Thanks for the detailed reply. I didn't imagine that VLC really mostly talks about desktop x86/64- always thought that ARM too was included.

 

Please don't take everything about VLC wiki too literal. Of course they may talk specifically about ARM platform and there you can trust them.

 

Yes VLC doc says mpeg4 Part 2 may not be supported but h264 is fully handled-good enough.

 

When I was talking that libvdpau-sunxi (VDPAU implementation for H3) doesn't support mpeg4 very well I didn't have VLC in mind. I was talking about library. HW supports this codec pretty well, other programs which know how to use VDPAU might support it just as well, but VDPAU implementation is not complete.

 

I am now assuming that it is the same story with WiFi as with HDMI and TVout?

 

What story do you have in mind? WIFI is completely different thing. If driver and chip are good enough then it should work good. For example, USB dongle based on ath9k (Atheros) chip works extremely well, but if you are talking about already present chips (Realtek) on OrangePi boards, I must disappoint you. They are usually bad. From what I read, chip on OPiZero is not very good either, but I'm not sure if that is completely true.

jernej,

 

I just read the H3 OPi OpenElec wiki and the listed GitHub Readme file:

 

http://orange314.com/Openelec_for_Orange_Pi

 

Questions:

 

I want to use OPi0, Lite and PC Plus for media player ( 720p HDMI/TVout streaming and USB camera video inputs) plus "good" WiFi. No video-games/3D, just TV channels streaming. H264 should suffice for decoding.

 

1. Is OpenElec better than Armbian?

The text above isn't clear on WiFi or Ethernet support.

 

Also, how about power regulation as on Armbian, or is there a good alternative?

 

2. Will TVheadend and VLC work on OpenElec?

OpenElec currently uses CedarX so is the VPU offloading video decoding from CPU?

 

Above you seemed to say VLC codec is well supported by H3 hardware? Does this support depend upon Armbian vs OpenElec?

 

My interest in VLC is obvious: best supported codec around with multi-streaming support claimed. Whether this multi-streaming extends to ARM, specifically H3, is the real question !

 

3. Any multi-streaming support on OpenElec?

 

4. Re: your above answer, can you mentioned a cheap enough ath based USB WiFi dongle? I will search on Ali Express.

 

By Wifi same story, I meant the prospect of streaming multiple outputs at same time to WiFi Direct or Miracast ( Linux Miraclecast) HDMI dongles attached to TV sets.

1. Is OpenElec better than Armbian?

The text above isn't clear on WiFi or Ethernet support.

 

Also, how about power regulation as on Armbian, or is there a good alternative?

 

No, OpenELEC and Armbian share most of the BSP kernel improvements. I took something from them and they took something from my kernel. There is very little difference about kernel functionality. Mostly some out of tree improvements. For example, Armbian has overlayfs support while OpenELEC uses BFQ governor. It should be the same regarding WIFI and ethernet support. I'm not sure what you mean by power regulation...

 

Secondly, OpenELEC has completely different goals that Armbian. Armbian is general purpose distro, while OpenELEC can do only one thing good - it runs Kodi. OE doesn't have any apt-get or similar packaging system (although it can be extended using Kodi plugins). In fact, most of the filesystem is read only, except /storage which can be seen as home folder. It is also single user system - (almost) everything is run as root. It also doesn't use X11 and doesn't have desktop environment at all.

 

Thirdly, I didn't add support for OrangePi Zero, because it didn't want that users with 256 MB version start to complain and Kodi is not optimized for low resolutions offered by TV out.

 

2. Will TVheadend and VLC work on OpenElec?

OpenElec currently uses CedarX so is the VPU offloading video decoding from CPU?

 

Above you seemed to say VLC codec is well supported by H3 hardware? Does this support depend upon Armbian vs OpenElec?

 

My interest in VLC is obvious: best supported codec around with multi-streaming support claimed. Whether this multi-streaming extends to ARM, specifically H3, is the real question !

 

As mentioned before, Kodi is the only program which is meant to be run. So there is no option to install VLC. If you badly want it, you can take build system and somehow make VLC Kodi addon, which would in reality be separate program. I saw some attempts to port VLC to OpenELEC, but please don't ask me for help.

TVheadend client could be used in Kodi via plugin. Someone also attempt to use TVheadend server in OpenELEC but the main issue here is lack of HW encoder support in SW. As with all addons, I don't offer any support. There are simply too much of them.

 

OpenELEC is distribution. However, Kodi uses CedarX libraries for decoding, yes.

 

What is "VLC codec"? There is no such thing. VLC is a program, which is usualy used for video playback. I think it can also transcode using separate program. It usually uses ffmpeg for managing video. ffmpeg is a great collection of various codecs (encoders/decoders), (de)muxers (*.avi, *.mkv, TS), transports (HLS, files, sockets).

 

 

3. Any multi-streaming support on OpenElec?

 

I'm not sure what do you mean by that. Kodi is used for video or audio playback. Because it is meant to be mediacenter, I'm not sure if you can play more than one stream at the same time.

 

 

4. Re: your above answer, can you mentioned a cheap enough ath based USB WiFi dongle? I will search on Ali Express.

 

By Wifi same story, I meant the prospect of streaming multiple outputs at same time to WiFi Direct or Miracast ( Linux Miraclecast) HDMI dongles attached to TV sets.

