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

[trebor]

Yes it's all about the support, as lean as it can appear at times.
We need a few more out there before these unit starts to perform,

Maybe you could share some of your finding on the Unit you have been testing
Cheers

[Javimetal]

Yes it's all about the support, as lean as it can appear at times.
We need a few more out there before these unit starts to perform,

Maybe you could share some of your finding on the Unit you have been testing
Cheers

Most of the improvement depends on Amlogic. The S912 is new and you know what that means...

All users should report the problems to the brands, then, the design house will fix some and the others will be reported to Amlogic directly.

At this point, the most important is the hardware, all other problems can be fixed by software updates.


I am a little more focused in S905X, so I did not test it too much. S912 runs too hot, that s true (and expected). I do not know if they did something related to this point. I think a good heatsink is important for this model.

[trebor]

Some gameplay and comments from CNXSoft on the M12N AMLOGING S912


When Amlogic announced S912 processor, they mentioned it would target not only 4K OTT and IP set-top boxes, but also gaming consoles thanks to a faster and better Mali-T820MP3 GPU compared to the Mali-450MP GPU found in their previous S905 and S805 processor, and we’ve already seen that S912 is indeed faster in 3D benchmarks.

So I decided to play several games to show the performance, the pre-loaded retro gaming app, and for people who have never used a TV box to play games show what it looks like, and how to play using M12N TV box, in conjunction withMINIX NEO A2 Lite air mouse and Tronsmart Mars G01 wireless gamepad.

I played four games downloaded from the Play Store or Amazon Underground:

• Candy Crush Saga with air mouse
• Beach Buggy Racing and Riptide GP2 with the gamepad
• Dead Trigger with the air mouse in menus, and the gamepad during the game (requires key mapping)

All four games played just fine in the box, and Riptide GP2 framerate was noticeably higher than on Amlogic S905 TV boxes when “highest resolution” setting is selected. If you don’t want to purchase an air mouse or/and game pad, it should also be possible to use your smartphone with the remote app, but it’s not something I’ve tested.

MXQ Plus M12N TV box also includes KO GameBox app and simply shown as Games in the main menu.

The app has some Chinese logos, and the interface and games are all available with English language. All games appear to be retro games, and include classic like Super Mario Bros. None of the games are installed in the box, but the app will allow you to download them from various mirrors. I tried Fate/Unlimited Codes street fighting PSP game, and it worked well with Tronsmart gamepad. The app also provide a QR core to download KO TVGame Assistant app to install on your Android phone in order to use it as a gamepad.

You can see all games tested in MQX Plus M12N TV box in the video below.

If you want to purchase the setup I used, you can get Shenzhen Shiningworth on Aliexpress for $69.99, Tronsmart Mars G01 RF gamepad for $25.99, and/or MINIX NEO A2 Lite air mouse for the same price. Of course, you’d have pretty much the same experience with any of the other Amlogic S912 TV boxes, and the gamepad or/and air mouse of your choice.

Source CNXSoft

[trebor]

More on the MXQ Amlogic s912 2/16GB You can read the full story at CNXSoft

Firmware:

I’ll play all videos from a SAMBA share over an 100Mbps Ethernet connectivity, unless otherwise stated (HDD = played from USB hard drive).

I’ve started with some Linaro media samples, and Elecard H.265 videos:

• H.264 codec / MP4 container (Big Buck Bunny) – 480p/720p/1080p – OK
• MPEG2 codec / MPG container – 480p/720p/1080p – OK
• MPEG4 codec, AVI container 480p/720p/1080p – OK
• VC1 codec (WMV) – 1080p – 480p/720p/1080p – OK
• Real Media (RMVB), 720p / 5Mbps – OK (software decode)
• WebM / VP8 – 480p/720p – OK (ff-vp8 software decode), 1080p – some frames are skipped
• H.265 codec / MPEG TS container – OK

I enabled automatic refresh rate in Kodi, but this did not work well.

