How about the new Zidoo X9S or Eweat R9 Plus?

[Nice Monkey]

We thus far compared Q10 Pro and Q5 Pro with Dune but how about Zidoo X9S?
http://www.zidoo.tv/Product/index/model/X9S/target/rRwtRFydZ4xKKmVViAFMcQ%3D%3D.html
Sales is now starting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FGrIJIoKlQ

The Dune is nice but has old specs and does not do UHD 4K combined with a high price tag but this Zidoo X9S is very comparable in my view for most aspects including the price.
I would compare it with Q10 Pro as it has an External SATA including Power for a HDD attachment. The HDD is just housed outside.
As a bonus it has HDMI IN. Other specs are very similar. Also on the software front Zidoo did its homework resulting in similar features. Zidoo software looks to be even ahead of Himedia. The biggest differentiator is probably being based on Android-TV Marshmallow which has important PRO's and CON's. 

Obvious how bug free it all is remains to be seen?  Realtek makes nice SOC's with excellent PQ but SDK developments used to be notorious and also Zidoo is known to put all efforts on the latest box leaving none of the older ones acceptable bug free.

The same story for the Eweat R9 Plus using the same Realtek RTD1295 SOC but different software.
Could even be better but little known yet about Eweat support in general and about the R9 products specifically

Maybe Futeko wants to add this market by including one of these (a brand with good support).

[looun]

The big difference at now (before reviews ) are:
- X9s use custom version of kodi "ZDMC" VS himedia pro use official kodi + addon HI-fw
- Realtek RTD1295 not have video engine for  video quality enhancement
- there are some issues about Realtek RTD1195 / RTD1295 based Android media players violate Kodi's GPL license.

[magnifico]

From my point of view imprex engine is useless/infunctionable.
I dont see any difference and / or having HDR activated or Auto mode enabled it is not accessable.  To me its just a feature on the papers.

HIMEDIA stays closer to standards.  That is clearly an advantage.  I agree on this one.

[Nice Monkey]

The big difference at now (before reviews ) are:
- X9s use custom version of kodi "ZDMC" VS himedia pro use official kodi + addon HI-fw
- Realtek RTD1295 not have video engine for  video quality enhancement
- there are some issues about Realtek RTD1195 / RTD1295 based Android media players violate Kodi's GPL license.

For me all are minor items.

a) Not wanting to reveal the code to make HW-acceleration work with their own SOC is understandable by me.  The gain is considerable as 3D-BD support and RAW HD audio passthru can be solved. The KODI community does not want to spend a lot of time making every new SOC for Android work constantly which I also do understand. Manufacturers releasing media players with bundled illegal Add-On's is a very different topic for me.
b) Himedia products are less standard than these Realtek based players as Himedia uses standard Android OS for Smartphones not intended for media players requiring a lot of proprietary code. These Realtek RTD1295 based players use Android TV Marshmallow as a basis. Just look at HDMI-CEC included with the latest Andoid TV version. Hence there are clearly 2 sides to this coin.

So it comes down to overal PQ and Media center software quality and functionality which makes it a serious competitor.
Will be interesting to see the reviews coming in.

What i missed is defined support for DVD including folders, ISO's and Menu's. There is no BD menu support, but BD support in general seems OK. Also true auto-framerate is claimed to be included.

[akurej]

When I saw 2 HDMI ports, my 1st impression was...wow they are providing additional 1.4 version for playback of Dolby TrueHD/ DTS HD Master Audio from old AVRs. I think this would have been more useful than HDMI IN?

[Nice Monkey]

When I saw 2 HDMI ports, my 1st impression was...wow they are providing additional 1.4 version for playback of Dolby TrueHD/ DTS HD Master Audio from old AVRs. I think this would have been more useful than HDMI IN?

Personally agree with you regarding usefulness but an increasing number of people uses streaming services which all can be copied this way regardless protections put in place. That is a serious selling item. Many more owners watching TV-series than owners having a Home Theater setup.

[akurej]

Yes, if this works like a recording box it can be very interesting!
Then maybe 3 HDMI ports would be awesome! :-)

[futeko.com]

Thread moved because it's not Q5/Q10 Pro related.

RTD1295 looks like an interesting chip. Not cheap though and what FW will be like is unknown. Zidoo will have to rewrite the playback parts of their Kodi fork for RTD1295 and how that ends up is anyone's guess. Also, relying on custom Kodi is risky as you are relying on the manufacturer to provide new Kodi in the future. HiMedia's Kodi+wrapper is more future proofed in this regard.

[Nice Monkey]

Thread moved because it's not Q5/Q10 Pro related.

RTD1295 looks like an interesting chip. Not cheap though and what FW will be like is unknown. Zidoo will have to rewrite the playback parts of their Kodi fork for RTD1295 and how that ends up is anyone's guess. Also, relying on custom Kodi is risky as you are relying on the manufacturer to provide new Kodi in the future. HiMedia's Kodi+wrapper is more future proofed in this regard.

