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WeTek Core (24p HD Netflix / HD Audio / Lollipop / OpenELEC / 4K / HEVC)
Played with Core for a while. Some comments and questions have arose, as usual.

The device on Android feels solid (I mean not physical appearance but software wise). No hangouts or such things. However there are few bugs in there.
1. Timezone is back 1 hr in Android. Couldn't find a way to fix it. Looks like it automatically pulls the time zone from somewhere but does it wrong.
2. In Kodi some localized text don't show up -- usually (or only?) the first item in the list (just an empy space). For example when starting a BD structure, the 1-st menu item (Play the main title) is empty (but works). I've seen it before after localization of my other Kodi/OpenELECs but it fixed itself after reboot each time I saw it. But not this time -- it persists. (I'm an Android noob so pls give me directions if some extra debug info is needed.)
3. At the first boot it states there are newer version of Wetek Media Player available. But I couldn't see any update option. WeUpdate tells it's the latest version (1.1.2) and no update option for an App.
4 CEC was completely lost just once. Recycling a TV power didn't help -- had to power down the device to regain it. Again, I don't know how to see the logs in Android. It seems not to have an ssh daemon...
5. Could not assign a colored RC buttons (a tv ones coming via CEC) -- Android seems not to see them at all. That's a big drawback for me: no info, no audio switch, etc. provided that the native RC lacks those functions, too. I'd ask the manufacturer to add some more buttons to their remote: it lacks even a stop button! (Yes I know that I can assign it, but the number of functions I need is more than the number of buttons available. Let the device cost $3 or $5 more but deliver the better experience concerning the remote features. That's the main control, after all! Quite disappointing to me... BTW does longpress works with the native remote? Than may ease the pain a bit...

The playback is not so solid, unfortunately, if I try to skip over the file. I've encountered some problems now and then when the playback resumes after skipping:
- jerky playback -- usually comes into a normal within 10-40 sec.
- muted or out-of-sync sound
- faster playback (as if FF was activated)
- stretching to 16:9 (it was just once and the ratio shown in OSD was 1.0) Stop and play again solved this
- sometimes it skips to a wrong location. For exapmle one chapter back from chapter 5 goes to the very start.

Of course if I just sit and watch it plays OK. That happens only on some sources, others play just fine. Usually it's enough to do another short skip to bring it all to normal. But it annoys. Once again, just let me know if additional info is needed, like mediainfo on these files. Everything was played over NFS, BTW.

Found no difference between regular Kodi and rebranded one. That's probably because I only need stereo output Smile What the reason to keep both BTW?

Could not boot OpenELEC from the mSD... I've dd-ed the image, inserted the card, Android sees it but it boots into Android no matter what I press during boot. It probably would be more convenient to me to use OpenELEC instead of Android, for I'm a unix guy and don't need any Android bells and whistles.

To bottom line: the Core may be my favorite device if those drawbacks are ironed out. It still very good but disappoints in those small details breaking the smoothness of experience. Cheers!
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(2016-04-11, 11:49)kanyck Wrote: 3. At the first boot it states there are newer version of Wetek Media Player available. But I couldn't see any update option. WeUpdate tells it's the latest version (1.1.2) and no update option for an App.

I did have to do a full re-install of Android (download the recovery image from Wetek, copy it to uSD and restart in recover mode from the power menu) when I first got my Core after the OTA upgrade that was supposed to install Wetek Media Player didn't. After that I've had no real issues.

AIUI Wetek Media Player has a few optimisations for the Core (HD Audio bitstreaming + Multichannel PCM audio, and possibly some codec and refresh rate tweaks)

Quote:Could not boot OpenELEC from the mSD... I've dd-ed the image, inserted the card, Android sees it but it boots into Android no matter what I press during boot. It probably would be more convenient to me to use OpenELEC instead of Android, for I'm a unix guy and don't need any Android bells and whistles.

Odd - have had zero problems switching between OE and Android on my Core. (One thing to be aware of is that if you use dd on a Mac for some reason using /dev/rdiskX rather than /dev/diskX can cause issues when flashing images for AMLogic stuff (never been an issue with Pi - but my ODroid C1 would always go very strange) No idea why)

On the original OTA firmware you just put your uSD card with the Wetek Core OE build in and rebooted and it went straight to OE (no boot menu). If you wanted to run Android you shutdown OE, removed the uSD card and powered up again.

With the recent firmware update when you power up with a uSD card in, if you previously ran Android you will be prompted on-screen to press the power button (on the remote) to boot from uSD instead. If you do this it will remember that choice and make booting from uSD your default, offering you the option of booting from Android by pressing the Power button (and then it will remember that as the default). So you should only have to press Power when you want to switch OSs, not every time you reboot.

