Retired - HardwareGuru Rom 03 - Firmware for Neo X7

[alexnev]

Hi Guru,
Another SPDIF passthrough audio issue for you... I saw this reported earlier for other firmwares, so don't know if it relates to your ROM, XBMC or my philips receiver.
My problem is that when I try to play a movie with AAC 5.1 sound, only front left, right and center speakers and sub works, rear ones are silent.

DTS sims to be working fine...All multi-channel video in youtube working OK.

Oh also a second question - do you have any good news about autoswitching of audio device from SPDIF passthrough to different one?
Thank you in advance,
Alex

[zapto]

Thanks! covering the IR eye solved the issue.
IR receivers should normally be resistant to stray IR radiation, it would be interesting to know if the issue is due to excess of sensitivity to visible radiation (which may eventually be solved using a suitable VL barrier), unreliable (proprietary?) key code encoding protocol (difficult to solve without changing the remote, maybe also the box IR electronics circuitry and IR device driver ...) or broken IR receiver electronics (anyone has the schematics of Minix box?).
I need IR for commanding the box with my Harmony remote, so I guess meanwhile I've to find an USB IR receiver with Android driver ....

Using a cover made with the media from a 3.5" floppy disk, the IR sensor sensitivity was reduced to 10 cm from remote; still power events were received from the IR sensor. I guess that some other codes from my harmony remote (TV, receiver ...) are triggering the power-down events.
So I just edited rkxx-remotectl.kl to comment the POWER key code:
##key 116 POWER WAKE
Now I am not able to switch off the Minix box using the remote anymore but since my goal was to have it awake all the time (3 W continuous power consumption is acceptable) and now POWER key events are not occasionally generated anymore (through the the IR sensor), then I do not need also a Minix box power key on the remote!

[Merrin]

Hi Guru,
Another SPDIF passthrough audio issue for you... I saw this reported earlier for other firmwares, so don't know if it relates to your ROM, XBMC or my philips receiver.
My problem is that when I try to play a movie with AAC 5.1 sound, only front left, right and center speakers and sub works, rear ones are silent.

DTS sims to be working fine...All multi-channel video in youtube working OK.

Oh also a second question - do you have any good news about autoswitching of audio device from SPDIF passthrough to different one?
Thank you in advance,
Alex

Have you tried some of the files there were mensioned earlier in the post? i had the same problem, but it was with the file i had, not the sound...

[okey]

Sorry if this is in the wrong thread, but.....

After weeks of messing about with my mk809III thanks to "hardwareguru" i now have a fast, smooth rom, without any picture flickering / lines on screen at all, it works flawless.
I have installed this on 2 mk809III's now and it's rapid

I have another MK809III which is a RK3188 (no T), and it use's the AP6210 (TOD5007, 1320) wifi module, this installs fine in relation to picture, but cannot enable wifi, could you sort the wifi out please, please,

[HardwareGuru]

Hi hwguru. The low bitrate sampling is still no good. I'm using smart voice recorder app in 8-22khz and the recordings playback sound very choppy.
is there any thing to do?

I dont know if there are things that can be done to get this done. maybe stafstrom at minixforums can help out. he made the sound patches.

I am in search of a ROM that has no micro freezes while playing 1080p. Tried most of the rome out there and indeed, this one, when using minix xbmc included in the rom has no stutter. Good work, congrats! However, could not manage to get MX Player or BS player without stutter with it.
I had several freezes with the xbmc, usually my box shuts down when it happened before; now it just freezes, but not when playing, when installing, updating and customising xbmc.

One question though: the patches included in the rom are kernel related? Can one try a OCed kernel with this rom without loosing the 1080p smooth playback?

PS: the tools in http://xbmc.hardwareguru.nl/MinixNeoX7_Utility.zip (post #143) do work for rooting the rom, I need this because I have to fiddle with the keyboard layout to get my (shitty) air mouse working correctly.

Anorther OC kernel probably lets you loose the smooth playback.

Hi Guru,
Another SPDIF passthrough audio issue for you... I saw this reported earlier for other firmwares, so don't know if it relates to your ROM, XBMC or my philips receiver.
My problem is that when I try to play a movie with AAC 5.1 sound, only front left, right and center speakers and sub works, rear ones are silent.

DTS sims to be working fine...All multi-channel video in youtube working OK.

Oh also a second question - do you have any good news about autoswitching of audio device from SPDIF passthrough to different one?
Thank you in advance,
Alex

Autoswithing is not implemented yest and probably will not be as i am bussy on a new release.
For playback audio try audio settings in XBMC and android. see if your reciever has full codec support as mentioned earlier.

Using a cover made with the media from a 3.5" floppy disk, the IR sensor sensitivity was reduced to 10 cm from remote; still power events were received from the IR sensor. I guess that some other codes from my harmony remote (TV, receiver ...) are triggering the power-down events.
So I just edited rkxx-remotectl.kl to comment the POWER key code:
##key 116 POWER WAKE
Now I am not able to switch off the Minix box using the remote anymore but since my goal was to have it awake all the time (3 W continuous power consumption is acceptable) and now POWER key events are not occasionally generated anymore (through the the IR sensor), then I do not need also a Minix box power key on the remote!

