First Boot, Settings and First Impressions
I’ve connected a USB hard drive to one of the two USB ports, as well as a USB hub with two RF dongles for Tronsmart Mars G01 gamepad and MeLE F10 Deluxe air mouse, a USB keyboard, and a USB webcam. I’ve also inserted an Ethernet cable, an HDMI cable, an optical audio cable, a Class 10 micro SD card, as well as the power adapter. The boot time takes just above one minute with all those peripherals attached.
Click for Original SizeThe launcher is another version of the company’s ZIUI user interface and includes widgets for date & time, and weather, as well as shortcuts to Kodi, the company’s “Explorer” file browser, Browser (Chrome), Setting, Clean up, App Lock, and About sections. There’s also a list a customizable shorting on the bottom of the interface. App lock is some sort of parental control, where you can define a password, and lock some apps, so that only persons who know the password can launch password protected apps. There are also some icons on the bottom right to indicate Bluetooth, WiFi, USB storage, and Ethernet status. The status bar is hidden by default, but you can pull it up with the mouse pointer to show software volumes button, Home, Back & Menu buttons, as well as a screenshooting icon, and power button. The user interface resolution is 1920×1080, however video output was set to 720p50, and I had to go to the settings to change video output to 3840x2160p60 (YCbCr420) as supported by LG 42UB820T 4K UHD TVused for testing.
The settings are the same as on Android Lollipop devices, but with options specific to TV boxes. Sections, sub-section and main options include:
Wireless & Networks – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Ehernet (sic.), and a “More” section with three sections: Tethering & portable hotspot, PPPoE and VPN
Device
USB – Connect to PC
Sound & Notifications – Volume for media/alarm/notifications, and a Sound Device Manager to select Default Output, Spdif Passthrough, or HDMI Bitstream
Display
Screen Scale
Output Interface – HDMI or TV
HDMI Mode:
Auto
4096x2160p @ 60Hz (YCbCr420), 50Hz (YCbCr420), 30Hz, 25Hz, or 24Hz
3840x2160p @ 60Hz (YCbCr420), 50Hz (YCbCr420), 30Hz, 25Hz, or 24Hz
1920x1080p @ 60 Hz, 50Hz, 30Hz, 25Hz, 24Hz
1280x720p @ 60 or 50 Hz
720x576p @ 50 Hz
720x480p @ 60 Hz
Daydream
Cast Screen
Storage – Unified 12.91GB internal storage partition with 12.32 GB free for app and data
Others sections such as Security, Language & Input, Users… are also there, but Printing is missing. If you want the full details, watch the walk-through video embedded below.Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth all worked reliably, however, I’ve found that HDMI output may vary if you really on the automatic detection feature, or enable automatic frame rate switching in Kodi. Once I forced it to 2160p60, it worked just fine. I also had to adjust the “Screen Scale” to 100% to make sure the user interface was not zoomed in, with some black zones on the edges.
Going into “About device” shows “Zidoo_X6 Pro” is the model number, and Android 5.1.1 is running on top of Linux 3.10.0. A ZDrepo Identify Code is also shown, just like in Zidoo X1. OTA firmware updated is enabled, but I already had the latest firmware, so I could not test it out. This firmware is rooted, and superuser pre-installed.
I’ve shot a walk-through video to show ZIUI user interface, and settings details.
The provided IR remote control works as advertised, including the IR learning function which I tried with power and volume keys of my TV. The range is a little shorter than usual, and it only worked reliably within 5 meters. As long as you just use Kodi or ZIUI, the remote control is fine, but I had to switch to an air mouse to navigate and use Android app more easily, and for text input. One nice detail is that the system detected my “hardware keyboard” and did not popup the software keyboard needlessly.
Google Play Store works just fine, expect for SMS / phone apps, and apps that can’t be installed due to country limitations. I also side-loaded Amazon Underground to install Riptide GP2 racing game.
There’s no power button on the unit itself, but it’s not needed, and Zidoo did a good job at handling power. A short press on the remote’s power key will show a menu with Power off, Standby, Reboot, andAuto power off. The first three option work as expected, and auto power off let you set a timer from 30 minutes to 48 hours, in thirty minutes increment, to either power off the device, or go into standby. A long press (~3 seconds) on the power key will also turn off the device cleanly. The remote control can also be used to power on the device from your sofa.
