Smart TV Box – Easy hackable?
A couple of days ago we received some photo’s of the inside of the OvalElephant Smart TV Box. As you can see on the left, it looks like all hackers stuff is there 
On the left top side of the CPU board we see a UART connection. Unpopulated, but all nicely labelled so should not be a problem for most of us.
On the right bottom corner there are actually two more internal unpopulated USB hosts! This most likely explans the conflicting amount of USB port here and there on the specification sheets.
Yesterday after noon I received both this AMlogic-M3 box as the RK3066 hdmi-stick. Looks like I have a lot to play with for the next couple of days. Unfortunately I first have to merge the website from Apache to nginx as memory consumption is getting out of hand lately.
Worked on the merge a bit yesterday (hence the 500 / 502 error here and there) and it all works except the forums? Anyway will keep you guys posted and will do the review very soon. Anybody interested in an un-boxing video? If not I will skip it, otherwise need to get my self some proper lightning.
Neat but I can already see the look on my SOs face when I take my new TV box down to the local HackSpace for some soldering
I would however be very interested to figure out if I could use my UVC webcam on the existent usb port to Skype. Pro: again less workload for my quadcore wintel box. Con: I’ve never built an os, not even linux, let alone android. So I’ll have to ask someone to pretty please add the drivers…
this is my geniatech ATV
http://www.mdragon.org/geniatech_ATV2000.JPG
UART is on the left of CPU
forget the unboxing:P 1 clear pic is enough, use your (precious) time for getting hardware decoding + linux on these boxes!
witch tv box or tv key is the cheapest but run videos smoothly on linux ?
Hey, can you try the tv box with a hdmi to dvi(d) cable? Or Hdmi to Component cable?
I don’t have a hdmi -> dvi cable, but I know Daniel has one, so will ask him if I can borrow it for a couple of minutes.
hdmi is digital, component is analogue so don think a “simpel” hdmi -> component is cheaply available.
I emailed OvalElephant guys, and they replied back saying the box comes with a component video AND a composite video cable. What did you get?
cde, you are right. Already stated it on liliputing as well. There is an a/v output and a composite cable is included.
I finished the webserver migration today so have the review planned for tomorrow.
Yep. HS. So maybe it’ll be stable @ 1GHz… I’m holding out for -M6 though this time, or even pondering sitting back and see what happens given Allwinner’s entire lack of interest.
Saw on /. that EOMA finally finalized their CPU card schematic. Now to see what they really have from Allwinner in terms of support in about 6-12m.
cutterjohn, although I agree with you that a dual core AMLogic box is sweet, the XBMC is only tested on M1 and M3.
It plays everything without a sweat, but keep in mind; Worst case scenario, the MX development takes up a good couple of weeks.
You could have a sweet box already to play with
Mine shipped yesterday, cannot wait for it to arrive!
Been refreshing your site all day Peter in the hope that you would put up your review of the M3.
i ordered mine and look forward to receiving it
Hi,
I’m looking for a little info.
I have this box
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009RIXEV8/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00
which is basically a re-badged Allwinner A10 device. I am wondering if the composite video out can be somehow modified to be a component out. I would expect some kind of software mod for this but does it require a hardware mod also. Any ideas?
Many thanks in advance
JD