XBMC Allwinner A10 – update 5 (last!)
After 3 weeks of holidays and a lot of work packing again yesterday, I have finally arrived back home again. Am just reading throught the last messages and saw FINALLY Allwinner took some action on the email. And what an action is appeared to be!
Many of you might already have heard / read about it.
- Weng jun Hong, contacted us at the 20th of July after our combined email efforts
- It took them up to the 30th to “internally discuss” the topic.
- At that same date, xiaochuan chan (the Allwinner software engineer) got introduced. Gimli once more pointed out the flaws of the current LibVE.
- It became quite. Gimli tried to keep the discussion going by touching some technical issues on the 4th.
- No response; Gimli pinged again on the 13th
- I emailed, stating it is very rude to ignore people. A oneliner with “no news” is enough.
- The 14th Eva and Weng did the promise we would received a new and updated LibVE end of the day.
- After three tomorrow promises we then finally received some files.
- After request; No changelog could be provided (ping)
And now it comes! Allwinner lied, tried to fool us or whatever. They might have thought Gimli is just some amature guy or something!
- The files we received are the EXACT same as we have received earlier.
- When Gimli stated the dates on the files where from May, they lied again, saying the date / time oin the build server was wrong
- Md5 checksums of both archives show the exact same string !!!
Now I can’t speak for Gimli as I have not yet personally spoke with him as of yet, but for me it is over. I really can’t stand lying people and therefor withdraw my hand of any cooperation with Allwinner.
There are already efforts of reverse engineer the VPU instructions. I will hope for that to materialise anytime soon. A second note; Don’t get your hopes up for omenmax support from Allwinner anytime soon as the Xiaocuan asked for Gimliś help about openmax at the very first email contact already.
For me this about the last update about running a native linux/xbmc port on the Allwinner devices.
I am very sorry guys, but Allwinner just Killed this project.
So let’s focus on other nice things todo with your device. If you want a nice STB like android experience I really advise you to have a look at the Pivos / Sumvision boxes utilizing the Amlogic chipset.
I understand, it’s to sad for me, my mk802 maybe never run correctly xbmc.
Reverse ingereing it’s a take a long time, and hard to do.
I understand the situation. My hope are now on Raspberry Pi, it’s more open, and the community are very active. Maybe a new card more powerful come like Rapsberry Pi.
Thank you for your work.
Pierre Brun
I know, but no worries. Give me a couple of days and I come up with some other good ideas. What to do with your Allwinner device.
Sad to hear this.
Not happy… It looks like a really nice product!
Anyway, I’ll probably put mine on Marktplaats
Should have waited on a Pi board…
Share the link here; It might help to get ride of it. Hence if the price is right I might even buy it myself as a server board
Well, that was to be expected from a chinese electronic company. They usually have this kind of mentality. Most of the people that work there are not qualified enough to provide support for their own technology and be of any help to the open source community. I hope this changes in the future.
This is really typical of the state of the chinese electronic industry right now. They want to create a product, to sell it for 6 months and then go on with another product.
Thanks for the update, but I have to wonder when Rhombus claims(or claimed) at one point that they had all necessary source from Allwinner for the A10.
Anyways glad that I ended up ordering an rpi as well, I’d order a second from RS/Allied but they seem to be having MAJOR problems delivering although their packaging is SIGNIFICANTLY superior to Element 14/Farnell/Newark. (Mine was squashed so hard that bottomside pins poked THROUGH the antistatic baggy AND cardboard box!)
Pivos thing looks interesting, but I’m already in on a GCW Zero(handheld console JZ4770 linux) and sprung for an Ouya so I’ll just wait and see what happens. Maybe the Android build of XBMC will have better luck for the mk802/etc. although I had really wanted more like XBMC + emulators + linux…
Thaks for this update
I bought a mele a1000 and am furious that I could never make a linux mediaplayer with it. A friend of mine bought a MK802 Rikomagic for the same purpose. We made these purchases because they are promised “open”, which turns out to be a lie.
I’m sure many of thiese products buyers are in this case: why not just try a procces to be reimbursed?
I know this has little chance of success, but will make so much noise that nobody will purchase more of a mele .. nor a MK .., so companies that get their products based on allwinner should put pressure on Allwinner.
What do you think about?
I don’t know why Rhombus-tech excluded the VPU for their statement. I will ask Luke.
Pivos looks like the way to go as it is already available. Ouya looks very promising, but let’s first wait untill it exist.
