H3 overall thoughs

[poul50]

i have a draco h3 stick and cx-x3 tvbox with this chipset,
pros : fast loading, perfect Picture, supporting most videocodec, cheap

cons: bad wifi,no hardware decoding in kodi (except zidoo x1) , no auto framerate

conclusion : draco h3 is useless if your router is not close by, or have an Ethernet adapter, cx-x3 have build in Ethernet, for both devices the wifi is nearly useless, but with cable they are very good performing for playing and streaming movies ,and if kodi hardware decoding and wifi will be solved, they woud be best buy for your monie

[TRIGTOP]

I also paste something here about the decode performance, compared with S805 for amlogic S805 is well known. haha.

Video Performance Compare
Two device: MXQ(S805) , X2( H3)
Configurations: MXQ ,1GB DDR3, 8GB flash ; X2,1GB DDR3, 8GB flash
Player: built in KODI14.2

1, playing common videos
MXQ X2
1080p_AVC_50Mbps_60fps bad ok
1080p_AVC_39Mbps_30fps ok ok
1080p_MPEG2_AC3_37Mbps_30fps ok ok(slight stutter when pass through SPDIF, doing it)
1080p_MPEG2_DTS_37Mbps_30fps ok ok
1080p_HEVC_3Mbps_24fps bad ok
1080p_VC1_8Mbps_24fps ok ok
4K_AVC_50Mbps_30fps not support ok
4K_HEVC_10Mbps_30fps not support ok

2, ANTUTU_VIDEO_TESTER3.0 (VideoBench)
This tool will auto download 30 videos with different codec to tested device.

01Sintel_avc_mp3_1080p.mkv
02Sintel_avc_flac_1080p.mkv
03Sintel_avc_aac(main)_1080p.mkv
04Sintel_avc_ac-3_1080p.mkv
05Sintel_avc_dts_1080p.mkv
06Sintel_mpeg-4_ac-3_1080p.mkv
07Sintel_avc_aac_1080p.mp4
08Sintel_mpeg-4_aac_1080p.mp4
09Sintel_mpeg-4_he-aac_1080p.mp4
10Sintel_avc_mp3_1080p.mp4
11Sintel_vp8_vorbis_1080p.webm
12Sintel_avc_aac_1080p.3gp
13Sintel_avc_ac-3_1080p.ts
14Sintel_avc_mp3_1080p.avi
15Sintel_mpeg-4_mp3_1080p.avi
16Sintel_hevc_aac_1080p.mkv
17Sintel_avc_ac-3_1080p.avi
18Sintel_avc_aac_1080p.mov
19Sintel_mpeg-2_mpeg-1 layer II_1080p.mpg
20Sintel_wmv3_wmav2_1080p.wmv
21Sintel_wmv2_wmav2_1080p.wmv
22Sintel_sorenson_mp3_1080p.flv
23Sintel_realVideo 4_cooker_1080p.rmvb
24Sintel_avc_ac-3_2K.mkv
25Sintel_hevc_aac_2K.mkv
26Sintel_avc_ac-3_4K.mkv
27Sintel_hevc_aac_4K.mkv
28Sintel_avc_aac_1080p.mp4
29Sintel_mpeg-4_aac_1080p.mp4
30Sintel_vp8_vorbis_1080p.webm

X2: judder playing 21,23. Others are played smoothly
MXQ：judder playing 11,16,21,23; Do not support 24,25,26,27. Others are played ok.

3,specification
H3:
H265 4k30fps 60Mbps
H264 4k30fps 60Mbps
VP8 1080p60fps
VP9 1080p30fps
VC-1 1080p30fps 100Mbps
DivX4/5 1080p60fps 100Mbps
H263 1080p60fps
AVS 1080p60fps 100Mbps
WMV7/8 720p30fps
MPEG1/2/4 1080p60fps

S805:
H265 1080p60fps
H264 AVC/MVC 1080p60fps
WMV/VC-1 1080p60fps
AVS 1080p60fps
RealVideo 8/9/10 1080p
MPEG1/2/4 1080p60fps

[TRIGTOP]

Actually, H3 SOC performance price ratio is very high. Its system is robust and fluent. The best prices 4K player, cheaper than Amlogic S805 . SO I think it is necessary to let more and more people know it and welcom to open all its defects and we will try to update and do better and better.

