Geniatech Enjoy TV

You beat me to it, I was going to open a thread for ATV1000. Just purchased one from AsiaPads.com and will post my experience with it here.

 

Skorianez, how long are u waiting for it from asiapads?

 

Hi, I'm on holidays these days but my brother told me we received the Geniatech from Asia Pads by UPS this morning. He said it's very good and works fine, so maybe will buy another unit for his home. After back home I will try to make a review

This is the model: http://www.zonazerointernational.com/product_info.php?products_id=1964


See u!

 

Mine was posted on Sept. 12th from Singapore, will take 10 to 15 days more I guess.

 

I just got the ATV2000, hooked it up and seems to work wonderfully. There is no operating manual in the box. Has anyone know where I could get the operating manual to navigating the ATV2000. Thanks

 

ATV1000-2000 Manual from AsiaPads.com attached. Also can be found on their website (just before the video): http://www.asiapads.com/product_info.php?cPath=190&products_id=1964

 

Asiapads are going to upload new APK's soon according to an email I have received.
Have received new firmware yesterday that has proper Android market will upload if Asiapads doe not come through with their uploads.
The upgraded firmware improves the box in many ways but does not contain any of the original boxes aplications. No big deal as they can be downloaded from the market.
The only one not available is the HDMI switcher for changing resolutions which was handy.
One problem is it includes Flash 10.2 in the firmware which means it cannot be updated to the latest flash. Would prefer that the firmware did not include flash. I found a copy of HDMI switcher APK but installing it worked except it did not make a permanent change so needs to be in the firmware install.

 

Market firmware:-
From Asiapads
Updates are under your resposability:
1. Please download the firmware as 0909 and change name as "update.zip" . Then, Please update the Firmware as before.
http://www.geniatech.com/down-eng/Androidtvbox/update20110909.zip

2. Please download the Android Market as below and change name as "update.zip" Then, Please DO NOT UNZIP THIS FILE. Follow the STEPS as SAME as UPDATE FIRMWARE.
http://www.geniatech.com/down-eng/Androidtvbox/update_market.zip

3. Reboot the deivce, then, You will get the "Android Market" logo APK on Screen.

 

I got the ATV2000 from Asiapads took about 4 weeks from ordering to get it.

Anyway to cut a long story short it's a poor media player with good hardware let down by the software. Oh yes there are no manuals at all so your completely reliant on guesswork.

It is powered by an Amilogic 8726 chipset with a 1GHz Cortex A9 CPU and Mali400 GPU with hardware acceleration for H.264, MPEG2 and VC-1. 1080p WMV samples played fine and H.264 1080p video I have with average bitrate of 40Mbps played fine for the most part so that's it's upper limit.

1) The supplied media player software from Geniatech played most media formats I threw at it but the software only reads USB sources, you must use another supplied app to mount network sources first but it doesn't work at all with my NAS refusing any supplied username/password even when there isn't one.

The remote control isn't really suited either to controlling the media player as your expected to use the virtual mouse to handle play/pause/rewind etc controls via an OSD.

2) Certain features do not work over ethernet like customizing the home screen (hold down left mouse button) in addition certain apps will not work over ethernet either like the Plex app so you must use wireless.

3) The built in HiDTV app did not work at all for me, I will re-test with the updated version available to download from Geniatech's website. Watch out the firmware update to this player will delete the HiDTV application.

4) Google market is only available when installing the firmware update above, it does work fine from there as does other markets like Amazon's app store.

5) Android compatibility is mixed as it is classed as an unknown phone so some apps will not be available, even if you do get them through other means some apps will not run and there is a major lack of any decent DLNA media player apps on the Android market so I've had no luck replacing the shoddy built in media player for network playback.

The Plex app is about the only decent front end available and it does work but in my tests I was getting audio sync problems but that could be down to my crappy wifi network but they were iPhone videos so should have been okay.

If they had actually developed a decent media center front end this could have been a pretty good media player but it's not and probably never will be until the official GoogleTV app store is up and running then someone makes an alternative media center program for Android.

Other odd's and end's;
About the missing HDMI resolution switcher, you can get that back by adding a shortcut on the home screen.
* Hold down the left mouse button on the remote
* Select shortcuts->settings
* then pick the display resolution shortcut

There is an Amilogic HDMI switcher in that apk collection linked above this could also be related.

Avoid QQLauncher after installing it locked up the box which then went into an automated recovery mode thankfully the firmware HT1 linked to was able to repair the damage. The box may already be rooted according to Titanium back up.

The remote is actually pretty decent for typing and browsing the web.

Don't plug in a USB mouse it causes the player to spaz out.