I got my mele a100 for the purpose of making a media player. I have a dogged hope that allwinner can still do the right thing; it isn’t to late.
But I am not relying on them anymore. It is up to them now. They need to produce a tangible effort and not just lip service to open source.
I know it is difficult for an organization to transition to a more open platform. I know it is fraught with muck ups and mess ups while trying to figure out how to do what is needed. And I know that the hardware industry is particularly bad at it.
I bought a pivos Xios DS today. I have tried the Raspberry Pi, the Mele A100 and various other STB box replacements. The kicker for me was the display of support for opening the platform. I am just tired of buying hardware that is totally closed.
I thought Allwinner was gonna pull it off since they seemed half way there already.
There’s always the slight chance they accidentally sent the wrong tar? Or want to give that illusion while they work on their fixes?
Gimli, mentioned the dates and files were the same. They responded with; Oh, euh, yeah the time on our build server is wrong.
After reply stating to stop lying because the md5 sums of the files were also the same it became again quite.
Why would they need to give us the illusion?? It is a plain lie!
If they were not ready, a simple email stating; Sorry we don have the resourches we want, please be patience it takes a bit longer.
I am retired, but still interested in building a box like this. So I am reading into this.
I am now living for 5 years in Thailand and I would say your project stumbled upon a classical difference between East and West. Here it is called FACE. Apparently the firm could not provide the change yet and their response was a Asian way of telling. That way of communicating is not so much appreciated by the West, it is considered lying. BUT in Asia rule 1 is take care of FACE, your own and that of all partners involved. Giving our western point of view we easily ‘offend’ our eastern partners. . . . .
is there a way to play 720p movie smothly under android ?
MXPlayer can play it smoothly. If your files are on a NAS, use ES File Explorer which can mount netshares.
Select file and ply with MX Player should do.
XBMC on android could still be accelerated? So at least, we can have XBMC on it, hardware accelerated. The thing that we will miss is if we want to make it as a Linux device… That could take a lot longuer.
The price of the PIVOS is really down right now, 70$.
Michel
Isn’t possible to contact mali (www.malideveloper.com) to get the full ddk ?
Possibly, but mali has nothing to do with accelerated video decoding. That’s a job for the VPU block, in this case cedarX (or cedarV?).
Which linux image you think is the best to use on a MK802 ?
Sorry, did not yet found the time to hook up the MK802. Best guess; Linaro.
@peter my problem is : my hdd is new and unformated in fat32 , i will put it in my pc and plug it after in the mele and i will see.
Second question :
Ok xbmc in linux is dead. But xbmc on android will be ok no ?
If Mx player work well, is there an alternative on android to have a xbmc like that run very well the videos like mx player ?
Last question : I there a way to have a seedbox (torrent) apk that work with a1000 ?
sorry to post this message here but i have connected my hdd on the a1000 but i didn’t see it what can i do?
Do you see it under “data storage”in the settings menu?
An other question, do you think it’s possible to have hope with this : http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA4NjQ ?
Again, mali is not the problem. The VPU is.
@Brun P: Like cjn states, the GPU is not the problem. Indeed the GPU drivers are not opensource, BUT the accelerated framebuffr drivers are working as it should.
The VPU is also not opensource, but in this case the drivers are not OK, which makes playback stuttering. For instance it don’t give back the decoded frames when they are ready, but a whole bunch at keyframes. This is nice for postprocessing re-encoding jobs, but not when you want to decode live on the fly.
If Allwinner would just had fixed their library, then even with closed sourced blobs we would have been in business.
But don’t worry I will soon write about AMLogic STB’s which DO have working blobs.
Do you think that Iain Bullard may be able to solve the Allwinner situation with his work on Cedarxwrapper?
https://plus.google.com/104411502518455836973/posts/TciMRdFqnu2
Marc,
It helps and is a start, but it requires a LOT of work to reverse engineer something. I will contact Ian soon to see if we as a community can do enything for him.
@Peter : Thank you, i’m not very good with hardware thing … But now i understand what is the problem.
i hope a fix come soon, but i’m not sure it’s append one day.
i try to use it for a different way, maybe wifi camera with an old usb cam or maybe just a server for my rsslounge …
Let us NOT FORGET that THIS IS a COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP, while they ARE SLIGHTLY better than the USSR ever was IT STILL IS a country that DICTATES 5y economic plans and the like… i.e. what we are seeing is merely endemic of this sort of system, low paid workers who produce ultra low quality product, ignoring licensing, etc.
