Mods please move this to the correct category if it’s in the wrong one.
So, this was a gray market iptv box that’s been sitting with me for some time. My dad used to use it, but he moved away and his subscription ran out.
Now, I want to find out what exactly I can do with it. My primary goal is to use it for watching movies. Like what it is now, only without needing to subscribe to it. I’d like to have a distro on it and connect it to my tv in the living room and my network/internet.
How do I go about hacking this type of hardware and finding out what it exactly is?
I’d appreciate any help. Thanks!
Looks like there’s a bunch of Andriod TV boxes based around the Amlogic S905X. Judging from that “K9S_S905X_V1.2” line on the board maybe this is one of them?
On the left is a number 1913. Above it is the serial interface, I assume for programming the device. If you can find documentation, you might be able to flash the firmware via this port.
There are different variants of the S905 and some of them are simple to get going with Armbian or similar. Unfortunately some versions don’t (or at least didn’t when I last looked) have anything usable. The cheap box I got has some old Android version on it and everything I tried Linux-wise refused to work. I think mine might have been a S905W.
As mentioned above, if you can’t get Linux going, then you might be able to find a copy of Android that works. You might find more info if you do some searching for numbers on the board, as it is often the case that those boards are used by multiple companies with different cases and operating systems. You should be able to boot straight off the microSD slot so you can try it out before making permanent changes. I vaguely remember a thread over at Armbian discussing a bunch of this stuff.
Yes, this appears to be exactly that. Although I’ve only found boards that are much different than this on the Armdroid site.
Do you mean those 4 little holes with 3 circles and a square surrounding them? I don’t have the knowledge or tools to access that, sadly
Yeah, this appears to be it. I’ll try getting to the bootloader.
Yeah, I’ll dig into the Armbian forums a bit. Maybe even make a post over there.
But I did manage to find some info.
I did some digging and I found the manufacturer of this device being Oasis Media Systems (website pops up unsafe due to an outdated cert) and the model seems to be One MK2 (as it was stated on the sticker lol) but their site and model page are extremely limited in detail. The specs only show the actual specs and not much else, but maybe one of you can see things I can’t.
I found them through this forum with some additional details and advice from people.
What I want to try and find is the root menu on this device. Looking at my photos of the top side I can’t see anything resembling a reset or a root menu switch, so I’ll take it apart again and see what I can see.
hmm…Well, they certainly support the chip. But as it often happens, I have a unique device that isn’t mentioned in their forums. I think I’ll have to ask them. The OS certainly looks great though
Thanks! Very useful to know!
how can one get started and what equipment would I need to connect to those?
I tried looking around for another box with the same port layout which might use the same exact board, but didn’t find anything. I did see something that laid out the steps I had tried in the past for trying to load something off of a microSD card:
I remember it rebooting and trying to load but not getting the correct .dtb file for my particular S905W box. Then again this was maybe 2 years ago when I last tried, so I’ll probably give it another shot soon.
The instructions bring up an important question: What exactly does this box do when you boot it up as-is? I’d imagine even if it is a locked down box using a single application, that it is probably running on top of Android. If there is any way to do the same manual update method from within the default setup then I’d imagine that you can at least get it to reboot and try to load from microSD. Without that the only option might be tapping in to the unpopulated serial header, which is way above my pay grade. I know they make active USB to serial adapters, similar to how an Arduino connects to a computer, but I have no clue what to do from there. Any money spent towards hardware to fix this box would likely be better spent on another box with better (or out of the box) Linux support.
I remember back during peak Roku 4k vs AppleTV there were many Android TV boxes being rushed into the market with varying differences in the chip(s) being used so you never quite knew the exact specs beyond the processor–I avoided owning one due to several reviews on them.
A common headache is while many OEMs rarely locked the bootloader, if you received an Android box from an Internet TV provider they typically locked down not only the bootloader but other functions including the MicroSD slot. As far as usefulness, if the S905 has more than 1GB of memory it’ll be worth the time/effort to get Armbian on it.
Your best option is almost definitely coreelec given you want to watch films on it.
You can install this onto a micro SD card and with a bit of luck this device will boot directly from it - have a read of the instructions there, it probably won’t involve too much work.
This box was supplied by a local ISP that serves the Austrian market with Balkan TV programs and radio stations. Right now it boots up with their complete interface and all of the programs, but with a prompt to pay the subscription fee.
Yeah, I’m hoping that it does.
I received this thing for free. My cousin gave it to my dad to bridge the gap between a proper provider and a suddenly shut down service he was using before (gray market shit). Come to think of it…I may even have another android box…
Then this is what I’ll do. I was planning to mess around a bit and maybe get a full ARM linux on it with a desktop, but we’ll see what I have and how it’s gonna go today.