[TRIGTOP]

Dear Poul50,
Would you like I post so many matters here

[piggy99]

Trigtop: More than just specs and numbers are support for the chip. Allwinner performed badly on this category previously. I am sure, there are many that can tell you how many allwinner box they have sitting in their trash can. I had 7 boxes that was trash a year after I bought in 2013 and it became useless after xbmc upgraded from 12 to 13. I have a few boxes that was bought in 2012 with the aml chip and I am still using (even though it is a bit slow). I have bought 8 h3 chip box so far (6 zidoo and 3 beelink). If this dont work out, you know i will never buy a allwinner chip box ever again. And I am sure others have a same mentality. Boxes command a premium (aml chip) because they are perceived to be supported and are in fact supported (by the community and also by company releasing fixes for the chip bug).

[poul50]

Dear Poul50,
Would you like I post so many matters here

you are more than welcome......this soc has potential, sad that wifi is so week and picky with orientation and channels, and missing auto framerate for video
else it is performing good and with a clear picture

[TRIGTOP]

Trigtop: More than just specs and numbers are support for the chip. Allwinner performed badly on this category previously. I am sure, there are many that can tell you how many allwinner box they have sitting in their trash can. I had 7 boxes that was trash a year after I bought in 2013 and it became useless after xbmc upgraded from 12 to 13. I have a few boxes that was bought in 2012 with the aml chip and I am still using (even though it is a bit slow). I have bought 8 h3 chip box so far (6 zidoo and 3 beelink). If this dont work out, you know i will never buy a allwinner chip box ever again. And I am sure others have a same mentality. Boxes command a premium (aml chip) because they are perceived to be supported and are in fact supported (by the community and also by company releasing fixes for the chip bug).

Dear Piggy99,
Thank you for buying X2 devices firstly.
Do you means that the 7 allwinner old boxes cannt run xbmc v13 , but v12 is ok if the system backs to the old one? I want to know the reasons these devces be trashed.
We had paied attentions to hardware quality, such as eMMC/memory/power/HDMI/wifi and so on. Even though, there is still many HDMI display problem. We had more ways to ensure the HDMI quality .
About the software system, allwinner had founded a box special department and several people specialize in KODI. They box are welcome in chinese and the shipment is huge. They are not very familiar with oversee customers , and they lay emphasis on oversee market . So I can get quickly support from allwinner.
We are familar with ROCKCHIP ,AMLOGIC and ALLWINNER . Comparetively, the staff of allwinner are hardworking and efficient, we like to cooperate with these people. At 2012, ALLWINNER soc are very popular and the output is far more than RK and Amlogic. Huge shipment leads to price war, more and more device use downgrade flash and memory.
Talk profusely. Sorry.

[piggy99]

Trigtop: Yes,..when it was running xbmc v12., it had no issues. When in v13...the box keep crashing or xbmc keep crashing. (these are the older versions of allwinner cpu back in the 2012-2013)
There was never any updates and no fixes. Most of the people I know moved on.
I was pretty impressed with zidoo on their support on the X1. I bought it as gift for people. They are happy. I am doing the same for the beelink X2... (just bought another 7) If they are happy, they will recommend. Most people wants a working box. None are perfect, but it must at least work ...(able to use kodi..without issues). Thats what people buy the box for.

[Ananiash]

I've bought the cx-x3 hoping this will be a little mighty and deal is 50/50 pros and cons, Kodi works very good. All addons work fluent or with slight stutter but not so bad. Interface is snapy but wifi is total crap, Router is about 4 meters away,
reception shown on screen is near full but speed I get is from 3-5.5 megabit per sec download and 3 upload ( for 28 mbit which I get on PC ). Fluctuating all the time. This and little ram cause the CODI to buffer online streams quite often.
Youtube app after downloading from google store finds its native resolution as 360p and will not go higher and frame rate is very bad, around 20 -24 fps but yt addon in kodi plays super.
Updates of the firmware are none. On my end, after downloading, I'm getting error when unpacking the zip, the other file ( of 2 available ) is not seen by phoenix flashing software, only image file that actualy works is the one
that came with the cx-x3. The prospect of Remix OS is something that holds me to this box but as for now it is a spare one