China apologists need to wake the hell up and face the facts, they’re a menace ATM at best, given the ONLY “successful” western(and Japanese and Taiwanese and South Korean) countries operating there HEAVILY ride their own production lines, otherwise we get what we’re getting now with Allwinner/etc.
Pretty sad given that at least in this communist dictatorship that engineers seem to be pre-eminent…
Also forget not that the PLA has it’s sticky fingers in MANY companies as a legacy of when China wasn’t able to make any money at all. e.g. huawei today
answered to my last question here is transmission for android : http://i-miss-erin.blogspot.fr/2010/09/use-transmission-in-android.html
I considered to buy the Hardkernel Odroid-X, but ccan’t find any information about hardware video decoding. Do you have any information about that.
I will probably buy it anyway, if XBMC works or not. (currently XBMX on Android does not play Full-HD in software-decoding because XBMC uses only 2 of the 4 cores and there is no information if hardware-decoding is / will be possible )
I am currently investigating the AMLogic 8726-M family
There are a lot of similar Pivos boxes out there and as they use the in-kernel videodecoding they might all work with the newly released XBMC-Linux port. (Still investigating though)
AMLogic also just recently released the kerner sources for their 8726-MX version which is actually the dual core version. If they all use the same software/kernel drivers for the Video, this might open up doors closed by Allwinner.
Allwinner can claim to have the best VPU, but if they don’t open up to the community we will embrace another one
anyone can help me to compile this program ?
http://i-miss-erin.blogspot.fr/2010/09/use-transmission-in-android.html
Sorry, I don’t have an Android build sustem set up.
Thanks for the hard work trying to work with Allwinner and getting them to support their hardware. I’ve been waiting before purchasing a player to see how it pans out and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any help from Allwinner.
i’ve also wondered if the AMLogic would be a good candidate since the work with pivos xios has started. Is it possible to cross flash the xios firmware to a visson atv-108 or similar. or would XBMC work well on it. I’m going to look into it now.
The vission atv-108 is aslo an AMLogic device. I just posted another blog about it.
don’t know if you can help me but i try to find xbmc alternative that works on android.
An a torrent client that run a service with webui.
As far as i know stay in android is the only way to play hd movie correctly
I am not really a torrent guy. But why do you need torrent to play HD?
no i don’t need torrent.
My goal is to do this with my a1000.
Play hd movies.
Download torrents & usenet (the night with a service and remote administration with webui) (so easy to setup in linux but there is nothing in android).
And control some domotic stuff with arduino but that’s not the problem.
If i can’t play hd movies with linux i am forced to stay in android and that is the problem.
I have bought the a1000 for his low electric consuption, let my windows pc alive onlny for torrent disgusting me it’s a waste of electricity.
A1000 was the good compromise because raspberry doesn’t handle hdd.
Ah ok. Maybe you should pay a visit to the IRC room at freenode (arm-netbook). Maybe there is a good fellow overthere with an Android build system who might quickly build the software for you.
Hey Peter,
On IRC hipboi announced that you guys got the wrong system libs. His co-worker forgot to enable from ifdef’s. So maybe there is some hope left
Regards,
@TomNL i hope what you say is true
that would be wonderful 
Yeah right,
Then explain me how the hell they tested the build? Because they did not met three tomorrow promises because they were testing?
I would have swallow that before they replied with the statement; The data on the build server is wrong.
Even if it is true, it is once more an example of the amaturism of Allwinner.
@Peter : Maybe it’s just to have more time to fix bug (during holliday, it’s possible you have the wrong contact)… Some entreprise doesn’t understand that’s better to say the true. i hope it’s a mistake, but i not sure …
Even if that is true, it is still a big lie!
I don’t like people that lie, do you? If I continue now, I will most likely question each word from them. They did it before, so why should they not do it now.
Cooperations is like any other relationship. It only is succesfull if all participants are honest to each other.
This is a real pitty,last week i bought a mk802+ because google told me it would run xbmc…google was wrong.
That being said i fully understand how you guys (xbmc dev team) feel,nobody likes getting lyed to.
Thanks for all the great xbmc-releases so far,it’s awsome!
Is there a device similar to the MK802 but has hardware accel for XBMC and is fully supported?
XBMC nightly builds are now available for android and I believe there is the option to use external players (e.g. MXPlayer). Is that a viable option while we wait for VPU to go opensource or get reverse engineered? Maybe not ideal for streams and the like…
I will check it out shortly as MXPlayer plays everything fine above 480p. XBMC only plays <480p.
