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Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - birdwatcher - 2015-02-01

I have a free-to-air satellite backend system that uses TVHeadEnd to record programs. I don't want to name specific sources (sometimes they go away when you talk about them openly) but at least a couple of the channels are sending very high bitrate video. A Raspberry Pi will NOT play this video (it will play sound but no video), and an older Acer Revo will try to play it but it just can't keep up, so the video starts in slow motion, then starts cutting in and out and if I let it run long enough Kodi just gives up.

I am wondering if the newer crop of low power PC's would have better luck. I am especially interested in hearing from those that may be running something like a CuBox-i, or one of the new fitlets if they ever actually appear, or really any of the Linux-based boxes selling at under $200 US. In order to help test that, I have recorded about 20-25 seconds of video and zipped it into a file that is available here:

http://mi-telecom.org/XbqiUfGvKViLJAcHgWcLZXC62D8Qfh/highbrtest.zip

If you can unzip the file into your Videos directory and then try to play it with Kodi, I would appreciate it if you would tell me if you are successful. If you have the time to test further, you could also try it in VLC and/or some other Linux-based video player. What I am trying to discover is whether there are any low-priced units that can play this video correctly, without any jerkiness or other problems.

By the way, the audio is on the second audio track - Kodi can generally find it but some other players may need to have that selected. I will tell you up front that it's a portion of a car commercial that was selected only because I wanted something with a lot of motion that did not have a network "branding" bug in the corner. Since networks tend to brand everything that isn't a commercial these days, it was either a regular commercial or a PSA, and PSA's typically don't have a lot of motion. I am not a shill for that car company and in fact I stopped recording before it mentions the car brand, though some will obviously know which one it is. But rest assured this isn't a hidden promotion for that car; in fact I could never afford to buy that brand.

Also, for those wondering why I am limiting this to Linux and not Windows, OS X, or Android, it's because the only way to disable overscan on my older TV is to send a "CVT reduced blank" signal and to do that I need to use a specific xorg.conf file, and that's only possible in Linux. Also, both Windows and OS X raise the price of most devices. If you have an Android-based box then you are welcome to try this and post the results; it won't help me any but might help someone else. Thank you for your assistance.

P.S. I'll probably pull the test file offline after a period of time; a friend graciously let me put it on his server temporarily, but I don't think he wants it living there forever.

(Mods, if this violates any forum rules, my apologies, and please feel free to remove this post).


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - birdwatcher - 2015-02-02

Funny, I wrote the previous post last night and today the Raspberry Pi 2 was announced. Would really like to see this tested on one of those!


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - DJ_Izumi - 2015-02-02

30-45mbit is 'high bitrate' now? o.O


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - m404 - 2015-02-02

(2015-02-02, 20:16)DJ_Izumi Wrote: 30-45mbit is 'high bitrate' now? o.O

yes ?

on average used material throughout the demographic of kodi users, i would in fact even go so far as to say that 30-45mbit is a relatively rare bitrate.

who in their right mind encodes at that bitrate, unless they plan on authoring a bluray ?

anyway, on the actual OPs question :

DVB-S2 streams work perfectly fine on the Raspberry Pi, even at high bitrates (I just had the SuperBowl running on my Raspberry Pi being streamed from a Vu+ Uno Enigma2 DVB-S2 box, and the channel in question had even touched the occasional 45mbps ... guess they love the quality coming from the NFL or something).

Your issue is something completely different ... the stream from TVHeadend is an mpeg1/2 stream, and the Raspberry Pi doesn't play that back by default (you require an extra license for that) Smile
My DVB-S2 box streams regular H.264 (after all, that's the actually used codec on the DVB-S2 transport stream, mpeg2 is used for SD) ... I've always tried to explain to the guys at #hts , that this is a rather annoying issue as it's not the correct stream, but for some reason always ended up on deaf ears (mind you that was a couple of years ago, I've ditched TVHeadend since then).

I also wouldn't be surprised if you generally miss out on VDPAU acceleration due to exactly that problem ... I know I did back in the days when I was trying to build an HTPC using an extremely old Athlon XP cpu with a GeForce GPU that was obviously able to decode H.264 no problems at all (but thanks to TVHeadend, that didn't work).


