Were you using 21.1.1 NG stable?
I can’t get my ethernet to work with either the generic dtb or the sei one. This is only nightly.
Edit: Nvm after 2 complete device power offs, it appeared with the generic dtb.
Edit2: DV not working though. DoVi driver isn’t loading.
Do I need to be on a specific Android version? I was under the impression that CE-NG provides its own kernel.
In AndroidTV it shows as Kernel 5.4.242-ab5221, Nokia SW Version v12.8.5221
[ 14.204939@0]- [TEE] E/TA: MM-module-name:Video firmware TA,Version:1.0.1-gb173c81(build:369)
[ 14.204944@0]- [TEE] E/TA: fw_check_pack_version:282 the package has 110 fws totally.
[ 14.204946@0]- [TEE] E/TA: fw_check_pack_version:299 The TA ver is v1.0
[ 14.204947@0]- [TEE] E/TA: fw_check_pack_version:300 The fw ver is v0.3
[ 14.204948@0]- [TEE] E/TA: fw_data_insert:379 the fw with 520 KB will be loaded.
[ 14.204950@0]- [TEE] M/TA: TEE_Video_Load_FW success
[ 14.214545@0]- dovi: disagrees about version of symbol module_layout
[ 14.214560@0]- dovi: module license 'AML' taints kernel.
[ 14.214561@0]- Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
[ 14.216154@0]- dovi: disagrees about version of symbol register_dv_functions
[ 14.217241@0]- *** amlogic_dolby_vision_init dv: null ***
[ 14.217248@0]- *** register_dv_stb_functions.***
[ 14.217334@0]- hdr10_policy 115, ko_info THE GOLDEN FLUENT TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE HK LIMITED [stb:2.4:e]-[v1.0]-[ Mon Oct 5 20:07:12 CST 2020]-[ brian.zhu]-[* stb_2.4]-[18510d0c6c2246e2fe28c45ae9f71b68e2bd23fa]-[Date: Sat Oct 3 21:25:19 2020 -0700]-[0]
[ 14.217338@0]- efuse_mode=0 reg_value = 0x18
[ 14.217339@0]- dv capability 7
Edit3: Using my DV capable TV, the options show up. This is with the dovi.ko for the 922X, not the 904X5, interestingly enough. P7 FEL working too according to test files.
@cpm Reading through the notes, the “slow speed” playback with progressive hw decoding attempted, sounds very similar to what you describe.
@gilgamesh Not surprised. the Fire TV Cube gen 2 (with S922Z so similar) couldn’t quite decode VC-1 at especially higher bitrates. And you’d experience enough to dropped frames (by checking player debug) to be noticeable while watching. I suspect Kodi running on top of CoreELEC has lower overhead, so that’s making up the difference vs running it in an app under ART in some Android derivative.
Tbf, if anything, the manufacturer’s real answer to lacking VC-1 support is probably inline with playback issues with hw decoding, and the CPU being too weak for software decoding. Claiming VC-1 is too old of a codec is a pretty lame excuse, especially considering recent Amlogic SoCs have no issues with hardware MPEG-2 decoding.
While this may seem like splitting hairs, I have plenty of titles in my disc collection that never got a 4K release, and the 1080p VC-1 edition is the best there is for it. If I’m going to go for a box dedicated to running Kodi, then it better be capable of playing all of my collection
The interesting point is the decoder is working the same way regardless the output - I.e. it always decodes according to the content type e.g. progressive then progressive.
It is the rest of the pipeline that then caused the issues, if you put deinterlace in the vmap then speed ok but output only half res, if remove deinterlace then the output slows down.
Do you mean in FireOS? I didn’t see any frame drops or skips when testing 1080P VC-1 software decoding under CE on the 2nd gen Cube. There’s too many different variables between CE and Android/FireOS to make comparisons about CPU intensive tasks.
there is no problem with high bitrate 1080p VC-1 remux on the AM6B+, I have 12 movies with VC-1 (more actually but some of them are replaced with good quality hevc copies) what I did is having two mkv copies, the VC-1 remux and blu-ray rips with hevc/h.264 for the S905X4, I also took back my AM6B+ and gave the Homatics to my parents as they only use Android TV but I still have CE installed and ready to boot into.