Videos with various bitrates were next:

• ED_HD.avi (H.264 / 10 Mbps) – OK
• big_buck_bunny_1080p_surround.avi (1080p H.264 – 12 Mbps) – Not 100% smooth (software decode)
• h264_1080p_hp_4.1_40mbps_birds.mkv (40 Mbps) – OK
• hddvd_demo_17.5Mbps_1080p_VC1.mkv (17.5Mbps) – Audio only, stays in UI
• Jellyfish-120-Mbps.mkv (120 Mbps video without audio) – HDD: OK

The worry here is that the system can’t play some videos with software decode that could be played without issues in Amlogic S905X devices like MINI M8S II, so it could be the CPU is throttling under load.

I also tested PCM output (stereo downsampling) via Kodi and MX Player/MoviePlayer app using my TV’s speakers, and HDMI pass-through in both using Onkyo TX-NR636 receiver for advanced audio codecs.

Audio Codec in Video	PCM 2.0 Output (Kodi 16.1)	PCM 2.0 Output (MoviePlayer or Video Player)	HDMI Pass-through (Kodi 16.1)	HDMI Pass-through (MoviePlayer or Video Player)
AC3 / Dolby Digital 5.1	Audio OK but video not smooth	No audio	Dolby D 5.1 detected, but audio starts with noises, video not smooth	OK
E-AC-3 / Dolby Digital+ 5.1	OK	No audio	Dolby D 5.1, but with 3 audio cuts	OK
Dolby Digital+ 7.1	OK	No audio	no audio	Video plays in slow motion without audio
TrueHD 5.1	OK	No audio	no audio	TrueHD 5.1
TrueHD 7.1	OK	No audio	no audio	TrueHD 7.1
Dolby Atmos 7.1	OK	No audio	PCM 2.0	Dolby D 5.1 –continuous beep
DTS HD Master	OK	No audio	DTS 5.1 with 2 audio cuts	DTS 5.1
DTS HD High Resolution	OK	No audio	DTS 5.1 with 1 audio cut	DTS 5.1
DTS:X	OK	No audio	DTS 5.1	DTS 5.1

No audio with PCM output using apps other than Kodi is expected since the processor is Amlogic S912, and not Amlogic S912-H with the proper Dolby and DTS licenses. HDMI pass-through is still in a sorry state, especially in Kodi. It’s still usable in other apps, as long as you are satisfied with 5.1 audio.

4K video playback is pretty good however, at least for supported HW codecs:

• HD.Club-4K-Chimei-inn-60mbps.mp4 – OK
• sintel-2010-4k.mkv – OK
• Beauty_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265) – OK
• Bosphorus_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265) – OK
• Jockey_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_TS.ts (H.265) – OK
• MHD_2013_2160p_ShowReel_R_9000f_24fps_RMN_QP23_10b .mkv (10-bit HEVC) – OK
• phfx_4KHD_VP9TestFootage.webm (VP9) – OK
• BT.2020.20140602.ts (Rec.2020 compliant video; 36 Mbps) – OK.
• big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_30fps.mp4 – OK
• big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_60fps.mp4 – Not smooth, and audio delay (as expected since hardware is not supposed to support it)
• Fifa_WorldCup2014_Uruguay-Colombia_4K-x265.mp4 (4K, H.265, 60 fps) – OK
• Samsung_UHD_Dubai_10-bit_HEVC_51.4Mbps.ts (10-bit HEVC / MPEG-4 AAC) – OK
• Astra-11479_V_22000-Canal+ UHD Demo 42.6 Mbps bitrate.ts (10-bit H.265 from DVB-S2 stream) – OK
• 暗流涌动-4K.mp4 (10-bit H.264; 120 Mbps) – HDD: Slow motion, and many artifacts (Not supported by S912 VPU, software decode)
• Ducks Take Off [2160p a 243 Mbps].mkv (4K H.264 @ 30 fps; 243 Mbps; no audio) – HDD: Not perfectly smooth for either NTFS or exFAT partitions
• tara-no9-vp9.webm (4K VP9 YouTube video) – OK
• The.Curvature.of.Earth.4K.60FPS-YT-UceRgEyfSsc.VP9.3840×2160.OPUS.160K.webm (4K VP9 @ 60 fps + opus audio) – OK watchable but not 100% perfectly smooth.

