HEVC / 265 files on a Pi 3B, around 11Mbit, it can't keep up....

1st Official Post

    Hello,

    Not complaining, I'm still super impressed, but is there any tweaks I can do, or do I just accept the limitations of the unit?

    I have 73 movies which happen to be 265 and about 1/3 of them are 11Mbit/ps bitrate I think.

    It seems pretty consistent, I play back the movie, the little heat thing in the corner appears and then it kind of buffers and craps out on me.

    When the temp thing appears, is the system saying "WARNING HOT" or is it saying "WARNING HOT, THROTTLING CPU!" ??

    I could maybe run a fan on the Pi to solve the problem then?

    I'm probably just going to get rid of my 265 files, but I have a few ! So if there's a workaround I'm all ears.

    I was not aware it throttles, I knew it was too hot but the performance scaling down to save the processor is new to me (I know of this, didn't know the pi did it)

    I'll try temporarily running a fan on it of some kind, see if it then gives it the 'oompf' it needs to run a 265 file.

    I have several files I know to be a problem - so thanks guys and I'll report back.

    As far as I know RPi can't play x265, 10bits or 4k files.

    Here a guy said that it can play x265 if is 720p, but I never test.

    I have a similar issue with termometer icon when I use anothers skins than default's Kodi.

    For what I noticed this is because this other skins use more CPU, which makes RPi to heat!

    But from what I read the quality of sd card and power supply influence this too.

    A few months back I did some HEVC testing with various bitrates and a Raspberry Pi 3B+. here are the results:

    Raspberry Pi CPU utilization results:

    30 fps @ 1080P 60 fps @ 720P
    7 mbs 70% 65%
    12 mbs 88% 75%
    15 mbs 100% 85%
    20 mbs 100% failed 90% failed
    25 mbs 100% failed 92% failed


    Failed either means the Raspberry Pi GUI locked up or typically the audio / video got so far out of sync it was unwatchable. I suspect due to video frame drops at high CPU utilization. However, playing 15 mbps HEVC was better than I expected.

    Perhaps my program, is misreporting the bitrate?

    I use Video Explorer, anyone have a suggested local media browser tool to pull info from MKV / AVI etc?

    (it's an old, good app, no longer updated)


    Anyhow, regardless, it is telling me a file is 11Mbit and it can't do it, but the Pi was overheating, still haven't had time to put a fan on it.

    3B though, not 3B+

    Quote from jbinkley60

    Raspberry Pi CPU utilization results:

    30 fps @ 1080P 60 fps @ 720P
    7 mbs 70% 65%
    12 mbs 88% 75%
    15 mbs 100% 85%
    20 mbs 100% failed 90% failed
    25 mbs 100% failed 92% failed

    Am I doing something wrong?

    My file is 1.5 mbs and it just lags.

    Well, it does not crash and audio is not out of sync.

    but it's dropping frames massively. CPU load is rather high. Frame rate goes as low as 8.

    It's full HD@25 frames, Main@L4@Main

    any idea?

    thanks

    1080p25. written by handbrake.

    Libreelec 11.0.3, Raspi 3B+, playing from Network.
    No heatsink. But it does not get warmer than ~ 40°C

    Thanks, I enabled "Adjust Refresh". Had searched for it but hadn't found it yet. You motivated me to try again ;)

    but does not help. :(

    4k does not apply to my set-up.

    On LE11 this is expected, RPi3 doesn't have enough grunt to decode it. LE 9.2.x and earlier contained optimized HEVC decoder code which was dropped in LE10 as it doesn't work with the new graphics stack (and, no, it won't come back).

    TLDR: use LE 9.2.8 on RPi3 if you want to playback HEVC files (or just use H264 files, they work with all LE versions).

    so long,

    Hias

    Hello,

    i am using LibreELEC 9.2.8 on a Pi 3B with a little heatsink installed on the CPU.

    I tested playing HEVC movies and at around 5.5 Mbps Bitrate the thermal throtteling was activated and the movie began to stutter.
    Do you have any advice or experineces whether a bigger passive heatsink (e.g. using the Flirc case) or other optimazations could help me to increase the max. playable bitrate?

    Out of interest: would the usage of the Pi Model 3B+ bring a noticeable performance increase compared to the 3B?

    Thanks. :D