Interestingly, about this topic. I ran into the same issue last night while trying to watch a movie encoded with the VC-1 video codec. I did NOT test my Ugoos AM6+. Here is what I just posted on the Kodi forum.
Yesterday, I tried to watch a Blu-ray video encoded in VC-1 (no NOT Viet Cong), and it was an adventure finding a player that will play that Video Codec. First, I tried using the native Android Kodi using my Dune Homatics box, that was a failure, next I tried using the Dune Media app, also failure. Switched to CoreELEC running on the same Dune Homatics box, still a failure, even when setting VC-1 to software decoding.
Since NO version of Amlogic boxes has ever been able to play videos with the VC-1 codec, I always used Emby since it transcoded that video. Even Emby did NOT play that movie using the Emby app under Android using the Dune Homatics box. Now with these newer boxes my need for Emby and transcoding is non-existent, so I rarely use it now.
Now, back to my story. I then tested my new Ugoos SK1 running CoreELEC and it played that VC-1 (still not Viet Cong) perfectly (as my eyes detected). That was with the (Accelerate VC1 set to Always), so hardware decoding NOT software decoding. Keep in mind that this Ugoos SK1 box using the latest Amlogic SoC, S928X-K.
And NO, YOU do not need to go out and purchase one. But it is a fine machine. Ugoos has been around since the beginning of these boxes/sticks about 15 years ago. They have the best software/firmware developers of any of these media players. Shamelessly, I have used THEIR firmware on a lot of different media players throughout the years. Even “Slimbox” mods use the Ugoos firmware as their base.
I’ve also tried Always for VC-1 on my AM6B+ with CE without any problems to my eyes, or does anything else wrong happen when using Always on AM6B+ that I don’t notice? as it’s recommended to use exclude 24p for VC-1.
The issue with VC-1 hardware decoding at least for the AM6B+ is that it will always try to deinterlace, even progressive content. So you lose quite a bit of resolution in this situation. Compare a 1080p24 movie in both always and exclude 24p settings, get up close to the screen and you’ll see what I’m talking about…
No idea if this behaves differently with the S928X-J SoC.
The difference between S905X4-J and S922X-J is the S905X4-J has only 4 Cortex-A55 cores which are the “little”, low power cores. The S922X-J has 2 A53 and 4 A73. The A73 is considered the “big”, performance ARM cores. Since it appears software decoding is single threaded the difference in capabilities here is having the performance cores that can handle the software decoding load, whereas the low-power cores cannot.
I’ve noticed that with certain (but not all) interlaced VC-1 remuxes I have, the hardware decoder will regularly drop frames at a very steady rate. It’s almost as if it’s trying to do a very crude 3:2 pulldown by dropping frames vs repeating them. Ime the videos with a dropped frames tend to play less smoothly than the interlaced videos that do not experience frame dropping. I haven’t quite figured out what is different about the various videos. I wonder if it’s possible to control this post processing behavior?
Did not deep dive into it, but incase want to check futher I have added back a test property to the UI to control the vfm map I put in to try things previously so you can check what I mean:
Can change the vfm map as used for h/w vc-1
Obviously this is pure testing put in the wrong thing then likely no video at all.
default value: decoder ppmgr amlvideo deinterlace amvideo
can change to: decoder ppmgr amlvideo amvideo
And remember to switch back from your exclude 24p setting to be on h/w decoding again.
From that I would say the actual h/w decoding of vc-1 is actually fine, it is an issue later in the pipeline then that is slowing it down, but as I say not looked more at it, seen this may have been solved in “other” amlogic projects out there but details are a little sketchy - just based on some google searching and other forums.
