Amlogic Video Decode Driver Posted For The Linux Kernel

[caligula]

It can't. It's not implemented. You can forcefully enable layers acceleration, but there will be bugs when you do so, and that's just regular webpage rendering, it does not affect video decoding.

Ok good to know. I thought the video acceleration is used but apparently my low end Atom system is capable of decoding in sw too. In practice you could achieve hw decoding with flash applets. Not sure how they work today. I've enabled the experimental GPU layer acceleration but don't see much difference either. It used to have some issues with font rendering being too smooth.

[Azrael5]

Why don't you test it yourself? E.g. Firefox can utilize hw decoding, but it won't help much since the drawing still utilizes the CPU. If your machine is fast enough, there's really no problem unless you care about battery consumption. If it's not, you should have figured that out by now as the video playback wouldn't be that smooth. For low power machines, there are tons of dedicated video players (vlc, mpv, kodi, ...)

thanks for answer to me, I've tested in chromium and I've not got any benefit on decoding because in my opinion it is not activated also if the gpu page of the browser show it activated, in fact seeing a video I've got the same measurements of CPU utilization.

[Gusar]

Firefox can utilize hw decoding,

It can't. It's not implemented. You can forcefully enable layers acceleration, but there will be bugs when you do so, and that's just regular webpage rendering, it does not affect video decoding.

Maybe you're thinking of the time when Firefox used Gstreamer for media. Then you could install gst-vaapi and it would technically work, but it'd be the inefficient copy-back mode and rendering would be done in software, so using gst-vaapi didn't bring any noticeable benefit in Firefox, if it worked at all. But Firefox hasn't used Gstreamer for a long time now, since version 42 I think.

Current state of Firefox is: There's no hardware video decoding support, and accelerated page rendering is disabled by default because it's buggy. And it won't be fixed ever, because Mozilla is working on new code for rendering called WebRender, which should in theory also work on Linux.

[caligula]

So it is useless to enable decoding into the aforementioned browsers. the integration of wayland into these browsers could help?

Why don't you test it yourself? E.g. Firefox can utilize hw decoding, but it won't help much since the drawing still utilizes the CPU. If your machine is fast enough, there's really no problem unless you care about battery consumption. If it's not, you should have figured that out by now as the video playback wouldn't be that smooth. For low power machines, there are tons of dedicated video players (vlc, mpv, kodi, ...)

[caligula]

Yes for the C2! We already have alpha builds of kodi/libreelec with a mainline kernel (+ patches) that can decode and display video on various SBCs like AML-S905X-CC (Le Potato) and Odroid-C2. It's still rough on the edges but coming along nicely.

C1 has a S805 (M8B) SoC that is not covered by the driver for now. The video decoding IP is not that different so the support for this chip might be added in the distant future.

FWIW, the original C1 is borked anyways. The CEC feature doesn't work without a HW mod or connected battery. It's great though that C1 can now boot normal Linux. I suppose the owners of C1(+) boards have already realized they're not that suitable as a HTPC except on Android. The boards work better as headless servers IMO.

[xerion567]

Yes for the C2! We already have alpha builds of kodi/libreelec with a mainline kernel (+ patches) that can decode and display video on various SBCs like AML-S905X-CC (Le Potato) and Odroid-C2. It's still rough on the edges but coming along nicely.

Nice! I've used the Le Potato for a project before, and I thought it was a powerful board! It has so much potential, but only if it has software and drivers to utilize it. Great to see this development ongoing!

[ThoreauHD]

This is a big deal for android boxes, of which there are millions. Plex might even become an option at some point.

[Azrael5]

Mozilla doesn't care enough about Linux to bother implementing it. A big problem is not actually decoding the video, it's integrating it into the webpage. That requires accelerated layers compositing, which never worked right on Linux and is turned off by default. Things might change once Webrender (Mozilla's new way of accelerated layers compositing) is complete, but that will take a while, not even Windows has Webrender yet.

Google doesn't care about Linux either, there's a patch for video decoding on their bug tracker, but it's been there for over a year and it doesn't look like it'll be checked in anytime soon: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/532294

So it is useless to enable decoding into the aforementioned browsers. the integration of wayland into these browsers could help?

[Elyotna]

Odroid C1/C2 use Amlogic. Is it the same hardware as supported by this driver or is it different?

Yes for the C2! We already have alpha builds of kodi/libreelec with a mainline kernel (+ patches) that can decode and display video on various SBCs like AML-S905X-CC (Le Potato) and Odroid-C2. It's still rough on the edges but coming along nicely.

C1 has a S805 (M8B) SoC that is not covered by the driver for now. The video decoding IP is not that different so the support for this chip might be added in the distant future.

[Gusar]

Odroid C1/C2 use Amlogic. Is it the same hardware as supported by this driver or is it different?