AMIKO Amiko A3 Owners Thread

[Jim S.]

Cannot speak to the A3 (I'm not the ebay buyer) but had many problems with the alien2 switched it to european side deleted the european stuff made up a NA sat list left .68 in place never glitched again. But and a big one I don't use the spark side much but use HDMU and tsmedia. Part of the reason for the european version the alien2 is memory lacking and needed for iptv and doing this got the free memory upto approximately 120 megs but still need to run memclr plugin.

I would have loved to use E2 on my A2 to avoid the bugs in Spark, but nobody (correct me if I'm wrong!) ever produced a version of E2 with blind scan.

 

[pacificrim]

I'm surprised that your A3 Combo was stuttering on the NASA UHD channel. On the fridge forum, they said it played on a HD TV (non 4K) but wouldn't record. Maybe that's part of it - It would play a downscaled version only?

Hopefully someone makes a basic STB that does 4K.

 

[mc6809e]

The A3 Quad Combo I got for evaluation has firmware 1.0.34 installed. The evaluation comments are posted on FridgeFTA so I'm not going to repeat them here. When I did the evaluation of the Combo in February the playback of NASA UHD was smooth with only occasional glitches (like dropped frames). During the first two weeks I had the receiver, it was playing UHD channels on either 103W or 105W for probably 7 or 8 hours total. You can only watch the UHD "Monkey Channel" and the NASA UHD loops so many times before you get tired of them no matter how good they look.

Now when I check, still on a 1080P TV, the UHD video does indeed freeze for several seconds a couple of times each minute on NASA and the UHD Demo channels. HighTV 4K on 103W is playing smoothly but the color is still over-saturated. The only thing I can see that's changed here is the quality on 103W TP 4140V has dropped from 33-35 to 30. Quality on 105W TP 3760V is still 83-85.

Ernie

 

[niro]

I'm just wandering why spark still using android jelly bean ?

kitkat or lollipop is very much stable ..

and I think all the bugs that we faced is because of weakness of jelly bean

keep upgrading based on jelly bean will not help and the bugs will keep appearing..

 

[mc6809e]

The A3 Combo does use KitKat 4.4.2.

 

[niro]

Amiko A3 still has jelly bean ,,

by the way, How is Amiko combo ?

does it have bugs like A3 ?

 

[mc6809e]

The evaluation I did on the test A3 Combo I received is located here: http://www.fridgefta.info/forums/showthread.php?tid=37791

Everything I've observed is posted there so there's no reason to repeat it here. I like the Combo even though it's only 8-bit UHD. I'll definitely be getting a 10-bit capable receiver but I use the Combo every day to watch HEVC content, both from satellite and on my LAN.

I know lots of people have had many problems with the A3 but in my personal experience I've only had one serious issue. I have two original A3's connected to nine dishes (5 fixed Ku, 2 motorized Ku, and 2 motorized C-band) through a combination of powered 4x8 switches and 8x1 DiSEqC switches. The problem occurred on the newer A3 and started within a day after I upgraded it to Kodi 15 (picture freezes, complete lockups requiring pulling the plug, etc.). I performed a factory reset and restored the backup I had made when I received it. It's been running fine for months now. I seldom use them for streaming but when I do it's normally from my network Linux and Windows servers.

 

[niro]

Well, thanks for the post

I tried to use my A3 to stream or share some folder in int

I used Simple HT TP Server, at the beginning it was working fine after mapping the port ..

Then suddenly it had freeze after while and that happened every time I turn it on ..

Bubble UPnp not working at all and gave an error every time i tried to run it ..

I just gave up and fed up with this box, it would be amazing if it had good support to fix all of this ..

 

[niro]

I already posted reply but I don't know why it hasn't be shown here

Anyway, thanks muc6809e for showing the evaluation ..

 

[Comptech]

I think Joe has abandoned the original A3, in fact I think he abandoned everything. His site has had no posts for weeks and he has not been on here recently.

 

[primestar31]

I think Joe has abandoned the original A3, in fact I think he abandoned everything. His site has had no posts for weeks and he has not been on here recently.

The company that created the A3 abandoned it at the end of the year. Nothing Joe can do, if they now refuse to support it. As for his site, it has plenty of new posts. You need to check other forums beyond the A3 one.

