[mulderfox]

Review | Ugoos AM6 Plus Amlogic S922XJ TV Box

Ugoos Am6 Plus is Ugoos’ newest Android TV box, and I can honestly say, it’s not only their best box yet, but one of the best boxes I ever reviewed so far! Thanks goes to James from Ugoos for providing the Review sample.

Come, read, share and enjoy!

[ragico]

Arrived few days ago. I am really interested in Dolby Vision performance. Installed the RC 033 official dual boot firmware. Installed kodi leia 18.7 in Android, No Dolby Vision (any profile) is triggered but HDR. It triggers HDR 10+ on my Panasonic Gz2000 oled. Installed Plex from Google playstore and it triggers Dolby Vision profiles 4 and 5. Very good picture performance. Better than that of Nvidia shield pro 2019 on the same tv in my opinion.
Agree that lan (cable) performance should improve. Sometimes I must restatr the box as it does not play anything or plays in standard resolution, no hdr no dolby vision
Under  Android both Kodi and Plex do not play Dolby Atmos in bitstream passtrough.
Under Coreelec Dolby Atmos (passtrough) works.
I think that this box will still improve with firmware fixes and updates and probably will be one of the very best on the market.
At the moment I am happy with it.

[mulderfox]

Arrived few days ago. I am really interested in Dolby Vision performance. Installed the RC 033 official dual boot firmware. Installed kodi leia 18.7 in Android, No Dolby Vision (any profile) is triggered but HDR. It triggers HDR 10+ on my Panasonic Gz2000 oled. Installed Plex from Google playstore and it triggers Dolby Vision profiles 4 and 5. Very good picture performance. Better than that of Nvidia shield pro 2019 on the same tv in my opinion.
Agree that lan (cable) performance should improve. Sometimes I must restatr the box as it does not play anything or plays in standard resolution, no hdr no dolby vision
Under  Android both Kodi and Plex do not play Dolby Atmos in bitstream passtrough.
Under Coreelec Dolby Atmos (passtrough) works.
I think that this box will still improve with firmware fixes and updates and probably will be one of the very best on the market.
At the moment I am happy with it.

Thanks ragico. I could not test Dolby Vision since my TV does not support it. Nor do I have Atmos setup (for the time being). For me however, stability was very good. I did not have to restart the box due to the issues you mentioned. But.. I also stayed with Kodi 18.6 as arrived with the box. I would recommend against updating Kodi - the changes are not significant enough to push to do that and may cause issues in many boxes that were optimized using a certain version of Kodi. That's my experience anyways. You can also report these issues to Ugoos if you want them to fix them. I did regarding the ones I mentioned in my review.

[wrxtasy]

@ragico @mulderfox,

Can you install the DRMinfo App and tell us what level of WideVine DRM the AM6 Plus supports please ?

You should get HDCP 2.2 if HDMI connected to a 4K TV.

I think that this box will still improve with firmware fixes and updates and probably will be one of the very best on the market.
At the moment I am happy with it.

It will for tablet Android OS / CoreELEC usage if it also supports Android WideVine L1 DRM.

[mulderfox]

@ragico @mulderfox,

Can you install the DRMinfo App and tell us what level of WideVine DRM the AM6 Plus supports please ?

You should get HDCP 2.2 if HDMI connected to a 4K TV.

I think that this box will still improve with firmware fixes and updates and probably will be one of the very best on the market.
At the moment I am happy with it.

It will for tablet Android OS / CoreELEC usage if it also supports Android WideVine L1 DRM.

[ragico]

Arrived few days ago. I am really interested in Dolby Vision performance. Installed the RC 033 official dual boot firmware. Installed kodi leia 18.7 in Android, No Dolby Vision (any profile) is triggered but HDR. It triggers HDR 10+ on my Panasonic Gz2000 oled. Installed Plex from Google playstore and it triggers Dolby Vision profiles 4 and 5. Very good picture performance. Better than that of Nvidia shield pro 2019 on the same tv in my opinion.
Agree that lan (cable) performance should improve. Sometimes I must restatr the box as it does not play anything or plays in standard resolution, no hdr no dolby vision
Under  Android both Kodi and Plex do not play Dolby Atmos in bitstream passtrough.
Under Coreelec Dolby Atmos (passtrough) works.
I think that this box will still improve with firmware fixes and updates and probably will be one of the very best on the market.
At the moment I am happy with it.

