Mele A1000 / A2000 with 1GHz Allwinner A10 and VGA Output

[avirex]

Hi guys.

User "next121" on this forum clued me in to this Mele A1000/A2000 Android TV box. I was wondering if anyone has purchased and is using this yet? I am ordering my sample today, along with the F10 air-mouse remote.

Here are some specs on the A2000 (same thing as A1000 however has 4GB NAND versus 2GB) in case you havent seen it.

Mele A1000 Specs

Looking forward to hearing more about it from the community. Especially interested in comparisons versus the Geniatech Amlogic A9 boxes!

 

[next121]

Well I have one so what you do you want know : )

In comparison to Amlogic 8726-M1 the most common version used in Android boxes.
* Android 4 feels faster & much more snappy on these.
* Good GUI for media playback (file manager), can be used with remote control and also features network browsing [better than amlogic which is messy in this area].
* Very powerful video processing unit (VPU) on the chip, it handles even the latest media formats but it's held back by the media player software [better than amlogics].
* Only stock Android audio codecs supported but there is a patch out there if you Google it which enables Dolby Digital and DTS audio support [most Amlogic have these out of the box so amlogic is better].
* Player is rooted [so is amlogic].
* Lots of connectivity options.
* Can run linux, see miniland images.

Can it run XBMC ?
Yes it can but support for the VPU is not enabled. XBMC team are asking Allwinner for access to the VPU and they are considering it. Initially it was thought it was wide open at first but it turned out not to be the case, the stuff Allwinner released wasn't usable. If Allwinner address the problems and XBMC can utilize the VPU then it would be a great box for that.

Amlogic is supported by XBMC so those are better in that area.

 

[avirex]

Well I have one so what you do you want know : )

In comparison to Amlogic 8726-M1 the most common version used in Android boxes.
* Android 4 feels faster & much more snappy on these.
* Good GUI for media playback (file manager), can be used with remote control and also features network browsing [better than amlogic which is messy in this area].
* Very powerful video processing unit (VPU) on the chip, it handles even the latest media formats but it's held back by the media player software [better than amlogics].
* Only stock Android audio codecs supported but there is a patch out there if you Google it which enables Dolby Digital and DTS audio support [most Amlogic have these out of the box so amlogic is better].
* Player is rooted [so is amlogic].
* Lots of connectivity options.
* Can run linux, see miniland images.

Can it run XBMC ?
Yes it can but support for the VPU is not enabled. XBMC team are asking Allwinner for access to the VPU and they are considering it. Initially it was thought it was wide open at first but it turned out not to be the case, the stuff Allwinner released wasn't usable. If Allwinner address the problems and XBMC can utilize the VPU then it would be a great box for that.

Amlogic is supported by XBMC so those are better in that area.

Thanks next, i appreciate the feedback.

Regarding the hardware video acceleration - can you tell me if network streams are using the hardware decoding correctly? For example let's say you tried playing an RTMP stream using MXPlayer and hardware acceleration enabled, does that work?

Thanks.

 

[next121]

Never tried that with RTMP streams (do you have demo link?) but MX Player does work with the hardware decoders on the videos I played.

(No idea why XBMC cant use the same system but they must have their reasons).

 

[szemo77]

RTMP will be supporting on xbmc android version, but for now use the Hulu android app. Try this apk for 27 June:
xbmc apk (2012-07-27): http://goo.gl/7yq5f

 

[poo706]

I've had an A2000 for a little while now (plus the F10 remote, which is sweet!). Putting ICS on it was pretty much the first thing I did. Then I did a bunch of other stuff. Finally I got around to testing it out as a media center, which is the whole reason I purchased it. Now I'm finding out that apparently AVIs and MP4s have audio/video sync issues on ICS. I'm seeing it with several different players and with all of the different rendering methods. Anyone been able to get around this issue?

[poo]

 

[next121]

I didn't see any sync issues in my testing. Are you using the built in Tvdvideo app or another like MX Player which supports hardware decoding ?

Hopefully XBMC will be given access to the hardware decoder in due time as that would be the best outcome.

 

[poo706]

Yup, both Tvd and MX have sync problems, hardware and software. Are you just using MKVs by chance? I've found that VLC's latest official beta plays AVIs without any issues, but seems to be having some problems with MP4s. Unfortunately, the integration with the IR remote is not very good.

 

[next121]

Yeah mostly mkv didn't try any mp4.

 

[poo706]

That's what I figured. I've read others who said that they didn't have problems with MKV under ICS on their Meles. I can live with VLC's remote integration. If I remember right, the seek buttons work and if you back out of a show, it'll pick up where it left off when you start playing it again. Sort of a poor-man's pause/stop.

I'm waiting for Mizuu to update with the ability to mark shows as watched and for VLC to play MP4s better (or find a better video app). Or for XBMC to be stable on the Mele. Then I'll finally be able to use this sucker as a daily driver media center. Been a fun (albeit frustrating at times) time-waster so far though!

[poo]

 

[krankdroid]

can anyone here report or make some wifi speed benchmarks?

i currently have the MK802 Android TV stick, and it works pretty well.. sort of.

it is really slow to boot up, and the WIFI speed i can get on it is pretty bad.

it tops at around 7 MBPS, but most tests show its just under 1 MBPS. i bought it to be able to stream video content, i would love to see it simply use XBMC as a launcher and i need it to stream from FTP servers, which is not ideal, but can easily work if the connection speed is good.


so i read a good deal about the Mele A2000 and are thinking of getting it to use instead of my MK802.

so have anyone tested the connection speed of the Mele A2000 ?