I had already written about 4K video playback on Amlogic S912 SoC, and if you haven’;t seen it already you can watch some of the videos above playing in M12N in the embedded video below.


Sintek-4k.iso & amat.iso (non encrypted) Blu-Ray ISOs, and two MPEG2 1080i videos could all play without an issues. I was expecting Amlogic S912 to handle 1080p 10-bit H.264 video software decoding thanks to its 8 cores @ 2.0 GHz, but while a 720p Hi10p would play perfectly with audio, video and subtitles, the 1080p Hi10p video was not perfectly smooth, and even suffered from artifacts and audio cuts from time to time. The culprit could be M12N specific thermal design, so the issue will have to be confirmed or disproved with some other S912 models.

My TV does not support 3D videos, but I normally still checked if the TV box can decode the videos, and Onkyo TX-NR636 A/V receiver is capable of detecting 3D content (shows 3D icon) for MVC videos as shown in Zidoo X1 II review, so I check whether the 3D icon is lit up:

• bbb_sunflower_1080p_60fps_stereo_abl.mp4 (1080p Over/Under) – OK
• bbb_sunflower_2160p_60fps_stereo_abl.mp4 (2160p Over/Under) – Audio only, stays in UI.
• Turbo_Film-DreamWorks_trailer_VO_3D.mp4 (1080p SBS) – OK
• 3D-full-MVC.mkv (Full-frame packed MVC 3D MKV) – 2D only, 3D icon not shown on Onkyo receiver
• ISO-full3D-sample.iso (Full-frame packed MVC 3D ISO) – 2D only, 3D icon not shown on Onkyo receiver

I completed Kodi videos testing by playing various VOB/IFO, MKV, AVI, MP4, XViD/DViX, and MKV 720p and 1080p videos from my library and all could play fine. I also played one complete video for 2 hours without issues.

I’ve also run Antutu Video Tester 3.0 benchmark, and MXQ Plus got 895 points, which is quite similar to the 909 points achived on MINI M8S II. The best devices normally get over 1,000 points.

Click to Enlarge

DRM info shows only Widewine Level 3 is supported. No surprise here.

Click to Enlarge

YouTube works fine, but is limited to 1080p max.

Video samples used in Kodi for this review can be downloaded via links in the comments section of my video sample post. Network Performance

I copied a 278MB file between a SAMBA share and the internal storage test WiFi performance, both using 802.11n @ 2.4 GHz, and 802.11ac @ 433 Mbps.

Results are below average, and during the 802.11n test, I even got a stalled and failed transfer. Performance is also asymmetric with “downloads” (SAMBA-> flash) faster than uploads (flash to SAMBA). 802.11n achieved 1.6 MB/s on average, while the file was transfered @ 1.9 MB/s over 802.11ac on average.

Throughput in MB/s – Click to Enlarge

For Fast Ethernet, I instead ran iperf -t 60 -c server_ip -d to test full duplex transfer, a worse case scenario, and performance is good:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Client connecting to 192.168.0.113, TCP port 5001 TCP window size: 153 KByte (default) ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 6] local 192.168.0.104 port 59092 connected with 192.168.0.113 port 5001 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 6] 0.0-60.0 sec 656 MBytes 91.7 Mbits/sec [ 4] 0.0-60.1 sec 651 MBytes 90.9 Mbits/sec

Miscellaneous Tests

Bluetooth

After pairing my Android smartphone with “MXQ Plus” I could transfer a couple of photos over Bluetooth. I side-loaded Mi Fit, and it recognized and sync data with Xiaomi Mi Band 2 fitness band, however the app was displayed in portrait mode.



