Leia ALPHA Video Playback

1st Official Post

    Hello, I'll apologize right off the bat for this running long and for any questions with obvious answers I might pose, but I am as inexperienced as possible with any aspect of coding and development, im not even able to use command lines for the work, i always just mount the images ( always praying that the releases are presented in a simple mountable image).

    Anyway, I downloaded the most recent Leia ALPHA onto my Odroid-C2 onto a micro sd and so far its been amazing. the one thing i can never understand (and the point of this thread) is: what determines whether or not a newer, high quality file MOV or MKV-h.265, etc can play - is it more to do with a setting or a bug fix, or rather ffmpg work and codecs like that. again, I have very little grasp, so even those words im sure im using incorectly, i dont really have a clue.

    For example:


    Different releases of LE have either played the .264, 265 MKV files or not, but it seems like some MKV work right now and some dont, thats my biggest question: when a new h.265 MKV might freeze during playback is it always a bug to be fixed or can it just be a setting or codec that needs to be applied?

    Hopefully someone has an idea of what I'm talking about, but most importantly could explain it in such a way that a simpleton could understand it.

    Thanks for any info, and I can also give you any video file information that you might need to answer the question, at the moment it is h.265 MKV files that work perfect on any other setup, but for some reason certain ones will play an others won't. Thanks again for anything you can do, and also thanks so much to all the people that helped with the release, it was been great so far.

    • Official Post

    The main factor is the hardware and what it's technically capable of playing. For example; Odroid C2 has an S905 chip (not S905X, S905D or other lettered variants). This means it can play 8-bit H.264 media and 8-bit or 10-bit H.265 (HEVC) media. It will not play 10-bit H.264 (it will try to software decode it, but the CPU can't cope) and it will not play 10-bit HEVC files with HDR encoding (as the original S905 doesn't support HDR). To get a more specific answer you'll need to share a Kodi debug log that shows the problem media being played. The log has information on the encoding (and other factors) and from there we can make more educated guesses on what the problems are. Sometimes it's unsupported media. Sometimes it's just badly encoded media.

    Thanks for the information, I really appreciate taking time for an answer. At the moment, the C2 is installed and I cant access it to check anything - the whole thing setup was a gift and its currently working great for them. I guess my only other question (if you have advice) is whether or not there is a good sbc that might function better as a universal player when i purchase a new one. If i was looking to buy a board that had the best chance of playing any video type i throw at it (MKV, WMV, MOV, etc.); in your opinion: would N1 be a good one, or the LE potato, or even a specific ras pi. Thanks again, much appreciated.

    • Official Post

    LePotato is a nice board (similar, but better designed than C2) but it has core weakness of all S905X devices; only 10/100 Ethernet. The better option would be an S905D device with GB Ethernet, but beware that some also ship with 10/100. Odroid N1 was cancelled. N2 will be along in a bit (but no ideas on it) and the H1 that HK have just announced probably isn't cheap but will have the advantage of being x86_64 and thus less exotic to support compared to ARM hardware. NUC's are good too.

    NB: If it works, don't fix it :)

    Chewitt, thank you so much for the information, you have been a great help. I understand the Ethernet issue, that's very good to know; so for my specific setup (playing videos from a hard drive in a playroom - not connected or using the internet at all) is it safe to say that - aside from the Ethernet problem- the LE potato should be a better choice for simple player over a C2 in that situation? Again, im sure im reducing an intricate question into the most dumbed down terms of: which ones better, but i have really no technical knowledge at all.

    Also just a question of etiquette on forums, but since you've answered my questions, should i edit the thread title to read something like {SOLVED} or anything like that, never sure how to end the thread after ive gotten the info I need. Thanks again you've been a great help.