Yesterday I was installing CE in my Nokia 8010 TV Box, and also starting to play with the dualboot. Now I’ve a doubt about what changed in the TV BOX to always try to run from the USB, I mean, the first time you need to reboot to update, you know with the stick and so, what I wonder is what happens once CE start to install, what change in the TV Box, the bootloader? I know that if I remove the USB the Android TV runs without problem, but … is there something in the internal memory or whatever that put a flag or something to order the TV Box to run from the USB? If so, how this can be reverted? I’m just curious.
Factory reset will revert booting from usb first.
Edit: also firmware update will have the same effect.
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I bought a Homatics 4k Pro from the suggestion thread to use with CE, but I have some basic DV questions.
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The DV type from UHD discs where the DV is a separate file, will this only be playabe from CE or can they be played in “streaming” apps such as Kodi launched from the android menu?
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Is DV profile 7 converted to profile 8 (or any other) the same quality? Does the meta data also transfer?
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Certain newer SoC’s can decode DV FEL just fine, just not in CE correct? The Amlogic S928X-K/J looks vastly superior to what is in the Homatics I bought and I see in a dune-hd 8k claiming to play FEL.
I ask because I plan to play video not just through CE, but also Netflix, Amazon, etc… using dual boot (I hope).
Off topic: do people here stream UHD movies via “ac” wireless or are people using ax/axe to do it? I understand that a 90GB file at 90 minutes length yields 16.67MB/s for the movie itself. But with peaks and buffering, I’m assuming about double that is a safe guesstimate, 35MB/s isn’t the speed I get at distance, through walls, with my ac router :-/
Hi to you and all newcomers, please do a little more research before posting as it clutters the forum.
This thread is the best place to start and ask questions. For in depth information try here also. Thanks.
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tldr; what is a CoreElec problem Vs. what is a SoC problem?
The first post in the thread “Best device for Coreelec in 2024” is the only useful post, the rest is fan fare.
The second link is an old spreadsheet, Homatics and newer devices are not on there, although admittedly I do assume they are in the first row with the partial description of “and a lot more devices now”.
The correlation between a SoC supporting Dolby Vision features and CoreElec is seemingly ambiguous and as such I cannot discern what is a CoreElec problem and what is an SoC problem. This correlation isn’t only here, it’s apparently every website that mentions CoreElec and Dolby Vision :-/. Do you know what I mean? soc == coreelect_problem || soc == soc_problem…
I dunno, I’m just trying to find a device that will run Android TV OS and CoreElec using all common Dolby Vision features (via web or UHD disc). I HOPE the Homatics does this, but so far the devices I find either are missing something like DV P7 FEL or they won’t run Netflix, Amazon, etc. properly or even run them at all.
The Wifi speed is a factor when you need at least 35MB/s. That isn’t a lot, but it’s more than you think at a distance. Some devices seemingly can’t do it because of the buffer speed and/or size. ie. it seems an Amazon Firestick 4K can Tx/Rx fast enough but cannot write to a buffer fast enough, thus broken playback of 90GB files (this problem seems uniform across all Amazon devices, thus a future addition of a 1gbs ethernet RJ-45 probably won’t help).
I have both AM6B+ and Homatics box R 4K+, the Homatics can playback DV FEL, but not VC-1 blu-ray remuxes, if certified Android TV and chromecast support is important then Homatics box works fine.
Is the lack of VC-1 a CoreElec limitation or a SoC limitation? The “Best device for…” thread states S905X4-J Devices can’t decode VC-1 but, that same guide also states S928X-J Devices have no FEL support, which they do (or dune-hd is lying).
SoC limitation, S928X don’t have FEL support, it says something in Dune site that it plays the MEL layer.
So does a device exist that is certified for Netflix, Amazon, etc. and supports FEL and decode VC-1? Finding a device that does that in 2024 is a little crazy.
not that I know of, but about VC-1 it’s not a big issue, you can always find hevc/h.264 version of the VC-1 remux, I’ve kept like 12 VC-1 remuxes all others replaced with hevc blu-ray rips, so if you need certified Android TV then the Homatics is the best option atm.
sadly it doesn’t, but mostly the VC-1 is the blocker as the hw decoding is botched (on software/kernel layer most likely). From manufacturer’s point of view it’s only used on “legacy media” that isn’t supposed to be played on these boxes (don’t know any streaming or legit offline sources using VC-1), hence no interest in fixing it on Amlogic’s side. There also is a big chance that such device won’t exist, as we don’t know if newer chipset will do FEL at all.
yeah it’s only on older Blu-ray movies that haven’t got 4K version, so it’s not a future problem.
Thanks for the clarifications. I know nothing of the technical side, but you’d think that there would be a software solution for VC-1, at least by now right… it has been nearly 20 years.
I’ll stay content for now with the Homatics, I’ll just BOLO for a VC-1 decoding method in the future.
VC-1 is dead format, the software solution is what the S922X SoC can do thanks the A73 cores compared to the weak A55 cores S905X4 uses, the Nvidia Shield does it in hardware as the Shield hardware is from 2015, maybe some other too don’t know. 
Amlogic has stated that the VC-1 video codec is available going back for years. But it has NEVER worked. Every time Amlogic came out with a new SoC, that would be the first thing I would check, finally gave up hope for that video codec suppor.
I always had to use Emby, because it would transcode that codec. Now, I do have a Ugoos SK1 and that VC-1 does work with hardware decoding (hope I am using the correct terminology.
I used Emby for years for the transcoding capabilities with audio and video codecs that MY media players did NOT support. Now most if not all of my media players play everything EXCEPT the VC-1 video codec, so not need to transcode. Rarely use Emby anymore, except out of local network.
All FEL “limitation” is not SoC! It’s in software.
Like SC2 shows it’s working with 4.9, Amlogic-ng.
But not with 5.4, Amlogic-ne.
We identified at least one bug and FEL shows up now on screen. But the picture is distorted. So we guess there is a error in dovi.ko to what we are not able to debug or check as it’s a closed source blob.
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Dune is lying, that much is well known. Don’t know if there’s any s928xj that actually does FEL. I don’t believe so but for some reason there’s always chatter about these devices and time spent developing things for them. This makes people have hope they will do FEL and be worth something but apparently that is never the case and developers just enjoy developing stuff for inferior devices 
Is that fix planning on being merged or would it just create more problems?
I think that FEL support is now so widespread that there’s no point in trying to restrict it anymore. Dolby and Amlogic will have to decide whether they will want to bring it to the S928X and future SoCs. For now, we’re stuck on 4.9, but hopefully that will change soon.
Gen 2 Fire Cube
I would caution that the Fire Cube is not officially supported and setup is complicated. I would wait to see if the VC-1 bug can be fixed.