Thanks ragico. I could not test Dolby Vision since my TV does not support it. Nor do I have Atmos setup (for the time being). For me however, stability was very good. I did not have to restart the box due to the issues you mentioned. But.. I also stayed with Kodi 18.6 as arrived with the box. I would recommend against updating Kodi - the changes are not significant enough to push to do that and may cause issues in many boxes that were optimized using a certain version of Kodi. That's my experience anyways. You can also report these issues to Ugoos if you want them to fix them. I did regarding the ones I mentioned in my review.

The problems cited in my previous post happens only with Dolby Vision trough Plex. Maybe this is due to the 32 bit OS. I also installed fron google playstore kodi 18.6 and Dolby Vision is still no go and triggered as HDR.

[mulderfox]

Arrived few days ago. I am really interested in Dolby Vision performance. Installed the RC 033 official dual boot firmware. Installed kodi leia 18.7 in Android, No Dolby Vision (any profile) is triggered but HDR. It triggers HDR 10+ on my Panasonic Gz2000 oled. Installed Plex from Google playstore and it triggers Dolby Vision profiles 4 and 5. Very good picture performance. Better than that of Nvidia shield pro 2019 on the same tv in my opinion.
Agree that lan (cable) performance should improve. Sometimes I must restatr the box as it does not play anything or plays in standard resolution, no hdr no dolby vision
Under  Android both Kodi and Plex do not play Dolby Atmos in bitstream passtrough.
Under Coreelec Dolby Atmos (passtrough) works.
I think that this box will still improve with firmware fixes and updates and probably will be one of the very best on the market.
At the moment I am happy with it.

Thanks ragico. I could not test Dolby Vision since my TV does not support it. Nor do I have Atmos setup (for the time being). For me however, stability was very good. I did not have to restart the box due to the issues you mentioned. But.. I also stayed with Kodi 18.6 as arrived with the box. I would recommend against updating Kodi - the changes are not significant enough to push to do that and may cause issues in many boxes that were optimized using a certain version of Kodi. That's my experience anyways. You can also report these issues to Ugoos if you want them to fix them. I did regarding the ones I mentioned in my review.

The problems cited in my previous post happens only with Dolby Vision trough Plex. Maybe this is due to the 32 bit OS. I also installed fron google playstore kodi 18.6 and Dolby Vision is still no go and triggered as HDR.

Which Dolby vision content are you testing with?

[ozkhan1]

How come it says wide color gamut not supported? I thought that was one of the pre requisites for HDR playback.

[noggin]

How come it says wide color gamut not supported? I thought that was one of the pre requisites for HDR playback.

It should be a pre-requisite for UHD HDR certification on the various schemes - as consumer streaming and optical UHD HDR media is all likely to be Rec 2020.  

(However it is possible to use HDR with Rec 709 using an HDR EOTF like HLG)

[ragico]

Thanks ragico. I could not test Dolby Vision since my TV does not support it. Nor do I have Atmos setup (for the time being). For me however, stability was very good. I did not have to restart the box due to the issues you mentioned. But.. I also stayed with Kodi 18.6 as arrived with the box. I would recommend against updating Kodi - the changes are not significant enough to push to do that and may cause issues in many boxes that were optimized using a certain version of Kodi. That's my experience anyways. You can also report these issues to Ugoos if you want them to fix them. I did regarding the ones I mentioned in my review.

The problems cited in my previous post happens only with Dolby Vision trough Plex. Maybe this is due to the 32 bit OS. I also installed fron google playstore kodi 18.6 and Dolby Vision is still no go and triggered as HDR.

