Official LE11 Test Images for Amlogic (Kodi-20)

    Hi chewitt , thanks for the updated K20 image.

    I just tried in on my S905 Box out of interest.

    The image is in comparision to the K19 more unstable (expected as Kodi is alpha) and crashes a lot.

    But with that Image it is possible to watch LiveTV in Mpeg2, which was not possible for your K19 images. Therefore the software decoder for Mpeg2 works good.

    Quote from kodiuser1

    I have a Vorke Z6 with a S912 and 3G ram. Ive tried both of the gxm device trees but cant get it to boot.

    Both? .. there are at least 8x device-trees for GXM boxes and they are all mostly identical. If none of those work .. /shrug unless you attach a UART cable and share the u-boot serial console output so we can see where it gets stuck. Note the device-tree process is different in mainline images: You need to use the "box" image and edit the dtb name in uEnv.ini. if you start renamng files like legacy images do that's one reason none will boot.

    The LE 10.80.0 (Nexus) images in my team share https://chewitt.libreelec.tv/testing/ contain an experimental fix from Martin B for "the noise" that can be experienced with GXBB, GXL and GXM devices using the AIU audio driver. If you have an S905, S905X/D/W/Y or S912 device; please reduce volume on your TV or AVR, update the image, then spend a few minutes navigating around and fiddling with switches and options in the Kodi audio settings page (normally an easy way to provoke that audio problem). Please post back with success or reports of 'the noise' or crackling or other audio oddities you experience?

    NB: These images have partially workiing hardware decode again, using the same ffmpeg patch-set as Raspnerry Pi. This is progress, but it means playback is worse in real-terms since ~50% of things now fail, whereas recent images had software-only decode (completely broken hardware decode) where 100% of 1080p media plays within CPU limits. TL/DR; If you're trying to run these images for daily use, you probably want to disable hardware decoding.

    Quote from chewitt

    Both? .. there are at least 8x device-trees for GXM boxes and they are all mostly identical. If none of those work .. /shrug unless you attach a UART cable and share the u-boot serial console output so we can see where it gets stuck. Note the device-tree process is different in mainline images: You need to use the "box" image and edit the dtb name in uEnv.ini. if you start renamng files like legacy images do that's one reason none will boot.

    Ah helps if you edit the uEnv.ini Booted first time with meson-gxm-q200.dtb for a S912 Vorke Z6 if anyone is asking. Thanks

    The dedicated Hub image is for my experiements with mainline u-boot (on SD card) which requires the emmc storage to be erased. It works well for WP2 but not Hub for some reason - to be investigated sometime when I have time. If you have vendor u-boot installed still the 'box' image is the one to use.

    PCM audio still has some issues with channel mapping but Pass-Through HDMI audio should work fine.

    crazyturk Are you using a full-size SD card or a micro-SD in an adapter? - I have problems with adapters; most of the ones I have do not work with the box, but one "works enough" for the box to read mainline u-boot in the first 1MB from the SD card, and this will then search and find extlinux.conf on a USB stick to boot the box. Once I was able to boot into LE I could download the image to /storage and write it to eMMC with "emmctool".. and from that point I no longer need the USB stick and SD card arrangement. It helps to watch the boot process; the DB9 port on the rear is wired for UART.

    The LE11 images in my share are updated with changes that restore hardware-decoding in ffmpeg, thanks to Raspberry Pi Foundation devs who are interested to see their v4l2_m2m patchest for RPi working on other devices - which is a bit of a detour from their day-job but will help them upstream RPi support at some point. Seeking in playing media does not currently work, but we are still exploring how that might be done. It won't be a quick thing to solve, but keep your fingers crossed.

    One rather positive outcome of more-stable ffmpeg is 8-bit HEVC working nicely on GXBB/GXL/GXM devices, and on GXL/GXM this now allows 4K/HDR media playback to work (Yes, HDR!). GXBB also supports 4K HEVC, but as most 4K HEVC media is HDR (which GXBB lacks) and 4K H264 is not implemented in the current driver; so in practical terms GXBB remains a 1080p device.

    On newer G12A/G12B/SM1 hardware support for 8-bit HEVC media should be okay, but 10-bit HEVC media (most/all 4K HDR media) crashes the hardware decoder and locks-up the board. It's something that needs to be poked - or perhaps we can disable the 10-bit path and force 8-bit ouptut to make things more usable until someone has time to investigate it properly.

    All things considered, it's been a good week for progress :)

    kodiuser1 I've deleted all the LE10 images from my share now (as no intention to maintain them) so all images are pre-Alpha Nexus (K20) but at this point in the Kodi cycle the DB versions haven't changed and I'm not aware of any Kodi bugs that break anything. Use the 'box' image and set the dtb name in uEnv.ini to something suitable for whatever the box is (S912 devices are all very simliar).