96Boards TV Platform - Poplar board availability?

Products Support Poplar Board
#1

Do you have anybody here real experience with Poplar board? Somebody has it in hands?

I was just trying to grab all necessary info to analyze the devkit possibility and during that I found out some problem with manufacturer. My Chinese colleague is not able to reach them by phone call.

It make me feeling that the board is not ready for mass production (if we can say dev board manufacturing mass production :slight_smile: or the company has some problems or so.

I really like to get in touch with the devboard, but if we are not able for 14 days to reach manufacturer by phone it looks like not so much reliable solution to follow.

If anyone has different experience or has some direct contact to manufacturer, please let me know.

Thx.
/Honza

#2

Are you having problems with a board, or trying to get a board?

The board is sold here: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/96Boards-Poplar/2350001_32701867575.html?spm=2114.8147860.0.85.jZ7Tzj

Contacting the seller: http://activities.aliexpress.com/adcms/help-aliexpress-com/communicate_with_supplier.php

#3

I have problem contacting manufacturer by phone.

The main reason for that is to get some more detailed information.

For example, I need any DVB tuner connected. As we are working on set-top-box solution.

Having Poplar board without direct DVB tuner (for example by use remote networked DVB tuner involving vtuner project) is not an option.

/Honza

#4

See http://www.slideshare.net/linaroorg/las16310-introducing-the-first-96boards-tv-platform-poplar-by-hisilicon slide 3. There are links to the HW User Manual, data sheet and board schematics. Let us know if you find what you need there.

#5

Are you in some contact with manufacturer? The URL you gave me is interesting (especially the schematics), but there is only DVB-C tuner. We need DVB-S2 or DVB-T2, ideally mixed both on one expansion board (as I see the TS expansion slot support two TS inputs, one serial and one serial/parallel).

The best would be to order such tuner immediately, but if it is not an option yet, then we need at least schematics (and some stuffs Iā€™m not aware of because Iā€™m software developer, not HW engineer :slight_smile:

If we are able to solve the missing tuners issue, we definitely start with porting our SW from 3716cv100 chip to Poplar.

/Honza

#6

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.1.NAKDNU&id=537581702687&ns=1&abbucket=14#detail

For China Mainland

#7

Iā€™m not in contact with the manufacturer but rather just found the documents while researching this issue. If you read slide 3 again, it says that ā€œTocoding has plans to release the accompanying Tuner cards (DVB-C/T2/S2) mid-Octoberā€, so the cards should be out soon, IF things go as planned, and you might just have to wait only a bit longer. Slides 10 and 11 do show a picture of one of these cards, but itā€™s probably just a pre-release dev version.

#8

Hi Honza,

I managed to talk to some people in Linaro and was told that Tocoding will release TUNER CARD (DVB-T2/DVB-C) next week, and the DVB-S2 will be ready for sale after two weeks.

Good luck!

#9

Hi vchong.

Thatā€™s really great news!

The only one stuff what still worry me is that they donā€™t have working phone numbers to reach them directly :frowning:

If they moved or something they should fix theirs phone numbers on company web site.

/Honza

#10

If thereā€™s no publicly available number, then thereā€™s probably not a support line available currently. Again, if you ever have questions, your options are:

  1. Contact the seller: http://activities.aliexpress.com/adcms/help-aliexpress-com/communicate_with_supplier.php
  2. Ask on the tocoding forum: All Discussions - Forum
  3. Post a question here again on the 96boards forum, which might be your best option since thereā€™s already have a good community here up and running.
#11

Do you really think it is normal?

If the professional company, what devkit manufacturer should be, has not working phone connection, it not looks businesslike :-/

And yes, we were trying to use official phone numbers from their website.

TBH if it would not be announced by Linaro I would already end up trying on it. For me is Linaro the certainty of continuation.

Well, till end of the week Iā€™m on vacation, but next week Iā€™m going to try the contacts you wrote me here. Letā€™s see.

Thanks
/Honza

#12

Hi Honza,

Thanks a lot for you are interested in Poplar.

Poplar was ready for mass production two months ago, many customers bought it and works good that the feedback we got from our customersļ¼ŒPoplar also got the CE certification. Tocoding has a professional support team to provide service for our customers, we are worked on this industry many years. If you have any question, pls send Email to service@tocoding.com, many customer through this method access to Technical Support, or connect us in other ways you can find the information from Tocodingā€™s website ā€œwww.tocoding.comā€, we can reply you in time. So do not worry about that.

Many thanks again for you like Poplar. Good Luckļ¼
/Tocoding Support

#13

Hi Tocoding support.

Nice to hear you here :slight_smile:

Well, yes, I donā€™t know if my complaining was the healing but today my Chinese colleague finally reached Tocoding phone.

So, regarding what your company said him, the tuners should be revealed before end of this week, so I guess it should be ready for send on 6th of November.

If it will be true, we definitely order two kits (devboard + tuner(s)).

Then I can try it and write some status about it.

BTW, the tocodingā€™s forum looks unused. No any real discussion there regarding Poplar or any other stuffs.
What is again a bit strange if I count the Poplar the board is in production for two months, as you wrote.
So, may be, Iā€™m simply failing to find the right forum where real developers are communicated theirs issues/hints/etc? Or is it everything around Poplar so secret?

Iā€™m writing the questions here because I would like to get it shared to others who might be in need on it now or in some near future. That is why Iā€™m looking for forum. It usued to be the best way to not ask the same question multiple times.

/Honza

#14

Small update: today I just noticed the ability of order DVB-C and DVB-T2 tunners.
Thatā€™s great news!

I just sent some more questions to Tocoding and if things go well, I will order 2 devboards with tuners ASAP.

/Honza

#15

WARNING for all who plan to use HiSilicon/Poplar devboard!

I have asked some question regarding Software Development Kit and even after THREE WEEKS I get ZERO answer from official Tocoding support (vendor of Poplat TV).

I must say it seems like nobody know anything or even worse - nothing like that exists for Poplar devboard.

So be very carefull with it.

I must say I simply trusted the announcement which was released by Linaro, what made me believe that development support will be there shortly:

Unfortunately, after 3 months I donā€™t see anything like SDK anywhere around.

May be I simply miss it. If so, please direct me the right way.

Thanks.
/Honza