I'd double check your uSD card and flash to another if you aren't having any success. OE works well for me on the Core (albeit Stereo 2.0PCM + DD/DTS bitstream only for audio) and I think the UI is a bit more fluid in OE.

In fact the only reasons I'm not using the Core as my main Kodi devices are :

1. It won't play interlaced MPEG2 DVDs properly. (Though it's fine with MPEG2 interlaced TV...)
2. No HD Audio/PCM Multichannel Audio in OpenElec.
3. No full-spec drivers for my DVB-T2 tuner in OpenElec (well not last time I checked) due to elderly kernel (not Wetek's fault - AMLogic haven't released new kernels for many of their platforms - partially because they are less important for Android it seems)

Pi 3 and Chromebox both succeed fully or partially (no HD Audio bitstream on Pi, but multichannel PCM with lossless decode is fine for me) in these areas, so they are still my two favoured Kodi devices.

The Pi 3 also does 3D MVC + Frame Packed output (which my Chromebox and Core don't) but 3D is not a huge issue for me.

If you don't have a solution for Netflix and mainly use Kodi for watching 1080p movies, the Core is a great solution (and one of the few Android solutions with HD Audio support via two different routes - bitstream and PCM lossless decode to 5.1/7.1)
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@kanyck,
1. Android Settings > Preferences > More Settings > Date and Time > Select Correct Time Zone or Manually adjust location

2. No Idea sounds like a Android kodi issue.

5. Remote Control coloured buttons for HDMI CEC would have to be patched into the Kernel by AML or Codesnake I would think.
I would like this feature as well.

Yes long press works with the Native Remote control in Android, Long Press OK button for Context, Long press Back button for Stop.

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@wrxtrasy
1. Yep, I found it!! It's ... -> Date and Time -> Set time -> Adjust the time zone
First time I didn't dig that deep thinking that Set time only sets time... silly me Smile
(But now I don't have NTP working at all for some reason on neither of my machines, so I can't check if it's okay now. I've tcpdumped the outer interface on my router and can see only outgoing packages. Will have to hassle my provider then. Weird.)

2. Not only. As I wrote, I've seen it on OpenELEC, too. But on Android it didn't fix itself after reboot.

5. Looking forward to it!!!

@noggin
Well, I'll try another SD card. That may be the issue. And I'm on Gentoo -- no /dev/rdisk* in there. /dev/sdh or whatever. I never have had any issues with dd before (of course, besides dd-ing to a wrong physical disk mistyping the drive letter Smile but that's another story).

I only watch movies over NFS so far (and very few are SD content). Probably some IPTV in a pipeline. But I want to try OpenELEC. If it is as solid as Android implementation I'll go with it.

Thank you guys for your help!
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(2016-04-11, 13:05)kanyck Wrote: @wrxtrasy
1. Yep, I found it!! It's ... -> Date and Time -> Set time -> Adjust the time zone
First time I didn't dig that deep thinking that Set time only sets time... silly me Smile
(But now I don't have NTP working at all for some reason on neither of my machines, so I can't check if it's okay now. I've tcpdumped the outer interface on my router and can see only outgoing packages. Will have to hassle my provider then. Weird.)

2. Not only. As I wrote, I've seen it on OpenELEC, too. But on Android it didn't fix itself after reboot.

5. Looking forward to it!!!

@noggin
Well, I'll try another SD card. That may be the issue. And I'm on Gentoo -- no /dev/rdisk* in there. /dev/sdh or whatever. I never have had any issues with dd before (of course, besides dd-ing to a wrong physical disk mistyping the drive letter Smile but that's another story).

I only watch movies over NFS so far (and very few are SD content). Probably some IPTV in a pipeline. But I want to try OpenELEC. If it is as solid as Android implementation I'll go with it.

Thank you guys for your help!

This may be grandfather egg-sucking territory - but you are downloading and decompressing then dd-ing the .img disk image rather than the .tar upgrade files aren't you?
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Of course.
I did what I usually do for setting up my C1+:

zcat OpenELEC-WeTek_Core.arm-6.95.1.img.gz | dd of=/dev/sdh bs=4K

It mounts just fine -- I can see it under Android. Let me try another card before guessing -- this may be the issue.
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Ah - I separate the expansion and dd process, so dd the .img file and use a bs=1m rather than 4k on my Mac. (Think Mac dd uses m and k instead of M and K)

I know that I hit lots of annoying issues with my ODroid C1 (AMLogic, like the Core) using dd in exactly the same way as I had with no issues on the Pis.
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I even sync-ed after dd has finished however it seems quite useless -- raw mode doesn't buffer AFAIK. But I'm so sick and tired of odd issues I've been having last couple of months stumbling upon flat surface that I started to overdo such things . It didn't help though Smile
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Uncompress the .img.gz file first to an .img
On a Mac:

