MXQ Plus Amlogic S912 Android 6 2/16GB 10/100 Lan 2.4/5GHZ WIFI BT4

[trebor]

Thanks To Shenzhen Shiningworth and DHL for a Sunday Delivery.

There has been a bit chat around the last week about this device, what we have is the Amlogic S912
Will do a Bit of a review and tear down and first boot

Amlogic S912 A53 2.0GHz ARM Mali-820MP3 ~750MHz
2GB/16GB eMMC TF card to 32GB.
HDMI 2.0a 4K @ 60Hz, CEC, HDR and AV port (cable not supplied)
SPDIF, 10/100 Ethernet, WiFi 2.4/5ghz and BT 4.0
USB 2.0 x 2, and 1 x OTG.
IR receiver, status and network LEDs
5V/2A power pack No AU at this stage.
Included HDMI Cable, Power Pack Remote and Instructions.

Well packaged professional look, Black Packaging with Gold Lettering and not covered in the usual hype as seen on some.
Good Solid Little box look well made all Alloy Well Vented Base.
No Heat sink as you will see but some Thermal Pad stacked between CPU and Box Lid, will see how it goes may add a bit of copper shim between the Pads
to give it a bit more pressure against the CPU and Lid but if it runs cool may not.













Bit of a look on the Inside:










Look at the bits that make it Tick









As you will see fired up nice and quick first boot, I quickly tested remote, good coverage.
Good looking UI something a little different and boots fairly quick.
A quick look around the UI.

Now that's the easy part done now for some BenchMarks to see what this beast can do.

First impressions looks good, solid feel and presented well.
Great Looking UI and appears well made

Gearbest

[clarkss12]

Thank you again, Trebor for this review. One thing that I now want or expect in a box in HD audio audio passthrough out of the box. It would be nice if they had their own native player that will play from my networked storage devices just as they would from a local drive.

The main thing I am looking for now, is the ability to software decode live mpeg2 TS streams, and play them flawlessly. The expectation bar has surely climbed in the last 3 or 4 years. My first boxes, the expectation was that they would only reboot or freeze, a couple of times an hour. Passing DTS and Dobly Digital was only a far fetched dream, that only the Dev's could accomplish.

So, is this the generation of boxes that will satisfy our needs, of do we have to wait for the next generation of devices??

[plasma]

Where are benchmarks???

[RISCy Dude]

Takes time to put a box through its paces. He just started building the review, benchmarks will follow.

[trebor]

Only Coffee cup Rings on my bench at the time but things are moving along Ok......

First the Quirky bits I have found while testing so far

When using Keyboard (k400 plus Logitech), pressing enter gives you a Q on screen, other keyboard command appear to work fine just can push enter to complete line entry

Some apps I used for testing will not Rotate and stay Portrait in Landscape, some will start/intro sideways then rights itself in main application other times just runs sideways, could be Apps or Android 6, yet to try any orientating Apps and setting in Android 6 does nothing at present.






No upper or lower task/Notification bar at present, maybe a Android 6 thing

ALT and Tab lets you scroll thru recent apps, Hold Alt you can Close or Pick app you require.

WiFi is Ok appears to like Higher Channels on 2.4ghz
Working well at 5Ghz and ethernet 10/100 OK.



Now for some Benchmarks for those who need to see the Numbers
How compatible these bench testing Apps are going to be I guess we will find out as we go along

Temps while Running these test mostly around 50c most mid to high 40's
3Dmark and Antutu took it mid 50's and it struggled with Slingshot 3dmark.

Temps running in Upper centre of screen only an indication accuracy not guaranteed.



CPU-Z with the some Info









DRM level 3 had a quick look at Netflix No Hd but very watchable



Vellamo and the scores



Antutu Scores OK





An Oldy but the Numbers look good



Geekbench Url Below for full details



https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/7777457



3DMark tried with Slingshot but could not make it happen to well, but things kicked into gear with other tests below

[scooter2014]

is that a huge ir or camera on front?? Another great review Trebor.... Finger on trigger lol

[trebor]

Huge IR window The remote supplied works well and from many angles.

[Shiningworth]

Thank you very much for your specific review of the device.

[trebor]

CNXSoft has been doing Video Performance with the Amlogic S912 Media Players,


I’ve received my first Amlogic S912 TV box with MXQ Plus M12N TV box this week-end, and I’ve decided to start testing by showing the media capabilities of the platform that is supposed to support 4K VP9 up to 60Hz, 4K 10-bit H.265 up to 60Hz and 4K H.264 up to 30 Hz.



