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Full Version: WeTek Hub - 24p HD Netflix - HD Kodi Audio - 10bit HEVC - Lollipop - 4K
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Hi guys&girls,

I've received my Hub, and I'm putting it through its paces. First impressions:

- LibreELEC 7.0.2 provided by wrxtasy woks like a charm. In my opinion, it is more responsive than the Android side, particulary respect to remote presses. Snappier. By the way, I had to downgrade to Kodi 16.1 from 17 immediately under Android. As others mentioned, Kodi 17 is not ready for daily use, and was probably a mistake to install it by default

- The tiny box does get rather warm. I wonder if it is normal or not. I didn't get any hangs or crashes (at least after downgrading to Kodi 16.1), but I sometimes get a weird screen switch, and colors become corrupted (everything becomes greenish). This is fixed by reconnecting the HDMI cable, or sometimes after waiting a bit. Could any WeTek spokesperson give me some advice for this?

- The remote is not so bad! I find it quite adequate for Kodi. It is just completely useless if you want to navigate the wider world of Android.

- I configured a 3rd party remote (OneForAll Simple 3), that has a learning function (I just copied the signals from the original remote). I'd very much like, however, to find a way to use other keys of this remote beyond the ones in the original Wetek remote. I would also appreciate any advice in this regard.

That's it for now. Very pleased overall. I'm sure once the kinks are ironed out I'm going to get a lot of mileage out of this little box!
finally today i was able to pickup my HUB and spend some time with it. This took a bit long (the announcement, the availability, the reading, the waiting....), which might have generated too much expectations....But it's finally here.
So here are some impressions.
DISCLAIMER:long time user of Rpi2/Rpi3 + OE/LE, so this is the standard by which i will judge things. My intention is to use the HUB for about a month and then pass it on to my folks so that they can watch their movies. I plan to later get the play2 / play2S for myself when they become available. My main interest was the x265 compatibility for now and 10bit 4k for future proofing for this buy.
System: HUB -> Onkyo TX-NR609 -> Panasonic 46S10E (plasma-> \m/)

Unboxing:
very nice box, nicely packed. You get the feeling this is a quality product. I have seen the pictures, read the specs but even with Rpi in mind, this is impressively small. It's almost bizarre in a very nice and playful way. Compared to Rpi (case-less in my case) its also quite heavy. Overall it gives out a nice quality and well made feel. Considering the price, this is something i appreciated. Also nice that all cables are included. At this price-point (shipping costs aside) this is not insignificant i feel, plus you can also get started right away :-). Compared to RPi (+case, +power supply, +remote, +μSD +etc) i think the price comes quite close in the end (for Europeans at least). So this is definitely a good thing. The remote is also very nice, simple and pretty. It does feel a bit plastic/cheap compared to the device itself and what its design suggests initially, but in the end its OK.

Usage:
Device powers up fast and interface is clean and good looking. Coming from LE, its feels like a waste of resources having to carry around android to basically use kodi. Anyhow. Entering the wifi pass is fine. I can see the complaints that some people have with the mouse function of the remote. HOWEVER, imho the device can be perfectly used with the d-pad. Granted i have not used another kind of air mouse or whatnot to know how good they might be but my mindset is mostly for kodi. For that and since i don't want the complexity of a mouse in my living-room i find the remote spot on. Simply does what its supposed to do. You do have to point it to the right place for the presses to register, at least more than i would have expected. But it works fine. It's simple and serves the purpose very well. Not trying to downplay comments from others, but i think if someone wants a simple remote to navigate around in a living room level/consumer electronic type of way, he/she can find such a remote in the box of the HUB.

Right, so first thing first, update to v1.01. Update takes a bit. But when done we 're back on track. Load wetek player, loads fast. Here we go. Add NFS share, start scanning and adding to library about 200 movies of all sorts of codecs. While scanning movies add another NFS share with series and add to library. Check the performance. Shows up as a 2 core system, CPU usage about 50-60% and memory usage up to 75-80%. Box gets a bit hot on top, but not uncomfortable, could easily leave my hand there. Ambient temperature is 30C+ today. Library updating is noticeably faster on wifi than RPi2/3 with samsung evo 32gb μSD wired. So while scanning lets play one 1080 x264 video to see what gives. Video plays fine, ff/rew work as well all while still scanning. So far so good. Browsing the movie library intentionally and unreasonably fast while still scanning results in some stutter. Wait for 5-6 secs and we are back on track. After the scan is finished browsing around is a breeze and very responsive.