( hope i am not hijacking the thread. if so let me know and i will delete the post and make a new thread instead )

 

[avirex]

can anyone here report or make some wifi speed benchmarks?

i currently have the MK802 Android TV stick, and it works pretty well.. sort of.

it is really slow to boot up, and the WIFI speed i can get on it is pretty bad.

it tops at around 7 MBPS, but most tests show its just under 1 MBPS. i bought it to be able to stream video content, i would love to see it simply use XBMC as a launcher and i need it to stream from FTP servers, which is not ideal, but can easily work if the connection speed is good.


so i read a good deal about the Mele A2000 and are thinking of getting it to use instead of my MK802.

so have anyone tested the connection speed of the Mele A2000 ?

( hope i am not hijacking the thread. if so let me know and i will delete the post and make a new thread instead )

what are you using to test the speed? i can do a test for you on my a2000.

 

[krankdroid]

i use speedtest.net

it can be a bit tricky however, since the site redirects directly to the app store, so a browser with desktop spoofing option is needed.

are you atreaming from internet with your A2000 ?

 

[joxter]

could anyone tell me which file system is suitable for the A2000 with ICS ?
I want to be able to read/write files bigger than 4go.
I do not care about compatibility with Windows
Thank you guys for your help

 

[next121]

Krankdroid, XBMC is useless without hardware decoding video supported and it isnt at this time. I tried another speed test app (couldn't get the regular one to work) and it topped out at around 6Mbps and my connection is faster than that.

joxter, NTFS and exFAT reading works with the Mele A2000, don't know if it works writing data to drives with those filesystems in place, I think it does.

 

[poo706]

krankroid,
I set up an FTP server on my A2000 so that I could transfer new shows to the hard drive over my LAN. The router is a WRT54G (that's G, not N) and I get about 2.7 MB/s (about 20 Mbit) when uploading from Windows or Arch.

joxter,
I initially set up my hard drive as NTFS. Mele recognized it at boot and mounted it, but it was SLOW. The FTP server was topping out at 1.3 MB/s on a good day and Mizuu would take forever to update my 1000+ TV shows. Since then, I've switched to ext4 and it's considerably faster, at least 100% faster. However, I have to use a mount command to mount the hard drive, which I automate at boot with Script Manager.

[poo]

 

[krankdroid]

Next121

Xbmc should be with hardware decoding whe, it is officially released right?


And do you refer to streaming Content online when you mention hardware decoding?

Mxplayer uses that is i remember correctly right?

 

[joxter]

krankroid,
joxter,
I initially set up my hard drive as NTFS. Mele recognized it at boot and mounted it, but it was SLOW. The FTP server was topping out at 1.3 MB/s on a good day and Mizuu would take forever to update my 1000+ TV shows. Since then, I've switched to ext4 and it's considerably faster, at least 100% faster. However, I have to use a mount command to mount the hard drive, which I automate at boot with Script Manager.

[poo]

Thank you next121 and poo for your answer.
Can I use multiple ext4 patition ?
could you please help on the mount commande / script matters since I'm totally noob here !

thank you again,

 

[poo706]

joxter,
I don't know about multiple partitions on a single drive. If it's possible, you'll have to figure that out for yourself. Here's what my script has:

#!/system/bin/sh

mount -o remount,ro,nodev /system
mount -t ext4 /dev/block/vold/8:1 /mnt/sata
exit

The first command remounts /system to read-only since Mele leaves it read-write for some reason. And the second command mounts the sata drive. Set Script Manager to run it at boot and with SU permissions.

[poo]

edit: If you're on Reddit, feel free to post any questions at /r/Mele, I'm the mod.

 

[next121]

Next121

Xbmc should be with hardware decoding whe, it is officially released right?


And do you refer to streaming Content online when you mention hardware decoding?

Mxplayer uses that is i remember correctly right?

It applies to all content, Android is a mess when it comes to hardware decoding, there are a few systems like stagefright (what Allwinner uses) and OpenMAX API but it has many problems and the XBMC developers have said that would be a last resort option, those arent supported by XBMC but they have mentioned about plans supporting OpenMAX down the road.

What XBMC team was initially doing was bypassing Stagefright/OpenMAX and going straight to the hardware directly however the stuff Allwinner initially released to enable this wasn't good enough - lots of bugs making it unusable.

So many people contacted Allwinner and asked them to give XBMC team what they need and Allwinner said they will consider it. So far no news but XBMC team are looking into it. It's basically down to Allwinner if they give XBMC team what they need then it will work if they dont then it may never work.

 

[next121]

Also in August Mele will be launching the A3700, this is the same A10 chip but adds 1GB of RAM and ups the flash storage to 8GB internally.

 

[krankdroid]

So if am looking to have a Mele A2000 device working and playing avi/divx/xvid files and video with no out of sync audio.

Should i reflash the original 2.3 version firmware?

And then wait for a final working version of the 4.0 firmware?

 

[poo706]

krankdroid,

That's an option. I went back to 2.3 recently with the hope of installing recovery so that I could use nandroids to go back and forth between ICS and GB, but I couldn't get recovery working on GB. In the end, even though it's currently having problems, I decided to go back to ICS with the hope that things will soon get better. VLC beta 0.0.3 plays AVIs really well on ICS, by the way. It just doesn't handle MP4 worth crap and doesn't interact with the IR remote at all.

[poo]

 

[krankdroid]

Just saw that there was a release on the Mele website. It looks like a HTPC Android 4.0 release.

Perheps the todays date is for an update. I have no way of telling really. Just wanted to maybe spread the news


Download Center

 

[poo706]

Just saw that too! I'm downloading it right now and will test it out this evening!

[poo]