Posts by chewitt

  • Emulation

    Kodi documentation on emulators is similarly lacking. I've installed https://github.com/zach-morris/plugin.program.iagl and when I select e.g. a SNES ROM Kodi will ask which emulator to use for playback, and if not selecting one that's already present it will install one from the LE add-on repo and then things just play. There is no "Library" for games but I save regular ROMs as favourites and access them direct from there. I also have IAGL configured to cache ROM files to avoid repeat downloads and give faster starts. Other distros like Lakka, RetroPi, Batocera will be more poilished for gameplay and less polished for media. LE is more optimised for media, but the game stuff does work.

  • What SBC for 1440p@60Hz H.265 & VP9? (Looking at e.g. ROCK64 - any experiences to share?)

    RPi4 does not support VP9 hardware decode but it has enough CPU grunt to software decode the limited amount of 1080p VP9 content that I have for testing. It just runs a bit warm(er) over time so needs a decent passive-cooling case. Hardware decoded H264 (to 1080p) and HEVC (to 4K) playback is excellent.

    Odroid C4 should similarly support everything software decoded up to 1080p; upstream Linux support for everything except the media bits is solid and quite mature now. You might need to disable hardware decoding completely to solve the H264 issue; the current H264 support in the upstream kernel uses the VDEC driver for GXBB/GXL/GXM boards. Newer G12A/B and SM1 boards need to use the newer (and badly named) HEVC driver that supports H264, HEVC and VP9 codecs and there's an issue with 10-bit/4K media. After a multi-year wait someone is currently known to be working on a sponsored rewrite of the HEVC driver .. although I didn't see code to test yet.

  • WeTek Play 2 storage resize failed

    The only way to ensure something 100% boots from SD is to erase eMMC (preventing eMMC boot) or to use the special HDMI dongles that force different BL1 (silicon bootrom) boot priority. However, for reflash of eMMC you only need to ensure that the kernel is running from SD card. The initial u-boot stage from eMMC and then discovery and boot of kernel and userspace files on SD is fine since the binaries that run are on the SD card. If you attempt to flash eMMC when booted from eMMC it will start and the lock-up when you overwrite the apps that you are using to perform the flash.

  • USB not mounted - LibreElec 11.0.1 for Rpi4

    Code
    [   52.388210] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Read Capacity(10) failed: Result: hostbyte=0x00 driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
...
[  215.015888] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Unsupported sector size 67108864.

    The physical drive is detected, but I see ^ those two errors reported and there is a three minute gap between the initial probing and then a disconnect and second probing and there is no attempt to mount filesystems.

    I didn't find anything from some initial Googling on the errors, but things point towards 'geometry' issues. Was the drive formatted under Windows? .. If yes, what was the sector size used? - Do you have any other PCIe > USB cases that can handle the drive?

  • Raspberry Pi 3 - Model A+ - Compatability?

    We don't support LE 10.x/11.x on the 3A+ due to the 512MB RAM configuration (under 1GB will not give a good experience). Older releases like LE 9.2.x are more efficient on 512MB boards due to the older video pipeline; although the boot firmware in our older images is older and doesn't always support the latest revisions of earlier Pi hardware. That's not the issue here (the error looks more like an SD card creation issue) but something to be aware of if/once you get it to boot and then find the performance underwhelming.

  • Emulation

    LE has lots of binary emulators available although the Kodi GUI doesn't do the greatest job of helping users understand which ones work ok or best on any given piece of hardware (an RPi4 will not handle everything). If you do a little research things run fine from LE.

  • WeTek Play 2 storage resize failed

    If you write viable u-boot to eMMC the box is hard-wired to boot from that always; same is true for both vendor u-boot in Android and the upstream u-boot in the LE image. Thus no image can "boot from SD when inserted" .. although since u-boot is generally configured to use boot files (aligned to that version of u-boot) on SD card if present, users can be forgiven for being factually incorrect.

    Android u-boot on eMMC:

    - Can find the legacy LE image on SD card image and use it

    - Can find the upstream LE image on SD card and use it

    Upstream u-boot on eMMC:

    - Can find the upstream LE image on SD card and use it

    - Cannot find the legacy LE image

    So if the goal is to use the 11.0.3 image both Android/vendor and upstream u-boot can boot (from eMMC) and find an SD card image. I'm just not sure what you achieve booting 11.0.3 from SD over eMMC .. it just runs marginally slower from SD.

    I'm done with this thread.

  • [Odroid C2] No Audio Passthrough

    Raspberry Pi 3B and an Amlogic S905 board are not based on the same silicon and their different drivers expose different packing techniques aka 'data formats' to achieve IEC958 output; the key thing is that they support IEC958 output. The upstream Amlogic drivers are not as mature as they could be (not on the same level as RPi) but I dug out a C2 board and tested it with the same AVR port/cable as the WP2 and both are giving me multi-channel PCM and PT output with a range of media.

    The one difference I think can see between my config and yours is that I have "adjust refresh" enabled and the mode whitelist configured for 1080p @ 60/59.94/50/24/23.976 modes and rate doubling (30/29.97/25 are deliberately omitted so interlaced media works). Your AVR is offering the same so perhaps try that.

  • [Odroid C2] No Audio Passthrough

    Code
    2023-08-16 17:39:46.444 T:1079     info <general>: CAEStreamParser::SyncDTS - dts stream detected (6 channels, 48000Hz, 16bit BE, period: 512, syncword: 0x7ffe8001, target rate: 0x18, framesize 2012))
2023-08-16 17:39:46.444 T:1079     info <general>: Creating audio stream (codec id: 86020, channels: 6, sample rate: 48000, pass-through)

    ^ shows that a DTS stream with 5.1 channels is found, and PT is enabled.

    Code
    2023-08-16 17:39:46.656 T:808     debug <general>: CActiveAESink::OpenSink - trying to open device ALSA:hdmi:CARD=ODROIDC2,DEV=0
2023-08-16 17:39:46.656 T:808      info <general>: CAESinkALSA::Initialize - Attempting to open device "hdmi:CARD=ODROIDC2,DEV=0"
2023-08-16 17:39:46.670 T:808      info <general>: CAESinkALSA::Initialize - Opened device "hdmi:CARD=ODROIDC2,DEV=0,AES0=0x06,AES1=0x82,AES2=0x00,AES3=0x02"

    ^ shows that the HDMI device is opened.

    ^ shows two RAW channels are opened for playback (which is correct for PT mode) and the sink is opened. The HDMI spec requires the audio to be encoded for transmission as a 'stereo' bearer signal. If Kodi is configured for PCM (no PT) output you need to set the speaker config so we can decode and re-encode 5.1 for a 5.1 layout, or perhaps decode and downmix 5.1 to 2.0 or 2.1. If Kodi is configured for PT audio then we decode the stream to detect what it is, but then use that knowledge to not modify/re-encode the original bitstream (passing it though) in the original encoded stereo format. Different HDMI specs alter how the encoding is done, but even ATMOS is still transmitted as (a more complex encoded) stereo signal.

    In short, I'm not seeing anything wrong or different from the WP2 board that I have connected here /shrug

    NB: The Pulseaudio comment from Da Flex can be ignored. This message is normal on all LE installs; we do not enable Pulse with PT support since we only use Pulse for Bluetooth audio which does not support PT modes.