XBMC - Hardware Accelerated Decoding - What works and what doesn't.

[ididmytime]

I own a Asus HDP-R1 which consumes 8w (around 20x less power than the xbox 360) and I can easily read these video files.
Can't see a reason why rk3066 based sticks can't properly play 1080p video files.

Really depends on the hardware, the access granted to the components and the software. Due to the closed nature and lack of source code, unless someone does some major reverse engineering (which won't happen) or the software improves (again, won't happen since they are probably long done with these) then its going to be like this for the rk3066 indefinitely.

If it was open then none of us would have any issues.... but sadly it's not, infact they are trying everything in their power to even stop the ability to make custom roms

The Raspberry Pi uses 2.5w, can be powered by the USB on the TV, and can read those files, but that is completely open and optimized for it with a fantastic GPU for HD decoding. I would love for these devices to be fixed, but it's not happening. If it amazingly does happen will you still own this device by then? probably not.

The dev community for this is paper thin, and it will only get smaller due to fragmentation of devices. You won't even to be able to use Netflix on 4.2.2 anytime soon due to the sticks failing DRM checks.

[nickt8]

MK802iiis Test

Hey Guys,

I have tested both Gotham Alpha 2 and the hwaccel build from 19/02 on this device.

Test1:
MK802IIIS with Neomodes 1.9 ROM.
XBMC 19/02 from page 1.
Advanced XML from post 85.
Live Streams Patch from lewy

Results:

IceFilms
DVDrip MP4 TV Show around 22mins long - Works Perfectly.
720p MKV TV Show around 22mins long - Works near perfect, hardly noticeable judder.

Same results with movies.

Navi-X
720p MKV Movie around 1hr30mins long - Works near perfect, hardly noticeable judder.
flv files - doesn't work, picture is just lines across the screen.
Live Stream SD - Works Perfectly.
Live Stream HD - Works Perfectly.

Sports Devil - most streams seem to play well.

Overall this is a good build on this device. Everything seems to work well.

Test2:
MK802IIIS with Neomodes 1.9 ROM.
XBMC Gotham Alpha 2 from page 1.
Advanced XML from post 85.
Live Streams Patch from lewy

Results:

IceFilms
DVDrip MP4 TV Show around 22mins long - Doesnt work well, picture is just lines across the screen.
720p MKV TV Show around 22mins long - Works well, judders every few seconds.

Same results with movies.

Navi-X
720p MKV Movie around 1hr30mins long - Plays well, slight judder every few seconds.
Live Stream SD - Plays fine
Live Stream HD - XBMC crashes


Sports Devil - Doesn't open, just get Error running Sportsdevil message.

Overall i prefer the build from 19/02, the gotham build also felt quite sluggish. hope this test helps others. Thanks for the work you guys have put into this!

Nick

[noise672]

Video/audio missynchronization

I can confirm your findings with my MK808B with Finless 1.7 rom (standard kernel). Especially during camera panning the judder/microstutters are very obvious. Although videos are still quite watchable in MX Player, this is not the case for accelerated XBMC (Gotham build of 0304). XBMC does get much better when libstagefright is disabled though. I only use SD material, so I do not believe either that the problem has anything to do with high bitrates, but rather problems in the HDMI handling. I also found that there is a video/audio missynchronization of around 200-300ms, which could similarly be caused by dodgy HDMI drivers.

You are quite correct, I so happy since I advance audio by 0.381s.

I had this missynchronization on all video playback (streaming XBMC plugins, streaming from my local FTP and also from attached USB HDD)

While playing any video, click audio setting icon(speaker) at buttom right.
Advance audio by 0.381s(save --apply to all video).

Running XBMC feb19 on MK808B original plain Finless 1.7
Big thanks to Lewy20041 for providing a patch for live video streams.
I also Use advanced.XML for unlocking all hwwaccel codecs.

Thank you all.

[Abducted]

Hey Guys,

I have tested both Gotham Alpha 2 and the hwaccel build from 19/02 on this device.

Test1:
MK802IIIS with Neomodes 1.9 ROM.
XBMC 19/02 from page 1.
Advanced XML from post 85.
Live Streams Patch from lewy

Results:

IceFilms
DVDrip MP4 TV Show around 22mins long - Works Perfectly.
720p MKV TV Show around 22mins long - Works near perfect, hardly noticeable judder.

Same results with movies.

Navi-X
720p MKV Movie around 1hr30mins long - Works near perfect, hardly noticeable judder.
flv files - doesn't work, picture is just lines across the screen.
Live Stream SD - Works Perfectly.
Live Stream HD - Works Perfectly.

Sports Devil - most streams seem to play well.

Overall this is a good build on this device. Everything seems to work well.

Test2:
MK802IIIS with Neomodes 1.9 ROM.
XBMC Gotham Alpha 2 from page 1.
Advanced XML from post 85.
Live Streams Patch from lewy

Results:

IceFilms
DVDrip MP4 TV Show around 22mins long - Doesnt work well, picture is just lines across the screen.
720p MKV TV Show around 22mins long - Works well, judders every few seconds.

Same results with movies.

Navi-X
720p MKV Movie around 1hr30mins long - Plays well, slight judder every few seconds.
Live Stream SD - Plays fine
Live Stream HD - XBMC crashes


Sports Devil - Doesn't open, just get Error running Sportsdevil message.

Overall i prefer the build from 19/02, the gotham build also felt quite sluggish. hope this test helps others. Thanks for the work you guys have put into this!

Nick

Thanks for the detailed tests!

[nickt8]

Thanks for the detailed tests!