Other:
-CEC works fine with my pana (after activating it in the menu), i can control the HUB from the TV remote for basic navigating/enter/return.

-I have the impression that overall PQ is a bit better than RPi2 but will have to do some more checks. One thing is for sure: blacks from the HUB are deeper than RPi2 (plasma/oled owners rejoice NodNodNod ). This is already evident in the main kodi menu. Don't know why this is really, but it's evident. Will look further into it cause i am intrigued.

-tried LE from wrxtasy. Respect and many thanks for all your work here and on the C2!!!. Was between the two, but i decided to go with the HUB in the end. Wifi is WIP and it's too late to find find space for it in the router. Will revisit later. Switching eMMC/μSD from the remote is sweeeet though. Used the 7.0.2. version (NOT the remote.fix one) and remote seemed to work fine for navigating around.

There it is. my 2 cents. Will do some more testing over the coming days and come back with remarks.
Overall and as a first impression, I am happy with this purchase.
P.S. I do think shipping costs could be lower.

Question: if i flash the eMMC with LE, is it still possible to return back to having android on the eMMC? Or is this process irreversible?
(2016-07-21, 22:59)Sando Wrote: [ -> ]Anyone know how the mouse button on the remote works, by the way? I can activate there mouse pretty easily, but going back to directional buttons is more difficult.

Same button, the mouse cursor will go away when you press the dpad or any other button (beside the mouse that will turn it on again)

(2016-07-21, 23:53)lekand Wrote: [ -> ]As others mentioned, Kodi 17 is not ready for daily use, and was probably a mistake to install it by default!

It was not a mistake as a patch from Alex "codesnake" required to have 4k resolutions working with 3.14 kernel is not included in Kodi 16.1 but only in 17, so if you have a 4k TV using a 4K 50 or 60hz resolution (I did some kernel hacks to try to translate the old resolution names to the new, but S812 did not support 4k at 50/60hz) you will lose the picture on the display as Kodi tries to echo a resolution that does not exist.
For 16.1 there is WeTek Media Player that includes that patch among others.

@alexdanis
you should be able to just flash from recovery the full ota zip file to go back to Android but let's wait for someone else's feedback as I never use OE/LE.
(2016-07-22, 05:24)ChristianTroy Wrote: [ -> ]
(2016-07-21, 23:53)lekand Wrote: [ -> ]As others mentioned, Kodi 17 is not ready for daily use, and was probably a mistake to install it by default!

It was not a mistake as a patch from Alex "codesnake" required to have 4k resolutions working with 3.14 kernel is not included in Kodi 16.1 but only in 17, so if you have a 4k TV using a 4K 50 or 60hz resolution (I did some kernel hacks to try to translate the old resolution names to the new, but S812 did not support 4k at 50/60hz) you will lose the picture on the display as Kodi tries to echo a resolution that does not exist.
For 16.1 there is WeTek Media Player that includes that patch among others.

@alexdanis
you should be able to just flash from recovery the full ota zip file to go back to Android but let's wait for someone else's feedback as I never use OE/LE.

I see! Understood. In any case, despite the instabilities, I *really* liked the looks of Kodi 17, and plan to transition as soon as it hits beta.

Anybody else has experienced greenish color corruptions with the Hub?
When I have a bit more time I need to try with marshmallow if mediacodec behaves better
(2016-07-22, 20:10)ChristianTroy Wrote: [ -> ]When I have a bit more time I need to try with marshmallow if mediacodec behaves better
I've had contact with amlogic and told them some parts of what they need to fix.
Us announcing that we will get rid of amlogic code got some people nervous.
(2016-07-22, 20:16)Martijn Wrote: [ -> ]I've had contact with amlogic and told them some parts of what they need to fix.

Perfect Smile I might be wrong (hope no) but according to the last talk we had with them it looks like they are really trying to improve and following Google's directions
(2016-07-22, 20:18)ChristianTroy Wrote: [ -> ]
(2016-07-22, 20:16)Martijn Wrote: [ -> ]I've had contact with amlogic and told them some parts of what they need to fix.