 

You mean one ath9k usb dongle? I bought one no name chineese wifi dongle and by pure luck, it uses that chip. I bought also one TP-Link dongle, but I read on the net that even if you buy same model and version, there is no 100% gurantee that you will get exactly same chip. There are some: https://wiki.debian.org/ath9k_htc#Supported_Devices

 

I really don't know anything about WIFI Direct or Miracast. I never used them. In fact I disabled WIFI Direct support at one point in OpenELEC because it gived two wifi interfaces which was very confusing in Kodi.

jernej,

 

Thanks for all the details. So the short answer for me is the legacy Armbian.

 

Btw, ever heard of a WiFi chip called Ralink/Mediatek 7601? Is this a good chip?

Btw, ever heard of a WiFi chip called Ralink/Mediatek 7601? Is this a good chip?

 

Yes, I heard, but I don't have it, so I can't tell you anything about it. From what I heard, I don't think it is particulary good chip. In fact, I wouldn't recommend anything from Realtek.

 

BTW, I think P2P interface (for WIFI direct) is also disabled in Armbian.

In fact, I wouldn't recommend anything from Realtek.

 

BTW, I think P2P interface (for WIFI direct) is also disabled in Armbian.

1. I believe that Realtek is separate from Ralink- Mediatek?

 

2.So the p2p WiFi Direct can be enabled in Armbian?

1. Oh, sorry, it might be. However, I still don't recommend Realteak.

 

2. With kernel patching and recompiling.

Thanks again

 

Yes I know people complain about Realtek, but what is it specifically? Range, throughput, stability, features ( AP, repeater, non- OpenWRT)? Most home routers e.g. TPLink and DLink use Realtek.

 

How much of a perf bottleneck is Realtek compared with Ath9k?

I don't know if it is hw or drivers. I would say both. Router SoC are completely different segment, so you can't really compare.

 

I'm not fan of doing benchmarks. What I can tell you is that I reached max around 400 KiB/s on 8189es chip and few MiB/s on ath9k_htc, but this wasn't in the same environment.

jernej,

 

Kindly see last few comments below, re:Armbian OS support for Cedrus:

 

http://www.cnx-software.com/2017/01/16/getting-started-with-onion-omega2-lede-wifi-iot-board-and-expansion-dock/#comment-538320

 

 

I understand the generic h264 efficiency over MPEG4. But I am very confused about HW video acceleration, and Cedrus with Armbian OS. Our last discussion indicated VDPAU, not Cedrus, was supported? Or was I confused?

 

Have things changed? Any details?

 

 

Bonus question: Can't MT7688 ( as in Omega2) do HW video acceleration under OpenWrt? What's the real issue here?

 

Thanks as usual !

First, let's make something clear. Cedrus is open source project, which is aimed at creating open source Video Engine driver. Because of that effort, you have driver for BSP kernel which implements VDPAU interface. There is also effort to make mainline kernel driver using V4L2 interface, lead by FreeElectrons developers for C.H.I.P. (A13). Of course, this effort is using knowledge from Cedrus and with minimal changes it can be ported to other Allwinner chips too. That was already done for some of them and I'm not sure if it already works on H3 or it will be soon. This mainline driver has only few simple codecs supported, it is not yet intended to be used daily.

 

But both interfaces, VDPAU and V4L2, currently support only decoding and from what I understand, you need encoding? There is open source code for encoding somewhere, but I think it is in PoC stage at the moment.

 

Sorry, I don't know nothing about MT7688 platform. Last time I played with OpenWRT it was a few years ago and I never tried to use HW video acceleration or better said any kind of video processing on it. At most, I was using USB audio card and even that was big PITA to make it work at that time.

 

BTW, I'm not sure why you are comparing NextThingCo. C.H.I.P. with Armbian. First is HW company which contracted FreeElectrons to make mainline support for A13 chip and Armbian is community effort to create build system which is simple to use and create best possible OS images for multiple platforms based on existing code, which gets improved by Armbian devs. I hope that you see that these two efforts are not comparable and of course there is no point for Armbian to support A13, because first, some dev must be interested in it (currently there is noone) and secodly, this platform has already decent SW support in comparison to Xunlong SW offerings, for example.

@jernej

 

Thanks.

 

I actually didn't compare CHIP to Armbian ! Those were my early remarks about CHIP: even though with inferior A13, pulling ahead with hires from Free Electrons.

 

So that was criticizing Xunlong for not hiring/ supporting enough people, just using volunteer help from Armbian, and thus lagging in the market I have made those remarks consistently.

 

On the other hand seeing Armbian spend 70-80% of its time on SD and power repairs, per Zador, is disappointing too. Why not use influence on Xunlong to have an OPi0 version with eMMC ( which will cost same or less than the class 10 sd cards recommended and level the field for all users) and also a DC jack? Much better recommendation than a USB3SATA shield only for OPi0 with USB2!

 

Then of course the problem with the obscure xr819 wifi driver; Realtek chips should have been continued by Xunlong. Those are Armbian inputs Xunlong actually needs, as opposed to a new OPi0 version with GigE and USB3. Let's fix the current products first.

 

Now I see where my confusion was ...Cedrus is open source, which I mixed up with CedarX, the Allwinner proprietary video codec. Because the OP used the term Allwinner Cedrus.

 

I really hope there is a FAQ by Armbian one day.

Can you point me where the term "Allwinner Cedrus" is used? It is not used in this topic.

jernej,

 

It was used by the OP who brought up the Cedrus topic and tkaiser had replied, on cnx forum.