[ROM] Unofficial OpenELEC for MXIII-G & Tronsmart MXIII+

[stannoplan]

Thank you wilro! Are there any instructions to set it up to boot from SD?

kszaq instructions for the MK808b+ here: https://github.com/kszaq/OpenELEC.tv/releases SD.
unpack the .gz file to the SD card and toothpick for the first time. EDIT: no need to toothpick first time, kszaq included the boot zip in his install file whereas its separate here.

I am sure @wilro will correct if this is wrong.

[wilro_6276]

kszaq instructions for the MK808b+ here: https://github.com/kszaq/OpenELEC.tv/releases SD.
unpack the .gz file to the SD card and toothpick for the first time.

I am sure @wilro will correct if this is wrong.

Hi stannoplan,

We only have the extra step of enabling the SD boot on our device first, but otherwise, kszac's instructions are spot on (it ought to be, as I've merely adapted his work for the MX3G

I have updated post #2 with basic install instructions,

Thanks!

[Bigredfan]

Totally a noob question but is there any benefit for the dualboot if we are content with just having openelec? If that's the case I should just toothpick update like normal?

One issue I'm noticing is having trouble installing various skins and having issues with depencies not being found

[nighthawk1975]

OK, New builds are up & available - Sorry for the delay (darn pesky power led

I've moved to using a dedicated directory for each of my releases (less clutter), & interestingly, if you use SD, you can use the "tar" files to "update" to my older releases (I went back to build "f", just to see if it works - I've included support for the sd boot since my first oe6 builds, as I was sure we'd "get there" one day...

Cheers.

Hello Wilro,

Thanx for the new 6.0.1 build.. It seems that my video files (avi 720p) plays better with this build. But CEC is not working anymore, I have a philips television.
I used the toothpicker method like i always do.

Greetings and keep up the good work.

Geert

[testbit]

Hi Wilro,

Not tried the latest build will give it a blast when I get back from work.

Video playback issue is still present, pretty certain I've tried pretty much every combination of video settings I could find. Adjust refresh rate and sync to display, interlace, post processing, changing resolution etc. All tend to yield different variations of stuttering video, some combinations stutter more than others.

I have roughly 3TBs of media a lot of which is 720p and play decently (not as smoothly as playing the content through PC/TV directly, but its watchable). I also have a lot of older stuff such as Stargate which is all SD quality (AC3 DIVX DVD RIPS) and these all stutter so badly that its unwatchable. Debug mode shows the FPS jumping all over the place for these vids typically between 10-50 fps, though this varies depending on whether post processing is enabled and the type of interlacing method chosen. No combination of these settings resolve the issue unfortunately. The same files play flawlessly with the HDD drive connected directly to TV USB port or to PC.

I understand there may be some settings I can tinker with in advancedsettings.xml that may help but need to research this further. Also with the dual boot update, I'm tempted to load Android and see if the video playback issue is present there. Also thinking of setting up mini x86_64 media centre with openelec to compare performance.

[wilro_6276]

Hello Wilro,

Thanx for the new 6.0.1 build.. It seems that my video files (avi 720p) plays better with this build. But CEC is not working anymore, I have a philips television.
I used the toothpicker method like i always do.

Greetings and keep up the good work.

Geert

Have you checked the following (as per the change log :

Wetek hdmi-cec enabler addon included by default (If you use hdmi-cec, you will need to go into my addons & enable it - It's disabled by default, for maximum device/tv compatibility).

This addon makes it easier to isolate strange cec issues - It only has to be enabled once & can be forgotten about

[wilro_6276]

Hi wilro,

did you have any time to try booting archlinux on the MX3G? In a previous post you mentioned that amlogic hasn't yet made public u-boot sources for the s812. Is this still the case? Looking at codesnake's repo, I see that one of the latest amlogic u-boot commits ( https://github.com/codesnake/uboot-a...7b99fae52d528c ) has some references to meson-m8m2, is it of any help?
Also it seems that the Wetek Core, that is based on the s812, is capable of dualbooting from sdcard, maybe we could borrow their u-boot?

I'd really like to be of some help. I'm quite familiar with coding, cross compiling, linux and so on, but have never had the chance to put together a full image.

I wonder if you could give me some hints (or point me to some docs) to get things going...

Thanks a lot in advance for your help and sorry for wasting your time.

cheers

Well, we're half way there - Now that we have the dual boot working, it should be trivial to make it boot arch (OE already launches systemd, so only minor changes to an sd card install would be needed to boot a full arch userland instead - One of the things I like about OE is that it's effectively a rolling release like arch

Haven't had a chance to explore arch on this box yet - Too many other quirks to iron out first before I start playing with it

[wilro_6276]

What are the advanced settings that you personally use to help buffering?

