Rpi3 w/ matrix

I haven't tried to install the RPI4 release to RPI3 but i will try it out of curiosity (Probly won't even boot). However, I have tried to run the nightlies for RPI3 and unfortunately, i am guessing because nightlies have started using Kodi 20, some addons refuse to work now.

RPi3 boots and runs fine with the exception of no hardware deinterlace, no 3D support, an dno optimised software HEVC support. If you use it for H264 and a more limited range of media it's very stable.

I confirm that Libreelec 10 released for RPI4 actually works on RPI 3.

My bad. Libreelec 10 (RPI4 release) causes system freezes on RPI3. I guess it will need its own release.

Our userbase has a large number of people using DVB features with RPi2/3 hardware so we are waiting (and actively working on) hardware deinterlace support. Once that's in a public-testable state we will probably release an LE10.0.x "beta" for RPi2/3 users and encourage people to shake out the issues. There will still be a moderate percentage of pitch-fork waving villagers complaining about the loss of optimised HEVC support too; but since that's unlikely to be reimplemented we'll just have to weather that storm.

Quote from chewitt

There will still be a moderate percentage of pitch-fork waving villagers complaining about the loss of optimised HEVC support too; but since that's unlikely to be reimplemented we'll just have to weather that storm.

I remember that i read somewhere that it was claimed if USA wanted to do another manned mission to the moon, it would be so difficult and risky to make it happen despite all the modern technologies, because the "know-how" was somewhat lost after all the years of not going to the moon. They'd just have to recalculate and redesign everything from sctratch. I think that is a good analogy for the hevc situation

The knowledge hasn't been lost, but the patches to make it work are large and invasive and much of the code needs to be rewritten from scratch as GBM/V4L2 works completely differently. The work is not impossible to do, but one goal of the GBM/V4L2 work is to upstream everything so that all distros have good media performance on Pi hardware (with a focus on RPi4) not just LE/OSMC who were mad enough to entertain a 50,000 line patchset in the past. The nature of the changes needed for optimised HEVC means they will be hard cum impossible to upstream, and while the percentage of LE users that might want the patches is high, most other distros with an actual patching policy refused the existing patches, so the total percentage of Pi users (all distros) that want the patches is low - and hence the Pi Foundations motivation for reinventing this capability is pretty low. Forcing updates is not their motivation at all, but a few users updating to RPi4 to gain more features including hardware HEVC decode doesn't hurt either.

So i guess i spoke too early. Unfortunately, Libreelec 10 causes system freezes if used on a RPI3. Gotta go back to 9.2 until we have an official release i guess.

i just switched my Rpi3 over to OSMC.

OSMC already supports Kodi v19 (Matrix) on the RPi3 (and 2 and 4) with the 2021.08-1 release.

Runs fine. Basically the same as Libre. Default skin is different but can easily be changed. The other skin is already installed.

There are also plugins to manage the Pi and underlying linux, just like with Libre.

Quote from SlurmMcKenzie

i just switched my Rpi3 over to OSMC.

OSMC already supports Kodi v19 (Matrix) on the RPi3 (and 2 and 4) with the 2021.08-1 release.

Runs fine. Basically the same as Libre. Default skin is different but can easily be changed. The other skin is already installed.

There are also plugins to manage the Pi and underlying linux, just like with Libre.

I could not find a way to direct the audio to my bluetooth speakers in OSMC so i couldn't use it much. But you are right, it is pretty much the same thing. I'd like to try more if they somehow made the bluetooth easier.