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - DJ_Izumi - 2015-02-02

(2015-02-02, 22:28)m404 Wrote: yes ?

on average used material throughout the demographic of kodi users, i would in fact even go so far as to say that 30-45mbit is a relatively rare bitrate.

who in their right mind encodes at that bitrate, unless they plan on authoring a bluray ?

I gotta be honest, if it's within realm of bitrate seen with BluRay, it doesn't seem 'high bitrate' to me. Even cheap consumer DSLRs hit that bitrate typically and write that to nothing better than Class 10 SD cards.


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - birdwatcher - 2015-02-03

(2015-02-02, 22:28)m404 Wrote: anyway, on the actual OPs question :

DVB-S2 streams work perfectly fine on the Raspberry Pi, even at high bitrates (I just had the xxxxxxxxx running on my Raspberry Pi being streamed from a Vu+ Uno Enigma2 DVB-S2 box, and the channel in question had even touched the occasional 45mbps ... guess they love the quality coming from the xxx or something).

I know you are trying to be helpful, but just so you know, it's probably not a good idea to mention things like that in an open forum, because channels have a nasty habit of getting scrambled when people get too blabby. And I know there is one satellite forum that actually encourages posts like that in an open forum, but in my personal opinion the guy that runs that forum is a totally irresponsible regarding this issue and does not seem to care at all about the hobby as long as he can receive a few specific channels of interest to him, and maybe make a little money selling outdated equipment (he also censors any posts that are the slightest bit critical of his policy on this, or that ask others not to post such things). Anyway, that's why I tried to leave out anything that would specifically identify the source channels, such as a network "bug" in the corner of the screen. Mentioning that particular sport is particularly dangerous because it's precisely what got the Alaska feeds scrambled a few years back. Just saying for future reference, or in case you might want to be a nice guy and edit your post a bit, so there are no references to that specific sporting event or the organization behind it. Wink

Anyway, the sample recording came from a channel that transmits in an even higher bitrate than the one you're talking about.

(2015-02-02, 22:28)m404 Wrote: Your issue is something completely different ... the stream from TVHeadend is an mpeg1/2 stream, and the Raspberry Pi doesn't play that back by default (you require an extra license for that) Smile
My DVB-S2 box streams regular H.264 (after all, that's the actually used codec on the DVB-S2 transport stream, mpeg2 is used for SD) ... I've always tried to explain to the guys at #hts , that this is a rather annoying issue as it's not the correct stream, but for some reason always ended up on deaf ears (mind you that was a couple of years ago, I've ditched TVHeadend since then).

I also wouldn't be surprised if you generally miss out on VDPAU acceleration due to exactly that problem ... I know I did back in the days when I was trying to build an HTPC using an extremely old Athlon XP cpu with a GeForce GPU that was obviously able to decode H.264 no problems at all (but thanks to TVHeadend, that didn't work).

Well, the Raspberry Pi in question does have a license so that's not the issue (gotta love how that license isn't transferable when you buy a new Raspberry Pi). I don't know what format TVHeadEnd is using now but Kodi (or the front panel display on my receiver) does indicate that certain recordings are in H.264, some are Dolby, some are MPEG, etc. I think that TVHeadEnd added a new "Stream" tab in the configuration and one of the default selections is "pass", which is indicated as "MPEG-TS Pass-through", and that's what I use as the default for recordings, but I do have "Rewrite PMT" UNchecked and "Rewrite PAT" checked (which I think are the defaults but I don't honestly remember now), and I don't know if that makes any difference or not. The other stream options are "htsp" and "matroska". Those options are selectable in the "Recordings" tab, and my suspicion is that in the past they may have used one of those exclusively, maybe htsp. I don't know if that setting affects live streams at all, but I'm just saying that TVHeadEnd has changed quite a bit in the time I've been using it and that's only been less than a year. And I know they have done quite a bit of work on improving its ability to receive DVB-S2. Anyway, I don't have the expertise to be absolutely certain, but I do think it is streaming the actual codecs used on the channel now.

I can 100% guarantee you that I am getting VDPAU acceleration on my Revo, because it can't play anything smoothly that doesn't use the GPU, not even a standard def YouTube video.

The problem is that both the Raspberry Pi (with license) and the Revo will play pretty much everything except these high bitrate channels. That's why I'm trying to figure out what will play them with no issues.