For those interested in power consumption these are the results with either no USB devices, or one USB hard drive:
Power off – 0 Watt
Standby – 1.3 Watt
Idle – 3.4 ~ 4.2 Watts
Power off + HDD – 0 Watt
Standby + HDD – 2.1 Watt (HDD light does turn off)
Idle + HDD – 6.0 ~ 6.4 Watts
Zidoo X6 Pro appears to get a little hotter than Beelink i68 RK3368 TV box, although still in the same range, as I measured 39°C and 58°C on the top and bottom of the enclosure after running Antutu 5.7, and after 15 to 20 minutes playing Riptide GP2 the temperature went up to 40°C and 66°C. Once I noticed Kodi started to feel sluggish, and noticed the bottom temperature reached 75°C max, and a reboot did not fix the sluggishness. So I powered off the box for a few minutes, and everything worked fine again. So there might be cases where the CPU throttles due to high temperature.
Apart from the only time Kodi felt sluggish, Zidoo X6 Pro performs pretty well, and the firmware is stable. I also appreciated some details like proper power handling, a single internal storage partition, software keyboard hidden when a hardware keyboard is detected, and so on.
Video Playback with Kodi 15
As mentioned in the introduction, Zidoo X6 Pro is the first RK3368 that comes with Kodi 15.1. Not the version from Google Play, but a version modified by Zidoo, with source code modifications available for everyone to see. Videos have been played from SAMBA shares located in an Ubuntu 14.04 computer and accessed over Ethernet.
Kodi 15.1 in Zidoo X6 Pro (Click for Original Size)The refresh rate shown in Kodi’s System Info varied a lot from 11Hz to 246Hz as shown on the screenshot above, so it’s probably misreported. Before starting video playback, I went to the settings in Video->Playback, and set “Adjust display refresh rate” to “Always” to make sure I had the best playback experience. The refresh rate did change, but the output resolution changed too between 720p and 1080p, which is fine depending on the video, but the problem is that it would never go back to 2160p automatically on the video complete, and then even 4K videos were played at 1080p. So if you may want to disable automatic frame rate switching if you have a 4K TV, and plan on watching 4K videos, at least with this firmware (v1.0.15).
While I had a bad time in Kodi with Zidoo X1, Zidoo X6 Pro managed to play all samplemedia.linaro.org video samples I tried, as well as Elecard H.265/HEVC samples, and a low resolution VP9 video:
H.264 codec / MP4 container (Big Buck Bunny) – 480p/720p/1080p – OK
MPEG2 codec / MPG container – 480p/720p/1080p – OK
MPEG4 codec, AVI container 480p/720p/1080p – OK
VC1 codec (WMV) – 480p/720p/1080p – OK
Real Media (RMVB), 720p / 5Mbps – OK
WebM / VP8 – OK
H.265 codec / MPEG TS container (360p/720p/1080p) – OK
WebM / VP9 (no audio in video) – OK
Bear in mind that Zidoo disabled “drop” and “skip” fields in Kodi’s live log window, so I had to purely rely on my eyes. OK does not mean perfect, as I still feel videos are a bit smoother on Amlogic devices, but these were all watchable. One small issue was the lack of Zoom option during playback, as the only option I got was for 3D videos.
However with some higher bitrate videos I started to see some issues:
ED_HD.avi – Video plays for about 2 seconds before the image freezes. Audio is OK, and continues. I noticed one CPU core was stuck at 100%.
big_buck_bunny_1080p_surround.avi (1080p H.264 – 12 Mbps) – OK.
h264_1080p_hp_4.1_40mbps_birds.mkv (40 Mbps) – OK
hddvd_demo_17.5Mbps_1080p_VC1.mkv (17.5Mbps) – Could be smoother
Jellyfish-120-Mbps.mkv (120 Mbps video without audio) – I experience a long buffering before playback, and when it did play, it was not very smooth, and the next buffering occurred. I also got a message reading “cache full”.
One of the key differentiating features of Zidoo’s Kodi implementation is support for 7.1 audio pass-through. So I’ve played some HD audio videos both down-mixed to PCM using Kodi and the internal player “Video” app, and audio pass-through with Onkyo TX-NR636 using HDMI pass-through with BD/DVD input, and optical S/PDIF with TV/CD input.
You’ll notice two new options for Audio output in Kodi: TrueHD capable receiver and DTS-HD capable receiver. You’ll also need to change PCM audio output in Android’s Sound settings to Spdif passthrough or HDMI bitstream as needed.Video PCM Output
Kodi PCM Output
“Video” app HDMI Pass-through
Kodi S/PDIF Pass-through
Kodi
AC3 / Dolby Digital 5.1 OK, but video aspect ratio is 1:1 OK OK (Dolby D 5.1) OK (Dolby D 5.1)
E-AC-3 / Dolby Digital+ 5.1 OK OK OK (Dolby D 5.1) OK (Dolby D 5.1)
Dolby Digital+ 7.1 OK OK OK (Dolby D+ 7.1) Audio Formats Not Supported over S/PDIF
TrueHD 5.1 OK OK OK (TrueHD 5.1)
TrueHD 7.1 OK OK Unreliable. Sometimes OK (TrueHD 7.1), sometimes no audio.
