[Sunvell T95X] HEVC Playback

I just installed meson version on my two android boxes: Sunvell T95X (S905X, 1G) and a MagicSee N5 (S905L, 2G).

I was using CE 9.2.8 (in both) since 2019.

From a software point of view, they seem to be working perfectly but from a player point of view I have huge problems playing videos, especially using seek.

This is my second day and my T95X, now, often refuses to play at all - the indication is the video is playing (playing counter keep going up) but no video or audio. Skin still working fine.

My video collection is mostly FullHD x265 (basically, 80% of my collection).

Is this to be expected at this stage? Where can I find a "known bugs" list?

Quote from chewitt

Maybe, it all depends on the media being played .. and in the release notes that I write and nobody reads.

I've read, but is says "Support for Amlogic S905, S905X/D, and S912 devices resumes. H264 playback and seeking is solid. HEVC playback is okay and seeking recently improved from 2/10 to maybe 7/10".
Since my experience, problems starting video playback, was more in 2/10 realm, I was trying to get some more info (searching "seek" in this thread lead me nowhere, so maybe I'm doing something wrong).
I turned to H265 a long time ago, not only because files are way small but the crispiness is also in a much higher level compared to H264.

All in all, a great job from you (a $20 android box should be retired by now but you make in run like a modern PC )

I can confirm is much work with H265 than with H264 files.

• Sometimes, I boot up and works just fine (start from beginning of file) and even get two (10 minute) seek jumps fine, but the third one fails (it seems to fill the cache really fast but doesn't resume video playing).
• Sometimes, H265 files don't even start and H264 files are also not perfect (they don't appear to be as smooth as normal and seek also often fails at some point).
• Sometimes, H265 files start but video are not smooth and get behind sound - pausing stops audio immediatly but video will continue until it catchs up with audio pause position.

All tests with the same files, not diffent ones.

Those same boxes work very well with CE 9.2.8 (didn't test LE equivelant versions), the hardware in competent enough, so I hope for a LE solution (I really prefer LE over CE, everything is just simpler, cleaner, for instance I'm using the same LE for different boxes, not possible with CE)

(the same happens with last nightly LE 12)

Quote from chewitt

If the AMLGX image works for you, that's great. If it doesn't work for you, don't expect anything to change. I've done zero work on Amlogic hardware since April and have no plan to change that until someone shows up with new hardware decode drivers. Comparisons with CE are irrelevant due to 100% of the media driver code being different.

It's really a shame (and, in a sense, an environmental crime) send to garbage a pair of fully hardware capable boxes just because there's no software to drive it (in these case, a just a tiny part of it).

Thanks, perhaps it's time to move on (to Raspberry Pi 4, perhaps?).

Quote from chewitt

RPi4 isn't the higest-spec board, but everything on it works and the ongoing software support we receive from Raspberry Pi is the gold-standard that all other SoC vendors fail to achieve. Now that supplies seem to be resolved, it's worth considering. Or you can stick with the CE image; it might be cluttered and over-tweaked in places, but if it works..

I start to get problems with 18.9 addons (library start to get messed up) and returning here to LE 11/12 was a spark in the darkness . Everything is so simple, plain simple, thanks to your work (it's very hard to make things simple!).

Perhaps I'll try to update the most recent box co newer CE, but the other one (Android 6) may not be possible.
LE 11 gave theses boxes the same performance, which is great. Just missing a robust H265 hardware decode.

Quote from chewitt

LibreComputer are funding someone to work on the HEVC driver (which does HEVC, VP9 and H264 on newer hardware) but we have recently learned that developer's approach/effort for the last three months has ended in a dead-end; which is both annoying and rather predictable since they didn't share their WIP code with people who'd have pointed out the wrong move earlier. Hopefully in the mid-term future there is something to share as the rest of the codebase is quite usable.

I really hope so. It's just bitter to see a competent/cheap/low power hardware, very capable media center , sent to trash just because code is not available anymore.
I known what capable means, I use one of mine in a home theater setup, 110" projector screen, 7.1 sound system (God knowns how many watts!!! )

The other... in a 24" kitchen TV!

More so when it comes to think about kodi addons - I put my boxes to use again with CE 9.2.8 (3.x krenel) using different media scrappers. The system software/driver component is not just working fine, it's working great.
Tried the recent CE 20.2 and the audio driver has problems in my HT setup, not been capable of passthrough some audio stream (AC3, TrueHD, etc..., but does DTS just fine). If I remember correctly, LE worked great in that regard.

But Kodi's not working addons impose, for me, an unnecessary upgrade. It's just a matter of time before another addon fails and force me into a definitive change of the whole system... because an addon is not maintained anymore...