Sunday, January 26, 2014

Upgraded my HiMedia Q5II Android TV box firmware to Mango Hi Q v1.0.5

My HiMedia Q5II Android TV box comes with firmware v1.0.2 (released in early September 2013). Subsequent to that, they have released firmware v1.0.3 in October 2013 and v1.0.4 in December 2013. Both of them were found buggy with numerous complaints from users.

In January 2014, HiMedia has worked together with Mango TV (芒果 TV) to come out with Mango Hi Q (芒果嗨Q) firmware v1.0.5 which is pretty good.

You can download the Mango Hi Q firmware for HiMedia Q-series dual core Android TV boxes here.

Make sure you download the firmware that matches with the model number of your HiMedia Q-series dual core Android TV box. If the label on your box has the wording of "eMMC" (which is the newer version sold to the market since November 2013 onwards), download the firmware for EMMC version. Otherwise, download the firmware for non-EMMC version.

The firmware upgrade file for my non-EMMC HiMedia Q5II Android TV box is update_dualcore_Q5.zip. I put it in a USB drive, plug the USB drive into one of the USB port of the TV box, and tried to flash it into the box by using a pin to press its "reset" button and boot up the box. The upgrade failed. Apparently this is due to the firmware that pre-installed in my box is English version instead of Chinese version.

I then renamed the file in my USB drive to become update_dualcore_Q5_en.zip, and tried again. This time, the upgrade is successful, and I got Mango Hi Q v1.0.5 in my box.


The default language of Mango H Q user interface is Chinese. You can set it to English by going to Settings (the right most tab at the bottom of above screen), look for Language and Input Method (the icon is a square box with an "A" at the center), change the Language ("语言") to English.

After you installed Mango Hi Q firmware, you will notice the following are missing:
  • HiTV
  • LiveTV
  • HiStore
  • Google Play Store
  • Web browser
You can restore back HiTV, LiveTV by download and install this APK into your TV box:
Alternatively, you can download and install the Jailbreak APK into your TV box, and run it once: http://pan.baidu.com/s/1eQDWWT0

After that, you can remove the Jailbreak APK.

You can also restore back the built-in web browser through the pre-installed WiFi Analyzer app. Just go to Online Help in WiFi Analyzer once, and the web browser will be back.

As for the missing HiStore and Google Play Store, I use 7PO Market (奇珀市场) as alternative.



11 comments:

  1. Are you saying that your Himedia is now jailbroken and has access to thousands of free TV channels? I am looking at buying one of these and am wondering if it's possible to jailbreak them to get the free channels. Thanks.

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  2. @inefekt

    With HiMedia LiveTV, you just need to put your customized tvlist1.xml into the Diytvlist folder of your HiMedia TV box, LiveTV will load the file and you can have thousands of self-defined channels as user-defined channels.

    You can find some HiMedia users shared their compiled list in HiMedia forum.

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  3. after upgrade no sound output, from any video or music

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  4. @ahvk00

    Try upgrade again using the hard reset button.

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  5. thanks and can you advise how to copy playlist to a hard disk which is connected to same router as the Q5II they are in the same network. I tried UPNP in Q5II, it can locate the songs but i would like to play a playlist copied from media player thanks

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  6. @Voyager8

    can you please explain better how to put my custom channel list or share a link to the forum thread you were referring to?
    i tried to put several lists in that directory but none would work

    thanks!

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. @Maurizio Malinverni

    Please refer to the link below. You might want to make use of Google Translate if needed.

    http://bbs.himedia.cn/thread-101076-1-1.html

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  9. @Voyager8

    thank you!

    may I ask your help to find a channel list already made and working?
    i tried to do a couple but didn't work
    i also strolled a bit around the forum but clueless, i saw a lot of post but never found a download link...

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  10. @Maurizio Malinverni

    You can get a ready made list with 8000++ channels here:

    http://bbs.himedia.cn/thread-157842-1-1.html

    You will need to register for an account in the forum, and reply to the thread, before you are able to see the download link.

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  11. I cant changed Mango TV to English as i dont have the menu..please help

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