Dolby Atmos 7.1 OK Plays 3 seconds and output a regular “beep” and stops. Unreliable. Sometimes OK (TrueHD 7.1), sometimes no audio.
DTS HD Master OK OK OK (DTS-HD MSTR) DTS 5.1
DTS HD High Resolution OK OK OK (DTS-HD HR) DTS 5.1
These were the results I got during testing, but later I noticed the unreliable audio pass-through affected all TrueHD and DTS-HD audio streams. A reboot may fix the issue, but not always. Zidoo tested their boxes with an Onkyo AV receiver too, but a different model, so I wonder if there are some timing issues involved here which may cause the unreliable HD audio pass-through. You can see the problem first hand in the demo video I embedded below.
4K videos still played better on Zidoo X6 Pro than other boxes running Kodi 14.x, but there’s still some work to do:
HD.Club-4K-Chimei-inn-60mbps.mp4 – OK at the beginning, but then audio stops and video becomes slow
sintel-2010-4k.mkv – OK.
Beauty_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265) – OK
Bosphorus_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_MP4.mp4 (H.265) – Mostly OK, but the video seemed to stop for a very short time (<0.5s) at one point
Jockey_3840x2160_120fps_420_8bit_HEVC_TS.ts (H.265) – Won’t play, the system stays in user interface.
MHD_2013_2160p_ShowReel_R_9000f_24fps_RMN_QP23_10b .mkv (10-bit HEVC) – Stays in UI
phfx_4KHD_VP9TestFootage.webm (VP9) – Image quickly freezes.
BT.2020.20140602.ts (Rec.2020 compliant video) – Won’t play, the system stays in the user interface
big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_30fps.mp4 – OK
big_buck_bunny_4k_H264_60fps.mp4 – Audio/video synchronization issues, and the video could be a little smoother
Fifa_WorldCup2014_Uruguay-Colombia_4K-x265.mp4 (4K, H.265, 60 fps) – Looks perfect until after around 20 seconds, the audio and picture stops for a very short time, some artifacts are then displayed for 2 or 3 seconds, because normal playback resumes, and 20 to 30 seconds later the issue happens again.
As a side note, one document from Rockchip in Chinese appears to imply that while 4K H.265 @ 60 fps is supposed to work, 4K H.264 is limited to 30 fps in Kodi 15.x. You can watch a demo videos showing 4K playback and HD audio pass-through capabilities and issues I found on Kodi 15.1 on Zidoo X6 Pro.
Sintel-Bluray.iso and amay.iso (Ambra – Prism of Life) Blu-ray ISO files could play, but not very smoothly especially amat.iso (3 to 4 fps), and I noticed some buffering after a while. But with knowledge that the box may overheat, I retried one morning, and both video played very smoothly.
Both 1080i MPEG2 video samples (GridHD.mpg & Pastel1080i25HD.mpg) played fine, but as all boxes I tested so far, Hi10p failed:
[Commie] Steins;Gate – NCED [BD 720p AAC] [10bit] [C706859E].mkv – Audio OK, video with artifacts, and picture will freeze after a while
[1080p][16_REF_L5.1][mp3_2.0]Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu BD OP.mkv – Audio OK, video gets stuck after 3 to 4 seconds.
Bearing in my mind that my TV does not support 3D, I’ve still played some stereoscopic 3D videos to see if the system could decode them :
bbb_sunflower_1080p_60fps_stereo_abl.mp4 (1080p Over/Under) – Plays somewhat smoothly, audio/video sync issues or delay
bbb_sunflower_2160p_60fps_stereo_abl.mp4 (2160p Over/Under) – Audio only
Turbo_Film-DreamWorks_trailer_VO_3D.mp4 (1080p SBS) – OK
Several H.264, DViX/XVid, VOB/IFO, MKV, and MP4 movies could play without issues, while most FLV videos worked, but a few could not play staying in the UI, with only audio playing.
I could play a full 1080p MKV movie (exactly 1920×800, H.264, about 2 hours long) without interruption, and the overheating issue I saw sometimes did not occur with that movie. Dropped and skipped frames were all reported to be zero, but I suspect Zidoo disabled it for some reasons.
