recovery
4. best apps/softwares for various purposes
5. streaming/dlna connections
6. power consumption, adapters, usb hubs.
7. hardware devices compatibility (camera, game controllers etc)
8. hardware mods (wifi antennas)
9. device maintenance and performance tweaks.
:P
im still waiting for my BT handsfree to work as an audio device for mk808b

[neomode]

May this is the Time to Setup a Wiki what do you think Bob ?

Neomode

[Finless]

Sure but we need more input first otherwise wiki is empty. Seems my bribe to get people to input here is not working... Oh well....

Bob

[leolas]

How to remap our inputs devices in our tv sticks.

Sometimes we want modificate keys assignation in our keyboards to make them do something new, for example:
We have a key F1 that is useless in our tv stick, and we want assign it to HOME button. How can we do that. It is not so difficult but we need to make some tweaks in our system. Lets try to learn how to make that.

There is a file in /system/usr/keylayout called Generic.kl ; in this file all keys in all keyboard gets a function assigned. So if we mod that file we can assign new functions to our keyboard useless keys. But if we mod this file all keyboards attached to our tv stick will get their keys preassigned. Some times that will be a bad idea so there is a more elegant way to do that.
We can create a new file what assign the new remap only to our usb device.

We need to be root (sorry no way to make that if you don't have root access), we need a file manager to copy, edit and modify files. I recommend you ES explorer. A terminal emulator is needed too. And a program who take our keys codes from our keyboard(keytest:https://github.com/chrisboyle/keytes...st.apk/qr_code).

Well, time to do it:

First we take note of what keys we want to remap, we open keytest and we take the codes of the keys that we want to remap:
For example:
In my keyboard i want HOME asiggned to F1; BACK asiggned to F2
So I push F1 and the app givews me the keycode 131 and when i push F2 y get the keycode 132
We must take note of that keys and their keycodes.

Open terminal emulator and write:
cat /proc/bus/input/devices

We get a list of all input devices attached our tv stick. We must search for the keyboard we want to remap. Something like:
I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0001 Product=0021 Version=ab41
N: Name="AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio0/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input3
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=sysrq kbd event3
B: PROP=0
B: EV=120013
B: KEY=10000 c020000000000 0 0 700f02000003 3803078f830f401 febfffdfffefffff fffffffffffffffe
B: MSC=10
B: LED=7

We must take note VENDOR and PRODUCT,
vendor:0001
product:0021


Now we copy Generic.kl > /sdcard/Vendor__Product_.kl (in my situation:Vendor_0001_Product_0021.kl)
Type carefully (case sensitive):

su
cp /system/usr/keylayout/Generic.kl /sdcard/Vendor_0001_Product_0021.kl

Now we open ES Filemanager and configure it (click in the 3 points in the botton bar) and click settings.
In Root settings we must select:
Root Explorer
Up to root
Mount system as R/W
When we finish this tweak maybe we want to take this to his initial position so deselect those options
And now we will edit our specific .kl file so we go to /sdacard and edit our vendor__product_.kl file

We search in the file for key 131(F11 in my keyboard) and assign HOME (or whatever function you want to remap), and we search too for key 132 and assign it BACK.
When we finish we save changes and exit.
Now we need to copy our keyboard specific file to /system/usr/keylayout with ES filemanager.
Almost finished we need to change permissions to the file,so we make a long click on it and click in properties, we changue them to rw- r-- r-- and thats all. When we restart or minipc we get our keys remapped.

Remember to change root access in ES filemanager to default.

I hope I explain it clear, but if you have any dudes fell free to ask me in the original thread. I did all the steps while i wrote that so I hope you can do the same. Corrections or better explications are welcome.
Link to the original thread:

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?3840-How-to-remap-our-inputs-devices-in-our-tv-sticks

[leolas]

MK808B clones, how to identify them.

So far as I know there are 3 versions of this stick (Let's hope the Chinese do not complicate the matter more and launch more). Each with its own ROM, if you use the ROM of a models in another one, usually it works but you will lose the functionality of wifi and BT, so please try to identify your device before flash any rom.


To recognize there is no other choice but to open it, (Do it careful, dont break the wifi antenna), there is not so much problem to open it, can be done easy.


Lets go with the first one, it is usually called in the Forums mk808b "original" or "genuine, it has wifi and BT chipset rk903. My device is this one.









