Custom 4K video demo player - live teardown - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: olewales
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 29, 2016, 08:41:29 pm
content: They say that the first step in addiction recovery is admitting the problem. So, lets get on with it: I am addicted to buying crap on the internet.Few days ago I saw an online auction of8 port HDMI Splitterfor next to nothing. Although I don't have the slightest need for such device and it was sold as not working it caught my attention. Photos clearly showed USB ports (including one marked as 3.0) and all HDMI ports were marked as "output". I was pretty convinced that it's probably something more interesting but could not find any information of anything like that on the web. And so, few days and 23PLN (~ 5USD including shipping) later it arrived at my door and I'd like to share with you what I've found inside.I am going to split this teardown into multiple posts so I can attach higher resolution photos and add subsequent parts as I progress. I hope this does not violate forum rules (too much).There is not much to be seen on the outside of the unit except the sticker on the top which seller decided to omit in his photos. Surprisingly (despite being chinglish) it describes pretty well what the device purpose it and also hints that it is supposed to be operated by a remote which I don't have. Construction is all metal (including front panel, except mirror plastic)I tried to power it up. LED on the fronts lights blue but my monitor reports no signal on the HDMI input. Maybe I did not wait long enough for device to boot up or it is waiting for button press.(I am sorry for background in the photos at this stage but I assure you that my ichy blanket is still better than my floor)

author: olewales
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 29, 2016, 09:35:05 pm
content: Removing rear panel uncovers dual board construction. I am guessing that the upper one is just standalone 8x1 HDMI splitter internally connected to main board via connector visible in the center. Flat red cable looks much like SATA and indicates that there may be a drive involved. However, I did not hear anything spinning when I powered it up.After removing top cover we can see overview of all the internals. Indeed, there is a drive inside and it's a SSD! I will look at individual boards in subsequent posts. For now it's worth mentioning that all cable connections are in their original state. There is loose plug coming from PSU and there seem to be ribbon cable missing between splitter board and front panel

author: olewales
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2016, 12:02:28 am
content: I was planning to start with less interesting parts but of course I couldn't wait to examine that SSD. It is only 32G drive but I could still make use of it if I decided to salvage unit for parts. I was a bit surprised to see rather small SATA SSD instead of internal flash memory or SD card but as you'll see in a minute it's probably due to data transfer speed concerns as bitrate of those 4K videos is quite substantial.I connected this drive to my linux PC to examine its contents. Interestingly it's only partition is formatted in NTFS. I guess FAT was not an option due to file size limit.Here is how drive shows up in kernel log:Code:ata7: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)ata7.00: ATA-8: BIWIN SSD, M1001C, max UDMA/133ata7.00: 61865984 sectors, multi 0: LBA48ata7.00: configured for UDMA/133ata7: EH completescsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA BIWIN SSD 1C PQ: 0 ANSI: 5sd 6:0:0:0:  61865984 512-byte logical blocks: (31.6 GB/29.5 GiB)sd 6:0:0:0:  Write Protect is offsd 6:0:0:0:  Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00sd 6:0:0:0:  Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUAsde: sde1sd 6:0:0:0:  Attached SCSI diskpartition table info:Code:Model: ATA BIWIN SSD (scsi)Disk /dev/sde: 31.7GBSector size (logical/physical): 512B/512BPartition Table: msdosDisk Flags:Number Start End Size Type File system Flags1 32.3kB 31.7GB 31.7GB primary ntfssmartctl does not know much about it:Code:smartctl -a /dev/sdesmartctl 6.4 2015-06-04 r4109 [x86_64-linux-4.3.5-hardened-r1] (local build)Copyright (C) 2002-15, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, [url=http://www.smartmontools.org]www.smartmontools.org=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===Device Model: BIWIN SSDSerial Number: 135201701055Firmware Version: M1001CUser Capacity: 31,675,383,808 bytes [31.6 GB]Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physicalRotation Rate: Solid State DeviceDevice is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]ATA Version is: ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated)SATA Version is: SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)Local Time is: Tue Mar 1 00:41:48 2016 CETSMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.SMART support is: Enabled=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSEDGeneral SMART Values:Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activitywas never started.Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.Total time to complete Offlinedata collection: ( 0) seconds.Offline data collectioncapabilities: (0x00) Offline data collection not supported.SMART capabilities: (0x0002) Does not save SMART data beforeentering power-saving mode.Supports SMART auto save timer.Error logging capability: (0x00) Error logging NOT supported.No General Purpose Logging support.SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 05 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0002 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 112 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 266160 Unknown_Attribute 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 8640161 Unknown_Attribute 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 172162 Unknown_Attribute 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 7163 Unknown_Attribute 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 10164 Unknown_Attribute 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 951165 Unknown_Attribute 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 97166 Unknown_Attribute 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 0167 Unknown_Attribute 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 0192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 1194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0000 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - -6 (Min/Max -6/-6)195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 2196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 2198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0000 000 000 000 Old_age Offline - 0199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0000 100 100 050 Old_age Offline - 2386241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 0242 Total_LBAs_Read 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 1509057SMART Error Log not supportedRead SMART Self-test Log failed: scsi error badly formed scsi parametersSelective Self-tests/Logging not supportedBrowsing through contents we can see few video clips. Files with "Polish" in their filename are just tv commercials with Polish voiceover and text. The rest are generic showoff clips meant to demonstrate TV high-resolution capabilities.Code:.:total 132Kdrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4.0K Feb 28 2014 .drwxr-xr-x 20 root root 4.0K Feb 29 23:54 ..drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 28 2014 photodrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 28 2014 System Volume Informationdrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4.0K Jan 1 1970 video./photo:total 64Kdrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 28 2014 .drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4.0K Feb 28 2014 .../System Volume Information:total 64Kdrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 28 2014 .drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4.0K Feb 28 2014 ..-rwxrwxrwx 2 root root 0 Feb 28 2014 MountPointManagerRemoteDatabase./video:total 6.0Gdrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4.0K Jan 1 1970 .drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4.0K Feb 28 2014 ..-rwxrwxrwx 2 root root 2.8G Nov 26 2013 4K_TCL_80Mbit_short_gradet.mp4-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 821M Jan 1 1970 TCL 1 03042014.mp4-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 803M Jan 1 1970 TCL S76 Polish UHD 02042014.mp4-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 751M Jan 1 1970 Thomson 1 03042014.mp4-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 864M Jan 1 1970 Thomson W9 Polish UHD 02042014.mp4Of course, they are all 4K (although bitrate varies between files). Here is codec info from one of them:Code:GeneralComplete name : video/4K_TCL_80Mbit_short_gradet.mp4Format : MPEG-4Format profile : Base Media / Version 2Codec ID : mp42File size : 2.75 GiBDuration : 4mn 57sOverall bit rate mode : ConstantOverall bit rate : 79.4 MbpsEncoded date : UTC 2013-10-17 12:00:28Tagged date : UTC 2013-10-17 12:02:24©TIM : 01;00;00;00©TSC : 2997©TSZ : 100VideoID : 1Format : AVCFormat/Info : Advanced Video CodecFormat profile : High@L5.1Format settings, CABAC : YesFormat settings, ReFrames : 3 framesCodec ID : avc1Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video CodingDuration : 4mn 57sSource duration : 4mn 57sBit rate mode : ConstantBit rate : 80.0 MbpsWidth : 3 840 pixelsHeight : 2 160 pixelsDisplay aspect ratio : 16:9Frame rate mode : VariableFrame rate : 29.970 fpsMinimum frame rate : 29.970 fpsMaximum frame rate : 30.000 fpsStandard : NTSCColor space : YUVChroma subsampling : 4:2:0Bit depth : 8 bitsScan type : ProgressiveBits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.322Stream size : 2.75 GiB (100%)Source stream size : 2.75 GiB (100%)Language : EnglishEncoded date : UTC 2013-10-17 12:00:28Tagged date : UTC 2013-10-17 12:00:28Color range : LimitedColor primaries : BT.709Transfer characteristics : BT.709Matrix coefficients : BT.709mdhd_Duration : 297864