Imagination Creator CI20 Now Shipping With Spec Bump & Kodi Support
by Stephen Barrett on February 3, 2015 7:10 PM EST
Imagination has sent along word that the Creator CI20 we covered in some detail late last year is now shipping to North America and Europe. For those unfamiliar with this development board, I have reproduced the specification table below and included the Raspberry Pi 2 for comparison. Along with the shipping announcement, Imagination has bumped the on board storage from 4GB of NAND up to 8GB. I updated our original coverage with this welcome unexpected improvement. They have also revised the PCB to be purple, matching Imagination's color scheme.
| Imagination Creator CI20 | Raspberry Pi 2 Model B | Raspberry Pi Model B+ | |
| SoC | Ingenic JZ4780 | Broadcom BCM2836 | Broadcom BCM2835 |
| CPU | Dual 1.2GHz XBurst (MIPS32 instruction set) |
4x 900 MHz ARM Cortex-A7 (ARMv7 instruction set) |
700 MHz ARM1176JZF-S (ARM11 family, ARMv6 instruction set) |
| GPU | PowerVR SGX 540 @ Unknown MHz | Broadcom VideoCore IV @ 250 MHz | Broadcom VideoCore IV @ 250 MHz |
| Memory | 1GB DDR3 | 1GB DDR2 | 512MB DDR2 |
| USB | 1x USB OTG (A and Mini connectors) 1x USB Host |
4x USB 2.0 Host | 4 USB 2.0 Host |
| Camera Interface | 24-pin connector (ITU-R BT.645) | 15-pin MIPI (CSI) connector | 15-pin MIPI (CSI) connector |
| Video Output | HDMI 1.4a | HDMI 1.3a Composite video 3.5mm jack |
HDMI 1.3a Composite video 3.5mm jack |
| Audio In | 3.5mm jack shared with output | via I²S interface | via I²S interface |
| Audio Output | HDMI 3.5mm jack shared with input |
HDMI 3.5mm jack I²S interface |
HDMI 3.5mm jack I²S interface |
| Storage | 8GB NAND 1x full SD slot 1x SD slot via expansion header |
via MicroSD | via MicroSD |
| Network | 10/100 Ethernet 2.4GHz WiFi b/g/n + BT 4.0 (BCM4330) |
10/100 Ethernet | 10/100 Ethernet |
| IR | Input (IRM-2638A) | - | - |
| Max Power Consumption | 4 Watts | < 5 Watts | 3 Watts |
| Power Connector | 5V barrel connector | MicroUSB | MicroUSB |
| Size | Approx. 90mm x 95mm (3.54 in x 3.74 in) | 85.60 mm × 56.5 mm (3.37 in × 2.22 in) | 85.60 mm × 56.5 mm (3.37 in × 2.22 in) |
| Price | $65 or £50 | $35 without MPEG2 and VC1 codecs $40.60 with MPEG2 and VC1 codecs |
$35 without MPEG2 and VC1 codecs $40.60 with MPEG2 and VC1 codecs |
The evaluation board provided to me by Imagination is green with 4GB of NAND and I should consider it a collectors' item now. I am working to get some power measurements directly on the VDDCORE line to characterize CPU performance/watt but that requires some delicate PCB modification. Stay tuned.
Also, for the media center users, great news came three days ago with MIPS32 support merged into the master branch of Kodi (XBMC). Therefore, users willing to compile binaries themselves can now run Kodi on the Creator CI20 or any other MIPS32 device. For those willing to wait, the next major release of Kodi should include this support in their provided binaries.
Source: Imagination
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monstercameron - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
who would buy into this close system rather than use an opensauce friendly rpi2ddriver - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
Fans of "purple" I guess. The CI20 allegedly has lower power consumption, so if that is CRITICAL to you, you might consider it instead. But other than that, it cannot really compete with the Pi2 or ODROID C1. Pricing aside, the board is too big, too odd in shape, and the connectors are clumsily placed too.Stephen Barrett - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
well keep in mind the CI20 has wifi, bluetooth, and onboard storage. adding dongles for those interfaces increases the pi size, and adding all 3 adds cost. personally my Pi has had continual reliability issues with its SD card... electrically destroying one and corrupting them at least 4 times.Samus - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
I had compatibility issues with SD cards in my Pi too. Forums unanimously agree Sandisk or Samsung is generally guaranteed to work. My original Transcend card constantly corrupted. Many "crappy" flash cards are not designed for lots of random IO such as kernel paging and seem to just shit themselves or cause the RPi to queue up and corrupt the bus.ddriver - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
You can get a Pi2 with USB wifi, bt, and 16 gigs of storage for a lower price still.speculatrix - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
typo: MEPG2Stephen Barrett - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
fixed thank you!speculatrix - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
I won't be touching it unless Imagination come up with the source code for the relevant drivers in the kernel.Pteridium - Sunday, February 8, 2015 - link
First of all: what do you want to mean with relevant drivers?Anybody that take a look to the kernel sources will realize that only the PowerVR SGX540 3D gpu driver is closed while contrary to the rest (VPU, 2D gpu, NAND, usb, ...).
Dma and VPU need a firmware file because those subsystems have an xburst cpu each one.
I suggest to check these links:
https://github.com/MIPS/CI20_linux/branches
https://github.com/ZubairLK/CI20_linux/branches
https://github.com/gcwnow/linux/branches
The performance in some areas with kernel 3.0.8 is bad, but with kernels 3.16 and 3.18 is much better thanks to imgtec guys and other people that is collaborating.
http://www.mikronauts.com/2015/02/02/mips-creator-...
ant6n - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
One of these boards should come with like 4 or 8 Satas, so one could build a cheap NAS