This model also has a variant that also works with the same ROM:





ROMS:
Official stock one from geekbuying:
MK808B Geekbuying
Recommended, for me at least better than the stock one and added extras such as gamepads, some ethernet adapters, tweaks, etc:
Freaktab MK808B
More ROMS:
Armtvtech MK808B
In the last page pls ensure you choose Room for the "original" not "fake".


The second variant is known in many forums as mk808b "fake" or clone mk808b V1. Comes with MediaTek chipset for wifi and BT.




ROMs:
Stock rom:
Armtvteck mk808b clone v1 Stock rom
Made by Finless in freaktab, for me better than the stock one, it has tweaks and aditional modules like gamepads, etc... :
Freaktab clone V1 ROM


The 3º Version for now of this device is know how "clone V2" or "Sunvel V2 Clone" is very similar to the above and also uses a MediaTek chipset for wifi and BT (I am not sure of this), but the previous ROM device does not work fully.
Some people report feeding problems through the usb designed for that, having to feed them in some cases through the usb OTG:








ROMs disponibles:
Link official ROM:
mk808B clone V2
And the ROM that Bob made for us in this forum, in my opinion always better than the stock one :
Freaktab mk808b clone V2


All the info getting from: Freaktab; armtvtech and Vondroid.

If you have any question ask. If anyone can complete this post pls tell me, I only have the first stick so any help would be aprreciated by the others models owners.

Thanks to TecKnight, he said me that the pictures was changued about second and 3º clones now i think they are well .

And thanks to Zuberio too, he post a video in youtube openning the mk808B case :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=H6i6hqcIwTc

[PoisonWolf]

We need a general TV Player FAQ! - Contest for contributors

Hi folks,

Yesterday, while trying to get CWM to work, I had to repeatedly pull the power plug to shut the device off as no input device would work. After several pulls (despite waiting 10 seconds to make sure nothing was writing to NAND to prevent any flash corruption), I finally just got stuck in the booting screen no matter what I do. I figured that I had corrupted the ROM.

So I went to pull out Finless' flashing tool. I left everything set up as usual except for swapping out the kernel and recovery defaults for 2dark4u's kernel and CWM.

The issue came when I could not get the ROM to install. After the download of the file, it would fail the check at 2000k or less ([ERROR] : DOWNLOAD FAILED followed by [ERROR] : RUN FAILED). It would keep failing at the checking of the file. I tried re-installing it 7-10 times (with different combinations such as stock kernel and stock recovery; or everything except for the loader file). I initially thought, great, I burned my 1-week old MK808. Because the error of the checks kept occurring at 2000k or less, I thought I had fried or permanently damaged the NAND at 0k - 2k. But that didn't make sense cause the entire 450mb wrote to the NAND initially just fine. It was simply the check that was failing.

Then I started trying interesting combinations to get it work such as 1) erase the NAND, 2) installing just the Loader and the Parameter file first, 3) then installing the remaining files. This worked. But for whatever reason, I could no longer install all files together as it would give me the error above.

Then I saw Finless' warning (link here) about how there's something fishy about the new bootloaders in newer MK808s. So I went to Geekbuying's blog and got their latest firmware package (link here) and used their tool to load up the stock firmware once more. I was hoping that their firmware would include their own bootloader package and thankfully, it did. Their tool indicated that their most recent bootloader is version 1.22. So I reflashed Geekbuying's stock firmware, then reflashed Finless's firmware using everything (including different kernel) EXCEPT for the loader file and voila, it went through just fine. No problems. File checks were fine.

Hopefully this will help anyone should they encounter this situation.

tl;dr = If you start having errors with flashing but the Finless tool indicates no issues with the NAND (writes the ROM to it fine but fails at checks), then reflash the entire stock firmware from Geekbuying's blog and reflash it again using Finless's tool with everything EXCEPT THE LOADER file.

[Finless]

Iam going to copy this to the FAQ thread we are working on.

The loader can be very specific to the NAND chip used in the unit. I know this now becasue I got my hands on a Rockchip SDK kit. So if you flash an OLDER loader than what your stock ROM has, it may get you in this condition.

Thanks for posting this but this is exactly what I have been saying recently. If your unsure, do not flash the loader!

Bob

[Finless]

Date and time

Something to add to the FAQ from me:

Date and Time!
Always set for automatic time. The reasons is these TV sticks do not have a battery in them. So when they reboot the year will be defaulted to 1970. This causes issues with "no internet connection" with some routers. Your browser may still work but you may see errors with Google Play, and other APPS not working until the date and time are set properly. The system must get current date and time from the internet on boot. Again this is because there is no battery to "save" the current date and time on a reboot.

