[Guide] S922X-J (Ugoos AM6b+) CoreELEC installation and FAQs

General Guides & How-tos
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Compatible Devices

  • Ugoos AM6b+
  • Ugoos AM6+
  • Minix U22X-J (Max)

Requirements

Preparing Installation Drive

1. Connect the USB Storage to your PC and open Balena Etcher
2. Select the CoreELEC’s image file (eg. CoreELEC-Amlogic-ng.arm-21.0-Omega_nightly_20240430-Generic.img.gz)
3. Select the USB Storage that you want to use, proceed with the installation and make sure that it will complete successfully.
4. Open the COREELEC partition, navigate to “device_trees” folder
5. Copy the appropriate dtb file, e.g. g12b_s922x_ugoos_am6b.dtb file to the root of your COREELEC partition. Then, rename it dtb.img
6. Copy dovi.ko to the root of your COREELEC flash drive.
7. Copy remote.conf to the root of your COREELEC flash drive.
8. Safely remove the USB drive from your PC

CoreELEC Installation

1. Insert the USB drive in a USB port on your device.
2. There are two ways to reboot/boot the device into UPGRADE MODE, one it’s directly from Android, using the ADB command, and the other is by using the Recovery Button. Most users find the Reset Button easiest.
a) Recovery Button Method

  • Turn off the device and remove the DC power connector (or remove the power adapter from the wall socket)
  • Press and keep pressing the Recovery button on the bottom of the device, then Power ON the device while keep pressing the Recovery button until the CoreELEC screen appears.
  • Release the Recovery Button

b) ADB Method: Make sure ADB Debug is enabled and working and then run
adb reboot update

3. At this point, if everything went well, CoreELEC should be up and running, so just proceed with the initial setup. For recommended setting, see this post. You might need to experiment to find the best settings for you.

Installing CPM bin (Community project, no official support)
For the most up to date Dolby Vision and HDR features including VS10, conversion of HDR10+ to Dolby Vision, the ability to display Dolby Vision content on non-Dolby Vision displays, and a more reliable Dolby Vision switching mode, you need to run the latest CPM build. However, it is a community project with no official support.

  1. Disable Automatic Update
  2. Download the tar for the latest CPM build
  3. Place it in your .update folder.
  4. Reboot
  5. For a more detailed Player Processor Info Window, install the latest modification of the default skin default skin.

Remote Control Configuration

Ugoos UR-01 Bluetooth remote pairing

  1. Go to Settings → CoreELEC Configuration → Bluetooth
  2. On the Ugoos UR-01 remote press Volume + and Volume - for a few seconds (this will put the remote in pairing mode )
  3. Check if UR-01 is showing in CoreELEC’s Bluetooth screen
  4. Select the remote and press PAIR
  5. Check if CoreELEC is responding to the remote commands

If the menu button does not work, place this file into /storage/.config/hwdb.d/ .

FAQs
1. Which Dolby Vision profiles are supported on these devices?

These devices support Profile 4, 5, 7 FEL, 7 MEL, 8.1, and 8.4. CoreELEC supports Single-Track Dual-Layer and Dual-Track Dual-Layer from BDMV folders as well as ISO, M2TS, MP4, MKV, and TS files. In Display (TV) led Dolby Vision mode, they transmit CMv2.9 and CMv4.0 metadata. When using LLDV mode, these devices only decode CMv2.9 metadata.

2. Does CoreELEC support the Dolby Vision VS10 engine for converting SDR/HDR/HDR10+/HLG to Dolby Vision?

No, you need to run the CPM build to enable these features.

3. Can these devices convert Dolby Vision to HDR for televisions that do not support Dolby Vision?

No, you need to run the CPM build to enable these features.

4. Should I use Player Led Dolby Vision?

No, do not use Player Led Dolby Vision unless your TV does not support display (TV) led Dolby Vision.

