Posts by Lain

Quote from chewitt

1. No idea, it should just work. Latest LE11 nightlies have fixes for some situations where blank screens might be seen. Again, I suggest you try the latest nightly on a clean SD card with no attempts to pre-fix problems.

2. RPi websites should have authoritative documentation. The main point of the switch to the Linux kernel DRM framework is that most of the old config.txt hacks available in the older downstream vendor kernel should not be needed now. Users assume reduced documentation on config.txt means something is missing, but that's not correct. You can capture the EDID data from HDMI and force detection of the TV; run 'getedid create' with a working HDMI connection.

3. Nope. Never seen it reported (never seen it myself). You can force output modes (as previously hinted) but you cannot force colourspace.

Current Kodi skins are 1080p resolution so either Kodi or the TV has to do upscaling to 4K and generally keeping Kodi on 1080p and allowing the TV to do the upscale results in lower load on the RPi (so faster RPi) and equivalent or better results on-screen as the TV has dedicating scaling hardware. So far that that guidance seem to be true for the majority but I guess the results are ultimately subjective.

Thanks again for the reply! I just ordered a new SD card to do a fresh install (keeping the original as a working backup).

I just did a bit of quick google searching and looks like to do 'getedid create' I have to ssh into my pi which I've never done. Sorry not an advanced Pi user So I'll have to figure that out.

I previously tried the 1080p just from the Kodi Menu and it looks terrible on the TV. The TV wasn't upscaling to 4K. I'll maybe play around with it a bit more in the cmdline but for now 4K30Hz is working good for me. Not AS snappy as 1080p but pretty good.

Just until I figure out the 'getedid create' would I just add 'video=HDMI-A-1:3840x2160M@30' to the cmdline file?

From the looks of it that will set HDMI 0 to 4K30hz.

Does it also do similar to what the old "hdmi_force_hotplug=1" used to do (force output when no display or TV not on) or is there another line I can put in the cmdline file for that?

This is just a temporary fix until I have time to figure out 'getedid create' and ssh into my Pi.

Thanks again!

Quote from popcornmix

The cmdline.txt settings for video are just standard linux, not pi specific. See here:

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v5.10/fb/modedb.html

or

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel_mode_setting

Thanks!

Unfortunately I'm not well versed in Linux, looks like I have some reading and learning to do

Thanks so much for the reply!

Okay, I won't bother with 4K60 then.

My 4K GUI isn't really slow, not lighting fast but definitely not slow, I don't have a ton of stuff on Kodi though.

It's on an 83" TV so 1080p looks terrible at that size. I don't mind sacrificing a bit of speed and snappyness for sharp menus.

3 questions is you don't mind.

1. I couldn't get a video output on HDMI-0, is there a setting I'm missing for that or could I just have a bad HDMI port?

2. Is there somewhere I can go online to figure out what exactly I can add to the cmdline.txt file (probably using NotePad++ since I don't SSH into my Pi or have a command line)?

I was able to find lists of what can be added to the config file, is there a similar list for the cmdline file for video stuff?

I'd like to be able to force hdmi outputs if no display is detected (TV isn't turned on first) and stuff like I could with the config file.

3.Any idea how to fix washed out colors when booting the Pi sometimes and then I need to reboot the Pi and it fixes it?

Maybe forcing things like limited or full RGB in the cmdline can fix that?

Thanks again for your reply. Really appreciate it!

I'm having 2 issues with my Pi and hoping someone can help.

RPi4B 8GB

LibreElec 10.0.1

8K hdmi cable plugged into HDMI 1 the furthest from the power connector (not HDMI 0, I can't get any output from that port)

1st issue:

I can't get it to output 4K 60Hz. I can only get 4K 30Hz. (AVR and TV are both minimum 4K/60hz).

2nd issue:

Sometimes when I boot the Pi the colors are all washed out and I need to either turn the Pi on and off or power cycle my AVR and then the rich dark colors come back.

I'm guessing it's probably how I have my Config file setup.

I don't SSH into it, I use NotePad ++ to edit it.