Perfect Smile I might be wrong (hope no) but according to the last talk we had with them it looks like they are really trying to improve and following Google's directions
You are correct that they want to follow official api however some one needs to point them to the obvious things that need improvements for kodi
@alexdanis: Great write up! I got one of mine up and running today, updated to 1.01, installed Netflix etc, configured the WETEK Media Player (their Kodi version) got my addons etc installed...

It is faster than the Core, quite nice. I too was very surprised at how small it is. Small than a pack of cigarettes!

The mouse isn't too bad but it's nowhere near as good as what the Core has. Still it's useable. I'm hoping I can connect it to one of the Kodi Remote apps for smart phone or IPad for running WETEK Media Player? I'll try that tomorrow.

So far I like it a lot but tomorrow I'll give it a full run tomorrow and check out with my AVR and NAS.
Hallo all,
I'm new to the forum , but was reading for a long time here.
I also recieved my hub this week and was playing around since then.
All seams decent with some pros and cons, but with potential.
My biggest problem is the performance of the ethernet port. I only get about 10 Mbit. Wlan seams to be ok.
Is there any tweak which I can try for decent ethernet peformance or to I have a broken ethernet port?
PS. I'm under android with latest OTA. Also tried to reset the box.
Thanks.... and what a great and inspiring forum.
Jürgen
Hi all - thought I'd share my experience with the Hub and LibreElec.

1. Hub arrived, powered up to Android, installed my Google account, played around a bit.
2. OTA updated to current OTA firmware

3. Flashed a uSD card with LibreElec img from wrxtasy. SD card recognised on boot up with 'Press Power to boot from SD card' prompt, but come what may it wouldn't boot.

4. Did a total system recovery (wiping cache and factory data/reset and then updating from a different SD card with the recovery zip on it)
5. Rebooted and reset system (didn't bother adding Google Account - I seldom use Android)
6. Flashed a uSD card with the LibreElec img from wrxtasy again (I used a Mac and dd with /dev/rdiskN as the destination)
7. Rebooted and this time the Power Button prompt appeared AND worked to reboot me into LibreElec.

Thanks to wrxtasy for assistance in this!
Apart from the tuners, what user difference would people expect to see between the Hub and the new Play 2 re - performance, speed, audio decoding etc
Is PCM multichannel supported in LE? So far playing 5.1 AAC content I only get 2.0 PCM output and have to enable transcoding to Dolby for 5.1 output (albeit in Dolby Digital).

Is PCM multichannel Android only ? (I don't get a channels config option in the LibreElec Audio System settings to tell Kodi how many channels to output - so I'm guessing it's not in LibreElec, though in the LE thread in Wetek Forums wrxtasy says hdmkv has confirmed it works ?)
(2016-07-22, 20:21)Martijn Wrote: [ -> ]
(2016-07-22, 20:18)ChristianTroy Wrote: [ -> ]
(2016-07-22, 20:16)Martijn Wrote: [ -> ]I've had contact with amlogic and told them some parts of what they need to fix.

Perfect Smile I might be wrong (hope no) but according to the last talk we had with them it looks like they are really trying to improve and following Google's directions
You are correct that they want to follow official api however some one needs to point them to the obvious things that need improvements for kodi

btw if you notice anything they do wrong for Marshmallow feel free to nudge amlogic telling them to correct it.
@Martjin of course, when I got access to the SDK and saw the new passthrough I was somehow surprised as I was not expecting it at all... but then I made 2+2... Google presented Xiaomi's Amlogic powered TV Box at I/O they cannot do things their way anymore Wink

@jb1977
how are you testing network speed? If you try network transfers you are limited to the speed of the memory where you are saving (unless you pipe it to /dev/null).
I have an iperf3 compiled with NDK somewhere, if you want it I can give it to you, the Hub when running an iperf with my desktop, both connected by gbit, transfers at 960mbit and receives at 750mbit.
Just for the records, the NIC is an integrated Broadcom Tigon 3 from an Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 mainboard, both connected to an Asus RT-AC68U using CAT5e cables

edit: here it is https://mega.nz/#!J0hiQBza!96tufNCXJZUi5...uoBXfrvfhc