[mattlach]

In no way I was criticizing the decision to fully support Shield in cooperation with Nvidia. I want to make this crystal clear. I simply sympathize with Linux users because, while it's true that recent CPUs can decode internally, there surely are tons of installations where CPU is simply incapable of handling HEVC/HDR/4K.

 Yeah, I wish I had the abilities to take on something like this.  I'd totally donate my time.

It would seem with FFMPEG 4 already fully supporting it, and Kodi already using FFMPEG 4, all the heavy lifting would already be done, but it is very possible I just don't understand how this all fits together in Kodi's architecture.

I have three HTPC's running Kodi frontends.   All of them are on Haswell era Intel chips with DDR3 RAM.  In order to get HEVC support on them I'd have to replace the CPU's, motherboards and buy all new RAM....  OR I could pop in a low end discrete GPU...

It seems like such a waste to have to upgrade the entire system every single time a new codec comes into vogue.

[AGLyons]

For years I was an ATI (AMD) fan. But that was all while living through compatibility and stability issues with their drivers. Once I moved to Nvidia and experienced the stability of their driver team I dropped AMD and never looked back.

While the concern may be that they are the anti open source. That approach has produced stability and performance that has surpassed AMD.

I for one love the stability I've seen with Kodi. Kudos to the devs. But I for one would also be open to investing in resources for a Dec to take this on. With these recent revelations of FFMPEG 4 and nvdec and with Kodi utilizing the new FFMPEG 4, I would also believe that taking advantage of that in Kodi shouldn't be that difficult and wouldn't take more than a day to hook into the system.

We should keep in mind, Nvidia isn't going anywhere anytime soon and is a large user base to ignore.

[MrTarantula]

I would also believe that taking advantage of that in Kodi shouldn't be that difficult and wouldn't take more than a day to hook into the system.

Ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger Effect?

[AGLyons]

I would also believe that taking advantage of that in Kodi shouldn't be that difficult and wouldn't take more than a day to hook into the system.

Ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger Effect? 

Well, that was rude and unhelpful. Is insulting people a supposed display of your superior intellect?

[MrTarantula]

I would also believe that taking advantage of that in Kodi shouldn't be that difficult and wouldn't take more than a day to hook into the system.

Ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger Effect? 

Well that was rude and unhelpful. Is insulting people a supposed display of your superior interject? 

 It wasn't meant as an insult. I wrote it quickly as mostly a joke. I didn't think about how it may be perceived. I am sincerely sorry.

The point I was trying to make is that you were trivializing the amount of work it takes to add a feature to a large software project. Sometimes a solid week of effort produces only a few hundred lines of code due to scrapped ideas, dead ends, refactorings, and bugs. The mentality of "It should only take a couple of hours/days" or "It's just a checkbox, why is taking so long?" is really pervasive and only serves to undermine and dishearten developers.

If you know without a doubt that it will take no more than a day, then you should also have the knowledge, skills, and tools to make it happen.

[AGLyons]

Ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger Effect? 

Well that was rude and unhelpful. Is insulting people a supposed display of your superior interject? 

 It wasn't meant as an insult. I wrote it quickly as mostly a joke. I didn't think about how it may be perceived. I am sincerely sorry.

The point I was trying to make is that you were trivializing the amount of work it takes to add a feature to a large software project. Sometimes a solid week of effort produces only a few hundred lines of code due to scrapped ideas, dead ends, refactorings, and bugs. The mentality of "It should only take a couple of hours/days" or "It's just a checkbox, why is taking so long?" is really pervasive and only serves to undermine and dishearten developers.

If you know without a doubt that it will take no more than a day, then you should also have the knowledge, skills, and tools to make it happen.

What you are referring to is creating raw code from scratch. K18 is already using ffmpg4 which already hooks into nvdec.

When you're connecting to API's, 95% of the work is already done.

I have done development. Not in a Linux environment and also not for some time. But things were harder back then. Less API's and less developed functions.

Never assume somebody is an idiot.

[jjd-uk]

Anyone whose even looked at potentially doing this has run anyway in horror at what Nvidia have done. If you want to use Nvidia for future version of Kodi then you're going to have to use Windows.

[jjd-uk]

And it's not just us fed up with what Nvidia does in Linux land https://drewdevault.com/2017/10/26/Fuck-you-nvidia.html

This crappy bug ridden EGLStreams driver is exactly what we'd also have to use.

[AGLyons]

Quoting from the Libreelec board

"The next generation Kodi video pipeline based on DRM/GBM allows us to support 10+ different GPU/SoC types (everything except nVidia) under a single framework and code path."

Is this the case for K18? If it is, I wouldn't have a problem adopting an AMD for my LE HTPC. I just would like to make sure that the investment isn't destined for the same fate as the Nvidia one.

[Klojum]

https://drewdevault.com/2017/10/26/Fuck-you-nvidia.html

Well, we have a 2nd Linus in our midst.

[jjd-uk]

Probably worth mentioning there's a good chance VDPAU will be dropped entirely in Kodi v19. I don't know the full technical details, but something to do with removing X11 and that VDPAU can only run on top of X11.

[bibi]

Raven ridge works great with Kodi git, you just need latest mesa and kernel, and yes amd efforts to provide good open source drivers on linux starts to become reality.

[FernetMenta]

Probably worth mentioning there's a good chance VDPAU will be dropped entirely in Kodi v19. I don't know the full technical details, but something to do with removing X11 and that VDPAU can only run on top of X11.

 X11 certainly won't be removed. It is still reference for Windowing and other platforms don't provide the same features yet.

[mattlach]

And it's not just us fed up with what Nvidia does in Linux land https://drewdevault.com/2017/10/26/Fuck-you-nvidia.html

This crappy bug ridden EGLStreams driver is exactly what we'd also have to use.

 I can see where that would be problematic.   When I first heard of this it sounded like ffmpeg4 was already doing all the work, and if anyone just bothered to add the uni interface and command strings it would just work.   I did not realize it required special driver workarounds.  That's totally lame.

This is especially bothersome, since I have been a Linux user since the 90's, and in all that time, if you wanted flawless support under Linux, the one and only way was to buy Nvidia hardware and use the binary blob driver.   If you wanted bugs and poor performance, by all means try open source drivers on AMD or Intel hardware, but if you wanted something that just works and works well, Nvidia closed source drivers was it.

I don't like Nvidia as a company.  They always try to make everything proprietary and it always winds up hurting the consumer.  Unfortunately - however - if you are into high performing hardware, there is only one choice today, and that is Nvidia.   AMD's fastest GPU's perform like 4 generation old top line Nvidia GPU's, and Intel isn't even in the competition.  I fundamentally disagree with that author on this point:

Choose hardware that supports your software, not the other way around.

This is just wrong at every level.   For a general purpose computing platform, like the PC is, the software needs to run on all hardware.  Hardware always comes first, and no one should have to select hardware based on what software they want to run.  I mostly fault Nvidia here though.

[RockerC]

Any news on NVDEC (formerly CUVID decode) hardware accelerated decoding support in Kodi on Linux?

Again, as I understand it, NVDEC is supposedly supported as an external decoder in upstream FFmpeg 4.0 and later, or is it not?

http://ffmpeg.org/index.html#pr4.0

  "NVIDIA NVDEC-accelerated H.264, HEVC, MJPEG, MPEG-1/2/4, VC1, VP8/9 hwaccel decoding"

Also, NVIDIA is no longer actively promoting VDPAU in favour of their NVDEC and NVENC solution.