The firmware update change your browser homepage to Hantarex.it some sort of kiosk provider, Geniatech does business with them from the looks of it and it's just another item over looked.

The Eminent DLNA player was one of the few I could get to work and access my NAS and it was able able to play 720p/mkv videos no problem, now correct me if I'm wrong but Android does not natively support mkv and this DLNA app relies on native playback so it must be leveraging the built in Geniatech video player. The bad news is that Eminent was never designed to be used at 720p or higher and the video has overlay issues with the app. Maybe the developer could update his app as it seems the most promising.

 

Awesome review thanks!

 

Hi all. thanks for creating this topic, so we can share and help each other.
i just ordered Geniatech Enjoy TV Plus ATV2000 from asiapads.com, awaiting it. hope its gonna be as expected.
@next121, thanks for the review, i plan to stream video over NAS, hope i get it working

 

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Just to add a few link to most discussed topics:
* Got my box. How to upgrade from version 2.2 to 2.3? + video
* where can i find older/other firmware versions?
* during upgrade my wireless remote/keyboard is not responding(
* how can i stream video from nas/samba using defalt applications?
* how can i stream video from nas/samba using addition applications?
* i bricked my box. what can i do? + here + here + here and here
* how to upgrade to version 4.0 BETA + firmware 4.0 BETA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Well I would not buy this if planning on streaming from a NAS stasik, I'm in the same neck of the woods as you so expect a long waiting period. Your really better off waiting for GoogleTV when it officially launches in UK/IE or the Tvix XRoid A1.

I only bought this partly of curisoty and the fact that XBMC devs have been experimenting with linux on Amilogic boards so I'm hoping to turn this into an XBMC box one day.

What Geniatech need to do to just turn it into a competent media player is;
1) Create a media center app so it actually has a UI suitable for HDTV's like what Tvix have done for their Android player.
2) The media player that ships with it should at minimum have UPnP/DLNA support and at best have SMB support (yes that's there but is broken as far as I can tell).
3) Include some sort of emulation or hack to trick apps into thinking they are running on wireless when using ethernet.
4) Change the homepage from hantarex to Google.
5) Restore the display resolution control panel.
6) Enable sound control panel so at least you have some basic control.
7) Restore the missing HiDTV app in the firmware.
8) Update to Android 2.3 if it would resolve app market compatibility, some apps supported on 2.2 are missing from market like Plugplayer or ArkMC media player.

That would be a start.

 

I think you are being a bit harsh. I have found the Geniatech support to be very good.
They have been very quick to respond to my queries, linking me to updated firmwares and the latest HIDTV app. They are talking about a new release in 2-3 weeks to fix Catchup tv issues so are obviously still developing the product.
I use E S File explorer and Mobo player to stream movies from my pc and it works adequatley.

 

It's not support that is the problem I'm glad they are fixing things but they also messed up a few things after adding market support. This player doesn't even get some of the basics right, it needed an awful lot more development and polish before releasing to market.

I have been having the same thoughts, I suspect Tvix do too though as they are a well established media player company who have been around a long time so they might have protected their UI from being used on other Android boxes.

Also the Tvix box is using a Sigma Design's chipset which is a MIPS CPU with no GPU running Sigma's custom port of Android, they may have tied it into this particular build of Android.

Their is the Meteorit MMB-322 which is an Arm player with a custom UI, there is a large German thread covering it if anyone can read/speak German and try asking to extract the apk from their player if it exists as an app.

Anyway I'm going to fiddle around with Splashtop and see it works on this the ATV2000 while running XBMC on the laptop.

 

I cannot believe that the TVIX does not have flash support. This is a series weakness for the device as most catch up tv etc requires flash.

 

Quick question for those of you who already have an ATV2000. I'm assuming the antenna on the back is for the TV. If so, is it removable to allow a regular cable tv coax connection?

 

The dvb-t function is via a usb dongle. Airial at the back for wireless lan.

 

"Flash support" has two meanings. software decoding flash support or hardware accelerated flash decoding. H/W Flash support is very hard to get for the bad Adobe support reason. Need the chipset vendor involed to make it done.
Now only Tegra2 can support H/W flash support on certain 1080p level. Others are not to 1080p, like Samsung, or no support, like Rockchip. Heard that Amlogic is near to H/W 1080p flash ready, and alpha version is released on Geniatech FW.

 

Ok I am not sure what you mean but I am no expert. The TVIX uses a sigma chipset which is said to not support flash. Realtek 1185 had no flash support but the 1186 does as used in the new Xtreamer Prodigy. If it was a software limitation then Realtek could program around it but they did not, released revised chipset instead.
My FV-1 has no problem playing flash videos and catch up tv and I understand it is Samsung based but my Geniatech cannot although I know they are working on it.