Here's everything I have set in it:

hdmi_force_hotplug=1

sdtv_mode=0

sdtv_aspect=3

hdmi_force_edid_audio=1

hdmi_ignore_cec=1

hdmi_drive=2

hdmi_group=1

hdmi_mode=97

hdmi_pixel_encoding=2

hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080

hdmi_enable_4kp60=1

hdmi_ignore_cec_init=1

I read something about having to do "Video=" in LibreElec 10 but I couldn't figure out what to do it on and where to put it.

Hopefully someone can see where I've gone wrong with my config file.

Thanks

Quote from frakkin64

Yeah, it's maybe a 250ms delay, but it's pretty instant. For example, a 27GB HEVC 4k video, seeking an hour into it, no problem maybe 250ms. This is from an RPi4, connected over Wi-Fi, to NFS on my Ubuntu AMD FX8350 box. I am using a NFS source in Kodi 19.

oh wow, I want that

Quote from frakkin64

I think as popcornmix suggested you might want to look at your media files and make sure everything is OK there, most of my media is MKV and seeking is pretty much instant.

Maybe test your network speed with iperf3 at various points to your QNAP. Might be your read/write size needs to be adjusted, or mount options.

95MB/s, that's pretty respectable. If you have some other network usage/congestion, your pretty much within the upper limit of Gigabit around 800Mbit/s. The other thing to consider is bus limitations, CPU usage, etc within the receiving device as well.

Some simple testing with non-cached files below, but this is between 2 AMD64 boxes (Ryzen 5 & FX 8350).

Over NFS:

dd if=/srv/media/movies/X2\ \(2003\)/X2\ \(2003\)\ 720p\ AAC.mp4 of=/dev/null bs=8192

326423+1 records in

326423+1 records out

2674058398 bytes (2.7 GB, 2.5 GiB) copied, 24.7901 s, 108 MB/s

Local:

dd if=/srv/media/movies/X-Men\ Origins\ -\ Wolverine\ \(2009\)/X-Men\ Origins\ -\ Wolverine\ \(2009\)\ 720p\ AAC.mp4 of=/dev/null bs=8192

263663+1 records in

263663+1 records out

2159933396 bytes (2.2 GB, 2.0 GiB) copied, 8.29314 s, 260 MB/s

Iperf3 (suggests there is little NFS overhead @ ~112MB/s -- but you still have Ethernet/IP/TCP overhead)

Connecting to host 192.168.0.10, port 5201

Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.0.10 is sending

[ 5] local 192.168.0.1 port 43988 connected to 192.168.0.10 port 5201

[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate

[ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 112 MBytes 942 Mbits/sec

[ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec

[ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec

[ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec

[ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec

[ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec

[ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec

[ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec

[ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 112 MBytes 941 Mbits/sec

[ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 112 MBytes 942 Mbits/sec

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr

[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.10 GBytes 942 Mbits/sec 0 sender

[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.10 GBytes 941 Mbits/sec receiver

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Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into that. This is new to me so I'll have to figure that out.

Are you saying when you do a 40min jump ahead in an MKV video it instantly starts playing? 1min,2min jumps are instant for me but the future out I go the longer the lag to get playing again.

Quote from popcornmix

> Using a local USB HDD (3TB 7200rpm drive), when I jump forward 40min after starting the movie it takes 15 seconds to catch up.

What is the format of the file? For indexed files like mkv, I'd expect this to be much faster.

I typically seek around files with a 1 or 2 second delay (Pi4 using nfs, but I'd expect directly attached disk to typically be better than any network interface).

Non-indexed files (m2ts, dvd/bluray iso or folder structure) can be a lot slower to seek.

The file is mkv. If I only just 30 seconds, 1min, 2min, it's pretty instant. The larger the jump the higher the lag, so I was just using 40min jumps because that's easy to see. Are you saying your MKVs if you were to do a 40min jump it's only like a 1-2 second delay?

Is there a way to index the files with QNAP and Pi/Kodi? (Sorry if that's a dumb question, setting this up is new to me).

