Ubuntu 14.04 + Kodi = much better performance

[noggin]

After an evening of working through various guides I've managed to get Ubuntu 14.04.1 running from a USB 3 (fast in a USB 2 port) flash drive, though to boot it I have a second USB stick running a boot loader (I'm no Grub expert...) (I modified a version of the Triboot Meegopad guide - but couldn't get the final stage of the Ubuntu 32bit EFI stuff to work on the USB 3 drive I was installing Ubuntu to)

I then followed the guide on the Kodi Forum to install Kodi and the latest Intel VAAPI drivers etc. : http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=165707

And 720/50p stuff is playing beautifully smoothly.

Kodi is reporting no CPU at much more than 20% when playing the clips that caused the Windows Kodi version and MPC-HC to fall over in minutes.

1080/50i stuff plays with VAAPI BOB deinterlacing very well initially and then starts dropping frames like crazy (suspect cooling - but not sure)

1080/50i stuff plays very well with non-VAAPI BOB deinterlacing - no frame drops or skips during playback for the first five minutes or so. CPUs are working harder - but still it's very good. CPUs then start throttling and occasional frame skips as CPU figures go up to 90%.

This was with a DTS-HD MA clip being decoded DTS to PCM 2.0 - with a different lower bitrate BBC One HD Dolby Digital clip I'm getting no dropped/skipped frames at <50% CPU

NONE of these clips would reliably play in Kodi, MPC-HC, WMP on Windows 8.1 with CCCP and/or LAV Filters, or in VLC.

Cooling still an issue - but far less so than under Windows.

Only downside is that I'm using an external USB Ethernet adaptor and don't have any sound. But hey - at least we know if we can get OpenElec running with the right drivers this box could be amazing!

*** EDIT - no need for external USB Ethernet adaptor after a reboot - internal ethernet adaptor working fine. Haven't had time to check whether WiFi drivers that are knocking around work - but I bet they do ***

**EDIT - looking at dmesg there are reports of CPU throttling due to temperature but they aren't impacting on replay at 720/50p **

**EDIT - have added a USB sound card with Ubuntu support - so at least I can hear stuff - and
that works and stays in sync **

Far from perfect - but very encouraging. Now to sort the heatsink...

So - we need HDMI Audio drivers and an OpenElec build and then things are going to be amazing with these little boxes. Bob isn't brilliant but on solutions this cheap?!

[noggin]

Have just connected to a TV Headend server running on a different PC.

1080/50i H264 and 576/50i MPEG2 content is playing fine with 50fps de-interlacing.

More good news. This feels like it is outperforming Android boxes now in video terms - though rebooting to get Netflix may not be for everyone :-)

[Bigman1]

So it's basically a mixture of cooling and drivers that's holding windows back as Linux shows it's possible to use. Interesting

[noggin]

Yep - exactly the same files on the same hardware. Under Windows they start stuttering very quickly - under Linux they play smoothly for 10s of minutes (even though the CPU is being throttled) With 1080i interlaced content the difference is huge.

This suggests, to me, that the CPU plays more of a role in Kodi playback and/or file access in Windows than Linux?

The good news is that it suggests that if we can get a properly set-up Ubuntu - or ideally Openelec - install we should be OK.

AIUI there are currently no Linux drivers for HDMI Audio on Baytrail-T CPUs though... However hopefully Intel's Compute Stick with Linux will release those into the wild?

[AndreaSpooky]

I'm quite sure there's a good performance boost with latest Intel GPU drivers, especially with new HEVC H265 videos, using a light player such as Media Player Classic (http://mpc-hc.org/)
Have you already tried those?

tnx

[noggin]

I'm quite sure there's a good performance boost with latest Intel GPU drivers, especially with new HEVC H265 videos, using a light player such as Media Player Classic (http://mpc-hc.org/)
Have you already tried those?

tnx

Installed the latest Baytrail drivers on the Pipo - but AIUI you don't get HEVC/H265 acceleration on Baytrail : https://communities.intel.com/thread/59216 suggests you only get HEVC/H265 8 bit on a Core i3/5/7 Haswell, and need Broadwell for 10bit HEVC/H265. Out of luck on Pentium/Celeron/Atom Haswell, Baytrail etc.

(AIUI the Intel H265 decoding is using a hybrid of VPU and GPU compute - so the H264-like elements of H265 are done by the existing VPU, with the new bits done in GPU compute using shaders. However the Baytrail only has 4 EUs, and the Haswell Celeron only has 10 EUs - which may not be enough. The Core i series have more I believe - so have more GPU compute power. On the plus side they've been able to roll it out to pre-existing platforms - which is neat.)

Tried some H265 2160/60p and 2160/50p stuff on an Haswell i5 NUC with MPC-HC and the new drivers - still more like a slide show (my Sandy Bridge i7 o/c-ed to 4GHz running OpenHEVC branch of ffplay just about plays them with s/w decoding)

With the i5 Haswell NUC and Windows 7 with the new HEVC/H265 drivers and playing Big Buck Bunny 1080p and 720p H265 clips definitely got some acceleration improvements.

Could well be that the Intel drivers that are being used in my Ubuntu build on the Baytrail are a bit ahead of the Windows releases (unlikely?) - or more likely that the Linux Kodi implementation is a bit lighter-weight?

[AndreaSpooky]

Installed the latest Baytrail drivers on the Pipo - but AIUI you don't get HEVC/H265 acceleration on Baytrail : https://communities.intel.com/thread/59216

not full, I know, but u get QuickSync feature on for the chipset, which means sort of an hybrid decoding, divided between cpu and gpu.
Using those new drivers on a hp pavilion with same chipset as Pipo the snow bunny HEVC goes smooth on 720p, and also quite good on 1080p, which is surely a step forward than stock drivers.
Now the problem is, as far as i've seen, cpu heat dissipation which, if not sufficient throttles the cycles and lose in performance.

[locutus2000]

I am running Xubuntu 14.10 with an Intel Core i3-2120 and got no HDMI Audio. So I followed this guide to upgrade the kernel https://github.com/GM-Script-Writer-...Kernel-Updater

And I installed Intel HD graphics: https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloa...er-linux-1.0.7

Perhaps the same will apply to the Pipo? I am very interested in this as I have both Meegopad T01 and Pipo X7

[rainmanone]

Can someone with Linux on the PIPO X7 try this one ?
it's from Mint Linux, but might work here too...
supposed to solve the no HSMI audio problem.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=153108#p796537