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - stuCONNERS - 2015-02-04

playback is fine on a chromebox. didnt drop a single frame


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - m404 - 2015-02-05

(2015-02-03, 00:37)birdwatcher Wrote: I know you are trying to be helpful, but just so you know, it's probably not a good idea to mention things like <snip> [...]

no idea what you're talking about, i use a perfectly legal subscription to my PayTV provider and usage in Enigma2 boxes is consented.
the superbowl was officially transmitted on that channel, as a licensed broadcast, and i paid for it ... in what way would any forum be harmed by me mentioning that? *puzzled look*

(2015-02-03, 00:37)birdwatcher Wrote: Anyway, the sample recording came from a channel that transmits in an even higher bitrate than the one you're talking about.

the sample you provided never went past 36mbps ?
anyway, as i stated before :

the sample you provided does not identify itself as H.264.
it is being played back as an mpeg2 file, and thus receives no HW acceleration on something like the raspberry Pi.

I have currently no key on my Raspberrys remote bound to taking screenshots, so taking one showing you that the sample (which u provided) is not being HW accelerated is a bit of an issue, but take my word for it : it's not.

I will , hence, repeat to you what i already said previously : the raspberry pi and other devices, that can make use of HW acceleration to decode a DVB-S2 based stream have no issue _whatsoever_ with the high bitrates. they will decode H.264 perfectly fine up to 50mbps (and probably even past that).

your issue is not decoding power in and of itself ... your issue is that hw accelerated decoding is not being applied, and hence you are seeing the limitations of the CPUs.

an Intel i3-3225 (which i use as my main HTPC) has a whopping 20% cpu usage while decoding your sample ... it is _not_ an issue.


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - birdwatcher - 2015-02-05

(2015-02-05, 07:37)m404 Wrote:
(2015-02-03, 00:37)birdwatcher Wrote: I know you are trying to be helpful, but just so you know, it's probably not a good idea to mention things like <snip> [...]

no idea what you're talking about, i use a perfectly legal subscription to my PayTV provider and usage in Enigma2 boxes is consented.
the superbowl was officially transmitted on that channel, as a licensed broadcast, and i paid for it ... in what way would any forum be harmed by me mentioning that? *puzzled look*

Oh, sorry, I thought perhaps you lived in a different region of the world, where that particular sport is not available via DVB-S2 using a "perfectly legal subscription to [a] PayTV provider". It is perfectly legal to view here, as long as the channel(s) are not encrypted, and the fear among many here is that if you talk too much about specific channels you watch, the wrong people may get wind of it and insist that those channels are encrypted. A VERY different situation from that in other parts of the world, where free-to-air is an officially supported service and where you can use conditional access cards to receive pay services (we don't have that option here; the only satellite PayTV services here are on Ka band, and the Ka band providers offer NO free channels at all, and also can't be received using equipment similar to what you are using - they provide the receivers, usually at some cost to the user for anything more than a very basic model with no PVR).

(2015-02-05, 07:37)m404 Wrote:
(2015-02-03, 00:37)birdwatcher Wrote: Anyway, the sample recording came from a channel that transmits in an even higher bitrate than the one you're talking about.

the sample you provided never went past 36mbps ?
anyway, as i stated before :

the sample you provided does not identify itself as H.264.
it is being played back as an mpeg2 file, and thus receives no HW acceleration on something like the raspberry Pi.

I have currently no key on my Raspberrys remote bound to taking screenshots, so taking one showing you that the sample (which u provided) is not being HW accelerated is a bit of an issue, but take my word for it : it's not.

I will , hence, repeat to you what i already said previously : the raspberry pi and other devices, that can make use of HW acceleration to decode a DVB-S2 based stream have no issue _whatsoever_ with the high bitrates. they will decode H.264 perfectly fine up to 50mbps (and probably even past that).

your issue is not decoding power in and of itself ... your issue is that hw accelerated decoding is not being applied, and hence you are seeing the limitations of the CPUs.

an Intel i3-3225 (which i use as my main HTPC) has a whopping 20% cpu usage while decoding your sample ... it is _not_ an issue.

