Available video players with hw decoder support

[dlu]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to get a grasp on how much development work is needed to utilize the boards potential as a media player device.

As I understand, Kodi is not going to support any Rockchip boards for recent and future Kodi versions (17.3+).

How about other video players under Linux like mpv, mplayer, vlc? Will they be able to play HEVC 4k videos out-of-the-box? Or do the players need to be forked and adapted as happened with RKMC?

Regards
 Damian

[fire219]

A distinction I would like to make here is that even though Kodi devs will not (for now) officially support Kodi running on Rock64, the Android app version does run and works quite well with 1080p@30 and 720p@60 video. I've tested it myself. (I do not have 4k test footage, but others' reports say it's iffy)

I have not tried the likes of mpv and VLC on Linux and do not remember hearing from anyone else who has done so. But I will test this for you tomorrow if I remember to do so.

[dlu]

Hi,

Kodi devs will not (for now) officially support Kodi running on Rock64

The devs won't change their decision as long as it is necessary on Rockchip boards to circumvent the Android APIs in order to get Kodi running (smoothly or full-featured, I'm not sure).

the Android app version does run and works quite well with 1080p@30 and 720p@60 video.

Which version is it? Stock play store 17.3?

But I will test this for you tomorrow if I remember to do so.

That would be nice, thanks.

Regards
Damian

[r00t3d]

Will any older version of Kodi work?
I purchased two of these boards with intentions to use as media servers with Kodi, maybe I should have done additional homework if I cannot play 4K@60fps

[dlu]

Will any older version of Kodi work?
I purchased two of these boards with intentions to use as media servers with Kodi, maybe I should have done additional homework if I cannot play 4K@60fps

Probably not. There is RKMC [1], a fork off Kodi 16.1. However, Rock64's RK3328 is not mentioned and not included in [2]. Because the contents of [2] are compiled libraries, I suppose one cannot compile them for the newer RK3328 oneself due to lack of sources for presumably librkmcplayer.so and libvpu.so. The libmpp.so is a hint for what the Kodi devs meant by circumventing the android API - they have their own one [3]. Their wiki probably also answers my own question. There are no players that will work out-of-the-box. The best chance to get something running is a gstreamer based player like totem - if you manage to build and use their gstreamer plugin. Other players like mpv that use ffmpeg directly, will need an adapted version that uses Rockchip's Mpp, as seen in the System Diagram.

Mpp plans to support serval userspace applications including OpenMax, FFmpeg,gstreamer, libva.

So far I have only seen the gstreamer plugin.

Regards
 Damian

[1] https://github.com/JamesLinEngineer/RKMC
[2] https://github.com/JamesLinEngineer/RKMC...MC-Patches
[3] http://opensource.rock-chips.com/wiki_Mpp
[4] https://github.com/rockchip-linux/gstreamer-rockchip

[skyway]

Exactly why i bought the rock64. Powerfull Kodi media center, but now i'm asking myself why i bought it without making some research first? ..it's gonna hang in the drawer now ..

[r00t3d]

Exactly why i bought the rock64. Powerfull Kodi media center, but now i'm asking myself why i bought it without making some research first? ..it's gonna hang in the drawer now ..

same here bud, I will make use of it for something else however, it's still a very powerful SB.

[Luke]

I am scratching my head here - I just ran a 4k30fps video on the LibreELEC alpha without any major issues. 4k60fps was glitchy. But so is the whole build ... its an alpha. Am I missing something ?  Do keep in mind that the board isn't out yet and all things are in early development... 

[edit] Below is a short clip from LibreELEC alpha 3 running a 4k30fps clip. 



[edit 2] Worth mentioning that I had smooth 4k playback on android for those who are system agnostic.

[skyway]

Just cleared some things over irc. There's hope. Things are much in "prototype" so, eventally will be some mediacenter solution. I've been told that kodi on android works fine.. I think there will be kodi.. Sooner or later.

The rumours say that kodi isn't supported well on rockchips..

[Luke]

Just cleared some things over irc. There's hope. Things are much in "prototype" so, eventally will be some mediacenter solution. I've been told that kodi on android works fine.. I think there will be kodi.. Sooner or later.

The rumours say that kodi isn't supported well on rockchips..

Kodi on android works well - although 4k playback worked better for me in VLC (but Kodi worked well too) ... did you see the edits to my previous post ?