[fritsch]

Wsnipex has updated the vaapi ppa for us. We are not now on libva 0.38 and libva-driver-intel 1.6.0.pre1. This is the first driver release that includes _all_ the custom patches we maintained over the last months / years. So with 1.6.0 being ready all we need should be there from that side, including bsw, skl support (with hevc vaapi wise). <- the latter does not mean it's usable in kodi, cause ffmpeg lacks this implementation.

Btw. as some have reported, that they have issues with rendering on screen with 15.04's xserver-xorg-video-intel, here is a newer one, that fixes this issue: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5572..._amd64.deb (14.04 and so on does not need this)

[fritsch]

Short Braswell review (AsRock 3150M):

1080i50 mcdi -> fine
576i50 mcdi + lanczos3 -> fine
720p50 + lanczos3 -> fine
4k @30p @100Mbit(!) -> fine
Tested several 1080p hi10p -> fine

4k h264 @60p -> render skips, we get arround 38 fps. Especially this is architecture dependend. FernetMenta is communicating with upstream to save us the additional copy of surfaces for display. But mesa needs to do something there.

Audio:
DTS-HD: fine
TrueHD: fine

Nice hw.

If you want to use OpenELEC, don't forget to add: i915.preliminary_hw_support=1 to the bootloader config. This will not be needed anymore after OE upgraded to kernel 4.1

[-DDD-]

Thanks!
Do you have an Kill-a-Watt to measure the idle Power Consumption?

[fritsch]

Nope - no time ... I am currently not planning to use it for daily usage, just want to look into hevc ffmpeg.

[gurabli]

Fritsch, excellent news, I was keeping my fingers crossed since first news about Brashwell came out and hoping of a post like yours
Does this mean that N3150 is fully capable of 1080i live tv with best possible deinterlacing? And 720p with lanczos3? We finally have THE board for a perfect htpc? (I don't care at all about 4k, so that limitation is not a problem at all for me). And if I got this right, no need for N3700, as N3150 does the job soon there will be N3150 itc boards with dc in! I'm not sure if we can correctly measure the power consumption of this board with a kill-a-watt, as the values as so low Once I have the board, I will try to arrange a test with special professional equipment that is able to measure precisely even low as 5-6w. Just a note, a review of N3700 just appeared, and they used a 500W psu to power this jewel, lol, talking about efficiency here And if I get this right, OE and Kodi works out of box?

[fritsch]

And if I get this right, OE and Kodi works out of box?

With 4.1 kernel it will. For current 4.0 you need the above boot param. 4.1 upgrade will be done with the next days. I already run it right now - watching soccer 720p50 with lanczos3.
Edit: Yeah MCDI, MADI and so on works as expected.

[gurabli]

Excellent, so excited, after so much years, finally!
Which version of Ubuntu you recommend? Will it work with Trusty or Vivid is needed?

[fritsch]

15.04 + kernel 4.1-rc7 + wsnipex vaapi ppa + kodi nightly.

[-DDD-]

I'm not sure if we can correctly measure the power consumption of this board with a kill-a-watt, as the values as so low Once I have the board, I will try to arrange a test with special professional equipment that is able to measure precisely even low as 5-6w. Just a note, a review of N3700 just appeared, and they used a 500W psu to power this jewel, lol, talking about efficiency here And if I get this right, OE and Kodi works out of box?

No need for a special professional equipment, you can use a good 10€ Device like:
http://geizhals.de/?cmp=945626&cmp=797993
They have no Problem with 3W Idle Consumption: http://goo.gl/z8nt3A

[fritsch]

so these tests are all with h265/HEVC material?

No. Not a single test was HEVC. As the HW is capable, but ffmpeg _and_ kodi don't have support for hevc_vaapi yet. Now is the time to become a hero ...

Edit: Seems user has deleted his post after reading again.

[gurabli]

I'm not sure if we can correctly measure the power consumption of this board with a kill-a-watt, as the values as so low Once I have the board, I will try to arrange a test with special professional equipment that is able to measure precisely even low as 5-6w. Just a note, a review of N3700 just appeared, and they used a 500W psu to power this jewel, lol, talking about efficiency here And if I get this right, OE and Kodi works out of box?

No need for a special professional equipment, you can use a good 10€ Device like:
http://geizhals.de/?cmp=945626&cmp=797993
They have no Problem with 3W Idle Consumption: http://goo.gl/z8nt3A

Here is a test of N3050 and N3700. It is not so good, and made me smile when they used a 500W psu and measured power consumption. As it is off topic here, I will not post anything related to this here, but here is the link: http://www.techspot.com/review/1014-inte...page7.html

Will check out one of these devices you linked, but first I need to get the board. I'm still waiting for ASRock to release the promised DC version of N3150.

[fritsch]

I use the N3150B with a pico psu. It does not even need the additional CPU plug.

[gurabli]

15.04 + kernel 4.1-rc7 + wsnipex vaapi ppa + kodi nightly.

OK, thanks! If I remember correctly, you linked a how-to few pages back for 15.04, I believe those instructions are still valid? Also we need an systemd instead of the upstart script for Kodi.
Would be great to have an update how-to in the first post for Ubuntu 15.04

[plinkyplonky]

Here's my setup for Ubuntu Vivid 15.04 running on an Intel N2955U (Gigabyte Brix GB-BXCEH-2955) - low power hardware 7watts idle. I've had real problems getting 15.04 to run "nice" with Kodi - lots of video skipping. This configuration below gives me non-skipping video for h.264 1080p (& below) and high bitrate interlaced 1080i50 h264 using MCDI. The updated xserver-xorg-video-intel appears to be the biggest fix for skipping - as well as fixing skipping in retroarch emulators.

All configuration was found in this thread thanks to fritsch:

• Kodi 14.2
  
• Kernel 4.0.5 from mainline kernel
  
• xserver-xorg-video-intel https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5572..._amd64.deb
  
• Wsnipex's i965/libva drivers - currently 1.6.0pre1

Here's my systemd start script for kodi running without a window manager (/etc/systemd/system/kodi.service; systemctl enable kodi.service), remove mysql.service if you don't use mysql for your repository:

Code:

[Unit]
Description = Starts instance of Kodi using xinit
Wants = network-online.target
After = systemd-user-sessions.service network-online.target sound.target mysql.service
[email protected]

[Service]
User = kodi
Group = kodi
PAMName=login
Type = simple
TTYPath=/dev/tty7
ExecStart = /usr/bin/xinit /usr/bin/kodi --standalone -- /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp :0
Restart = always
StandardInput = tty

[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target

Although I use a window manager now as retroarch loses input when reverting back to kodi without one. I use LXDE as it has minimal impact and doesn't mess up the video like Ubuntu's compiz and start kodi from /home/kodi/.config/autostart using the following desktop file kodi.desktop:

Code:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=KODI
Comment=KODI
Exec=/usr/bin/kodi
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
Terminal=false

Personally, for integrated GPU HTPC I'd still recommend AMD APU based PCs - my main HTPC for my projector which is AMD based just simply works in Linux.

[gurabli]

Thank you plinkyplonky!
As I don't use retroarch (the new rig is going to be based on ASRock N3150-itx, that will run Ubuntu Server 15.04, with Kodi and some basic home server tasks), I believe that the first version will work for me, I really don't want a windows manager installed.

EDIT: Could you tell me exactly how to install these:

- Kernel 4.0.5 from mainline kernel
- xserver-xorg-video-intel https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5572..._amd64.deb
- Wsnipex's i965/libva drivers - currently 1.6.0pre1