Thanks this will help some people for sure

Sorry if this is in the wrong thread, but.....

After weeks of messing about with my mk809III thanks to "hardwareguru" i now have a fast, smooth rom, without any picture flickering / lines on screen at all, it works flawless.
I have installed this on 2 mk809III's now and it's rapid

I have another MK809III which is a RK3188 (no T), and it use's the AP6210 (TOD5007, 1320) wifi module, this installs fine in relation to picture, but cannot enable wifi, could you sort the wifi out please, please,

Maybe i will port some drivers into the next release.

At the moment i am verry bussy so dont have too much time for the new release.
I am working on it "between jobs", hopefully i can release it next week.

Keep me posted on the results.. Thanks for the feedback!

[alexnev]

Hi Guru,
I did some testing tonight.
My receiver is capable of decoding AAC, AC3 DTS and true HD audio.
I was mistaken. AC3 works fine for me. AAC is a culprit - only front and center channels...
I found that ehomemediacenter player plays file with AAC 5.1 audio just fine. But XBMC only plays front channels.
It is probably a XBMC problem, not android specific stuff.
See several threads:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=79936

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=51024&pid=336287#pid336287

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=58368&page=2

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=155913

Is it anyhow related to my problem?
Thank you,
Alex

[alexnev]

Confirmed:
File from here: http://www.owlboy.com/blog/ccount/click.php?id=7 plays fine in ehomemediacenter player, but in XBMC only front two channels are working.

So something obviously is wrong with XBMC

[okey]

I have applied your rom to 4 mk809iii sticks now, it works very well, but cant seem to get a high wifi speed, only getting approx 16Mbps in wifi 360.

I have just got a 5th mk809iii which i am trying to flash differnent kernels to it, but even tho they seem to flash the kernel ok, it doesnt seem to change on the stick or even in the "about device" kernel info, it says the same as your original.

is there somthing i am doing wrong, i use rom falsh tool 1.37, and select the kernel box only then flash.

your thoughts please

[Fredplex]

XBMC slowdown when scanning library

HardwareGuru,

thank you so much for your work on this. the ROM is fabulous and works well. I am seeing a major slowdown on XBMC when it is scanning my library over NFS, my TV Show lib is large(ish) approx 100 tv shows and over 1000 episodes. It starts off really fast scanning but as it gets to 50% scanned it then slows down and gets stuck on a tv show for a loooooong time, I have left things for 8 hours and still scanning... the CPU usage looks looks good at only about 25-35% ....

...is this a know issue with this version of XBMC ? Any way to clear this up?

Thanks FredT

[Fredplex]

XBMC Gotham on this ROM

...since I was having long scan times with the XBMC in this rom I decided to try a Gotham nightly (Feb 14th) - scan times are super fast for my TV library over NFS and playback is working great, even HD mkv shows. - but I am not sure if I am getting hardware acceleration with gotham nightly builds... is there something I need to configure in XBMC to ensure HW acceleration or are the gotham builds supposed to have this out of the box...

Thanks FredT

[babnik80]

Malipatch question

The Malipatch is related with the kernel, or it`s something in the f/w itself? I want to check some oced kernels but i don`t want to lose the Malipatch benefits.Is this possible?
And my 2nd question, does the boot.img has a kernel inside in your firmware?

[silverplated]

Not sure but its not important because its running as smooth as butter with Flumpsters Beyond XBMC.

how did you manage to get that? i installed beyond xbmc on a clean restore of hardwareguru's rom 03 and it heavily stuttered. do you have any further info about special settings or such? thank you in advance.

[Guest]

I have an issue with passthrough.

On rockchip spdif passthrough it suddenly have white noise on dts and dolby streams.
When I switch on rockchip spdif setting (the movie stutters heavy, I know this is not the correct Setting) and switch back on rockchip spdif passthrough the sound is good again.

For people with not smooth payback on video, play around with 1080p 50 60 24hz.

[adx7]

The Malipatch is related with the kernel, or it`s something in the f/w itself? I want to check some oced kernels but i don`t want to lose the Malipatch benefits.Is this possible?
And my 2nd question, does the boot.img has a kernel inside in your firmware?

Yes, there is something kernel related. I just tried an OCed kernel and went back to the microfreezes.
However, only using the xbmc inside the image (and the original kernel) I have a smooth 1080p playback, for most of the mkvs I tired. All the other have serious stutter.
I am getting tired of searching/waiting for a good image to have a decent 1080p playback. Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate all the efforts the moders are putting into these roms.

[Guest]

It's strange that some people having issues on stutter and microfreezes and others not.

I am very critical as it comes to picture quality, especially when you are watching on 65" screen.

As far as I can say i am very happy with the x7, this Rom and Beyondxbmc.

Only little issue I have is passthrough. Hope it's Rom related and will be fixed.