FYI, the Minix Neo X5 does not have this problem because it has a little watch abttery in it to save the date and time.



Bob

[leolas]

Original link:http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.p...d-power-supply

Stability issues and power supply.

Well, i see a lot of people who complains about random freezes, reboots, nand corruptions (they makes our devices don't boot and need reflash again), etc..
I had those stability issues when i bought my minipc, i was frustrated with it, thinking to send back it to the seller. No way to make my device runs stable until i made some test to the stock power supply who comes with my stick (mk808b). I connected an ampere meter to it and found that its marked like 2A power supply but maximum that it gives was 1,2A under load, I tested some other power supplies, and saw how optimistic are some manufacturers about their power supplies. They said that can give an amount of amperes, and under hight load they works only giving the half they announce.
I bought a new quality power supply (Psvita one) that only announce 1,5A, and i found all stability problems goes away. No freezes, no reboots, it works stable like a rock. While the stock power suply can give only 1,2A with heat on it, the new one gives me 1,8A and works cool.
Feed the stick with the tv usb output is not a good idea, cause it is not designed to give so much power out, and in some case it could work, but not allways.

summary:

PLS, IF YOU HAVE STABILITY ISSUES, TRY A QUALITY POWER SUPPLY BEFORE COMPLAINS ABOUT ROM STABILITY OR DEFECTIVE DEVICES.

And pls, all who don't have stability issues post your power supplies name, and how it works.

Mine: PSVITA power supply.http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B006JK...m_ps2?pi=SX125
Attached to it: External usb hd, wireless keyboard and mouse and ipazzport 3D fly air mouse.

Sorry about my English, and if you want to ask anything, i will try to answer it if I can.

NOTE: The psvita power supply need to be modded to connect standard usb ports in it, is very easy. Only break some plastics sheets in the usb output.

Read this too, here Frog2001 explains very well this issue:

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?3867-About-Powersupplies-!

Hello!


After reading here for some time, i thougt i´m able to clear some things up about the power problems with cheap powersupplies. I will try not to be to technical.

In the old days about 5 to 10 years ago, a powersupply for wallplugs was an big, black havy brick with a lot of copper and other meaner things in it. Quality was easily checked. If it was heavy it was good , if not it was crap.

Today it is not as easy as in the past.

After the mass appearence of the so called SMPS all changed. SMPS stand for "Switch Mode Power Supply".

The "new" kind of Powersupply has changed a lot of things.
1. It is much more efficent as the old transformator powersupplies.
2. Less powerconsumption if not used, but plugged in.
3. Today it is much cheaper to build.
4. Easy mass production

but on the other side there are

1. Very optimistic data about the usable power
2. Great potential source of electromagnetic and electronic disturbance

Ok, so why all the blah,blah.

If you have an 5 Volt 1 Ampere powersupply, you can thrust the 5 Volt. But don´t thrust about the current. If you drain more than 0.8 Ampere out of it the trouble normally starts. Because of being pushed to the limits, the normally clean and stable 5 Volt are being messed up with so called spikes.
Extremly short impulses that can mess up digital signals like the ones used in the MK8..
This can cause freezes, strange behavior, or even prevent system startup.
So it is better to use an powersupply that offers a much greater usable current.

But there is another problem with this powersupply. They are extremly poorly shielded from sending out electromagnetic waves. So if they are used in the upper limits of their usable current, they can start to mess up with the W-LAN. So if you have W-LAN issues and there are powersupplies nearby (less than an meter or so) try to get them away. You can be surprised about the results. This also counts for the W-LAN router/AP.

If you have any questions about this special theme, feel free to post your question.
If you can explain it better feel also free to post it

frog2001

[leolas]

Basic introduction to our TV sticks with android, first steep and things we must know.

Here i will try to explain what is a android minipc and the basics knowledge about android tv sticks. It don't want to be a guide for experienced users, so for most of you know all that is here. Sorry but I have a rk3066 based tv stick so maybe a lot of my comments are about this platform, if someone have other platform, and want to tell us someone about them are welcome.

First of all, Android is a system based in Linux with a nice and easy to use GUI (graphical User Interface) financed by Google. So Android is based in Open source, Android first was used in mobile phones (so expect references in programs and services relatives to them in our tvsticks), but it is a OS with a big versatility, and when the first tablets arrives following the ipad, a lot of them use Android too, with the start of smart tv use, android is now in our tvs too. Android was first designed to touch devices so a lot of aplications in android expect a touch screen attached to our devices. So some applications and games can´t work with our devices (only emulating a touch input can work).