I skipped Sixaxis app test with my PS3 Bluetooth game controller clone since the firmware is not rooted, and for some reasons the TV box completely failed to detect my Bluetooth headset. Storage

My Seagate USB hard drive with 4 partitions got NTFS and exFAT partions recognized and mounted and a FAT32 micro SD could also be moutned in read/write mode.

File System	Read	Write
NTFS	OK	OK
EXT-4	Not mounted	Not mounted
exFAT	OK	OK
BTRFS	Not mounted	Not mounted
FAT32	OK	OK

Once I tried to copy a file from NTFS to exFAT in ES File Explorer but it failed due to permissions issues. I had not such issues with File Manager app. A1SD bench app shows fast sequential read speed in both partitions with 30MB/s (NTFS) and 33.86MB/s (exFAT), but write speeds are on the low side at respectively 6.42MB/s (NTFS) and 23.83MB/s (exFAT). I checked the NTFS partition with ntfsfix in my PC, and repeated the benchmark but the write speed was still very low.

Read and Write Speeds in MB/s

I repeated the test for M12N Samsung eMMC flash, and the results were excellent with 99.00 MB/s read speed and 69.40 MB/s write speed, which really makes me wonder why the box are the “unresponsive” app issue.

Read and Write Speeds in MB/s Gaming

I’ve already written a specific post about Gaming on Amlogic S912 TV box, and performance is clearly better than on Amlogic S905 TV boxes. The included retro gaming app “KO Gamebox” is also interesting. You can see the performance in several games in the video below.
MXQ Plus M12N Benchmarks

I’ll refer to you to the post entitled M12N Amlogic S912 TV Box Benchmarks for details, but let’s say results are disappointing, and I was expecting a larger performance jump compared to Amlogic S905 platforms.

Conclusion

MXQ Plus M12N works reasonably well with a stable and responsive firmware, good 4K video playback in Kodi, and decent gaming performance, however it feels like the device does not fully leverage Amlogic S912 processor performance based on benchmark results and video software decoding performance, and it still has some bugs like lack of HDMI audio pass-through in Kodi, and no automatic frame rate switching, problem with remembering HDMI resolution, slow WiFi, and so on.

PROS

• Recent, stable, responsive (most of the time) Android 6.0 firmware
• Good 4K videos playvack for VP9, H.265 and H.264 in Kodi
• HDMI audio pass-through for Dolby 5.1, DTS 5.1, and TrueHD 5.1 and 7.1 in Video Player/MoviePlayer
• One of the fastest internal storage I’ve seen in any TV boxes leading to reasonably fast boot (< 30 seconds)
• Good 3D gaming performance
• Proper power handling, and low power off, standby, and idle power consumption
• OTA firmware update support (not tested since no new firmware)
• exFAT, NTFS, and FAT32 file system support for external storage
• IR remote control working up to at least 10 meters
• Bluetooth file transfer and BLE are working

CONS

• HDMI audio pass-through and automatic frame rate switching not working properly in Kodi. Dolby Atmos and DTS-HD 7.1 not supported in other apps
• Disappointing performance compared to Amlogic S905 TV boxes (only ~ +10/15% boost in many benchmarks), and some videos (10-bit h.264) are not playing as well as in Amlogic S905X devices using software decode. Possibly a thermal design issue
• User set HDMI output mode is not always remember, often falling back to 1080p60 after a reboot, even if I set it to 4K 60Hz previously.
• “App not responding” issue appearing from time to time (not too often, but still noticeable)
• Poor WiFi performance
• Likely HDMI CEC issue as the device will not let me turn off my A/V receiver even after disabling HDMI CEC or automatic HDMI output
• Bluetooth audio may not be working
• Lack of status and notifications bars
• DRM: Only supports Widevine Level 3
• Dolby & DTS licenses not included (Only a problem for apps other than Kodi, for people not using HDMI or S/PDIF audio pass-through)

Source CNXSOFT

[goop]

More on the MXQ Amlogic s912 2/16GB You can read the full story at CNXSoft

CONS
.....automatic frame rate switching not working properly in Kodi....

