HW deinterlacing

**jernej** · June 13, 2020 at 10:11 PM Official Post

DEPRECATED: Patches were merged into main LE repo

Someone here who would like to test HW deinterlacing and report back findings?

~~H3 update: LibreELEC-H3.arm-9.80-devel-20201122150642-4bd5978.tar~~

~~H6 update: LibreELEC-H6.arm-9.80-devel-20201122150517-4bd5978.tar~~

~~source:~~ ~~Commits · jernejsk/LibreELEC.tv · GitHub~~

Known issue:

If display refresh rate is lower than double of video fps, audio and video will go out of sync. Bigger the difference, bigger sync issue.

Workaround 1:

Make sure that display refresh rate is higher than double of video fps. Easiest way to do that, is to set 1920x1080@60Hz display mode which most monitors and TVs should support nowadays.

Workaround 2:

If previous workaround isn't possible, change DRMPRIME render method to EGL. It will be less efficient but it will still avoid the problem.

lumpi · June 13, 2020 at 10:32 PM

Quote from jernej

Someone here who would like to test HW deinterlacing and report back findings?

H3 update: LibreELEC-H3.arm-9.80-devel-20200613185701-ebc62d6-deint.tar

H6 update: LibreELEC-H6.arm-9.80-devel-20200613175625-ebc62d6-deint.tar

source: Commits · jernejsk/LibreELEC.tv · GitHub

It's not polished yet, but if there are no big issues, it might be already useable.

Trying, just taking out my x2, will report back once i tried it.

Edit: first impression is good, seems to run stable, not yet sure I already watched interlaced content. Maybe it adds a bit to motion blur?

Edit 2: Didn't find any real problems, it easily has nightly quality.

The only point I feel that might be slightly affected is some less smooth movements, but I can't really tell. If there is something it's very subtle.

zillevdr · June 14, 2020 at 10:45 AM

Hello Jernej,

Thank you very mutch for the update!

With old LE version from 20191215 and your update there is only a red plane.

Then I loaded the nightly LE from 20200613 and updated it. This doesn't deinterlace. Must I switch deinterlacing anywhere on?

I tested with ts 1080i_h264 and 576i_mpeg2 from german TV. If you want this files I can send a link.

**jernej** · June 14, 2020 at 11:44 AM Official Post

Which board?

zillevdr · June 14, 2020 at 12:43 PM

Quote from jernej

Which board?

BananaPi M2+ with H3.

runnershigh · June 17, 2020 at 2:03 PM

Quote from jernej

Someone here who would like to test HW deinterlacing and report back findings?

H3 update: LibreELEC-H3.arm-9.80-devel-20200613185701-ebc62d6-deint.tar

H6 update: LibreELEC-H6.arm-9.80-devel-20200613175625-ebc62d6-deint.tar

source: Commits · jernejsk/LibreELEC.tv · GitHub

It's not polished yet, but if there are no big issues, it might be already useable.

First impression:

Looks great. Locks perfect. (I'm watching 20 min now)

Board: MXQ 4K H3

What I did:

Flashed my SD Card with "LibreELEC-H3.arm-9.80-nightly-20200617-eb556b1-libretech-h3.img.gz"

But the update with LibreELEC-H3.arm-9.80-devel-20200613185701-ebc62d6-deint.tar crashed the system.

So I flashed the SD card again and made minimum configs in LE.

Via ssh: LibreELEC:~ # mount -o remount,rw /flash/

Then I copied the files KERNEL and SYSTEM from the "LibreELEC-H3.arm-9.80-devel-20200613185701-ebc62d6-deint.tar" unziped "target" folder to the flash folder in LE.

LibreELEC:~ # sync && reboot

All is doing well.

Btw. reboot doesn't work, I have always to plug the power adapter AND the sd card.

zillevdr · June 17, 2020 at 7:00 PM

Quote from runnershigh

Looks great. Locks perfect. (I'm watching 20 min now)

With interlaced videos? Here the hw deinterlacer doesn't work.