Which Dolby vision content are you testing with?

Rips from my UHD DV bluray discs in .ts container profile 4 or 5 (both works and trigger DV on my Panasonic GZ 2000. You can reference for more informations to makemkv forum.

[hdmkv]

On a kind of related note, especially as I haven't kept up with DV playback, I assume playback via MKV still isn't possible? For TS, Kodi 19 supports DV right?

[ragico]

On a kind of related note, especially as I haven't kept up with DV playback, I assume playback via MKV still isn't possible? For TS, Kodi 19 supports DV right?

MKV DV playback still not possible, tried kodi 19 and no DV support in .ts

[wrxtasy]

How come it says wide color gamut not supported? I thought that was one of the pre requisites for HDR playback.

Don't take any notice of the WCG or HDR reading from DRMinfo App on AMLogic HDR capable devices. It's wrong.
All that is handled at the Linux Kernel level on these HDR capable AMLogic devices.

@ragico @mulderfox,

Can you install the DRMinfo App and tell us what level of WideVine DRM the AM6 Plus supports please ?

You should get HDCP 2.2 if HDMI connected to a 4K TV.

I think that this box will still improve with firmware fixes and updates and probably will be one of the very best on the market.
At the moment I am happy with it.

It will for tablet Android OS / CoreELEC usage if it also supports Android WideVine L1 DRM.

I'm surprised the AM6+ is only WideVine L3 and really surprised that HDCP is "unprotected" considering Ugoos in their Advertising list HDCP2.2 as supported.

With WideVine L1 & HDCP 1.x/2.2 you can do 1080p/4K (click) copy protected video streaming with the Kodi Leia Netflix Addon.

[ozkhan1]

can someone who owns this device, list the pros and cons of using Android Kodi vs Coreelec? I know Android Kodi is missing a few features but if someone could list exactly what they are, that will be great. Also how does Kodi Android on Ugoos compare vs Nvidia shield? 

Trying to figure out if I need to worry about dual boot at all, if Android fulfill my needs.
Thanks.

[wrxtasy]

Just get a Class 10 U1 microSDHC and flash it with CE using the free Etcher program on PC / Mac and then pick the AM6 device tree as well.
That is all you have to do really, it is not that complicated to setup Dual Boot on AMLogic chipset Android devices these days.

---

AMLogic Chipset Android devices long standing Firmware issues that have never been fixed - that surface when using Android Kodi:
(i seriously doubt most of these are fixed with any Ugoos device either)

1) half motion deinterlacing or full motion with stuttering video playback. Not good for interlaced FTA TV viewing with lots of movement like sports.
2) old VC1 Bluray Rips video still has buggy playback.
3) no Android Kodi Auto Resolution switching - great option if your Premium 4K HDR TV does it's own AI Super Resolution video upscaling (click)
4) HD audio & multichannel LPCM support is very rare. (I believe Ugoos have fixed these ones)
also
5) WideVine L1 DRM and HDCP 2.2 support is rare (unless a device is legit Google Certified Android TV - or expensive MINIX hardware)

The Nvidia Shield running Android Kodi has no problems with issues (3) and (4), (5), very rare issues with (1) but (2) - VC1 may still be a problem.
For the 2019 Shield is also has some limited AI upscaling for those that have old or cheap 4K TV 's with poor non 4K content video upscaling to 4K.

Except HDCP...
CoreELEC Kodi has no issues with any of that out of the box, the only things needing toggling if you have a HD audio AVR / Soundbar are:
- Kodi to Advanced or Expert (bottom left)
- Audio Output - HDMI MultiCH PCM
- Audio channels - such as 5.1 or 7.1
- Set your appropriate audio Passthru options.

The BIG advantage with CE Kodi is it's built from the ground up specifically for AMLogic devices to run 4K HDR10(+) Kodi with HD audio as bug free and fast as possible.
The are also a bunch of nice Kodi tweaks added specifically for AMLogic devices - especially HDMI CEC on the newer AML chipset devices.

W.