Greetings Trebor.

Does s912 (or s905x) support 60/59.94/50/24/23.976 fps for all resolutions?

Many thanks and best regards,

[trebor]

MXQ S912 have released a OTA update with system root,

[bluesmanuk]

Once the auto frame rate switching on these boxes is fixed then I think that the S912 is a very promising SOC.

[bloodgnome]

Once the auto frame rate switching on these boxes is fixed then I think that the S912 is a very promising SOC.

Why? Its on par with rk3368 and is beaten by the s812 and the 2014 rk3288. it offers to little to late.

Gesendet von meinem thl 5000 mit Tapatalk

[bluesmanuk]

The RK3368 won't come close because of it's lesser GPU.

The RK3288 should have been a world beater but it was made my Rockchip, therefore good hardware but little else behind it.

What the S912 has to offer will, like most of these things be down to the quality of the firmware.

Early days yet but I've been more impressed with the general out of box experience than I have been before.

Still too many things that should not be issues but then this is still par for the course with the low cost boxes.

[trebor]

After a bit further of a tinker I have been able to resolve 2 of the issues that bugged me with this device and so easy,
As we have Root a simple mod to build.prop was able to re-enable the use of the Enter Key to complete entries,
Stop applications from running sideway just little annoying things, apart from that box is doing well with stock rom supplied.
No major quirks as yet, most think I throw at work, without been to picky.

What I do like is it runs cool,
Thermal Pad to Lid of metal box direct from CPU so easy more should consider this form of heat dissipation.

[bluesmanuk]

It's the same case as used on the Acemax and it is excellent when it comes to heat dissipation.

Best I've come across over the years and really does show the value of using metal.

[DNIZoid]

Why doe's it only show 8gb user available out of 11gb

[trebor]

MXQ plus s912

Today we have super new Rom from superceleron [ROM] MXQ M12N Superceleron v1.0 Rom

Hi there guys and girls, one more rom... This is not the original stock rom... the only thing from the original is the kernel and the recovery.
My many thanks to trebor for the beta test!

Changelog v1.0:

• Netflix playstore...etc... fully working
• Quick Boot!
• Xbox360 wireless Gamepad, original and Chinese clones?!(well it works with my clone adapter...)
• DRM widevine!
• Bottom and upper bar fixed and added power button to it.
• Proper rooted.
• Custom Kodi 16.1 Build. (Normal Kodi with my librtmp)
• initd.d support.
• Fully deodexed.
• Network tweaks. (On N networks bw around 30 to 42mbits, and on AC networks from 150 to 200mbits)
• Permissions fixed.
• Sleep working, full power off also working.
• Kodi Brightness fix (videos...)
• Passthrough fix apk ( thanks prahjister for the apk)
• Removed the default launcher it have a lot of stability problems, you will loose the net led...
• Simple Launcher...
• Other small fixes and optimizations!

Want to buy me a beer?

• http://bit.ly/scdonation

Download:

• DOWNLOAD HERE
• MD5: 6D085CC1B8E1CD5559B2475340D1C4B6

Install instructions:

• Download the zip (DON'T UNPACK IT)
• Put the zip in a USB Stick or a sdcard ( Better a USB Stick)
• Boot to recovery and choose "Apply update from EXT" then "Update from sdcard"(if you use the sdcard..) or "Update from udisk" (if you use USB Stick) and flash...
• Reboot and wait...

1º BOOT TAKES AROUND 6 MINUTES!
AFTER THAT DO GIVE THE 1º BOOT 3 or 4 min TO INSTALL ALL APKS!

THIS ROM DELETES ALL YOUR DATA SO DO A BACKUP!

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!


Don't forget to support the Devs and the fine work they do

[bluesmanuk]

What Widevine level is supported?

[trebor]

Same as previous..L3