Jens Bauer Posted July 4, 2019 Posted July 4, 2019 4 minutes ago, balbes150 said: To speak in detail, what online stores are available to You ? Aliexpres ? gearbest ? geekbuying ? etc I *never ever* purchase from Ali-anything again. gearbest, maybe. geekbuying, maybe. eBay, yes. amazon - if their shipping wouldn't cost more than the items I want, I might purchase from there. -But I purchased the Raspberry Pi via eBay, so it must be fair to compare purchasing a TV-box via eBay too. eBay offers free shipping from China, but that doesn't help much if the price is over $10, then customs are added and the price will sadly soon be too high. BTW: I got 10% discount on those Raspberry Pi's, so instead of paying $39.10 each, I paid only $38.54 each. Yes that *IS* 10% when cheatBait calculates it. -That's when using coupon codes. The way they can do it, is that they suddenly raise the value of Euro, Pounds or Dollars, then they won't lose so much on the discount. If you want to learn business, they know all about it.
balbes150 Posted July 4, 2019 Posted July 4, 2019 The best option for today. (I haven't seen the insides yet, but I hope to see them soon . ) https://www.gearbest.com/tv-box/pp_009752605386.html?wid=1433363 Ideal for today (if you have the means\opportunity to buy it within 120-130) Many different TV boxes passed through my hands. This model, in my opinion, is one of the best among TV boxes in terms of cost/result ratio. This is one of the rare models in which you do not need to finish anything yourself. It even universal multi-download will go directly to the firmware. This is a boring model, you will have nowhere to put your hands to improve and redo something. https://www.gearbest.com/tv-box/pp_009954522026.html?wid=1433363 https://www.geekbuying.com/item/UGOOS-AM6-TV-BOX-Amlogic-S922X-2G-16G-2-4G-5G-WIFI-1000M-LAN-BlueBooth-417524.html 1
Jens Bauer Posted July 4, 2019 Posted July 4, 2019 12 minutes ago, balbes150 said: https://www.gearbest.com/tv-box/pp_009752605386.html?wid=1433363 You can see some of the 'insides' if you scroll down, including something that looks like a LiPo battery ??!? -Anyway, the specs do not look too bad. I'd prefer a S922X, though. My problem is that there is no good SBC or TV-box that gives me what I want. -Well, that's actually a lie, because there's the MacchiatoBIN, it's exactly what I want, but it takes quite a while for me to get enough money for it. Its processor is *still* relevant today, even though it's 3 years old! But the EspressoBIN has been disaster-upon-disaster. When things break, I usually manage to get it working again, but it's so much work and travel usually cost as much as a good TV-box each time (so far it's cost as much as a RockPRO64). I figured that a TP-Link Archer v5 with OpenWRT beats the EspressoBIN by 3 lengths for routing alone (just wish it had a 6G SATA port).
jock Posted July 5, 2019 Posted July 5, 2019 14 hours ago, balbes150 said: No need to juggle and substitute concepts. Don't mix Android system development and Linux-based system development. It is a completely different direction. The main system for TV boxes is Android and it has all the necessary documentation and access to all technical resources. By the way, Your information about support for a number of ARM platforms in the main core is very outdated. Confirmation of this, the release in the near future of new images of Libreelec with a new kernel on the platforms Amlogic Rockchip and Allwiner. It does not like I'm juggling around concepts at all. We all are here to discuss about Debian Linux and derivatives on ARM devices, so Android is totally outside our realm. The SoCs you cite on Libreelec have still some serious work to get things done for mainline: rockchip is still decoding videos in software, amlogic has no HDMI audio (very useful as a media center... ), allwinner at least seems in better shape and I hope will make through soon. RPi 4 is already well supported by LibreElec: they have a giant picture of the board in their homepage So do you see any point here? When you buy RPi 4 you also buy software support to get LibreElec support up-to-date, not to count mainline linux support, RT patches, etc... Buy cheap (or even expensive) tv boxes and you will hardly get any firmware upgrade. 14 hours ago, balbes150 said: You confirm that the "clean" RPi is not suitable for standard use as a TV box. And you have to spend extra money to get the necessary functionality. For example, it put the module WiFi\Bt, but there is no normal antenna, without which it will not work properly. You're quite manipulative, aren't you? You say that's me juggling with concepts but you clearly say bullshit to change arguments. Out-of-the-box RPis are perfectly fine as media centers. Just to make sure you grab it, this is the current LibreElec (a famous media center software) homepage right now: 14 hours ago, balbes150 said: I see that You are very prone to distort and replace concepts. The design and parameters of RPI 1 and 2 have nothing to do with RPi 4. It is a completely different platform, having a very different thermopowers. p.s. You are always trying to distort the essence of the discussion, so I see no point in continuing the discussion with You. I guess you are short of arguments because you are just talking about a platform you just never really used and have no experience about, but you let your prejudice give dishonest answers to honest questions of honest users. I was trying to let you understand that RPi are engineered and produced to last for a decent amount of years, and so they target a different market than tv boxes which instead are mostly made to sell cheap chinese shit. Nonetheless you can use them as media centers because they are quite suitable.