Okay, but please understand that I was not limiting this question to Raspberry Pis. I understand that you say that the Raspberry Pi will not use hardware acceleration to play a file such as this, and I have no reason to not believe you. But I absolutely, positively, 100% guarantee you that at least a device such as the Acer Revo does use hardware acceleration when playing MPEG2 files in Kodi. The Revo is such an underpowered machine in terms of CPU that if it didn't play MPEG2 using the (in this case, nVidia) GPU, every MPEG2 file would appear like a slow slide show or worse. For example, anything played in a browser window on the Revo does not use HW acceleration, and almost NOTHING from YouTube or any other video site will play smoothly in a browser window, whereas it plays just fine in Kodi using the YouTube addon, simply because Kodi knows how to use the nVidia GPU and the browser doesn't (I'm aware that some browsers can be tweaked to utilize the GPU, but I'm talking about the standard configuration here).

In this part of the world a large percentage of the content sent via free-to-air satellite is MPEG2, in fact I would say that H.264 is the exception rather than the rule. Now, that said, I'm not saying that the lack of CPU power isn't part of the problem with the Revo when playing high-bitrate content, I'm just saying that that the nVidia GPU IS used for decoding MPEG2. For whatever reason, that particular high-bitrate channel will not play smoothly on the Revo OR on a Raspberry Pi, and all I'm trying to determine here is which devices WILL play it smoothly. I'm not really wanting to argue about whether or not the GPU is used, because that's not helpful - I have to deal with the channel as it is; I can't make it transmit H.264!


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - birdwatcher - 2015-02-05

(2015-02-04, 19:48)stuCONNERS Wrote: playback is fine on a chromebox. didnt drop a single frame

Thanks, that is really helpful to know! What model Chromebox do you have, if you don't mind me asking?

Unfortunately as I understand it the Chromebox doesn't run straight Linux (it runs ChromeOS), therefore it would likely not have any provision for using an xorg.conf file or sending "CVT reduced blank", which means it probably wouldn't allow me to disable the overscan on my stupid TV. Maybe you could tell me, does your Chromebox have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file? But even if it doesn't, I would still definitely consider a Chromebox if I had a different TV that didn't make disabling overscan so difficult!


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - m404 - 2015-02-05

(2015-02-05, 13:19)birdwatcher Wrote: But I absolutely, positively, 100% guarantee you that at least a device such as the Acer Revo does use hardware acceleration when playing MPEG2 files in Kodi.

and i can absolutely, postively, 100% guarantee you that your provided sample isn't being hardware decoded even on my main system, which is a Kodi 14.0 Helix installation on Windows 7 using an Intel I3-3225 with an Intel HD 4000 GPU ... it is _not_ hardware decoded, it is using ff-mpeg2video as its decoder.

(2015-02-05, 13:19)birdwatcher Wrote: I'm not really wanting to argue about whether or not the GPU is used, because that's not helpful - I have to deal with the channel as it is; I can't make it transmit H.264!

you are not dealing the way the channel is.
you are dealing with it the way TVheadend is providing the channel to you.

I will repeat what I tried to explain to you from the getgo :

in my experience, TVheadend isn't reliable for hardware decoding of DVB-S2 streams due to the way it handles the remuxing ... as soon as you use a different PVR backend, things start to run smoothly.

btw : in DVB-S2, SD material is mpeg2, HD material is h.264 ... quite sure that 99% of the satellite receivers out there wouldn't be able to handle HD material encoded in mpeg2 (and also pretty sure that the transponder wouldn't want to know anything about it).

you are receiving the material as h.264 ... heck, VLC even _shows_ that the material you supplied (sample) is actually h.264 encoded (!), but it is being identified as mpeg2video, and as such the playback engines (like Kodi etc) are directing it to their mpeg2video decoders, which aren't hardware accelerated ...


you want to know if any low-power PC can play high-bitrate videos : yes, they can.
you want to know if any low-power PC can play _this sample_ you provided : no they cannot (but that's due to a bug you could fix ... not due to it's high bitrate).

I'm not making this up, kind sir Smile
I have a WaveToroidal t90 satellite dish with 9 LNBs, and have been spending the last 3-4 years trying to find "the perfect setup" for getting satellite LiveTV onto Kodi installations in this household (a total of 3 Kodi installations throughout various rooms) ... trust me, as much as I love TVheadend (i'm even idling in their IRC channel as we speak, and have been for the past years Tongue), their solution is only half-baked, and still not working properly (which is due to the fact the original developer knew very little about DVB-S2 and actually was only testing stuff using DVB-T).


