X264: 1080p videos with 16 Reference Frames will not play in DRM PRIME

  • Hello,

    I have recently obtained an RPi 2 and installed LibreELEC.
    It has happily played most video until I tried files I had encoded in my Archive.

    I've done some digging and compared similarly encoded files from another source that play perfectly fine, they have AVC 4.1 and reference frames encoded between 4 up to 9.
    My videos are encoded as AVC 5.1 with 16 reference frames, and will only play audio, the screen freezes and GUI elements start leaving trails on the screen. If I press top, the screen returns to normal.
    I have tested the videos on several versions of LibreELEC, from 19 all the way to the 21 nightly build, and the result is the same.
    However.. I am able to play a video encoded the same way (16 ref frames) without any issues, but has a lower cropped resolution of 1920x800.

    For my current videos I have test encoded with 9 reference frames and they play perfectly, but I have no wish to re-encode my entire back catalogue.
    If I post up a couple of clips regarding the issues i have described, would it be possible for the Devs to look into this and come up with a bug fix?

  • Code
    2024-02-27 08:12:23.466 T:553      INFO <general>: Starting Kodi (19.5 (19.5.0) Git:19.5-Matrix). Platform: Linux ARM 32-bit
    2024-02-27 08:12:23.466 T:553      INFO <general>: Using Release Kodi x32
    2024-02-27 08:12:23.466 T:553      INFO <general>: Kodi compiled 2023-01-07 by GCC 10.2.0 for Linux ARM 32-bit version 5.10.110 (330350)
    2024-02-27 08:12:23.466 T:553      INFO <general>: Running on BCM2835 with LibreELEC (official): 10.0.4, kernel: Linux ARM 32-bit version 5.10.110
    2024-02-27 08:12:23.466 T:553      INFO <general>: FFmpeg version/source: 4.3.2-Kodi

    The non-working file plays fine here, but RPi5 doesn't support H264 H/W decode and ffmpeg is software decoding the file. Please retest with a current LE12 nightly and run "pastekodi" and share the URL.

  • My videos are encoded as AVC 5.1 with 16 reference frames, and will only play audio, the screen freezes and GUI elements start leaving trails on the screen. If I press top, the screen returns to normal.

    The Pi hardware decode is only specced for level 4.1 (which is the BluRay standard).

    Don't encode videos like that.

    If you set gpu_mem (in config.txt) high enough, the videos will probably play, but you may have issues with the reduction in arm side memory this results in.

  • gpu_mem changed to 96.
    Non-working video tested and is now working, no issues playing with DRM PRIME.

    Thank you for pointing me to this popcornmix

    chewitt - I've uploaded the log file as a zip to the OneDrive, as the pastekodi command gave me this:

    LibreELEC:~ # pastekodi
    <!doctype html>
    <html lang=en>
    <head>
    <meta charset=utf-8>
    <title>&nbsp;</title>
    </head>
    <style>
    body {
    font-family: monospace;
    margin: 2em;
    }
    </style>
    <body>
    <p>ix.io is taking a break &#127867;</p>
    <img src="/underconstruction.gif" width="200px">
    </body>
    </html>

    The Pi hardware decode is only specced for level 4.1 (which is the BluRay standard).

    Don't encode videos like that.

    If you set gpu_mem (in config.txt) high enough, the videos will probably play, but you may have issues with the reduction in arm side memory this results in.