5. Does CoreELEC support Blu-ray menus?

Yes, to enable Blu-ray, menu support install the tools.jre.zulu addon from the CoreElec repository. Then, go to Settings → Player → Blu-ray playback mode and change it to Show Blu-ray menu. To play a menu, either navigate to a folder and long press the OK button or press the menu button and then select Play. You can also play the index.bdmv in the BDMV folder. CoreELEC supports Dolby Vision playback when using the menu.

6. Are HDR10 files encoded by ATEME with a Maximum Display Luminance above 1000 nits decoded correctly?

Yes, CPM’s fix for this bug in the Amlogic library was merged into CoreELEC on September 11, 2024.

7. Is 3D supported?

Yes, CoreELEC supports 3D encoded in MVC/Framepacked, FTAB, HTAB, FSBS, and HSBS. Playback is supported for ISO, BDMV, mkv, and mk3d. CoreELEC can output 3D content in both 1080p and 4K and the output format is selectable. However, due to a bug in the Amlogic code, 3D content suffers from macroblocking in rare cases.

8. Is AV1 supported?

No, these devices do not have hardware support for AV1. While software decoding mostly works for 1080p content, 4k content stutters.

9. Can CoreELEC passthrough DSD via HDMI or USB?

No, Kodi transcodes all DSD to WAV. A passthrough feature in Kodi needs to be developed before CoreELEC can support this feature.

10. Can I dual boot android and CoreELEC?

Yes, dual booting will speed up CoreELEC and remove the need to use external media. To do so, you need to use the ceemc tool. In short, SSH into you device; then run ceemmc -x; type in Y; then type in 1. Once the process is complete, remove your external media and enjoy. To speed up CoreELEC installed on the eMMC on Ugoos devices, go to Settings-> CoreELEC → Hardware → eMMC Speed Mode and change it to HS200/HS400.

11. Are S928X-J devices better than S922X-J devices?

For most content, S922X-J devices are better than S928X-J devices. The S928X-J lacks FEL support and development is focused on S922X-J devices. Currently, multichannel PCM and 3D do not work on S928X-J devices.

Troubleshooting

1. Why can I not see any options for Dolby Vision?

You need to connect to a Dolby Vision compatible display to see Dolby Vision options?

2. Why is Dolby Vision content green and purple?

You are either missing dovi.ko or your TV does not support Display-Led Dolby Vision. Please try using Player-Led Dolby Vision.

3. Why do certain menus not work?

Menu support in CoreELEC is limited by it’s implementation in Kodi.

4. Why do these devices ignore Dolby Vision L2 trims greater than 2048 (.0248)?

This appears to be a deliberate filter implemented by Dolby to prevent elevated blacks in the letterbox area (the area outside the picture). In the official specification, Dolby states “If the scene contains positive Lift values over 0.025, this may cause the letterboxed area to have elevated black levels during playback” and instructs colorists to “Avoid using positive values over 0.025.”

5. Why does 25fps content play as 50fps and 30fps content play as 60fps?

This is due to an old workaround in Kodi that disabled 25fps and 30fps output by default. The solution is add all available resolutions above 1080p to the whitelist.

Information Current as of September 28, 2024.

19 Likes
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Thanks a lot @Astrotrain

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Thank you.

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Setting up Dual boot:

Good write up using the Amlogic Tool:
https://wiki.coreelec.org/coreelec:aml_usb_tool

As mentioned this requires an OTG cable. I believe the tool also only runs in Windows.

Ime even with a fast writable micro SD card, eMMC installation seems much snappier.

EDIT: Don’t use this image. Otherwise you will only get 3GB of total space in your /storage directory. Instead use the ceemmc tool (you’ll get about 25GB this way).

1 Like
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Shared Library DB:
While technically not specific to Ugoos, if you have multiple boxes, I highly suggest setting up shared Library databases running in MySQL/MariaDB.

https://kodi.wiki/view/MySQL

I have this setup on no less than 7 devices running some form of Kodi (some CoreELEC, some Android TV some Fire TV). Once the database is setup, it just a matter of copying over like 4-5 small xml files within the Kodi profile.