Drag the required.img file into Terminal App after sudo if=
Code:
diskutil list
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX
sudo dd if=Dragged_file_here.img  of=/dev/diskX bs=1m

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Or use ApplePi Baker link
Noob friendly image writer for Mac.
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@wrxtrasy @g0ran
Thank you guys...
...but it's @noggin who uses mac Wink I'm on Gentoo, as I've stated before. No problem though.
And I'm quite sure there's no difference if you unzip to a file or to a pipeline. There must not be. If it was so, I'd filed a bug on bugzilla.

The reason was incompatible mSD card. Damn it! 3-rd party cards work just fine when inserted in a regular PC but fail into those tiny devices they were bought for... I think it's high time to change a shop. Sorry for the false alarm.. again.

Now I'm a happy Core OpenELEC owner and even colored buttons are visible and mappable. Yahooo!!!
And yes -- all menu items are visible under OpenELEC!
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Yep - uSD Cards can be a right royal pain. These days I stick with Sandisk Extreme and Samsung EVO/EVO+. Life is too short... (And they are hardly mega-expensive)
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Having followed @Ne0 suggestion @ wetek forum I zeroed a faily mSD and then put OE on it. And it worked Smile So far no issues...
This doesn't make much sense to me but the fact is: having been zeroed before putting the system onto it the card boots. Maybe in raw mode some cards fail if not cleared upfront due to very simple controller embedded? The 8-th world wander...

@wrxtasy
1. I've noticed Confluence in OE is not as smooth as it used to be. Quite strange -- CPU is quite powerful to deliver a snappy UI. Missed patch?
2. Updated to 6.95.2. What does this Pulse 8 CEC lib adds? Didn't notice any difference...
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(2016-04-13, 18:58)kanyck Wrote: Having followed @Ne0 suggestion @ wetek forum I zeroed a faily mSD and then put OE on it. And it worked Smile So far no issues...
This doesn't make much sense to me but the fact is: having been zeroed before putting the system onto it the card boots. Maybe in raw mode some cards fail if not cleared upfront due to very simple controller embedded? The 8-th world wander...

@wrxtasy
1. I've noticed Confluence in OE is not as smooth as it used to be. Quite strange -- CPU is quite powerful to deliver a snappy UI. Missed patch?
2. Updated to 6.95.2. What does this Pulse 8 CEC lib adds? Didn't notice any difference...

There was a patch applied a little while ago to stop the GUI tearing when not in playback. However this also appeared to reduce the fluidity of GUI rendering.

The Pulse 8 CEC libs are a significant improvement over the previous libs. One major advantage is that they should now send CEC commands as well as receive them - so Kodi should remotely control AVR audio levels (i.e.send CEC volume commands to your amp). The Pi has done this for ages - and it has been a major disadvantage with the ODroids. (I don't use CEC for Kodi remote control but I DO use it for Kodi to remotely control my amp)
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(2016-04-13, 18:58)kanyck Wrote: @wrxtasy
1. I've noticed Confluence in OE is not as smooth as it used to be. Quite strange -- CPU is quite powerful to deliver a snappy UI. Missed patch?
I have not noticed any reduction in smoothness and fluidity, even with the Kernel GPU drivers patch to fix tearing in the OE Kodi GUI on the WeTek Core. Even OE on the S805 C1 has regained its fluidity with a bit of a Mali Turbo tweak.

What does affect performance greatly is a SD card that is having R/W issues for whatever reason.
I've had so many issues with Samsung SD cards lately that I only trust Sandisk SD cards when used on AMLogic devices from now on.
(2016-04-13, 19:45)noggin Wrote: The Pulse 8 CEC libs are a significant improvement over the previous libs. One major advantage is that they should now send CEC commands as well as receive them - so Kodi should remotely control AVR audio levels (i.e.send CEC volume commands to your amp). The Pi has done this for ages - and it has been a major disadvantage with the ODroids. (I don't use CEC for Kodi remote control but I DO use it for Kodi to remotely control my amp)
With recent AMLogic Kernel patches by the OpenELEC, now LibreELEC developer gdachs, we now have Pulse8 libCEC compatibility on the WeTek Play / Core running OpenELEC. Raybuntu has taken that work and ported it to support the AML S805/S905 on the ODROID C1/C2's as well.
I can almost guarantee the S905 WeTek Hub / Play2 will get this libCEC support as well. Smile

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WeTek Core (24p HD Netflix / HD Audio / Lollipop / OpenELEC / 4K / HEVC)4