Renderers Has anyone tried MXQ with Amlogic S805 Quad core processor

[rmel66]

Good news!!

 

I have such a device (MXQ S85) and I use mine to play everything from mp3 to double rate dsd and 192/24 pcm music files.

 

The methodology is as follows:

 

Upnp server (Minimserver, with Minimstreamer activated) on a networked laptop with music stored on an external hard drive feeding a Upnp renderer (android box mentioned above with Upnplayer app installed along with MX Player).

 

Minimstreamer is critical for successfully playing dsd files; dsd is played as dsd over pcm (DoP) and the setting in Minimserver system properties stream.transcode box is dff:dopwav. Additionally, I also transcode flac files with this command entered in the same box, comma separated from the other command given above: flac:wav

The android box as mentioned above has MX Player and Upnplayer apps installed. In MX Player audio settings, using MX Player for audio must be checked. In Upnplayer, in the settings under Experimental enable external apps for playback and external apps only for playback.

 

The MXQ S85 box has Toslink SPDIF output port and I use this with a SPDIF/Coaxial input dac (approx $10 on Fleabay) connected to powered speakers.

 

For playback using Upnplayer, when a file is selected you will get a prompt asking which app to use for playback. Simply select MX Player and you should be good to go.

[rmel66]

I don't have the MXQ box, but I did try the combo suggested with the UPnPlay app playing through MXPlayer with my Android tablet. However, I found it quite klunky to control as the MXPlayer UI is overlayed on top of the UPnPlay UI during playback and none of the playback controls within UPnPlay are synced with the MXPlayer overlay. Also, gapless playback does not work. Is this also the case when used with the MXQ?

 

 

It is indeed quite clunky, but I usually create a playlist and just let the Upnplayer/MX Player combo do their work. As an aside, the latest versions of Kodi do now support DSD DoP playback through the UPnP setting.

 

rmel66.

[rmel66]

It is indeed quite clunky, but I usually create a playlist and just let the Upnplayer/MX Player combo do their work. As an aside, the latest versions of Kodi do now support DSD DoP playback through the UPnP setting.

 

rmel66.

 

Forgot to add that I use the continuous loop and shuffle settings.

[rmel66]

Minimserver/Minimstreamer has added stream tailoring that facilitates using the Upnplayer app stand-alone without incorporating Mx Player as hitherto mentioned. Specifically, one can now specify the bit depth and sample rate of transcoded data that allows, with stream converter set to ffmpeg the use of Upnplayer's native codecs.

 

I now successfully listen to Hi res, mp3s and almost everything in between using the MXQ-S85 box; Minimstreamer as of now will not transcode Aiff files, so these have to be converted before use.

 

Rmel66.

[rmel66]

On 10/26/2015 at 5:50 PM, Eldar Vanyar said:

Hi,

If I understand correctly a renderer streams the data from a HD and outputs it into a DAC (or in this case TV as well)

 

Has anyone tried an MXQ box which is a single board and links very similar to an Odroid C1+ in relation to specs of processor etc to me.

 

It would cost at least £50 to build the Odroid C1+ whereas the MXQ box can be bought for about £25 on eBay. So it's all assembled in a nice small box with external psu. It comes with Android OS but could probably be overwritten etc.

I think it has an 8gb Emmc

Do you think something like Rune Audio would work on this? I think it my be worth a punt for something like this.

Has anyone used one or similar to this?

The specs are below

 

Hardware Specifications

 

Chipset

 

Amlogic S805 Quad-Core [email protected]

 

GPU

 

Quad-Core Mali-450@600MHz+

 

FLASH

 

8GB NAND FLASH

 

SDRAM

 

1GB DDR3

 

Power Supply Specifications

 

Power Supply

 

DC 5V/2A

 

Power Indicator (LED)

 

Power ON :blue; Standby :Red

 

Main Features

 

OS

 

Android 4.4

 

3D

 

Hardward 3D graphics acceleration

 

Support Decoder format

 

HD MPEG1/2/4,H.265, HD AVC/VC-1,RM/RMVB, Xvid/DivX3/4/5/6 ,RealVideo8/9/10

 

Support Media format

 

Avi/Rm/Rmvb/Ts/Vob/Mkv/Mov/ISO/wmv/asf/flv/

 

dat/mpg/mpeg

 

Support Music format

 

MP3/WMA/AAC/WAV/OGG/AC3/DDP/TrueHD/DTS

 

/DTS/HD/FLAC/APE

 

Support Photo format

 

HD JPEG/BMP/GIF/PNG/TIFF

 

USB host

 

4 High speed USB 2.0,support U DISK and USB HDD

 

Card reader

 

SD/SDHC/MMC cards

 

HDD file system

 

FAT16/FAT32/NTFS

 

Support Subtitle

 

SRT/SMI/SUB/SSA/IDX+USB

 

High Definition video output

 

SD/HD max.1920x1080 pixel

 

OSD type of languages

 

English/French/German/Spanish/Italian/ etc

 

multilateral languages

 

LAN

 

Ethernet:10/100M, standard RJ-45

 

Wireless

 

Built in WiFi

 

Mouse/ Keyboard

 

Support mouse and keyboard via USB; Support 2.4GHz

 

wireless mouse and keyboard via 2.4GHz USB dongle

 

HDMI

 

HDMI 1.4b with CEC

 

AV

 

Support

 

3G

 

Support

 

SPDIF/IEC958

 

Coaxial

 

Software Specifications

 

Network Function

 

Skype chatting, Picasa, Youtube, Flicker, Facebook,

 

Online movies, etc

 

Other feature

 

Free Internet searching, thousands of android applications , many kinds of games, etc.

 

CPU

AmLogic S805 Quad-core @ 1.5Ghz

 

GPU

Quad-Core Mali-450 @ 600MHz

 

OS

Android 4.4

 

Memory

1GB DDR3 Ram, 8GB built in (Some reserved by Android OS) Extendable up to 32GB via SD card and 3TB via USB Hard-Drive

 

Connectivity

AV Out, HDMI with CEC, 4 x USB, WiFi, RJ45 Ethernet.

Video Output

1920x1080P @60Hz Full HD

Input

Infra-red Remote (Supplied), compatible with optional USB keyboard & Mouse, Keyboard & Mouse

Video

MKV,AVI,WMV,RMVB,TS,TP,M2TS,H.264 / H.263, RM, MPEG, VOB,MOV,FLV, MP4, 3GP, etc

Power

100-230Volt (UK Charger Supplied)

TV Box size

12(w) x 12(d) x 2.5(h) cm

 

Thanks

Good news. I have one of those boxes that I took out of video/KODI circulation because it was getting long in the tooth (720P video lagging audio etc).

 

On a whim, I did some checking and found a linux version ported to the MXQ S85. I wrote this to a microsd card and after updating the box was able to boot into linux from the card. Once logged in I tried to use the MPD/upmpdcli combination for DLNA rendering, but could not effect volume control from my control point. Suffice to say this attempt was abandoned and gmediarender was installed (with all dependencies) and now works almost flawlessly (slight hum from toslink converter).

 

rmel66.