**jernej** · June 17, 2020 at 9:15 PM Official Post

I just moved talk about deinterlacing into new thread so the posts don't get lost in huge topic. Anyway, I made a few more improvements and I'll upload new test images soon and I'll update OP with links to them including with a list of known issues and workarounds.

runnershigh · June 17, 2020 at 11:22 PM

Quote from zillevdr

With interlaced videos? Here the hw deinterlacer doesn't work.

Sky Sport Bundesliga HD (Germany, 1920x1080i Astra 19,2e, encrypted)

This channel sends only interlaced material.

After jernej's update perfect picture.

Can send a sample, but only as test, bc. highly copyrighted.

**jernej** · June 18, 2020 at 7:23 PM Official Post

I updated images in OP. Now deinterlacing works pretty well for me, apart from the small issue mentioned in OP.

Changelog:

- proper cleanup of resources

- it's possible to turn off and on deinterlacing in video settings on the fly

- detection for HW deinterlacing (H3 and H6 have it, so this doesn't change anything for these two SoCs)

- crash fixes in some corner cases

Please report any issue. It's also possible that issue is in decoder (turn off deinterlacing and see if issue is still there). Anyway, I accept both type of issue reports but then please also provide video sample which triggers the issue.

Note that Kodi is updated and also uses new addon location. You may need to start from fresh state if addons won't work.

lumpi · June 18, 2020 at 9:35 PM

I updated but found not a single working add on to play any video, trying with some video from sd card

**jernej** · June 18, 2020 at 9:45 PM Official Post

Yeah, I know, annoying. That's why I hardly use any addon during development and use sample video files for testing purposes. Anyway, I installed PVR simple addon without issue but I'm not sure if it works correctly (no playlists to test).

lumpi · June 18, 2020 at 9:51 PM

found an m2t mpeg transport stream with h.264 video, and unfortunately audio and video are out of sync by a couple of seconds also every now and then some hiccups (fraction of a second stops).

Not sure if it's a deinterlacer issue.

Do you know how to get info on the used vodeo codecs and settings? Just can't seem to find that button on the remote...

Edit:

Just switched deinterlacing off and glitches are still there, also the loss of sync is there but seems bit less...

Trying a different container soon

P.S. is it normal I can only post again after 30 minutes? It's sometimes quite annoying and doesn't help the communication flow.

**jernej** · June 18, 2020 at 9:55 PM Official Post

Did you check issue mentioned in OP? If you're using for example 4K@30Hz display, like I did at first, you'll have such issue.

lumpi · June 18, 2020 at 9:59 PM

Oh ok got a new TV my 8years old Samsung was better for such tests.

Maybe it's possible to limit resolution to 1080p?

Tried changing resolution to 1080p/60 and it seems better now.

How come this happens? That's a new thing right?

Video looks good now, now just have to find out if its interlaced content...

**jernej** · June 18, 2020 at 10:05 PM Official Post

You can change resolution and refresh rate in display settings You can even set refresh rate to be selected automatically depending on video size and fps, but this option is in video player settings. To be honest, 4k resolution is actually useful only for 4k videos. You'll get better (more fluent) playback with lower resolutions which allow higher refresh rates. Anyway, H6 has potential to surpass this but HDMI driver is not there yet.

lumpi · June 18, 2020 at 10:11 PM

Sorry meant to say to limit it generally on H3 as a default setting.

I guess the mali400 is not really up to the task with 4k GUI

**jernej** · June 18, 2020 at 10:18 PM Official Post

UI is already limited to 1080p (hidden setting, introduced exactly for weaker GPUs), but display can still be at 4K (DRM plane scaling is used). Actual problem here is that decoding and then deinterlacing process produces more frames than renderer is able to display (one frame per vblank - vsync). Naturally, they should be dropped. But this feature is not yet implemented for DRMPRIME direct to plane render method. Same issue you get with progressive, 60 fps video. But as I said, why drop frames if you can enjoy smooth playback with slightly lower resolution which in most cases is same or bigger than video native size.