Our tv sticks basically consist in a small device, Inside we found:
CPU(Central Processing Unit). The heart of the machine, usually a dual core, but some of them with single core.
GPU (graphics processing unit) Here our graphics are processed.
RAM (usually 1Gb) that is a fast volatile memory.
NAND Another memory unit, It is partitioned for the android use, some of them is reserved by system partitions and some of it to user storage, in the system partitions we have our firmware (that is our Operating System) stored, we will come back to this part after
Communications chipset: a Wifi (and sometimes Bluetooth) chipset. The most problematic part of this device, there are a lot of them, each one uses different driver to work, and need the properly drivers to work, this is cause we have tons of rom for this device, those drivers has a part of them or totally embedded on the kernel, so if you use other device firmware in your device you will loose this functionality for sure in almost all cases.
Reset button: It help us to enter in bootloader or recovery mode, so we can flash or restore our device.
HDMI output (We get image and sound by it). If you cant see anything in your tv after power on, you must revise your HDMI wire.
USB inputs: there are 2 types:
Normal USB: Here we can connect our input devices like keyboards, mouse, External hd, Hubs to get more Usb ports, cameras for skipe, sound devices, etc...
OTG USB Port (Usb On The Go) Who we can use like a normal usb port or to connect to a computer and flash the firmware of the device or use ADB to debug our stick.
SD slot: Here we can use a microsd card to give us more storage space. I suggest a class 6 or more speed microsd, you really will notice the difference about a class 2 or a class 10 microsd.
Power input: Usually is a Miniusb input, here we connect our PSU(Power Supply Unit). Very important is to use a good and quality PSU. The bad ones gives a lot of problems about stability, freezes, random reboots and NAND corruptions. Please take a look there: http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.p...d-power-supply


Latter we will come back about NAND and the partitions what are there

Android without internet access is almost useless. So first we need is Access to Internet, our sticks comes with wifi embedded, but not expect so much about it (These devices are really cheap and the quality is not so good). You must have a good wifi signal. Sometimes you need to mod a little your device to get a stable signal (Here in the forum has a lot of mods that people did to get more signal, search for them). Sometimes we will buy an external usb-ethernet device if we want more stable and reliable connection, or external wifi dongle. Once we get our stick connected we are ready to start to configure it. In the settings apk we can set wifi on and a lot of more options like our language settings, etc... The images can change a bit if you use other firmware (ROM), but it must be similar to those:



Look at upper and right the red mark. Here we put our wifi always enable so if we enter in sleep mode we keep our wifi connected.



Android has hundreds of thousands applications in a lot of markets, like google play, aptoide, amazon app store, etc... So this is the first and big difference about android tv sticks and smart tv embedded in TV. We can use them like a multimedia player, internet browser, mail reader, multimedia server, downloads manager, etc... If you search a specific use, you only need to find the correct application and surely you can do that. Most of the applications (in android are in format application.apk) are free, some of them are insane cheap, and almost every android device has a market store incorporated, Google Play, so when you searching for an application you can take a look there.

Android is funded by Google, so first you need to use Google services (like google play market) is a Google account. You can create it in Settings. (Be careful if your local time is not set properly google services can´t work, so I suggest you to use automatic internet time). In settings/account we can create or use an account.



We select automatic time:



Once you do that you can start to download apps to use and enjoy our stick.

Other settings that i suggest you for better performance:



This one alloy you to install applications from other markets:



This Post is under construction. And I think Bob will structure it latter, so sorry for the extra job for him Please all you can correct or contribute are welcome. I will try to upload images to make it easy to understand how to setup. Remember it is not finished and i will complete it in the few days, and i feel it will never be ended if you contribute. And we all will learn a lot.
I am not a wise man and i didn't know all, really i know only a bit about this, but all i know i will try to share. And forgive my english, It is not so good, so any corrections are welcome.

I made a basic screenplay and i will complete this post and made new ones with more information. and links in this one.

[leolas]

NAND What is this?

Time to our NAND, this is one of our sticks parts. Is the internal storage of our sticks. There is some partitions, one of them for the user use and some for the system use, this is similar in all android devices. That is why if your stick has 8Gb of storage(or 4Gb) we can only use a portion of it, the rest is for the system. Those partitions can be changed in size, by the fact, Finless ROMs usually change those partitions size and give us more space to our installed apks.

