TV Box 32GB Rom vs 64GB Rom

[sdancer75]

Hi,

What's the difference between 32GB and 64GB Roms in a TV Box ie.

https://www.banggood.com/H96-MAX-RK3318-4GB-RAM-64GB-ROM-5G-WIFI-bluetooth-4_0-Android-9_0-4K-VP9-H_265-TV-Box-p-1471897.html?rmmds=mywishlist&ID=43100&cur_warehouse=CN ?

I mean what is offering a bigger ROM in this case? More embedded applications/games from the manufacturer? Because in this case, we are talking about "Read Only Memory" which of course is different from the RAM and the purposes that she is used.

Regards,

[senso]

ROM as in flash memory, aka, more storage, the more storage you have, the most apps you can install, or download more videos to the box.

[sdancer75]

....but this is referred to as ROM and as I already mentioned ROM means Read Only Memory which means I can not write (ie install) files.

In other cases it should referred to as eMMC or internal storage or SSD or something similar.

[mikerj]

ROM is likely a misnomer in this case, it's virtually certain to be a flash based device.

[sdancer75]

thanks, coming from the PC & Microcontrollers world, ROM is implying something else, and my mind was thinkings about the space manufacturer was able to use, apparently for his own needs like OS, utilities, applications etc.

[tooki]

....but this is referred to as ROM and as I already mentioned ROM means Read Only Memory which means I can not write (ie install) files.

In other cases it should referred to as eMMC or internal storage or SSD or something similar.

...and if you bothered to scroll down to the specs, you’d see that it DOES list it as eMMC and Flash. It’s just failed English, nothing more.

[james_s]

This sort of thing is everywhere, I see mosfets, transistors and LED displays called "tubes".

[amyk]

....but this is referred to as ROM and as I already mentioned ROM means Read Only Memory which means I can not write (ie install) files.

In other cases it should referred to as eMMC or internal storage or SSD or something similar.

...and if you bothered to scroll down to the specs, you’d see that it DOES list it as eMMC and Flash. It’s just failed English, nothing more.

The entire Android community also uses that misnomer... it likely comes from feature phones which do have a flash ROM for their "OS" and "applications". You'll see phones advertised as "x GB RAM y GB ROM" for this reason. It's basically equivalent to "HDD size" for a PC.

[wilfred]

Hi,

What's the difference between 32GB and 64GB Roms in a TV Box ie.

More is better.  Remember this is a Chinese vendor and some technical points get lost in translation.

It looks sort of interesting. But I am a bit concerned about heat. Would playing 4K 60fps video generate a lot of heat inside that little box?

It might be a good box for a bit of hacking. Not that I am much of a judge of these things. I'm going to go look for a teardown online.

[xani]

Hi,

What's the difference between 32GB and 64GB Roms in a TV Box ie.

More is better.  Remember this is a Chinese vendor and some technical points get lost in translation.

It looks sort of interesting. But I am a bit concerned about heat. Would playing 4K 60fps video generate a lot of heat inside that little box?

It might be a good box for a bit of hacking. Not that I am much of a judge of these things. I'm going to go look for a teardown online.

Decoding is almost always done in hardware, usually the "hottest" mode of work is playing games, not playing video. Same as with phones really

[tooki]

This sort of thing is everywhere, I see mosfets, transistors and LED displays called "tubes".

Heheh yes, the “7 segment led digital tube” displays! 😂

But I am a bit concerned about heat. Would playing 4K 60fps video generate a lot of heat inside that little box?

No more so than doing it in a mobile phone, and they’ve been able to do 4K60 video for 5 years now. As xani  said, it’s done in hardware, so it creates no heat to speak of:

Decoding is almost always done in hardware, usually the "hottest" mode of work is playing games, not playing video. Same as with phones really

Well, in phones, the hottest is when using mobile data, full-time GPS, and 3D rendering all at once. In other words, Pokémon Go. (It’s no coincidence it’ll drain a phone battery from full to empty in 1-2h...)

