Kodi Community Forum

Testing out a new (old?) device, the Rocktek G2 - same hardware as the Nokia and Homatics Box R 4K

https://www.androidtv-guide.com/oem/sei-robotics

First impressions are good but I have some more testing to get into.

Verified CoreElec is able to utilize the Dolby Vision decoder even when the display does not report it is capable but limited testing on this platform as there is only widevine L3. (this is all i tested in coreelec, everything else applies to android)

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Platform -

Quote:Kodi (21.0-ALPHA2 (20.90.201) Git:20230716-429c2813af). Platform: Android ARM 32-bit
SEI Robotics RT-G2 with Android TV 11.0.0 API level 30, kernel: Linux ARM 32-bit version 5.4.210-ab5310
FFmpeg version/source: 6.0-Kodi
Host CPU: ARMv8 Processor rev 0 (v8l), 4 cores available
Product: SEI804RT, Device: YYJ, Board: YYJ - Manufacturer: SEI Robotics, Brand: RockTek, Model: RT-G2, Hardware: amlogic

Currently Atmos pass through is working with the Kodi IEC but I am not getting DTS:X, the box itself does not seem to be capable in general as the built in exoplayer won't play it at all.
Raw IEC crashed kodi the single time I tried it with Atmos passthrough but I cannot make any determination of the cause just yet, was a brief test.

Performance wise it feels very quick -
streaming is almost as fast as local files using the gigabit lan port
multitasking apps feels good
noted degraded performance in kodi browsing through media accessing thumbnails when using the xbmc_env.properties redirect but seems to be a performance issue with the fuse mount it was using - not fully tested to an external drive.

Plenty of storage space, currently shows 23GB free.

Ram usage during playback of 4K Remux shows 327MB free, 3432MB used and I haven't noticed any issues with running out of memory.

Dolby Vision in Android works perfectly with all apps and everything looks crisp, supports source-led but requires the display to report it is capable (not even if kodi uses the dvhe decoder it still won't output DV).


More testing on various aspects to come as well as finding out what crashed kodi when Raw was used, if there are any specifics or tests just ask and I will try to get the information.

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Testing using the HD Fury 8K Arcana2 and a 2018 Samsung Q8


update:

no passthrough audio is currently working, atmos will with raw but then kodi will crash, dts:x will not, the rest i have no clear indicators for but i doubt are working

update2:

adjusting various settings kodi is not crashing with raw iec and truehd passthrough is working - still no DTS:X as far as i can tell

I assume the DTS:X and Raw IEC stuff is only relevant to Android TV+Kodi not Kodi running under CoreElec?  Might be worth clarifying which issues are hardware and which are OS related?

(2023-07-18, 12:13)noggin Wrote: [ -> ]I assume the DTS:X and Raw IEC stuff is only relevant to Android TV+Kodi not Kodi running under CoreElec?  Might be worth clarifying which issues are hardware and which are OS related?

yes, my mistake, dolby vision and widevine were the only things i tested on coreelec

*fixed in original post

(2023-07-18, 04:12)jepsizofye Wrote: [ -> ]Testing out a new (old?) device, the Rocktek G2 - same hardware as the Nokia and Homatics Box R 4K

https://www.androidtv-guide.com/oem/sei-robotics

First impressions are good but I have some more testing to get into.

Verified CoreElec is able to utilize the Dolby Vision decoder even when the display does not report it is capable but limited testing on this platform as there is only widevine L3. (this is all i tested in coreelec, everything else applies to android)

I am temped to get one of these to play with.  Can CoreElec be installed in dual boot mode without removing Android 11 ? 


Jeff

(2023-07-18, 18:52)jbinkley60 Wrote: [ -> ]

(2023-07-18, 04:12)jepsizofye Wrote: [ -> ]Testing out a new (old?) device, the Rocktek G2 - same hardware as the Nokia and Homatics Box R 4K

https://www.androidtv-guide.com/oem/sei-robotics

First impressions are good but I have some more testing to get into.

Verified CoreElec is able to utilize the Dolby Vision decoder even when the display does not report it is capable but limited testing on this platform as there is only widevine L3. (this is all i tested in coreelec, everything else applies to android)

I am temped to get one of these to play with.  Can CoreElec be installed in dual boot mode without removing Android 11 ? 


Jeff

yes, this device has an sdcard slot so it is simple

1. write coreelec to an sdcard
   
2. copy /device_trees/sc2_s905x4_sei_smb_280.dtb -> /dtb.img on the COREELEC labeled partiion
   
3. insert sdcard into the device
   
4. issue the command to adb 'adb reboot update' (after doing the needed steps to access adb, of course)
   

this just boots from the sdcard and does not touch the device software

there are likely easier ways to reboot to CE but this is/was easiest for me

have a usb keyboard handy because i had issues with the remote that i didnt care to resolve

(2023-07-18, 19:00)jepsizofye Wrote: [ -> ]yes, this device has an sdcard slot so it is simple

1. write coreelec to an sdcard
   
   
2. copy /device_trees/sc2_s905x4_sei_smb_280.dtb -> /dtb.img on the COREELEC labeled partiion
   
   
3. insert sdcard into the device
   
   
4. issue the command to adb 'adb reboot update' (after doing the needed steps to access adb, of course)
   
   

this just boots from the sdcard and does not touch the device software

there are likely easier ways to reboot to CE but this is/was easiest for me

have a usb keyboard handy because i had issues with the remote that i didnt care to resolve

Thanks.  So in that approach CoreElec / Kodi runs off the SD card, correct ?  So I would expect the Kodi database activities to be a bit slow ?