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - birdwatcher - 2015-02-05

(2015-02-05, 14:45)m404 Wrote:
(2015-02-05, 13:19)birdwatcher Wrote: But I absolutely, positively, 100% guarantee you that at least a device such as the Acer Revo does use hardware acceleration when playing MPEG2 files in Kodi.

and i can absolutely, postively, 100% guarantee you that your provided sample isn't being hardware decoded even on my main system, which is a Kodi 14.0 Helix installation on Windows 7 using an Intel I3-3225 with an Intel HD 4000 GPU ... it is _not_ hardware decoded, it is using ff-mpeg2video as its decoder.

(2015-02-05, 13:19)birdwatcher Wrote: I'm not really wanting to argue about whether or not the GPU is used, because that's not helpful - I have to deal with the channel as it is; I can't make it transmit H.264!

you are not dealing the way the channel is.
you are dealing with it the way TVheadend is providing the channel to you.

Now you're nitpicking.

(2015-02-05, 14:45)m404 Wrote: I will repeat what I tried to explain to you from the getgo :

in my experience, TVheadend isn't reliable for hardware decoding of DVB-S2 streams due to the way it handles the remuxing ... as soon as you use a different PVR backend, things start to run smoothly.

WHY are you so insistent on pressing this issue? Are you trying to prove that you have superior knowledge of the subject? Even if you are right, none of this is the slightest bit helpful to me.

It was VERY difficult to get TVHeadEnd up and running, mostly because I had no idea what I was doing and their documentation really sucks (IMHO). Now that I know many of the little quirks of TVHeadEnd, it would be considerably easier to set up a new system, but that's not a process I would care to repeat anytime soon.

That said, what "different PVR backend" is going to give me the functionality of TVHeadEnd, particularly the ability to run under Linux, interface with Kodi through a standard PVR addon, provide all the scheduling options of TVHeadEnd, AND support all the various TV Tuner cards, DiSEqC and tone switches, etc?

If you are so sure that TVHeadEnd handles the remuxing badly (which, strangely, does not seem to be a problem for most of the channels), why don't you contribute patches to their code to fix the problem? It stands to reason that if you are SO CERTAIN that they are doing it wrong, you should be able to offer a fix! I'll bet if you did, they would use it, as long as you don't manage to tick off one of the developers.

(2015-02-05, 14:45)m404 Wrote: btw : in DVB-S2, SD material is mpeg2, HD material is h.264 ... quite sure that 99% of the satellite receivers out there wouldn't be able to handle HD material encoded in mpeg2 (and also pretty sure that the transponder wouldn't want to know anything about it).

you are receiving the material as h.264 ... heck, VLC even _shows_ that the material you supplied (sample) is actually h.264 encoded (!), but it is being identified as mpeg2video, and as such the playback engines (like Kodi etc) are directing it to their mpeg2video decoders, which aren't hardware accelerated ...

We could go round and round on this until the cows come home. You obviously don't live in this part of the world, and providers do things a lot differently here, and often don't seem to feel it necessary to follow any standards other than the ones they make up themselves (which causes a lot of problems when running software or STB's designed for European standards). But let's say you are right - I still have to deal with it as it is, I cannot change it. That said, I stand by what I said about Kodi running on the Revo - maybe it's not using the nVidia graphics on this particular channel for some reason, but it is on every other one, whether mpeg2 or h.264 or whatever, because the Revo simply will not play video smoothly when the GPU isn't used.

(2015-02-05, 14:45)m404 Wrote: you want to know if any low-power PC can play high-bitrate videos : yes, they can.
you want to know if any low-power PC can play _this sample_ you provided : no they cannot (but that's due to a bug you could fix ... not due to it's high bitrate).

And this is the point where you take up residence under the bridge. Maybe it's a bug YOU can fix, and if so, why don't you contribute the code to fix it? But it's certainly not a bug that I, or most other mere users could fix.

To put it simply, in case you still haven't figured it out, I have no desire at the moment to change the backend software, given all the trouble we went through to get it to work in the first place, and given that I'm not aware of any other backend software that's as capable and that runs under Linux. If it's really a bug, I'd love to see it fixed, but I don't even know how to describe the problem well enough to report it, let alone fix it.

