VC-1 Playback on RK3328

kapqa · February 8, 2024 at 9:01 AM

Hello ,

yes the newer LibreElec is mostly very stable for the RK3328 Rock64 , however it still would struggle with the VC-1 content, slowing down and eventually reboot. dont know why, as it supposed to have to hardware decoding for such content. maybe the Bluray rips via makemkv is using a codec that is not so well supported?

now with the rp3 b+, the playback is smooth *with hardware keys for vc1, but again, have to disable wifi everytime manually if i load another OS, which is cumbersome.

hope to find another SBC that could work well with LibreElec sometime later.

noggin · February 8, 2024 at 9:30 AM

Quote from kapqa

Hello ,
yes the newer LibreElec is mostly very stable for the RK3328 Rock64 , however it still would struggle with the VC-1 content, slowing down and eventually reboot. dont know why, as it supposed to have to hardware decoding for such content. maybe the Bluray rips via makemkv is using a codec that is not so well supported?
now with the rp3 b+, the playback is smooth *with hardware keys for vc1, but again, have to disable wifi everytime manually if i load another OS, which is cumbersome.

hope to find another SBC that could work well with LibreElec sometime later.

MakeMKV rips Blu-rays and DVDs in their native codec - so a VC-1 Blu-ray is ripped in VC-1, an h.264 Blu-ray is ripped in h.264, an MPEG2 DVD or Blu-ray is ripped in MPEG2. MakeMKV doesn't change the codec or use its own - it just rips and re-wraps from VOB (DVD) or m2ts (Blu-ray) to mkv containers, also allowing you to remove certain streams (such as audio tracks or subtitles you don't want).

Some platforms cope differently with interlaced and progressive VC-1. Interlaced VC-1 is used on 1080i25/1080i29.97 TV show releases, progressive VC-1 in 1080p23.976/24 format is used for most movies and some TV shows. Often you find interlaced VC-1 is more of a problem than progressive. MediaInfo (a free solution) will tell you all you need to know about your files (run it on a PC, Mac or Linux platform)

Don't understand your comment about having to disable WiFi as you change OS. (I assume you mean as you change MicroSD card with different OSs on them in the Pi?)

kapqa · February 8, 2024 at 11:25 AM

noggin thank you for the clarification on makemkv,

i have read somewhere that VC-1 come in very differnt implementation, and some codec are not so well supported.

also, the codec on RP1 says WVC1 or similar, when entering the key, but it playback vc1 very good.

however, the Rock64 supposed to have VC1 playback hardware, but not so well function

like

Quote

Rock64
Digital Video output até 4K@60Hz
· 4K HDR @ 60fps
· H.264/AVC Base/Main/High/High10 profile @ level 5.1; até 4Kx2K @ 60fps
· H.265/HEVC Main/Main10 profile @ level 5.1 High-tier; até 4Kx2K @ 60fps
· VP9, até 4Kx2K @ 60fps
· MPEG-1, ISO/IEC 11172-2, até 1080P @ 60fps
· MPEG-2, ISO/IEC 13818-2, SP@ML, MP@HL, até 1080P @ 60fps
· MPEG-4, ISO/IEC 14496-2, SP@L0-3, ASP@L0-5, até 1080P @ 60fps
· VC-1, SP@ML, MP@HL, AP@L0-3, até 1080P @ 60fps
· MVC é suportado com base no H.264 ou H.265, até 1080P @ 60fps

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one known offender is having these info

Quote

Video
ID : 1
ID in the original source medium : 4113 (0x1011)
Format : VC-1
Format profile : Advanced@L3
Codec ID : V_MS/VFW/FOURCC / WVC1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Duration : 2 h 58 min
Bit rate : 23.4 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.470
Stream size : 29.1 GiB (74%)
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : Blu-ray

Display More

and like other VC1 it playback for some time on the Rock64 and then stop and reboot<

this happen mostly only with VC1 so i suppose the Hardware Decode is not for all VC1 codec, or my unit is a bit faulty *morelikelythecase, or the implementation on LibreElec is not fully taking advantage of Rock64 capabilities?

noggin · February 8, 2024 at 4:48 PM

WVC-1 is probably just a reflection that VC-1 is a Microsoft-originated codec, now ratified by SMPTE (where it got VC-1 naming) and it has Windows/WMV heritage.

All codecs have a FourCC four-character code - VC-1's is WVC1.

fourcc: WVC1

That codec info you provided confirmed it's not an interlaced issue as the video in that file is progressive.

kapqa · February 8, 2024 at 5:17 PM

Quote from noggin

That codec info you provided confirmed it's not an interlaced issue as the video in that file is progressive.

well this is tech-talk that i dont fully speak, however, i have a NAS now which let me convert these files into other format, so the issue is minor; but still it would be nice to know why the Rock64 is struggling so much with these files;

also one box i have here M96 or something (RK3318), which has RKMC or so installed (specific for Rockchip) has same issue, is struggling alot with VC1, so it make no fun;

hopefully, the RockPro64 could be easily playbacking those. (seems a much better hardware)

**chewitt** · February 9, 2024 at 3:14 AM

RK3328 has VC1 hardware decoding capabilities in silicon, but AFAIK nobody implemented support for them, so decoding will be done in software and most low-power ARM boards are lacking the necessary CPU grunt for the task.

kapqa · February 25, 2024 at 3:56 PM

would also like to mention that the latest LibreElec 11.0.6 would no longer boot or show output on our older TV (nearing 20 years of age) with direct HDMI connection.

The older images 19.5 and 18.9 function just fine on the same TV (especially 18.9 is fluid) , however the newest just wont output any video. It seems the same Rock64 image function however just fine with LibreElec 11.0.6 on a newer Computermonitor.