Posts by chewitt

  • Libreelec 11, 12 and 12.2 doesnt work on S905 "Minix Neo U1" Box. Why?

    Kodi uses a 'compromise' but safe default for software deinterlacing. It's possible (with patching) to make it use other deinterlace algorithms that ffmpeg supports, but older ARM SoC boards like S905 don't have CPU grunt for the fancier ones that give better results. The S905 hardware has a dedicated deinterlace function, but software support for that only exists in the Amlogic vendor codebase that Kodi and LE moved away from. Older LE/CE images are more feature complete.

    DRMPRIME is a zero-copy rendering path (nothing to do with Amazon); meaning we read the video stream and then all processing stages through Kodi, FFMpeg, and kernel drivers; exchange a pointer to the original data in memory instead of reading it from RAM, changing it in some way, then writing back to RAM again. It's more efficient, but it's use requires the kernel hardware decode drivers which are not perfect. The only alternative is to disable hardware decode and use ffmpeg software decode. Playback start and seek on HEVC media then works great, but unless the video bitrate is extremely low you won't have enough CPU grunt to handle 1080p media. If you only need to play SD or 720p media (or have faster hardware like S922X/A311D) it's an option though.

    Nobody is working on the hardware decoders for several years now, so I have no expectations of improvements coming. For some users AMLGX works good-enough. For others not-good-enough. I am not a driver developer so I'm merely keeping the status-quo until either someone appears to do work, or the hardware dies out. S905 is now a decade old so the later is more likely.

  • Power fail corrupts mounted drives

    Quote from jsprenkle

    Hello, any suggestions how to prevent corruption when the power fails?

    Disabling the write cache helps. Mounting read-only helps. Using EXT4 or perhaps BTRFS (with more advanced journaling) instead of NTFS also probably helps. Using hardware RAID helps. We do not support software RAID; there are too many variants and tools and we prefer to avoid the bloat incurred. No filesystem is corruption proof so if you truly want to prevent corruption, prevent the loss of power (Yes, get a UPS).

  • [Odroid-C2] TV Power-On by CEC

    The ability to turn on from CEC probably requires support in (mainline) u-boot and for the device to be in a suspended state so there's some level of power to detect things on the HDMI connection. I've no idea if that's implemented or not. I'll ask the main Amlogic u-boot custodian, but an answer might take a while as I know he's currently on vacation.

  • [x86-64] Wrong speed with "Sync Playback to Display"

    Quote from thomaz

    PLS, HEAD DEVS OF LIBREELEC/KODI. THINK ABOUT MY IDEA!!!

    Your idea requires all media to be adapted to a different refresh rate. This requires excessive CPU resources. The idea also breaks the concept of a zero-copy video pipeline which something that Kodi has long-worked to implement because it's the most efficient way to process high-bitrate and large filesize media. In short; the idea is a load of hooey and dead in the water :)

  • [x86-64] Crash

    The cause is not clear, but it crashes shortly after starting, and in one log very-shortly after add-ons are loaded; so I'll guess the cause is an incompatible add-on (perhaps not updated for K22 alpha).

    Skins (and the many add-ons they depend upon sometimes) are a common cause for major crashes, so perhaps delete the skin add-on to force Kodi to default back to Estuary and see if that helps.

    If not, you need to hunt down the problem add-on. Stop Kodi, rename /storage/.kodi to /storage/.kodi-old and copy essential config over, e.g. sources and add-on settings. Then restart kodi and start reinstalling add-ons from repos. Either it all works (problem solved) or at some point you install something and problems start; then you know which add-on is the cause.

  • Help with drivers for MyGica PT682C

    Hauppague are a reputable manufacturer with good upstream kernel support, and Sundtek have well supported userspace drivers that don't depend on the kernel, which makes life easier. I can't speak for whether they are cheap or not, but they should work with LE well. If you go cheap, you're more likely to need a separate device for the server that can run a specific distro/kernel someone hacked up the drivers for, instead of using LE.

  • Most optimized hardware for LibreELEC Generic

    The OP was about wanting to use internal storage. That’s normally a good indication people don’t want things hanging out of USB ports.

    NUC’s are historically great; right up to the point LSPCON chips appeared and started causing HDMI problems. They remain great; as long as they work. However we see continued issues that go unresolved in drivers and firmware, and if we can’t guarantee something will be hassle free we can’t recommend them.

    My normal go-to recommendation is an RPi5; never the highest spec, but with the best software support. That’s not really fitting the bill though, although these days there are some crazy ‘PC’ cases that you can run a pile of storage from.

    I come back to “if it works, don’t fix it” so keep the current HTPC and just get a NAS to handle data. I’d always recommend using a proper NAS not DIY kits or a pile of USB drives, because I value my data, and I want to use a NAS not add more to the list of things I have to actively maintain.

  • Force output resolution at bootup

    The blanking is loss of sync on the HDMI connection. Common causes are using bad HDMI cables, bad HDMI adapters, the HDMI connector (the DRM device in the kernel) being forced to output using a mode that's outside the display device specs (can happen when EDID data is incorrect or has been incorrectly fiddled with), or the hardware being rubbish, and inadequate power supplies.

    In general I would set this:

    • Force the initial DRM state (as above)
    • Set the Kodi desktop to 50Hz
    • Set 'adjust-refresh' in playback options
    • Enable the whitelist and only select 50/60Hz 1080p resolutions
    • Enable rate doubling and 3:2 pulldown

    No idea if that will work though. In general I've always found monitors to be a bit rubbish compared to a proper TV.

  • Vontar H618 tv box with Libreelec 12.0

    I'm no expert on Allwinner hardware, but I had a quick look at the device-trees in the Linux 6.17 kernel source, our current Allwinner patchset, and kernel mailing lists (for new patches) and I see no evidence of HDMI support for the H616 or H618 chips existing. This means you will see boot screens due to framebuffer support in the kernel, but there's no HDMI (DRM) driver, so Kodi cannot run.

    If you add 'ssh' to boot params in extlinux.conf the SSH daemon is forced to start and you can login, but you'll only see kodi.log messages about there being no DRM surface or gem object to render to.

  • LE13 Testing for RK3288, RK3328, RK3399, RK3566, RK3568, RK3576, RK3588

    Quote from Yasai-san

    Just report only, I don't make pull request for this.

    The current AIC8800 driver will not be accepted into our codebase. The driver code is poor quality and needs a ground-up rewrite and Radxa has no plan for that. We would be stuck with a bad out-of-tree driver. Our instruction will be for users to vote with their wallets and not-purchase any boards using that chip; unless WiFi is not a requirement.