[sdancer75]

In China, ROM=memory=flash. If they want to say RAM, they will say RAM or runtime memory. When is the last time you see true ROM in a consumer device rest of the puny kB level bootloader?

The terms have specific meanings in tech world.
ROM = Read Only Memory,
Memory = basically the RAM and
Flash = is the technology to program chips (with high voltage in our case instead of external programmers). For example, flashing a bios chip means to get into a programming mode with high voltage in some pins of the bios chip.

Confusion !!!

[tooki]

Except that specific meanings still may only apply within a language. Start going across them and you get messes like this.

Besides, it’s not as though the established terms are necessarily sensible anyway. RAM stands for “random access memory”, even though that term was established when a) “memory” meant storage, in today’s terminology and b) ALL modern memory and storage are random access, except for tape, which is what the term originally contrasted with. That we now understand RAM to mean specifically the non-storage, non-cache memory is nothing but a historical fluke.

So the Chinese calling it “runtime memory” is actually possibly the best concise AND accurate term I’ve seen.

As for flash, it is technically a kind of EEPROM, since we’ve sorta come to use ROM to mean non-volatile solid-state memory (if not used within another name, like CD-ROM). But “flash” absolutely does NOT mean high-voltage EEPROM, it means a specific type of low-voltage EEPROM. Look it up on wiki.

[sdancer75]

Except that specific meanings still may only apply within a language. Start going across them and you get messes like this.

Besides, it’s not as though the established terms are necessarily sensible anyway. RAM stands for “random access memory”, even though that term was established when a) “memory” meant storage, in today’s terminology and b) ALL modern memory and storage are random access, except for tape, which is what the term originally contrasted with. That we now understand RAM to mean specifically the non-storage, non-cache memory is nothing but a historical fluke.

So the Chinese calling it “runtime memory” is actually possibly the best concise AND accurate term I’ve seen.

As for flash, it is technically a kind of EEPROM, since we’ve sorta come to use ROM to mean non-volatile solid-state memory (if not used within another name, like CD-ROM). But “flash” absolutely does NOT mean high-voltage EEPROM, it means a specific type of low-voltage EEPROM. Look it up on wiki.

Flash technology: a) Winn L. Rosch Hardware Bible ( I own the 3rd edition ) - O'Reilly Media b) Designing Embedded Systems with PIC Microcontrollers Principles and Applications Book,  2nd Edition, 2010

excerpt from the second book (b) dated in 2010 . I can find more references, but I think for simplicity and for time-saving, there is no point to do that, right now.

Almost all microcontrollers these days have on-chip program memory, using Flash technology. The process of programming requires data to be transferred into the chip in a precisely timed way, applying certain programming voltages, usually higher than the normal supply voltage. Certain microcontroller pins therefore have a secondary function, being used in programming mode to transfer the program data into the chip, and transmit the programming voltages.

excerpt from the Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory and "Principles of operation" section

Despite the need for relatively high programming and erasing voltages, virtually all flash chips today require only a single supply voltage and produce the high voltages using on-chip charge pumps.


Of course, manufacturers nowadays, are developing new methods for chip programming and things maybe have been changed a little bit, but in the begging, they were using  flash programming technology (there does not exist any flash storage drives as we know them in this time) specifically ONLY with high voltages (Winn L. Roch Hardware Bible 3rd edition introduced this new technology in 1994 when I was still in University). Also, today right now, when I re-program a microcontroller ie PIC/Atmel this is done in some cases explicit manually, with higher voltages than the normal supply (ie ATMEL - High Voltage Parallel Programming) in specific pins.

In my humble opinion, the ROM as storage in our mobile devices, it should be called embedded capacity or disk.

[tooki]

Oh, ok! Thanks for the clarification.

[sdancer75]

In my humble opinion, the ROM as storage in our mobile devices, it should be called embedded capacity or disk.

I bet in your opinion you never say current flows.

In contrast! All the time  :-)