Choppy 4k playback on RPi 4

    I got a new TV this week. Finally took the step from plasma to OLED to get 4k.

    I got a RPi 4, 4Gb running at 1.5 GHz in a Flirc case. The network is wired and deliver way over RPi capacity when mesured with my computer. I use LE 11.0.1 and I have modified my config.txt according to the instructions with force_turbo=1 and hdmi_enable_4kp60=1.

    I feel like the playback on some H265 in 4k feels choppy, for example in one movie a car chase scene was quite bad. H264 in 4k is unwatchable.

    First of I cant find a way to get an on screen detailed information about the playback (buffer, skipped frames and so on). I remember to be able to do so with Kodi in the past.

    Second I thought RPi 4 was the way to go according this forum.

    Does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve my experience, or is the RPi 4 just underpowered?

    • Best Answer

    RPi4 does not support 4K H264 hardware decoding so bad (CPU decoding) results are expected. It supports 4K only with HEVC.

    I'd suggest reading this https://wiki.libreelec.tv/configuration/4k-hdr to ensure the whitelist and other settings are optimal. I would remove force_turbo and hdmi_enable_4kp60 as 99% of 4K HEVC media in circulation is 4K@30 or [email protected] and thus 4K60 which forces the SoC to run permanently in a more resource-demanding mode is not normally required.

    I run an RPi4 as the family daily-driver without any real-world issues. It's miles more reliable than other devices I have.

    Thanks for your quick response! Will give it another try with suggested settings. Have to wait though since TV broke down after 5h of use. It’s working but the screen is completely black. 🤣