Jeff

(2023-07-18, 20:54)jbinkley60 Wrote: [ -> ]So in that approach CoreElec / Kodi runs off the SD card, correct ?

correct
 

(2023-07-18, 20:54)jbinkley60 Wrote: [ -> ]So I would expect the Kodi database activities to be a bit slow ?

very likely since it is on the sdcard

in the brief time ive spent running coreelec from an sdcard i didn't notice so much for database but for thumbnails definitely, recommend redirecting them to (at minimum) a thumb drive or to a network location with path substitution for any long term use

@jepsizofye

Full Edit your first post to fix the thread title.

(2023-07-18, 21:17)Karellen Wrote: [ -> ]@jepsizofye

Full Edit your first post to fix the thread title.

oh, i didnt know i could do that ... never clicked it before lol thanks

(2023-07-18, 21:03)jepsizofye Wrote: [ -> ]

(2023-07-18, 20:54)jbinkley60 Wrote: [ -> ]So in that approach CoreElec / Kodi runs off the SD card, correct ?

correct
 

(2023-07-18, 20:54)jbinkley60 Wrote: [ -> ]So I would expect the Kodi database activities to be a bit slow ?

very likely since it is on the sdcard

in the brief time ive spent running coreelec from an sdcard i didn't notice so much for database but for thumbnails definitely, recommend redirecting them to (at minimum) a thumb drive or to a network location with path substitution for any long term use

Thanks.  I wouldn't want to run off the SDcard long term and path substitution / redirection isn't an option for me.  So I guess, aside from testing with the SD card, the longer term options are run Kodi under Android (which  I believe is what you are testing) or reflash the box with CoreElec, correct ?  Not being an Android guy, if I were to reflash the box to CoreElec (assuming this is possible) then is there a process to ever reload Android 11, assuming there was some reason i wanted to  ?  Running Kodi under Android is probably the practical answer but just exploring my options before buying one.

Jeff

yes im testing android - because i have 5 streaming services and i also use vudu and movies anywhere which all require L1 widevine, mostly for quality of content but some won't work at all without it
no option to install to internal currently
risk of bricking devices makes that a good thing
reflashing back to android would be near impossible if you managed to flash CE to it

in a more permanent situation i know it is possible to mount the internal storage emmc to CE - how well that works is beyond me

Works well, and performance is (usually) significantly better... but, didn't think install-to-internal was going to be an option w/the Homatics/Dune/Rocktek/Nokia boxes. I tried a Homatics some months back & found the performance a bit sluggish for my needs, but I also have a huge library (around 8K movies/episodes).

(2023-07-19, 00:34)hdmkv Wrote: [ -> ]Works well, and performance is (usually) significantly better... but, didn't think install-to-internal was going to be an option w/the Homatics/Dune/Rocktek/Nokia boxes. I tried a Homatics some months back & found the performance a bit sluggish for my needs, but I also have a huge library (around 8K movies/episodes).

did you get DTS-HD MA/DTS:X passthrough working with the Homatics? im fairly sure its the firmware so im curious if it's cousins work

Recall those working with CE, but not Android, but I may be misremembering.

Results for Android side of things

Software Features in general - A

Software seems solid but only apply to Android 11 not really specific to this device or Kodi, missing a web browser and a couple other things because it is the TV version of android drops the grade from an A+


Hardware Features - B-

Passthrough for Kodi -
A couple issues using Atmos in a TrueHD container but seems to work fine for EAC3
No DTS:X (DTS-HD MA)
All other codecs play when passthrough is enabled and are in sync but I get the impression they are being processed on the device rather than passthrough

No TrueHD/Atmos playback at all outside of Kodi when using the native exoplayer

Unable to force dolby vision without the display reporting it is capable, DV output is being reported as LLDV when using the Arcana2

Does not seem to have any issues with standard video codecs that I could find.
AV1 support works well and almost played 8K video but stuttered occasionally, 4K worked without issue.

8K video tested was an offline copy of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElnRioR9Z-g

Mediainfo -

Connectivity - B

SD Card slot for CoreElec is useful
Gigabit LAN speed tests at 115MB/s (920Mbps) for zero byte data (0x00) which is compressable, uncompressable urandom peaked at 94MB/s (750Mbps) so it is more than usable
External harddrive worked as NTFS/FAT32, plug and play and immediately available in kodi without doing any special tricks or commands. Linux EXT4 was detected but did not work, was reported as 'unsupported' potentially could have a workaround but no attempts made.


Overall it seems like a solid 'users' device but is lacking in the 'advanced users' category by a small margin and without pass through 'audiophile users' won't be happy with it at all.