recommendation for a well supported 4k/H265 capable device?

1st Official Post

    Hi,

    I've been using Libreelec on several Raspberry Pi's, its awesome!

    But now I'm looking for something that can do 4k/H265. I have a couple generic chinese devices with S905W chips, but from what i read in the forums it seems like it will be difficult if not impossible to get them to work.

    The Odroid C2 seems to have nearly the same hardware specs, and is offically supported by the USB-SD creator tool, but they are hard to find and expensive.

    So what device would you recommend I go out and buy to get 4k/h265 up and running easily? I'm looking for something in the $60 range ideally, if that exists.

    Thanks!

    • Official Post

    Odroid C2 is a nice board, but it launched in 2015 so it's not something to consider today. Lots of devices based on Amlogic, Allwinner and Rockchip chips are technically more capable and cheaper than an RPi4 but the software support is always going to be more challenging. RPi4 does 4K, hardware decoded HEVC, HDR, and HBR audio and it will receive the same A1++ software support you've seen on older Pi devices.

    Thanks for the quick reply!

    I just went and picked up a Raspberry 4PiB on ebay for about $75. Seemed a little cheap, but I read you can do /proc/cpuinfo to verify if its really an ARMv8 or if they are selling mislabeled counterfeits.

    One question though, I read (on a two year old post some where) that it can do 4k but only with h265 files. For h264 files its limited to 1080. Is that still true?

    thanks again.

    • Official Post

    Correct, the BCM2711 in an RPi4 is essentially the same BCM2837 chip used in the RPi3/2/1 (with the same capabilities) but with HEVC from a Broadcom IPTV chip bolted-on to handle the 4K HEVC (8/10/12-bit, HDR) needs of the 99.9999% of 4K media in circulation. It's rare to find 4K H264 in broadcast media, and other ripped content can either be re-ripped or re-encoded easily.

    Look at the Amlogic (Coreelec) chipset as well. In the $60 range one of the S905X3 based boxes/boards will do you well. If you spend a little more you can find something S922x based (Odroid N2+) which is about as good of a SBC can do with Kodi right now.

    BTW. /proc/cpuinfo may return a quite different responses - it depends on OS / kernel versions and it's always a question what's the truth...

    For instance - I have RPi 4B/1GB and RPi 4B/2GB models, both bought from the trusted distributor and I believe they are original, the difference should be just RAM size:

    RPi 4B/1GB, Linux LibreELEC 5.10.46 #1 SMP Thu Jul 8 21:09:40 CEST 2021 armv7l GNU/Linux:

    cat /proc/cpuinfo

    processor : 0

    model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 3 (v7l)

    BogoMIPS : 270.25

    Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32

    CPU implementer : 0x41

    CPU architecture: 7

    CPU variant : 0x0

    CPU part : 0xd08

    CPU revision : 3

    processor : 1

    model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 3 (v7l)

    BogoMIPS : 270.25

    Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32

    CPU implementer : 0x41

    CPU architecture: 7

    CPU variant : 0x0

    CPU part : 0xd08

    CPU revision : 3

    processor : 2

    model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 3 (v7l)

    BogoMIPS : 270.25

    Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32

    CPU implementer : 0x41

    CPU architecture: 7

    CPU variant : 0x0

    CPU part : 0xd08

    CPU revision : 3

    processor : 3

    model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 3 (v7l)

    BogoMIPS : 270.25

    Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32

    CPU implementer : 0x41

    CPU architecture: 7

    CPU variant : 0x0

    CPU part : 0xd08

    CPU revision : 3

    Hardware : BCM2711

    Revision : a03111

    Serial : 10000000674*****

    Model : Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.1


    RPi 4B/2GB, Linux LE 5.10.52 #1 SMP Tue Aug 24 10:48:20 CEST 2021 aarch64 GNU/Linux:

    cat /proc/cpuinfo

    processor : 0

    BogoMIPS : 108.50

    Features : fp asimd evtstrm crc32 cpuid

    CPU implementer : 0x41

    CPU architecture: 8

    CPU variant : 0x0

    CPU part : 0xd08

    CPU revision : 3

    processor : 1

    BogoMIPS : 108.50

    Features : fp asimd evtstrm crc32 cpuid

    CPU implementer : 0x41

    CPU architecture: 8

    CPU variant : 0x0

    CPU part : 0xd08

    CPU revision : 3

    processor : 2

    BogoMIPS : 108.50

    Features : fp asimd evtstrm crc32 cpuid

    CPU implementer : 0x41

    CPU architecture: 8

    CPU variant : 0x0

    CPU part : 0xd08

    CPU revision : 3

    processor : 3

    BogoMIPS : 108.50

    Features : fp asimd evtstrm crc32 cpuid

    CPU implementer : 0x41

    CPU architecture: 8

    CPU variant : 0x0

    CPU part : 0xd08

    CPU revision : 3

    Hardware : BCM2835

    Revision : b03111

    Serial : 10000000894*****

    Model : Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.1

    • Official Post
    Quote from ghtester

    RPi 4B/1GB

    Kindly RMA the 1GB version if you can, unless you plan to do other things with it like home automation, server or things like Pi-Hole with it. 1GB has proven to act a like a clogging funnel for high(er) bitrate videos in several devices. It's like with PC's and the like, the more internal memory the bigger the jacket for the OS. Although LibreELEC itself is okay, depending on the video source, things can cause hiccups.

    Thanks for the comment but as my RPi 4B/1GB is working fine and has no HW issue (except the known USB-C power profile bug), I am afraid there's no reason for RMA (yes it would be nice to replace it with 2GB for free :-)). Nevertheless, it's a great piece of HW with many use cases, even with 1GB RAM.

    Thanks for all the replies. The one I ordered is 4GB, so it should be fine.

    I just realized I am a dumb**s. I thought I got a good deal on ebay for $75, but I just realized that the official RaspberryPi site (through American Raspberry Pi Shop) has the 4GB in stock for $64, including shipping.

    How much do the 4B's usually cost for you guys?

    Quote from gadget_guy

    I thought I got a good deal on ebay for $75, but I just realized that the official RaspberryPi site

    CanaKit is another good option for the US as well, I think they are Canada based. But I have gotten good deals from their Amazon store, better than their direct store.