I use example 4 from http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache (just 2-3x the cache size) - It's a bit of a trade off, in that the bigger cache, the less likely you are to hit pausing/buffering, however, it can take quite a bit longer before playback actually starts when you select a movie (from the most distant part of my house, I set it at 5x, as the wireless is extremely sporadic & slow - I may have to wait a minute to start, but I can get through most movies without pauses, once it starts

Totally a noob question but is there any benefit for the dualboot if we are content with just having openelec? If that's the case I should just toothpick update like normal?

One issue I'm noticing is having trouble installing various skins and having issues with depencies not being found

The most handy part about the dual boot for me at the moment is that I can experiment/test things on the SD, while always having a stable/easy rollback if I stuff anything up (ie. I run all newer builds via SD, & only when I'm 100% sure it improves/fixes something, that I then upgrade the box's internal install). I'm also a bit paranoid about "burning out" the internal storage (I've re-flashed this box so many times over the last 2 months, I fear that by the time I get it running the way I want, it'll probably die on me - Burning out a couple of sd cards is a far cheaper option

Addons/plugins are a totally different animal for me - I incorporate pretty much all updates/patches from upstream as they are released by the kodi team, sadly, most addons/plugins are rarely tested (or fixed) for anything other than PC installs.

[testbit]

Okay just updated to latest build 6.0.1 and did some quick tests. Video playback is massively improved for my SD videos. They now play at solid 25FPS with no stuttering!! 720p videos sit around 10FPS though playback looks good, not noticing any stuttering or issues thus far.

[nighthawk1975]

Have you checked the following (as per the change log :



This addon makes it easier to isolate strange cec issues - It only has to be enabled once & can be forgotten about

Uhm, thanx i will check that option.

[gthebest]

Can we have as basic the Openelec in the device storage and put in SD card the adnroid for dual boot? Now I have installed the Openelec 6.0.0 in the device storage

Anyway I uninstall Openelec from device(internal) storage and I install again Android Lollipop 107L1 (to my MXIII-G) I follow the instructions from the #2 post and I boot into Openelec from my SD card! My question is : Every time I want to boot in Android I must get out my sd card? Can I do it with easier way? (e.g. When I power on my device there would be an option to select which one of the 2 (android or openelec) want to start.

[nighthawk1975]

Can we have as basic the Openelec in the device storage and put in SD card the adnroid for dual boot? Now I have installed the Openelec 6.0.0 in the device storage

Anyway I uninstall Openelec from device(internal) storage and I install again Android Lollipop 107L1 (to my MXIII-G) I follow the instructions from the #2 post and I boot into Openelec from my SD card! My question is : Every time I want to boot in Android I must get out my sd card? Can I do it with easier way? (e.g. When I power on my device there would be an option to select which one of the 2 (android or openelec) want to start.

Where did you find 107L1?

[wilro_6276]

Okay just updated to latest build 6.0.1 and did some quick tests. Video playback is massively improved for my SD videos. They now play at solid 25FPS with no stuttering!! 720p videos sit around 10FPS though playback looks good, not noticing any stuttering or issues thus far.

Good to here! (There was a heap of tweaks in video playback in kodi + the kernel in this new build) - There are still major issues with mpeg2+pcm audio (combined) - It irks me that my S805 based devices play them flawlessly.

[ricpersi]

Howdy Folks,

We've had a couple of break through's:

1. Boot from SDCard! (All beers should go to kszaq for this - nice, simple solution which should allow *all* OE compatible amlogic boxs to support dual boot)
2. Openelec 6.0.1 released!
3. Suspend/Resume working!
4. Improved hdmi-cec support (better support for LG TV's) - Includes the kodi wetek hdmi-cec plugin by default to make it easier to disable/toggle it when it misbehaves.
5. Latest linux/amlogic kernel updates!

(More tweaks & patches than I can poke a stick at!)

I'm just finishing off a couple of last minute tweaks before I upload the new build...

Great news and well done Wilro! What you're doing is really appreciated.

Where did you find 107L1?

Probably a typo? Maybe he meant 106L1?

[gthebest]

Where did you find 107L1?

Well you re wight! I mean 106L1! But someone to answer my question. Every time I want to boot in Android I must get out my sd card? It's not practical to eject the sd card so we can boot in android. Can I do it with easier way? (e.g. When I power on my device there would be an option to select which one of the 2 (android or openelec) want to start.) Somewhere I see an application through android which called "Boot 2 Openelec" . Also I've seen somewhere when in openelec you select power there is an option to boot into windows.