ZIDOO’s founding team, who have been working on research and development in the media field for nearly 10 years. From the early SIGMA to later REALTEK, we are always in outputting domestic solutions in the early time, and we still maintain a good cooperation relationship and intimate technical relation with many original chips factories. From 2014, we have taken up directly facing the global market. One year later, with the help of our understanding and research to the market, we tried to find a solution with low-cost, to solve the problems of basic media player and daily using. In the end, we selected Allwinner H3 SOC this platform to develop. Why is it? And why we’d like to say ZIDOO X1 is so different? Why it is Allwinner H3? Allwinner H3 is Quad cores A7, 4K /H.265 decoding, 4K output, which is with lower cost. During the communication with ALLWINNER, ALLWINNER is quite willing to cooperate with us to do something different. Someone might say Allwinner has been with a very not good reputation for a long time ago. All I can say, once upon a time, it is no the right person to do right thing on this platform. First of all, it’s easy to operate: As we introduced in the product description, we consulted a lot of product states and studied the user habits of overseas, and runs through the whole development process of X1 with these. So, you will be able to find something interesting with your carefulness: Such as the Navigation BAR that can automatically hide with semi-transparent and does not compress the interface; Such as the multitasking management that can obtain on IR REMOTE with a key, can synchronously support UP button of IR REMOTE and mouse to drag process; Such as the shortcut key feature that’s based entirely on the underlying development; Such as close, standby, restart the menu, and it can also use the IR REMOTE to boot under the shutdown state; Such as the file management that can simultaneously support the IR REMOTE and mouse to operate; Such as the Easy Cast, it can simultaneously support DLNA, Miracast, Airplay, Air mirror. What great things we have done? To operate easily is not enough for us, it must be strong, and much more different. So we spent two months in developing the customized KODI version for H3 SOC, called ZDMC. It’s fully docked at the bottom of the H3 Hardware Decoding API. It’s pretty smooth to play 1080P (MKV, AVI, Blue-ray, m2st, rmvb...), which also has good compatibility and good audio synchronization. Because of the limits of chip specification, the 4K play can support 50Mbps. The ZDMC has the automatic switching function for all the frame rates, including 24Hz, 25Hz,50Hz, 60Hz. You can choose any way that you want to present it (automatic, consult, close). Certainly, it also supports audio pass-through (5.1). Thank you very much our engineers, sometimes they work day and night in order to solve the not smooth problem of an individual source. At the same time, we developed ZDrepo, the cloud services ( www.zdrepo.com), which you can completely define your own private KODI library. You can share yours with all people, if you’re willing to. All of the ZIDOO products can bind to this service. I believe, before this, no one has done that. When it comes to cloud service, I think we did the best OTA upgrade services among the BOX. It’s so easy to use, and is based on a global CDN to build. All of these are independently developed by ZIDOO. Therefore, temporarily you can not expect other H3 products have such a performance. Is it enough such that? You must have seen, our technical staff, who are actively to collect users opinions, to constantly improve the functions , and put it into the future firmwares. So, are you ready to upgrade new firmware every month? BTW: For ZIDOO X1,videos are rendered on a different hardware buffer, and both that hardware buffer and the frame buffer are then scaled to whatever HDMI output resolution is set!! 720P just a UI resolution!
Hi mirror, thanks for the in-depth description about the "inner" world of Zidoo and the products behind. I really appriate that As you may remember I was one of the first users of the X9 and one of the guys who spent a lot of time to find and document issues which has to be improved. But finally I gave up due to I was not able to see any progress for the X9/Mstar platform and sold the box. Last week I got the X1 box and I'm focussed on the purpose I intend to use the box. As a network media player for videos 1080p24 with DTS-HD, TruHD, Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0 (h.264 or VC1) 720p50 with DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0 (h.264 or VC1) 1080p50 with DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0 (h.264 or VC1) Untouched BD dumps in folder structure (h.264 or VC1) 4k videos with several resolutions and codecs (h.265, h.264) I expect that the Audio data will be passed through my high-end AV receiver all the time. My first impression in comparision to the X9 box - the X1 is a major step in the right direction. While Kodi was (in my eyes) unusable at the X9 box it plays much much better on the X1. There are still some (minor) issues), but I hope they will be solved in the future. The interal player TVDvideo plays almost everything that I tried (except VC1 - no support). There are also some minor quality issues (like subtitle and audio track handling). The most astonishing thing was the stability of the playback of my network streams. Until now I did not discovery any data rate / data transfer issues with the internal player. Even I tried the Avatar BD with really high bitrates it played fine using the Ethernet interface to my NAS server. It runs better than Kodi. So currently I'm quiet a bit curious and indetermined about the focus of the X1 as a media player. Or to raise up a question. What is the favorite player for Zidoo ? The Kodi player or the internal TVDplayer. Where can we expect more improvement and R&D invest ? PS: To answer your last question about the firmware upgrade possibilities. In case it is provided as OTA package (either online or by USB) it should be no issues to update the box on a regular base.
Hi Jens: Currently x1 just listed, there will certainly be a lot of customer response, we will try to resolve pre-existing problems. Next, X1 will be adding more and more powerful features, such as income libcec, openelec are possible. The interal player TVDvideo is base Allwinner SOC, it will limit the effectiveness for H3. ZDMC is based on the H3 to develop, and the decoder/render can achieve the same effect as TVDvideo, the only difference is demux.These two players have different advantages, choosed your habits.
I have read your story at the first post and it is very nice story,but i can not to think im my mind thet you have not figured thet it is very hard to take out RJ45 connector , because of the bad shape of the box???Did you ever test how it is hard to take it out from the box or how little space is left for rear connectors or where are ventilation holes???
Hello,ime having problems with my x1 box,it wont shut down it freezes,iver tryed update firmware many times,any ideas?