Antutu Video Tester was installed from Google Play (Version 2.2), and upgraded to version 3.0 before running the test. Zidoo X6 Pro got only 328 points, strangely lower than Beelink i68.
Click to EnlargeMost video samples used in this review can be found in “Where to get video, audio and images samples” post and its comments section.
Network Performance (Wi-Fi and Ethernet)
A file (278MB for WiFi and Fast Ethernet, 885MB for Gigabit Ethernet) is transferred between a SAMBA share and the internal storage three times using ES File Explorer, and I average the results to report Wi-Fi and Ethernet performance. WiFi 802.11n @ 2.4GHz performance is average @ 2.73 MB/s, while 802.11ac (433 Mbps) @ 5.4 MB/s is one of the best I’ve seen so far.
WiFi Performance in MB/s (Click to Enlarge)I tested full duplex performance over WiFi for 60 seconds using “iperf -t 60 -c 192.168.0.104 -d” and the results are not quite good, as I don’t think WiFi is good at transferring data in both directions.
WiFi 802.11n @ 2.4 GHz (65 Mbps – Good signal)
Shell
Client connecting to 192.168.0.111, TCP port 5001 TCP window size: 85.0 KByte (default) ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 6] local 192.168.0.104 port 40039 connected with 192.168.0.111 port 5001 [ 6] 0.0-60.0 sec 120 MBytes 16.8 Mbits/sec [ 5] 0.0-60.5 sec 147 MBytes 20.4 Mbits/sec
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Client connecting to 192.168.0.111, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 6] local 192.168.0.104 port 40039 connected with 192.168.0.111 port 5001
[ 6] 0.0-60.0 sec 120 MBytes 16.8 Mbits/sec
[ 5] 0.0-60.5 sec 147 MBytes 20.4 Mbits/sec
Wifi 802.11ac (433Mbps, sometimes 6 to 12 Mbps – Excellent signal) – Test 2:
Shell
Client connecting to 192.168.0.111, TCP port 5001 TCP window size: 85.0 KByte (default) ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 7] local 192.168.0.104 port 40320 connected with 192.168.0.111 port 5001 [ 5] 0.0-60.9 sec 92.2 MBytes 12.7 Mbits/sec
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Client connecting to 192.168.0.111, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 7] local 192.168.0.104 port 40320 connected with 192.168.0.111 port 5001
[ 5] 0.0-60.9 sec 92.2 MBytes 12.7 Mbits/sec
Wifi 802.11ac – Test 3:
Shell
Client connecting to 192.168.0.111, TCP port 5001 TCP window size: 136 KByte (default) ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 8] local 192.168.0.104 port 40732 connected with 192.168.0.111 port 5001 [ 4] 0.0-60.9 sec 405 MBytes 55.8 Mbits/sec [ 6] 0.0-378.8 sec 80.0 MBytes 1.77 Mbits/sec
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Client connecting to 192.168.0.111, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 136 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 8] local 192.168.0.104 port 40732 connected with 192.168.0.111 port 5001
[ 4] 0.0-60.9 sec 405 MBytes 55.8 Mbits/sec
[ 6] 0.0-378.8 sec 80.0 MBytes 1.77 Mbits/sec
The image below is a screenshot of Conky on my Ubuntu 14.04 computer used as iperf server. I shows three tests I did with 802.11ac, and while all 3 start very fast in both direction, the transfer rate collapses after several seconds. You can see that at the end of test 3 transfer rates were 688.5 Kbit/s and 16.0 Kbit/s.
Gigabit Ethernet performance is not outstanding, but still much better than for devices with Fast Ethernet, as I could transfer a file at 11.88 MB/s on average.
Throughput in MB/siperf shows Zidoo X6 Pro is actually pretty good, and the fourth best device with Gigabit Ethernet I’ve tested, when we add the transfer rate in both directions.
Throughput in Mbpsiperf output:
Shell
Client connecting to 192.168.0.110, TCP port 5001 TCP window size: 196 KByte (default) ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 6] local 192.168.0.104 port 52463 connected with 192.168.0.110 port 5001 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 6] 0.0-60.0 sec 4.74 GBytes 679 Mbits/sec [ 4] 0.0-60.0 sec 4.32 GBytes 618 Mbits/sec
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Client connecting to 192.168.0.110, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 196 KByte (default)
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[ 6] local 192.168.0.104 port 52463 connected with 192.168.0.110 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 6] 0.0-60.0 sec 4.74 GBytes 679 Mbits/sec
[ 4] 0.0-60.0 sec 4.32 GBytes 618 Mbits/sec
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