There has been a lot of misinformation, conjecture and rumours in various posts/threads/forums regarding our commitment to older devices since we have started development on S922X.
I would like to set the record straight for anybody who has any doubts about our commitment to supporting older devices in the future.
I can categorically confirm that we have not abandoned or plan to abandon users with these devices, S905*/S912 based devices account for 99% of our user base, we have not lost interest or stopped development on them.
There is a lot of development on the S922X platform right now simply because it is brand new and support for it is being added from scratch.
Another rumour is that we are not interested in mainline or that we are solely focused on the legacy kernel, this again is not true, @TheCoolest has added support for mainline to OpenVFD and @afl1 has added mainline support for Mecool and WeTek tuners to our DVB driver.
We will eventually move over to the mainline kernel when it is capable of HDR and panfrost support for S912 is complete, right now the simple fact is that the Legacy kernel works far better for the general user than mainline, 4K/HDR is the main reason that people buy an Amlogic device vs Raspberry Pi and so without this… moving to mainline at this point would be an unacceptable regression for most users without this key feature.
If anybody else has any questions they would like to put to the team then feel free to ask and one of us will respond.
Thanks for the explanation and the focus on your user base.
Far too many OSS projects become more about the process and personalities at the expense of the product and its consumers. Not to say that playing with the new hotness isn’t also rewarding and developers need rewards beyond just the satisfaction of a job well done and the occasional gratitude of users.
Nonetheless, thanks for an excellent product and the extensive support you provide for it.
Thanks for the info! I’m very happy with 9.0.1 right now, getting some subtitle stutter and some weird lines over the subs, other than that it’s great!
While I understand the commitment to get all possible functions working on each device supported, my impression is that quite a number of users do not have a requirement at this time for 4K, HDR and other ‘more advanced’ niceties.
This caused me to wonder if some sub-section for devices that receive no development at all, would be useful for some users with unsupported devices, to even get a very basic 1080 system working for IPTV and LiveTV.
Those devices could be put into an ‘unsupported’ category, but have at least rudimentary functions.
I suppose it might be too much distraction from the devs more serious work, but maybe something like that could be considered.
I own a couple of 905W Tanix devices and bought them in preference to a R-Pi, because I got two of them for what a completed R-Pi would cost me here.
I do not need any of the ‘niceties’ referred to above, but cost/benefit is a huge factor when on limited income. I have no idea if my situation is in any way common, but certainly the Tanix devices are more acceptable to everyone in the family from all aspects than a now discarded R-Pi was.
Last but not least … thank you to all developers for your time and effort put into CE. It is appreciated by many, although we do not express that often enough or sufficiently well.
I am fan of Odroid too, but please. Can we see your order of N2 with 4G RAM, 64GB eMMC module, case, power supply, HDMI cable and wifi 802.11AC
Don’t get me wrong, I will order N2 soon
My system is working fine using the Khadas VIM2, though given its price to value ratio I could not recommend it going forward. My next purchase has been Atom Pi, an Intel based SOC which should offer excellent performance. I have no place in my setup for an N2, but if I needed another box it would certainly be top of my list.
Not meaning to argue here, but if one’s looking to run gaming from Kodi (or SX05RE, etc.), the bigger the storage the better.
But I agree about the wifi. I live in a large, urban building where at any given time I can see as many as 40 other wifi networks. With that much potential interference and signal drop, I’d be an idiot to try and stream.
AtomicPI? Yeesh. Everything about that company and their product seems bargain-basement. Selling for $34 with a processor that wholesales for generally more than $20? I wouldn’t expect the build quality to be spectacular. One has to question why the similar Aaeon UP Board (https://click.intel.com/aaeon-up-board.html) costs nearly 3x as much, and it’s made by a company (Aaeon/ASUS) that produces SBCs for a living (not a company that produces wifi-relay power bars).
Fair point, but say you wanted to play disc-based games (let alone the whopping size of Daphne/LaserDisc) games, an eMMC should smoke an SDCard/USB storage.
The reason its hit the market at that price is because it was a commission project for a Juke box which didn’t come to market. As such its dead stock unless they can shift it. They will probably only bring it to market until the inventory is worked down and they will probably not restock.
As to build quality - they build for commercial customers and this product was for commercial use - so I expect the build quality to be exemplary.
You seem to show great faith because it’s a failed commercial product. Having had experience with commercial products, they can be just as terrible as consumer ones. It’s generally why commercial stuff costs a ton more (because commercial clients generally demand quality)
A jukebox will a have robust power supply and limited demands, within an enclosed environment with a limited function set. At best, playing music and possibly controlling a built in lighting or visualization system; not exactly power-user stuff. All usually done with pretty specific software requirements.
I still can’t fathom why a non-SBC company would be commissioned to make an SBC product. If I were to guess, they undercut more established board makers (usually done at the sacrifice of quality). Again, I will ask why it’s so much cheaper than the UP board, from a company with seemingly no experience or buying power in the SBC arena, even if it were to sell at cost? Someone will inevitably buy some to go bit-mining with and something will catch fire.
It may turn out to be a great platform, but if DLI is just in it to sell off excess hardware, don’t expect it to be a panacea, and certainly don’t expect support. Just because it checks off similar boxes to the N2 and it’s cheaper doesn’t mean it’s worth taking that risk or encouraging others to do so.