Quote from powerarmour

Indeed, it's more like 90MB/s in reality.

Okay, so when see it spike to 95MB/s read when I jump 40min ahead in the movie that's good then? The difference between the NAS and a directly attached USB HDD is just network loss, nothing I can do for that?

Quote from Klojum

Write speeds of SDcards and USB sticks are often not that great, compared to read speeds. 40-60MB/s is quite good though.

NFS in general should be a little bit faster as there is less overhead in its file protocol. But things can vary per situation, so use SMB or NFS, whichever comes out best for you.

The ports on the RPi4 also do not reach PC speeds. Both USB3.0 and Gigabit ports have approx half the advertised speeds.

As your as using a QNAP NAS, this is FYI: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/…ices-worldwide/

I just started the copy for my full 2TB movie library from the Pi USB HDD to the NAS and it's copying at 45 MB/s. So that's good then?

Thanks for the heads upon Qlocker.

Is there a better option to stream videos from a QNAP TVS-872X-I5-32GB to a Pi 4B 8GB (LibreElec 10/Kodi) than add source NFS?

I was doing some testing last night and I'm not sure if I'm getting peak performance.

Viewing a 4K movie (6GB file):

Using a local USB HDD (3TB 7200rpm drive), when I jump forward 40min after starting the movie it takes 15 seconds to catch up.

Using NFS from the QNAP (2x 12TB, 4TB media volume, 7200rpm drive in Raid 1, low sync priority), when I jump forward 40min after starting the movie it takes 22 seconds to catch up.

Using SMB from the QNAP(7200rpm drive in Raid 1, low sync priority), when I jump forward 40min after starting the movie it takes 33 seconds to catch up.

So NFS is faster than SMB. But is NFS running at peak performance because it's taking 22 seconds vs 15 seconds from a local USB HDD.

I have a 1Gbps network, all hardwired.

Also, there is only that 1 movie file on the 12TB Raid 1 while I'm testing, no other files.

My drives have a performance test of 230MB/s, when I jump 40min I can see the network adapter send rate in QNAP Resource Monitor jumps to 95MB/s until it catches up and then drops low when it starts playing again, so I don't think I'm maxing my drives out.

1 Gbps network looks like it should be able to handle 125MB/s, so it looks like I'm missing about 25% of my speed if I go by the network adapter info in QNAP.

When I copied the movie file from the Pi (USB HDD) to the NAS (NFS), Kodi showed a write speed of about 40-60MB/s in the top corner, so way below what a 1Gbps networks should be able to do.

I haven't tried playing the movie yet to see if there's shuttering or pausing, it was late last night when I got it setup and ran these tests.

Dose that sound like NFS is slower than it should be?

oh okay. Thank you!

Quote from ghtester

Hopefully you won't brick your RPi 4B (even though you install a bad bootloader and your RPi 4B does not boot, it's possible to create a recovery micro SD card which can fix it) but I think it won't help you.

Please note the firmware (which is located on LE filesystem) must support the RPi 4B hardware release. As RPi 4B v. 1.4 is newer than LE 9.2.6 build (and there are significant HW differencies between old and new RPi 4B revisions), it probably won't work with new RPi 4B as the firmware in LE 9.2.6 is simply too old. So you may try to replace the firmware files on LE 9.2.6 filesystem but who knows if it ever helps...

Instead I would upgrade the bootloader to latest stable (pieeprom-2021-12-02.bin) and run LE >= 10.

Thanks so much for the reply. I didn't realize HW differences in rev 1.4 affected the bootloader and LE9.2.

Quote from HiassofT

LE9.2 is too old, it won't work on the rev 1.4 RPi4. Use LE10 instead.

so long,

Hias

Thanks so much for the reply!

So even if I'm able to downgrade the bootloader to what's in my old Pi (2020-09-03), it still won't work?