Sorry but here i must be more specific and write only about the device i know, based in rk3066. Here we have some parts:

Bootloader

Kernel.img

Boot.img

System.img

Recovery.img

Userdata

User

Cache

Misc.img

kpanic

Backup.img

Lets start one by one:

Bootloader: Every computing device has one. It is the boot manager of our devices, It tells what is the "next to load" and how boot it. The boot loader is a special program separate from the Android kernel that is used to set up initial memories and load the kernel to RAM. On desktop systems the boot loaders are programs like GRUB in linux or Windows loader in Windows. Device manufacturers some times use their own proprietary boot loaders, this is not usually open source so they didn´t have to give their code to community so careful with this, Bob advice that some new stick use a locked bootloader, this means that if you flash another or an older one you can brick your devices. So when we flash a different ROM or custom ROM be careful about this. Take a look here:http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.p...rs-showing-up!

Kernel.img: That is the our OS core, here are the specifications of our device: what board is used, RAM speed and type, drivers, etc... It can be compiled in linux from the kernel source. This must be open source, but a lot of manufacturers (like Rockchip) don't give it full to the community. In our sticks with rk3066 we have a tablet kernel source(BQ Edison thanks to them to make it public) patched from some developers like AndrewDB, Omegamoon, Alok, etc...(very big thanks to all them, sorry if I forgot someone). With this kernel sources mk808 (not B) have customs kernels who improves a lot the stock one adding functionality or improving performance. Inside the kernel we have too the first image we see when we power on our devices, we can´t see it cause it last only a bit, only if we have troubles we will see it so better don't see it. In my kernel is a google tv logo. Be careful about overclocked kernels, it can give us more performance, but we get more heat and we can burn our devices.

Boot.img: inside this partition we have a initial ramdisk image who set up our system, and prepare it to mount the other partitions, some init scripts and one image that is shown at boot(so if our kernel boot at 1080p and the image in the boot.img is in 720p we see it deformed,if we don't want it, we must choose kernel and boot in the same resolution), after the kernel shows his own image. In other devices inside boot.img there is the kernel. In our sticks it is out of here and have a partition exclusively for it. It can be disassembled and modified, Bob in his ROMs do that and add some tweaks in it.

System.img. Here we have our system folder, inside are the build.prop, all the apks that comes by default with the rom(system/app), the framework(/system/framework), the configuration files(System/etc), the libs needed/system/lib) and kernel modules(system/lib/modules), fonts of the sustem(system/fonts), system sounds(system/media/audio); the animation who shows while system boots(system/media/bootanimation.zip), etc... This can be modded and customize, some times people add some tweaks here and customize some things like our notification bar, launcher, etc. You must know what you touch here, if you change some thinks you will lose funtionality or worse and need to reflash.

Recovery.img: This is an alternative boot image, It can contain inside a initial ramdisk and a kernel, so if you lost your system can be restore from here. You can use stock recovery(less functional or cwm recovery (recommended by me). You can use this to update our stick with an update.zip with stock recovery, or with cwm also you can backup your current ROM mirroring it (Yes with all your apks installed and your configuration done)this is called nandoid backup. So if you make a backup and keep it in safe place(like a external microsd) you will have a exact copy of your rom in this moment. So in case of disaster you can restore your system in a few minutes. This is very useful to people like me who loves to touch everything , from cwm recovery you can install ROMs too, I just ended the updater-script who can flash Finless 1.7 ROM for all mk808 devices, but with some limitations, i cant change partitions size by the moment, when i finish i will give it and you can flash without a pc attached(great advantaje for me).
CWM recovery is ported to rk3066 devices by fun_ Big thanks to him, and you can found it there:

http://androtab.info/clockworkmod/rockchip/

I try to explain a little how install it there:http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.p...rk3066-devices So if you want some help ask me there.

Well we are finihing it cause the rest of the partitions are irrelevant to us, cache one is for cache :P , backup.img is suposed to be a backup of our current firmware, but is out of use, we must have it, but nothing is on it (at least in my device) User and userdata are the storage space and the user apk store space. And misc and kpanic sicerely are out of my knowledge. If someone can explain more of them fantastic, more to learn.

This information is taken from a lot of time reading articles and forums, but I can be wrong, so any contribution to compete or correction is always welcome. English is not my native language so sorry for all incorrections, language corrections are welcome too.