If I can just pass on the player MXPlayer but still using XBMC for brwosing, fine to me (for the moment untill I have something better)
There is also the option of developing a netflix plugin for the XBMC on android if we can interface the netflix app in a decent way.
For most of people if XBMC has MXPlayer running on backend then it would work good enough. Outcome could be one big lag. Its worth to try.
I’ve tried the korean xbmc wich allows you to use diceplayer but fortunelydiceplayer doesnt play half of my videos and the or plays them sttuttering. Can we modify the xml file to get any other player ?
MXPlayer fully supports cedar decoder.
I made that one, so its not fake.
I know, I use MXPlayer since day one
wtf !!!!!!!!! i have formated the hdd with my pc in ext3, plugged back de sata hdd in the a1000 and , in storage section, in sata the interface say to me “install sd card” !!! what can i do ?
I will see if I can borrow a SATA disk from work tomorrow to help you out.
Seems hotplug is not supported. For me it works when I boot with the SATA disk already plugged in.
i don’t know if anybody know this : http://sven-ola.dyndns.org/repo/debian-kit-en.html
but it seem to be a quite good mix between android and debian.
Best of two worlds no ?
Now that i read it well, it sounds a lot like running debian in chroot.
Seems similar to the “Android and Ubuntu” thing. I must to check that. Thanks for the link
i was on freenod last night and look at this, a user explain me that chineses doesn’t speak english that might be the main problem no ?
about allwinner tech that didn’t speak english, that’s often the case in china, no need to speak english as there is already billion+ of customers that speak the same language, often european customer (and I suppose american, african, other) pay a local/chinese translator that go to China
only some commercials (or technico-commercial) people speak english
and young students
and SoC customers are mother board maker that are often based or have some office in china
So…?
They did find an translator for all their other emails so why all of a sudden this translator translated it wrongly?
I mean there was technical content going over the email before. I can’t see how you can translate the lies wrongly.
I understand everybody is dissapointed. I am to, but they lied and kept lying when we asked about it. Hence even the the #ifdef looks like a lie. If it is not the #ifdef it self, then it is the three times “next day” promise which was not met because they found some bugs the had to fix?
If I continue, it means I don’t trust what they say. So with every email they send, I have this little voice in the back of my head saying; “That’s bullshit”
I ask if feature X can be added, they say it can’t, I think they lie.
I ask a update, They say to have another version next week, I think “yeay right”
That is NOT how I want to be involved in a co-operation.
So in short: One way or the other, they lied and dishonesty is the killer of me wanting to work with Allwinner.
If they still release the files any time in the future, everybody is free to pick it up.
These “lying” is quite normal in China, don’t take it wrong, seems they simply did not get it ready. Happend to me several times when contacting chinese sellers or techs.
I second this. Probably something to do with “honor”.
[quote]
to xiaochuan, weng, me, service
Hi,
thank your for your informative mail. Apologize accepted.
I’ll wait the next couple of days and see what comes.
Cheers
gimli
[/quote]
So, any news from Allwinner ?
@peter : yes it’s a teasing ? some hope coming ?
results from py hdd testing : gosh android is a shame !
i want to put +4g in my hdd also i have to say goobye to fat32.
android is the brother of linux.
So NTFS will work slowly every body on the net say that.
Solution : Ext3 -> doesn’t work
Ext4 -> Doesn’t work.
I put my hdd in ntfs and the hdd is detected !
If that is true, it sound like they just did not include those filesystems support into the kernel.
it can’t be, the main file system of android is ext4.
And the problems are not gone, when i go to the config menu i see the total available space.
When i go to file explorer the app says to me that i avec 0 bites free.
Hmm you are right.
Can you move the discussing to the forums. We will then squeeze it together there.
hoo a forum a new thing ok, you open the topic?
@Peter, you mention Allwinner think their VPU is best. Is it true, that most people also think their VPU is the best.
If not, why so much frustration over Allwinner when you also said AMLogic is already working with XBMC natively??
I don’t know if their statment is true, nobody really knows as we can’t look inside. We can only test, but I have to agree that the price compared to functionality is very good.
The Allwinner attention it self came from the EOMA-68 concept as where rhombus-tech choose Allwinner as the company because after years of searching they finally found a chinese company willing to open up and hence already did it.
The VPU never came under the attention untill XBMC ethousiastics like us came around. It was only then that the frustration happened.