Tido Posted July 5, 2019 Posted July 5, 2019 Are you talking about 2015 onwards? Because in 2012 the SW of RPi was terrible 6 hours ago, jock said: So do you see any point here? When you buy RPi 4 you also buy software support to get LibreElec support up-to-date, not to count mainline linux support, RT patches, etc... Buy cheap (or even expensive) tv boxes and you will hardly get any firmware upgrade. If I remember correctly their developer is not a Linux Guru. 6 hours ago, jock said: RPi are engineered and produced I think his point was, that RPi's were and are never well engineered. Whereas, the TV-Box is made for just one use case and this is quite well. Maybe you just stumbled over that, section.
Jens Bauer Posted July 5, 2019 Posted July 5, 2019 18 minutes ago, Tido said: Are you talking about 2015 onwards? Because in 2012 the SW of RPi was terrible I'd assume so, since the topic is about the Raspberry Pi 4. :) I agree on that the early Raspberry Pi versions were not so interesting (which was why I got myself a CubieBoard2, which is now fried by power-spikes on the 230VAC). But today, looking at the Raspberry Pi 4 B, I'd say it might not be the top of the pop, but you can be sure that it's not the rough bottom either. It's not a bad purchase. If there's problems with the software, those problems might be fixable, whereas problems with hardware would be a bummer. The Raspberry Pi people have some experience and are improving each time they make a new design (because for one thing, they don't want to lose money on returns - noone would). If there's a bug in the firmware of a TV-box, it's a bit more difficult to fix, because you don't just write a new image to a microSD card, but you'll have to flash-program the TV-box. Granted, today there are some TV-boxes that can be re-flashed via SD-card (I know @balbes150 have worked with some amlogic boxes that can do this), but unfortunately it's not always easy. The software I used for flash-programming the CS918 (RockChip) was buggy, so it wrote to the first sector of the NAND more than 100000 times on the first go and ... this resulted in the NAND wearing out immediately. The author of the software could not find or fix the problem at the time being and the only other option I'd have would be to use the official Rockchip software, which only runs under Windows on an Intel-based computer - that was something I didn't have at the time. With all the right tools, things are usually easy, but getting those tools might not always be piece of cake.
jock Posted July 5, 2019 Posted July 5, 2019 4 minutes ago, Tido said: Are you talking about 2015 onwards? Because in 2012 the SW of RPi was terrible If I remember correctly their developer is not a Linux Guru. I started working on them around 2013 and software support was already convincing as my company never thought to abandon the RPi platform for our project. The huge problems we encountered turned out to be the power adapters which really caused issues here and there (from random reboots or freezes to USB devices disappearing and not reappearing after reboots). When we switched to the official power adapters (5V 2.0A first, then 5.1V 2.5A later) these kind issues reduced near to zero. Currently the source of most headaches and issues is the nasty firmware which misbehaves when it received corrupted videos, has no load balancing for the two GPU cores, has some contention issues or suddenly reboots the device when the GPUs are taxed. I don't know how many developers are they employing for Linux and neither their position and knowledge about the ecosystem, but they are doing a good job at keeping up. They released their distro one month ago with kernel 4.19 and it looks pretty solid. 36 minutes ago, Tido said: I think his point was, that RPi's were and are never well engineered. Whereas, the TV-Box is made for just one use case and this is quite well. Maybe you just stumbled over that, section. I guess I misunderstood what "well engineered" he meant. I always intended as the compromise you get from the design and components choice you use to get the final result. Trying to generalize his reasoning, we should say that all the SBCs are not "well engineered" because they don't fit a specialized purpose, which sounds strange to me. RPi have had their compromises and sometimes questionable design choices which I don't like either and because of that I never had and probably never will buy a RPi. Besides that, I was trying to say they are materially solidly built, which is very important if you want to build a business around.