For someone like me, the obvious solution would be to get better hardware. My Revo is getting long in the tooth anyway, and I'm sick of not being able to play videos smoothly from within a web browser. I know there are systems that are capable of playing this channel without any issues; my desire was to find out whether any of the low powered systems could. I certainly had no desire to get into a protracted argument over whether or not TVHeadEnd is doing something that makes this particular channel more difficult to play than it should be. I have to take the video as it comes.

(2015-02-05, 14:45)m404 Wrote: I'm not making this up, kind sir Smile
I have a WaveToroidal t90 satellite dish with 9 LNBs, and have been spending the last 3-4 years trying to find "the perfect setup" for getting satellite LiveTV onto Kodi installations in this household (a total of 3 Kodi installations throughout various rooms) ... trust me, as much as I love TVheadend (i'm even idling in their IRC channel as we speak, and have been for the past years Tongue), their solution is only half-baked, and still not working properly (which is due to the fact the original developer knew very little about DVB-S2 and actually was only testing stuff using DVB-T).

Well, you certainly seem to know quite a bit about this, and you are obviously much more into satellite TV than I am, and you are interested enough in TVHeadEnd to monitor their IRC channel (I have nowhere near that level of devotion). So, and I am saying this without the slightest bit of sarcasm, it sounds to me like you might be the ideal person to fix this problem. Or if you can't fix it, would you at least consider submitting an intelligently-worded bug report so that maybe THEY can fix the issue? I'm pretty sure they have been doing a lot of work on DVB-S2 lately, so now would be a good time to do this.

But please don't tell me that I can fix this, because I can't - you might as well tell me I can sprout wings and fly to the moon. If your idea of fixing it is to completely start over with different backend software, well, that's like cutting off your head to cure a case of acne.


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - stuCONNERS - 2015-02-06

(2015-02-05, 13:20)birdwatcher Wrote:
(2015-02-04, 19:48)stuCONNERS Wrote: playback is fine on a chromebox. didnt drop a single frame

Thanks, that is really helpful to know! What model Chromebox do you have, if you don't mind me asking?

Unfortunately as I understand it the Chromebox doesn't run straight Linux (it runs ChromeOS), therefore it would likely not have any provision for using an xorg.conf file or sending "CVT reduced blank", which means it probably wouldn't allow me to disable the overscan on my stupid TV. Maybe you could tell me, does your Chromebox have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file? But even if it doesn't, I would still definitely consider a Chromebox if I had a different TV that didn't make disabling overscan so difficult!

Chromeboxes can run linux. I run openelec, But plenty of people run linux in these boxes. Here is a useful link:
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=194362

i`ve checked in/etc/X11/ and i have xorg-nvidia.conf in there instead of xorg.conf


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - m404 - 2015-02-06

you're saying that i shouldn't suggest to you to use a different backend (which ultimately is only a different piece of software, and yes there are other options with your set of features that run under linux and are even easier to setup than tvheadend), but you are willing to replace the client hardware to get the playback working ?

swapping the client (either raspberry or revo, doesn't matter) for another piece of hardware because you're unwilling to sit down a day to setup another free open source backend (MythTV comes to mind) ... _that_ is as close as it gets to your analogy (cutting off the head to fight the acne problems).

btw, andoma and adam (amongst the devs of tvheadend) know of the issue, they certainly have no beef with me, there are more than enough bug reports filed, no need for me to add one, and they are doing just fine fixing it themselves (although right now lately the whole tvheadend project as a whole is not looking like it is going to go anywhere, sadly).

no idea why you keep getting personal (you've done so from your direct first post when you were trying to suggest i was posting something illegal or in a legal grey area), but i couldn't care less either Smile

i have given you substantial advice and considerable explanation as to why you're encountering your issue, what you can do about it, and what is not an adviseable action ... whether you're willing to accept the help or not, is entirely left to you ;-)

au revoir !


RE: Running Kodi on a low-power PC/device, can you play this high-bitrate video? - nickr - 2015-02-06

I am pretty sure m404 doesn't know much at all.

HD material is broadcast as mpeg2 through out the US and Canada and other places too, Australia comes to mind.

Both Rpi and nVidia vdpau DEFINITELY hardware decode MPEG2.

However not every MPEG2 video will be decoded in hardware. All of the implementations will have their limits. For example I am almost certain that VDPAU doesn't decode 4:2:2 chroma subsampled video, which would definitely be a problem with this file. This is NOT the fault of tvheadend whatsoever. And nothing whatever to do with the bitrate as such.