I connected the device to Onkyo TX-NR636 A/V receiver itself connected to LG 42UB820T 4K UHD TV, set video output to 2160p @ 60Hz, and played several 4K video samples from a USB hard drive using the preinstalled version of Kodi 16.1:

• 4K Hawaii Sunset _ GoPro Hero 4 Black [email protected] (Downloaded from YouTube) – OK
• Beauty_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265 @ 30 fps – No audio) – OK
• big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_30fps.mp4 (H.264 @ 30 fps – MPEG1/2 and AC3 audio) – OK
• big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_60fps.mp4 (H.264 @ 60 fps – MPEG1/2 and AC3 audio) – Video a bit choppy, large audio delay. Expected as not supported by Amlogic S912 VPU
• BT.2020.20140602.ts (H.265 Rec.2020 compliant – AAC audio) – OK
• Fifa_WorldCup2014_Uruguay-Colombia_4K-x265.mp4 (H.265 @ 60 fps – AC3) – OK
• MHD_2013_2160p_ShowReel_R_9000f_24fps_RMN_QP23_10b .mkv (10-bit HEVC @ 24 fps – no audio) – OK
• Samsung_UHD_Dubai_10-bit_HEVC_51.4Mbps.ts (10-bit HEVC / MPEG-4 AAC) – OK
• The.Curvature.of.Earth.4K.60FPS-YT-UceRgEyfSsc.VP9.3840×2160.OPUS.160K.webm – OK, although not perfect(some frames seem to be missing, TBC)
• 暗流涌动-4K.mp4 (4K 10-bit H.264 video) – Lots of artifacts. Software decode since the VPU does not support 10-bit h.264

The results are pretty good as the two main “failures” were expected since Amlogic S912 video processing unit (aka hardware video decoder) does not support 10-bit H.264 nor 4K H.264 @ 60 Hz. The Curvature of Earth video was watchable, but I think I’ve seen it play more smoothly on other hardware platforms. I initially started to play over SAMBA, but the Fast Ethernet network performance is not always good enough to play the videos from a SAMBA share, so I reverted to using a USB hard drive.

I’ve also included two extra 720p and 1080p 10-bit H.264 (hi10p) video to check whether the 8 cores would be fast enough for software decoding:

• [Commie] Steins;Gate – NCED [BD 720p AAC] [10bit] [C706859E].mkv – OK with video, audio, and subtitles
• [1080p][16_REF_L5.1][mp3_2.0]Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu BD OP.mkv – Subtitles OK, audio may cut from time to time, and video is playing but a bit choppy, and with artifacts at times.

So the processor is not quite fast enough to play 1080p 10-bit H.264 videos despite all eight cores being used at the time of playback.

You can watch all videos above being played in M12N TV box, and download them from comments @ Where to get Video & Audio samples.

I also tested HDMI audio pass-through, but only Dolby and DTS options are available in that version of Kodi, with DTS-HD and TrueHD options missing, and Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1 sometimes playing with audio cut. So that’s yet another TV box shipped without proper audio support. Automatic frame rate switching is not supported either.

Please also note that my sample was sent directly from Shenzhen Shiningworth, the manufacturer of the device, and I’ve been told the launcher will be different on their customers hardware such as ENYBOX X2 or Acemax M12N,

[puppinoo]

Hi,
This is my first post (great forum BTW).
A mandatory functionality for me is firmware support for 'auto refresh rate switch', at least in kodi. My Nvidia Shield and Wetek boxes have it. Does this or any other s912 box support this function?

Thanks.
Puppinoo.

[bloodgnome]

Well another proof that everything starting with MX/MXQ is crap.

38000 Antutu points... rly... my s802 scores 43000...my rk3288 56000.

Icestorm looks ok due to the new mali but that is all...

Gesendet von meinem thl 5000 mit Tapatalk

[bluesmanuk]

I never really pay much attention to scores in things such as Antutu because they only tell half a story and there are variables that can affect the results.

Just look at the fact that CNX got 41303.

http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/08/17/m12n-amlogic-s912-tv-box-benchmarks/

The implementation of the firmware is what can make all the difference.

The GPU is what should make this stand out from the general Mali 400/450 crowd.

Apart from the obvious video playback results, which look good for an out of box experience, gamers might be the ones to find more from the S912.

[trebor]

Yes the Numbers are just an Indication (we all remember the aw80 and Antutu) and as this is day one out of the Box
Most of it is doing ok, far to early yet to run this media player down or any other, least give the solder for the paint to dry.

Cheers

[RISCy Dude]

I agree. It is too early to draw conclusions, certainly ones based on early AnTuTu scores. S912 is still an infant, firmware wise.

An example of what bluesmanuk pointed out, My RK3288 came with A-4.4, it was scoring in the mid 40's, took several revisions and A-5.1 to get to the mid 50's. While I agree the S912 is not the AnTuTu tipper that the RK3288 is, high benchmark scores don't always translate to real-world performance or suitability for a given task.

To see the increase in throughput performance provided by the Mali T820MP3, go to these links and select the "Performance" tab.
Mali 400-450.
Mali T820.

Just my 2 cents.....I don't know what that's worth with inflation.

[Javimetal]

Please also note that my sample was sent directly from Shenzhen Shiningworth, the manufacturer of the device, and I’ve been told the launcher will be different on their customers hardware such as ENYBOX X2 or Acemax M12N,[/FONT][/SIZE]

I do not think Eny and Acemax are Shinningworth's customers. This motherboard is not made by any of these three brands.;

Just choose the one who can support better their customers, this board is manufactured by the same design house for all them. I have been testing it a month ago.