sfx2000 Posted July 6, 2019 Posted July 6, 2019 On 6/30/2019 at 12:22 PM, TonyMac32 said: 4 big cores on 28 nm, see the Tinker Board for a lesson in cooling that form factor. (the Pi seems oddly underclocked, if I'm being honest, a 3288 will go 1.8 GHz, @wtarreau will tell you 2.0+) There's nodes and then there are foundries - if I recall correctly, Tinker's 3288 is on GlobalFoundies' 28nm - Broadcom is generally TSMC Anyways = 28nm is so 2010
sfx2000 Posted July 10, 2019 Posted July 10, 2019 USB-C power is very specific on how to design a circuit - too many folks take shortcuts....Looks like the Pi folks did as well... https://medium.com/@leung.benson/how-to-design-a-proper-usb-c-power-sink-hint-not-the-way-raspberry-pi-4-did-it-f470d7a5910 Any competent EE will see the issue at hand... 1
Jens Bauer Posted July 11, 2019 Posted July 11, 2019 22 hours ago, sfx2000 said: Looks like the Pi folks did as well Yep. They have acknowledged it and said that they're fixing the problem for next revision which should be out in "less than two months" (they've probably already fixed the schematics and PCB-layout, but I guess actual production slow down things). As a workaround, wouldn't it be possible to disconnect CC1 or CC2 or both and then add the resistor inside an adapter-cable [USB-C female-to-male] ?
pzw Posted July 11, 2019 Posted July 11, 2019 22 hours ago, Jens Bauer said: Yep. They have acknowledged it and said that they're fixing the problem for next revision which should be out in "less than two months" (they've probably already fixed the schematics and PCB-layout, but I guess actual production slow down things). As a workaround, wouldn't it be possible to disconnect CC1 or CC2 or both and then add the resistor inside an adapter-cable [USB-C female-to-male] ? If you go through the hassle of creating a female - male adapter, then you do not need to cut the CC1/CC2 lines I think ;-) .
Jens Bauer Posted July 12, 2019 Posted July 12, 2019 5 hours ago, pzw said: If you go through the hassle of creating a female - male adapter, then you do not need to cut the CC1/CC2 lines I think ;-) . Sorry, I was sloppy when I wrote the comment. What I meant was to cut them "inside" the adapter -eg. between the plugs. Thus I bet it should be possible to keep for instance CC1 and then put a 5K1 pull-down resistor on CC2 "inside" the adapter and then not connect CC2 to male-plug (which would connect to the RPi4).
jock Posted July 12, 2019 Posted July 12, 2019 Phoronix benchmarked pi4s. Random and incomplete numbers as usual, but performance trends are interesting
Jens Bauer Posted July 12, 2019 Posted July 12, 2019 1 hour ago, jock said: Phoronix benchmarked pi4s I guess I'm lucky to have two 1GB models, because they're likely faster than both the 2GB and 4GB models. I wonder why they didn't equip the 4GB model with heatsinks or cooling fans, so that we could see the max. speed (which is kinda what it's about). Some of us live on the south pole, some of us live on the equator; running the same benchmark in different locations will give different results unless making some basic temperature control...
sfx2000 Posted July 13, 2019 Posted July 13, 2019 Interesting - some casual benchmarking of Pi4 vs Pi3... For virtualization - the new Broadcom SoC is a good step forward for the Pi Folks... A lot of this comes from how the new chip does interrupt handling. https://blog.cloudkernels.net/posts/rpi4-64bit-virt/ 1
TonyMac32 Posted July 13, 2019 Posted July 13, 2019 @balbes150 I have an older Ugoos RK3288 box, and can testify to the quality of the hardware and images they release, that's an interesting looking box you linked, but, as you said, more interesting things are coming. 😀 To some of the other comments, nobody should be paying $35-55 for a bare SBC and having to cut cables, but this is par for the course for a brand that has corrupted as many SD cards as were manufactured in 2018 and wrote it off as "user error" The thermal issue is funny, I picked on Asus for their sad little heat sink on the Tinker Board, at least they shipped one. Maybe I can pick up some of these first gen RPi 4's cheaply since I can power them properly... I have no idea what I would do with it that my literal pile of RK3399 boards couldn't do. ah, forgot, @balbes150, I actually have a RockPro 64 sitting on my TV stand with no case for running emulators...