Agreed it all boils down to the quality of the software included. I understood from the Realtek pages that the KODI fork and drivers are part of the SDK.
So all brand using this SOC will need to follow that. There are Pro's and CON's to that. Probably will get a player based on this SOC.

Oh yes an important move that may be missed easily: How can OpenWRT OS (extremely configurable by wizards) be run next to Android OS sharing HW resources? In fact they don't as this box first time uses a common Linux kernel with both OpenWRT and Android 6 on top of that. KODI can be run natively on top of that too (in fact I am not sure they are doing this with ZDMC already?). No need for OpenEelec or LibreElec anymore and no Dual Boot with all its problems. Hardware specific drivers must be moved to the common Linux kernel and should be provided by the SDK of the SOC manufacturers not by the KODI / OpenWRT communities and should not be part of any GPL agreements.

[Nice Monkey]

The first experiences and reviews are appearing which are not bad even a day zero. Himedia must speed up a bit to get their FW debugged as the competition seems to advance faster getting essential fixes in.
In a week I will get my own box and will put it on the bench myself.

[futeko.com]

X9S reviews are not great and Zidoo have the disadvantage of not having the kind of close relationship with the chipset manufacturer that HiMedia / HiSilicon have. It might be difficult for Zidoo to get stuff fixed if it requires low level work.

I am still waiting for a sample X9S myself. Also waiting on a sample from Eweat of their RTK1295 box.

[Nice Monkey]

X9S reviews are not great and Zidoo have the disadvantage of not having the kind of close relationship with the chipset manufacturer that HiMedia / HiSilicon have. It might be difficult for Zidoo to get stuff fixed if it requires low level work.

I am still waiting for a sample X9S myself. Also waiting on a sample from Eweat of their RTK1295 box.

1) Still waiting for my box too.
2) I am impressed with the speed updates are released and above all what is fixed with each of them. Many sound very familiar as they appear(ed) on other boxes. They don't seem to be hampered by the relationship with Realtek.

Can't wait to give FW 1.2.4 just released a go myself.  From what I read that should be pretty stable/functional already.
Also HDMKV is stating something similar: MCV MKV stability is the biggest item to be fixed (for me not applicable).
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=291943&pid=2434206#pid2434206

[futeko.com]

I've had X9S for a while and it isn't a bad product.

It's questionable how well it will be supported in future. Zidoo have jumped around between chipsets in the past, releasing a lot of different products.

We'll be sticking with HiMedia. They have a long track record of offering good support and that's vital. If we do stock an RTK1295 product then it will be priced substantially lower than Zidoo..

[Nice Monkey]

It's questionable how well it will be supported in future. Zidoo have jumped around between chipsets in the past, releasing a lot of different products.

Got my box finally. What really surprised me is that Zidoo/Realtek got "auto frame-rate switching" right from the start (OK with FW 1.2.4 the last glitches were removed). They are even using the correct setup menu options to control the exotic variants which may not be supported by all TV/Projector.  It is not the simplest thing to get right and I see Himedia/Hisillicon still struggling with it.  Also DVD's are detected and reported (info display) as 25P and 30P correctly but output is de-interlaced 50P and 60P respectively as it should be.

Another thing customers always asked for is "Volume Label identification for HDD's". Many arguments given why it is so difficult to implement under Android only. It occasionally even worked under OpenElec using the very same HW platform. Here it is present from day one and very convenient if you use multiple HDD as I do.

I also do indeed expect Zidoo to release multiple boxes but probably most if not all based on the same Realtek chipset. A marginally cheaper Zidoo X8 is already announced. A true high-end and low-end could be following? How strong support will be later remains to be seen.

[akurej]

It's questionable how well it will be supported in future. Zidoo have jumped around between chipsets in the past, releasing a lot of different products.

Got my box finally. What really surprised me is that Zidoo/Realtek got "auto frame-rate switching" right from the start (OK with FW 1.2.4 the last glitches were removed). They are even using the correct setup menu options to control the exotic variants which may not be supported by all TV/Projector.  It is not the simplest thing to get right and I see Himedia/Hisillicon still struggling with it.  Also DVD's are detected and reported (info display) as 25P and 30P correctly but output is de-interlaced 50P and 60P respectively as it should be.

Another thing customers always asked for is "Volume Label identification for HDD's". Many arguments given why it is so difficult to implement under Android only. It occasionally even worked under OpenElec using the very same HW platform. Here it is present from day one and very convenient if you use multiple HDD as I do.

I also do indeed expect Zidoo to release multiple boxes but probably most if not all based on the same Realtek chipset. A marginally cheaper Zidoo X8 is already announced. A true high-end and low-end could be following? How strong support will be later remains to be seen.

Does it support HDR for HDMI input?