 

[Babadem]

Well, thanks for the post

I tried to use my A3 to stream or share some folder in int

I used Simple HT TP Server, at the beginning it was working fine after mapping the port ..

Then suddenly it had freeze after while and that happened every time I turn it on ..

Bubble UPnp not working at all and gave an error every time i tried to run it ..

I just gave up and fed up with this box, it would be amazing if it had good support to fix all of this ..

I followed the steps listed in the link below to breath new life into my A3.

http://www.fridgefta.info/forums/showthread.php?tid=37716

 

[Jim S.]

I followed the steps listed in the link below to breath new life into my A3.

http://www.fridgefta.info/forums/showthread.php?tid=37716

But how long will it stay that way?

It seems that trying to do anything interesting with the A3 eventually corrupts it. I don't know whether Spark or Android are to blame, although I suspect a little of both -- a decent OS shouldn't let itself get corrupted, after all.

 

[Jim S.]

The company that created the A3 abandoned it at the end of the year.

Oh that's nice, I hadn't heard that. I guess I should've learned my lesson from the A2, but I was desperate to find something to replace my A2 since it was so buggy...

I wish they'd release the source code to their damn software when they get tired of it -- I'm sure someone somewhere would fix it, it's not like the satellite community isn't overflowing with really resourceful coders...

 

[Babadem]

But how long will it stay that way?

It seems that trying to do anything interesting with the A3 eventually corrupts it. I don't know whether Spark or Android are to blame, although I suspect a little of both -- a decent OS shouldn't let itself get corrupted, after all.

My first time since I bought my A3 almost 2yrs ago. But I agree with your first statement.

 

[Titanium]

Primestar31, Original A3 abandoned or no further firmware development occurring on the original dual core model by the Euro engineers? I understood that no additional firmware development was going to occur on the old A3 platform since the new quadcore model has been out for about a year. The original A3 model firmware is supposedly in maintenance mode. Isn't the European development team releasing for the current quadcore? I read that quad model supports HEVC 8 bit but the Euro market is primarily 10bit?

Joe mentioned that he was planning on bringing in a limited number of A3 quadcores. Haven't seen any recent announcements as to the availability. Is there a recent quad A3 STB availability announcement?

Seems that most activity on the forum has been primarily partisan political rants. I stop by a few times each week to check in, but not much satellite talk going on. Too bad, as it had some interesting tech discussions in the past.

 

[primestar31]

Original A3 dual core support was abandoned, per posts I read on a European satellite forum. They are supporting the newer quad core model.

Personally, I think they should release the source code, and let hobbyist's have at it. It's a good base, but it needs better development. Maybe something along the lines of the Enigma-2 receivers.

 

[N6BY]

.... I stop by a few times each week to check in, but not much satellite talk going on. Too bad, as it had some interesting tech discussions in the past.

I agree, it seems that lately there aren't nearly as many interesting tech discussions as there used to be.

I think one of the primary reasons for this is the lack of North American hobbyist friendly receivers coming on the market, and the ones we liked are discontinued. We seem to just get Android/Kodi boxes with FTA as an afterthought.

...
Personally, I think they should release the source code, and let hobbyist's have at it. It's a good base, but it needs better development. Maybe something along the lines of the Enigma-2 receivers.

That would be great and I think it would be a win-win, but I doubt that it will happen.

Looking ahead, I think our best chance for a capable receiver would be a HiSilicon 3798C box with software developed here in the USA.

 

[primestar31]

They go where the money is, and as much as we hate to admit it, NA as a viable market is the size of a bump on a gnat's ass. There's next to no money available over here, because of the Robber Barons stranglehold on the satellite market.

The average person over here is not knowledgeable (or willing to learn about FTA), and just wants to watch tv. He doesn't want to hunt down, tear down, move, reinstall, and support his own dish farm.

 

[Lehman bud farm]

Is there a recent quad A3 STB availability announcement?

None that I have seen over there. It appears to be "DBA" (dead before arrival).
Even in the testing thread there was never confirmation on a few questions asked and others pertaining to the 4k issues were not too comforting.

I think Joe has abandoned the original A3, in fact I think he abandoned everything.

That site has a lacking appearance at this time and you may be right.

With the exception of the political rantings the place appears to have died!