But you are right, there is more out there and indeed I am looking at other options / SoC’s
I just want to make the right decision in the end.
libhybris any good?
https://plus.google.com/u/0/105446846339629686466/posts/jcE2BcbSZUx
BOOOOMMM !!!!!
xbmc with mxplayer ! my mele a1000 will be back !!!
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=138464&pid=1182372#pid1182372
Mixed feelings!
Don’t know what to do with it at the moment. Will need some time to see which direction my opinion falls
For the time beeing it is something, however i prefer xbmc native then as app, watching tv streams on SD quality works fine for now. Also it works still a bit slow and laggy as aplication it self. If you compare the Apple TV with CrystalBuntu and Android with XBMC app i sugest to stay by CrystalBuntu, its even quicker and more stable. Another player gives the change to watch HD quality but the performance should be better.
If you could make some sort of list where you can set up which files you want to play via which method it would be a bit better.
SD_H264 -> internal software xbmc player
SD_MP4 -> internal software xbmc player
SD_MPG -> external player
HD_…. -> external player
etc. etc.
sure it will be better to run on xbmc native but it’s better than put my a1000 on the trash.
Now i try to run SABnzbd in my mele but that didn’t work, (it’s a pure python programm) if anyone can help me?
Hi, guys,
I feel really sad about allwinner. I came from China too. I just find this project, and like it very much. I’m a big fan of XBMC. I really hope it can run on mk802 with full function.
But this shit happen everyday in China. Cause we are managed by a group of idiots from gov to the small companies. they use their little brain to think of anything. maybe they feel like you guys steal their property:). They just cant see the big picture. The engineers just won’t risk to lose their job. We still struggling for the survival.
My suggest is give up the stupid allwinner, looking for other soc company. What about the rockchip. I just happend to know the “boss” of their company. Maybe I can help. But rockchip don’t have similar board as mk802. Im not hardware guy, so maybe should find a solution company?
@GreenLin
If you have contacts within Rockchip could you please contact me by email because the DO have a similar product.
Would love to work together to get that product to get hyped just like the MK802, but it needs source code release.
If done properly, sales will boost, most likely take over the piece of pie the MK802 has at the moment (and that is a significant piece)
Once again, please contact me by mail. You can use the about us -> contact form if you would like, otherwise you can send an email to info(at)j1nx(dot)nl
read this : http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-netbook/2012-September/005717.html
Yes, I read it the other day.
OMG! I am wetting my pants
http://slickdeals.net/forums/showpost.php?p=56596142&postcount=157
I am a pompous whiner
I even tried to google for any of his contributions to the community, but …..
Anyway!
Bummer, I just bought one of those $20 devices. Allwinner sound like Alllosers too me
Whats the best option for playing media on this devide now the XBMC dream is dead?
You can download and install the Mele XBMC version which available here. It works fine for SD material and certain HD formats. Most formats are borked within the closed sources library from Allwinner.
As long they are not willing to fix those issues, that is all we can do at the moment.
More info about the decoder issues can be found on the linux-sunxi wiki
http://linux-sunxi.org/CedarXVideoRenderingChart
http://linux-sunxi.org/CedarX
http://linux-sunxi.org/XBMC
Thanks for the reply and info. What is best android product atm for XBMC?
Basically one product : Pivos XIOS DS
Peter how about that one here?
http://www.xbdroidmc.com/#!store/productsstackergalleryv20=3
That is basically a GBox Midnight / Zap A10 / Toptvhat / Etc.
First, you could get it a lot cheaper elsewhere. Most development is done at a XIOS, so if you want something that just works, buy a XIOS.
If you would like to tinker or help me in porting linux XBMC to f16ref, sure go ahead
Xios can be purchased only from US correct?
Isn’t there a possibility for you to be a reseller for Europe?Just wondering…
I have thought before to buy one of those but for the time being I don’t have a TV with HDMI…that’s the reason that draws me back…it is HD Ready (till 720) but no HDMI…
Neverthelesss is there anything else ,besides the paypal contribution, that I could do to help u?
I keep spreading the word about your site and effort for the good of the community…
I wish I could do more but I don’t have the skills neither the knowledge…
XIOS can be bought from http://nanomaze.com/ for us in the EU.
I do not have plans do become a Pivos reseller, I do have some other plans though
Stay tuned!
thanks for the tip but I would rather wait to see what you will come across…;)
And what a freaking annoying website !!
Yeap!Couldn’t agree more!