balbes150 Posted July 13, 2019 Posted July 13, 2019 4 hours ago, TonyMac32 said: To some of the other comments, nobody should be paying $35-55 for a bare SBC and having to cut cables, but this is par for the course for a brand that has corrupted as many SD cards as were manufactured in 2018 and wrote it off as "user error" If the official representative said that the SD card is a super right decision as the primary media, and all the rest of that shit. But it "forgets" to inform the user that the wild overheating, which is their with the active work, the life of SD cards will be miserable. Users will have to buy them in bulk from 100 pieces, like floppy disks in the last century. p.s. Details of the insides of the X2 Cube. There is a small minus - plastic housing. It may be useful to remove the top cover for free air access at maximum loads. But there is a built-in battery, it is rare on TV boxes and guarantees the correct operation of the clock. https://forum.freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/amlogic-based-tv-players/s905x2/776917-x2-cube-amlogic-s905x2-android-9-0-2-16gb-emmc-dual-wifi-gig-lan-usb3-0-samba-server
jock Posted July 14, 2019 Posted July 14, 2019 Another quite complete benchmark, with thermal imaging too
NicoD Posted July 16, 2019 Posted July 16, 2019 Here my view on the Raspberry 4b. It's a high performance board, unmatched by any other qua-core. But with some issue's. Undevoltage still there with non RPi PSU's. sd-card is now the biggest bottleneck of it all. Tho it has doubled in speed to 40read and 20write. That's not enough for a powerful system as this. It's no more a pure IoT board, but more a cross-over to pc. Plenty of power, dual HDMI. Up to 4GB lpddr4 ram. Here my video about it. And here some of my test results. Raspberry Pi4B -------------- Raspbian Buster --------------- Blender results Default clock 1.5Ghz No fan Tinker heatsink : 1h57m23s 3v fan Tinker heatsink : 1h29m07s OC clock 1.75Ghz 3V fan : 1h19m25s 1.85Ghz 3V fan : 1h14m05s 2.00Ghz 3V fan : 1h10m24s 2.00Ghz 3V fan : 1h09m39s gpu_freq=600 sbc-bench http://ix.io/1Ojp Ubuntu arm64 ------------ default clock 3v fan Tinker heatsink : 1h21m05s 1.75Ghz 3v fan : 1h08m42s 2Ghz 3v fan : 1h00m12s sbc-bench http://ix.io/1OqR Temperatures ------------ Big Tinker heatsink no fan idle : 58°C maxed out : 83°C heavy throttle to 1000Mhz after about 3 minutes 3V fan idle : 37°C maxed out : 50°C OC 1.75Ghz 3V fan maxed : 55°C OC 1.85Ghz 3V fan maxed : 57°C Power consumption ----------------- Default idle no wifi : 0.64A Default idle with wifi : 0.7A Default maxed : 1.3A 2Ghz over voltage 4 GPU 600Mhz idle : 0.8A maxed : 1.85A (2A with fan) Issues ------ Governor again shows falls frequency numbers. vcgencmd measure_clock arm <- show the real ferquency Undervoltage problem is still there. It requires +5.15V or it's undervolting and clocked to 600Mhz OC -- over_voltage=2 arm_freq=1750 over_voltage=4 arm_freq=2000 gpu_freq=600 SoC : Broadcom BCM2711B0 quad-core A72 1.5Ghz (up to 2Ghz) GPU : VideoCore VI @ 500Mhz RAM : LPDDR4-2400 SDRAM HDMI : dual micro HDMI 4K 60Hz + 1080p or 2x 4K 30Hz USB : 2x USB 3.0 / 2x USB 2.0 Ethernet : Gigabit Ethernet 1
nairn62 Posted July 20, 2019 Posted July 20, 2019 On 6/24/2019 at 9:48 PM, AnonymousPi said: Yep. The Orange Pi's are total garbage. All they really are is a Chinese TV box without a case! Might as well buy a TV box! My four Orange Pi 3 are working perfectly and are superfast on Armbian Buster. Even running X-windows to the hardware is quick.
sfx2000 Posted August 2, 2019 Posted August 2, 2019 Anyways - nice bump for the RPi Folks compared to the mid-cycle update of the RPi-B3+ Keep in mind, that Pi Foundation is targeting a different audience than the folks here. Like the A53 based RPi3/+ Raspbian is still 32-bit, but they now have to support 4 different cores - ARM11/Cortex-A7/Cortex-A53/Cortex-A72 - so the ARM11 code is dominant, with exceptions for the A7 and later on Kernel. CNX-Software has good coverage on the Pi4 https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/06/24/raspberry-pi-4-features-broadcom-bcm2711-processor-up-to-4gb-ram/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/06/24/raspberry-pi-4-vs-pi-3-what-are-the-differences/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/06/24/raspberry-pi-4-benchmarks-mini-review/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/06/27/raspberry-pi-4-benchmarks-heatsink-edition/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/07/05/raspberry-pi-4-cooling-fan/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/07/25/review-raspberry-pi-4-ice-tower-cooling-fan/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/07/26/how-to-overclock-raspberry-pi-4/ Phoronix has a couple of articles https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberry-Pi-4-Announced https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=raspberry-pi4-benchmarks&num=1
sfx2000 Posted August 2, 2019 Posted August 2, 2019 On 7/16/2019 at 6:11 AM, NicoD said: t's no more a pure IoT board, but more a cross-over to pc. Plenty of power, dual HDMI. Up to 4GB lpddr4 ram. They did a nice job - not sure if it's a desktop thing... but it's a really nice step from the Pi3B+ Nice video review, appreciate the effort put into testing and the production. It's a nice intersection between Pi4 (top of range) and Jetson Nano (gateway into the Jetson-sphere) -- Jetson and Pi4 - again targeted towards different communities that the AllWinner/Rockchip/AmLogic hacker board community...
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