This took maybe 5 minutes to setup. Then however long a library scan took.

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For dual booting, you can also use the ceemc tool. I found it really fast and easy and then you don’t have to buy a special cable.

1 Like
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Yes with ceemmc tool you can uninstall also.

1 Like
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Care to make a guide? I’ve been running the dualboot firmware provided by Ugoos, but would like to reclaim the space since I never plan to reboot into the Android instance.
But i’m getting this error:

...
Migrate CoreELEC dual boot to single boot installation
  Use CoreELEC data from
    [1] current used SD or USB device
->  [2] the existing data on eMMC
    [3] existing backup on current used SD or USB device

...
Please choose one option? [1/2/3/4/5/6/7]: 2
Free space of 'partition CE_FLASH': 512MB
Warning: Could not find 'dto' partition!
Could not find 'CE_STORAGE' partition!
Failed to read size of partition 'CE_STORAGE'!
Failed to create new partition table!

I suspect it’s because the tool can’t account for whatever partition layout was setup by the Ugoos dualboot image.

I’m guessing I’ll have to run the Amlogic tool again to revert to the single boot image with only Android. Install fresh CE on an sd card, boot from it and then run the tool?

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I’d love a guide too because if it’s faster I’ll use the internal storage, but the lack of space is a big issue.

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Nevermind I figured it out. It didn’t like single boot migration so I settled on dualboot still. Once said and done, Much better for space allocations.

I’ll try to write up a howto this evening.

screenshot00000
screenshot000001920×1080 63 KB

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Looking forward to it

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Thanks for the guide @Astrotrain
I noticed a suggestion of yours that fixed an issue where the remote unpairs itself involving setting the permission to root.How would one go about that?

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I got bored and did it myself and it was as simple as can be. I’d prefer only CoreELEC on the box but I ran into the same issue as you, the tool was yelling about partition tables.

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DTDL FEL is an issue only on ISO files. FEL playback from MKV is perfect and this doesn’t make a difference as both tracks are muxed together in encoding and then demuxed during playback. Most people are aware, but wanted to clarify for others.

By default, UHD movies are encoded in BT.709

Not sure how true this is. Open up any DV MKV in mediainfo. 99% will say bt.2020

To fix this issue enable software decoding by going to Settings → Player - >Accelerate VC1 and change it to Exclude 24p.

What settings is everyone using for other codecs: MP4, MPEG-2, and h264?

I think HD-Only is the default on the MP4 codec, I’ve changed that to Always, which is set on h264 and MPEG-2 as well.

1 Like
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I haven’t found any problematic files yet so I set always for MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and h264.

I’d clarify that statement by saying standard for titles with HDR is BT.2020. While nearly every UHD I’ve come across has some form of HDR, but notable exceptions like The good, the bad and the ugly being an SDR 4K encoding (also being BT.709).

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You’re absolutely right about P1, so I fixed the first point.

For point 2, this has to do with a specific bug in hardware decoding of VC1 content. Not sure if the underlying bug is fixable, but this enables software decoding of progressive content to workaround the bug.

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Is the installation permanent on the device afterward ?
Can the USB device used for install be removed totally ?

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If you use the ceemc tool you will not need the USB drive or SD card in the device, but if you do not dual boot you will need whatever device you installed CoreELEC on plugged in at all times.

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So I followed the guide using a microSD card, the partition resizing didn’t work and I ended up with no space.
I tried with Rufus afterward, and it worked, the partition resized ok, with everything else working as expected, TV-Led DV and all :tada:
I got a few questions @Astrotrain :

  1. we have to copy dovi.ko to the root of the SD card, will it always be that way or can we expect a CoreElec release bundled with it ?
    2.On point 4 it’s written that we now have two partitions, is it really the case before CoreElec boots up ?
  2. You warn to not boot into Android, in which case can it happen ? : I shutdown my devices several times and it always booted on CoreElec
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On some devices dovi.ko is used directly from Android. But when thre is not correct version the file must be manualy copied. And this file will never be in the image.