Quote from ghtester

I wouldn't do it but it's up to you... Try this:

Code

cd /tmp
wget -O pieeprom.bin -c https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/raw/master/firmware/stable/pieeprom-2020-09-03.bin
rpi-eeprom-config pieeprom.bin > bootconfDefault.txt
# default config
cat bootconfDefault.txt
vcgencmd bootloader_config > bootconf.txt
# current config
cat bootconf.txt
rpi-eeprom-config /tmp/pieeprom.bin --config /tmp/bootconf.txt --out /tmp/pieeprom
rpi-eeprom-update -d -f /tmp/pieeprom
reboot
#

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Please note you may need to change the bootloader config as there're some changes in recent bootloader revisions.

Thank you. Why wouldn't you do it? Could I brick my Pi?

If it doesn't fix the issue can't I just put LE 10.0.1 in again and have it update the bootloader?

Thanks

Quote from Da Flex

Raspberry Pi OS has a tool to install firmware manually.

Perfect. I'll check that out. Thank you

Quote from greycat

I have upgraded to a Pi 4 today, so I backed up my settings and burned a fresh 9.2.6 Pi 4 SD card. I tried with Balena Etcher and LE's USB tool.

When I boot, I see the rainbow, then it hangs with a black screen and a `_` in the top left corner. Nothing happens then, and the device isn't visible on the network.

I tried `https://releases.libreelec.tv/LibreELEC-RPi4.arm-9.2.{0-5}.img.gz` to get an older image as 9.2.6 seems problematic (it hung often on the Pi 3 as well), but the file doesn't exist.

Where can I get an older Pi 4 image for LE 9.2 that isn't 9.2.6? Tried every 9.1 and 9.2 release, and I either get a message from the EEPROM that I need to update the software (even though I'm running the latest EEPROM, 2021-04-29) or it just does more of the same: black screen with frozen cursor.

Hello,

Did you ever get this fixed?

My old pi with bootloader 2020-09-03 works perfect with 9.2.6

My new pi (rev 1.4) with bootloader 2021-04-29 has the issue you had, white _ in the top left corner. But 10.0.1 works.

I'm trying to figure out how to downgrade the bootloader as I'm hoping that will fix it so I can run 9.2.6.

Thanks,

Quote from Klojum

Well... It was announced only some 2.5 years ago that the Python part of Kodi would be upgraded from v2 to v3. If developers still haven't found the time to upgrade their Kodi add-ons, then that's on them.

Which add-ons (apps..) are still not available for Kodi 19?

When I pulled in my Kobi backup to 10.0.1 there were a lot of my apps that said there were disabled. I ran the updates and some came back but a lot didn't. I don't remember exactly which ones but there were so many I want to stay on 9.2.6 for now because it works perfect.

Hopefully there's a way to rollback and it works. I've found a number of posts here with people that have the same issue with rev 1.4 Pis. you get a solid white _ symbol in the top left corner when booting 9.2.6. But no one posted that they solved it or how/if there were able to downgrade the bootloader.

Quote from Da Flex

Firmware gets updated during LE's installation process. That's why DJ'ing LE cards fails.

Ya, I think that's my issue. When I put in 10.0.1 it updated the firmware, but the new firmware doesn't like to boot the older LE 9.2.6.

I'm hoping rolling back will fix it. Either that or it's something hardware related to pi rev 1.4.

How do I downgrade the Pi 4B bootloader from 2021-04-29 to 2020-09-03?

I was able to get the 2020-09-03.bin file from Github, but I'm not sure how to install it and I've search all over Google trying to figure it out.

Reason I want to downgrade:

I have a old Pi 4B 8GB running LibreElec 9.2.6 and it's perfect.

I got a new Pi 4B 8GB and a new SD card and put LibreElec 10.0.1 on it but found there were too many apps that weren't available for it (Python 3). So I reimaged the card to 9.2.6 and the new Pi won't boot it.

I tried that new card (with 9.2.6) in my old pi and it boots every time, so I know the card and image are good. I put the card back to 10.0.1 and it boots in the new pi.

So it seems that the new pi will not boot 9.2.6. Only thing I can think of is the bootloader updated to 2021-04-29 when I first tried 10.0.1 in it. So I want to downgrade it to 2020-09-03 like my old pi has to see if that will fix it.

Thanks!