Your welcome, i'm a software tester by trade so if you need anything just let me know. After all the hard work you guys put in its the least i can do.

I'm going to test files off of a hard drive later today, will post a new report later.

[Abducted]

Your welcome, i'm a software tester by trade so if you need anything just let me know. After all the hard work you guys put in its the least i can do.

I'm going to test files off of a hard drive later today, will post a new report later.

If you have different TV's or monitors to test on that would be great. No need to test everything on every TV/monitor. But just a couple of HD clips to see if you get stutter(/audio sync) problems on any other system.

[nickt8]

MK802iiis External Hard Drive

Hey guys,

Results of testing using External Hard Drive on HWACCEL 19.02 build.

Device - Western Digital 2tb hard drive.

MKV 720p TV show - 22mins 1.36gb - Works perfectly
MP4 720p TV show - 23mins 1.4gb - Works perfectly

MKV 720p Movie - 2 parts 4gb and 1.25gb - works perfectly.
MPG 1080p Movie - 3 parts 4gb files - works perfectly, only issue is skipping through the movie which then take a few seconds to sort itself out.
MKV 1080p Movie - 4 parts 4gb files - doesn't work too well, lots of dropped frames, think it reached a max of 17fps and then mk802iis crashed and rebooted itself. after the reboot i had the following issues: Function bar is missing volumne and power options. Wall paper has changed. XBMC settings have also reset, skins settings, addon settings. anyone know why this happened?

I don't have any files larger than 4gb as all my drives are fat32.

I will try network play later today or tomorrow and will post the results, i expect it to be the same as above.

Nick

[nickt8]

If you have different TV's or monitors to test on that would be great. No need to test everything on every TV/monitor. But just a couple of HD clips to see if you get stutter(/audio sync) problems on any other system.

This might be tricky, only have one HDTV at home. Will take it to a friends at some point over the next week.

The tests i have listed were performed on a Sony Bravia 32" Full 1080p HD TV.

[opengl1971]

A user in minix forums has posted a new HW accelerated XBMC build using gotham alpha 4 as a base
Link:

http://minixforums.com/threads/libstagefright-hw-accelerated-xbmc.411/page-10#post-10937

[noise672]

20130603 Does not work for me

Thanks for the new release info.

I downloaded and installed from official site http://mirrors.xbmc.org/test-builds/android/

XBMC starts and immediately exits.

Regards

[opengl1971]

Thanks for the new release info.

I downloaded and installed from official site http://mirrors.xbmc.org/test-builds/android/

XBMC starts and immediately exits.

Regards

This is a different version , the version you are downloading is named
"xbmc-20130603-6f59621-Gotham_alpha4SF-armeabi-v7a.apk"
While the one i posted is named "xbmcapp-armeabi-v7a-300513-hw.apk"

The one you are using i think is not hw accelerated but the one i
posted is hw accelerated (as hw in the end of the name indicates)

Also the poster says that he is working on a new build and should upload it
By Tuesday

UPDATE: Dont bother this release is extremely unstable on the rk3066 devices
sorry for posting this unstable build

[noise672]

I will re-install 20130219

The SF in the name "xbmc-20130603-6f59621-Gotham_alpha4SF-armeabi-v7a.apk"

led me to beleive it was STAGEFRIGHT.

I will re-install 20130219. Thank you.

[uat1]

Yeah, it's never going to be fixed.

...

That's why the new quad core devices are so disappointing, it's not going to improve XBMC, infact looking at some threads it seems to have some major problems trying to play some movies.

I'm sure there will be a cheap android stick that can do it, won't be this year, or probably the next.

I was wondering if the newer sitck with quad core, RK3188 devices would solved some of the 1080p playback issue, however, it sounds like it wound not.

Is the best option for running xbmc still mk808 and Finless rom with tweaks since mose people seems in this thread seem to be using mk808.

[Abducted]

I was wondering if the newer sitck with quad core, RK3188 devices would solved some of the 1080p playback issue, however, it sounds like it wound not.

Is the best option for running xbmc still mk808 and Finless rom with tweaks since mose people seems in this thread seem to be using mk808.

The MK808 has an overclock kernel with working WIFI. The UG802 has too but as far as i know that's it.

So i think that's why you see a lot of MK808's. A lot of people also use the MK808b (with Bluetooth) but if you use the MK808 overclock kernel for the MK808b the build in WIFI and BT wont work anymore.

The RK3188 devices should be able to handle 1080p without extra overclocking however (last time i checked which is about 2 weeks ago) there wasn't a 1080p kernel for the RK3188 sticks. So you should be able to playback 1080p however it'll be downscaled to 720p before it's send to the TV/monitor anyway. (unless there are 1080p kernels available now.) Also last time i checked the RK3188 devices had quite a few performance problems, but that's mostly because of premature ROMs.

[Android_Adict™]

I hate to say it but I think libstagefright is a red herring… All these android boxes work fine with 1080p if you use the native player or the native streamer, there are no modifications needed they seem to work as is right out of the box…

It’s already been proven that the amlogic devices don’t use libstagefright at all, they rely on the amplayer for their decoding… I suspect the rockchipset yields a similar solution. None of the third party apps available at the google playstore are able to perform like the native player..

After pondering this issue for some time, and also noting the success of these linux builds on the amlogic stbs and the great performance of both the rockchip and amlogic native players and upnp streamsers (by the way I’m dead against the Linux builds I find them to be a waste)

Could it be that these stock players and the Linux build is only running in 720p and not running 1080p at all? Is there any way to test this?