[noggin]

Hello!

Any news around the Rpi4? It's been a while and have no new sign in the starter post so far. Like VC1, AVC (and all the "mandatory" codecs) support, 3D, HDR and all the other important general video playback necessities with (possibly) LibreElec? I'm just curious how the development goes so far and if there is any hope that it may ever become a good and suggestible alternative for a budget media player...? Or does it still looks like, that it's kind of a lost branch to go?

AVC/h.264 hardware decode up to 1080p (I've had no problems with high bitrate 1080p50 but there may be an official limit at 1080p30)
HEVC/h.265 hardware decode up to 2160p60 (Not checked recently but high bitrate stuff wasn't perfect early in the 4B's life)

VC1 and MPEG2 are now decoded in software (they removed the licences that earlier Pi models used to add hardware decode options) but the Pi 4B CPU is pretty effective.

There is no current HDMI HDR Infoframe output support, nor a 10-bit output path, AIUI - so 2160p HDR stuff is still not really viable.   4:2:0 output isn't available - so you won't get 2160p50 or 2160p60 output for some lower end UHD TVs that only support 4:2:0 at higher frame rate 2160p (Higher end TV support 4:2:2)

Recently HD Audio support was added for bit streaming Dolby True HD (inc Atmos) and DTS HD MA (inc DTS:x I believe) for video output modes up to 1080p on the Pi 4B.  2160p output was still PCM 5.1/7.1 only - though this may have changed (and was being worked on)

3D MVC decode and Frame Packed output wasn't available last time I checked (I think 3D MVC decode may have been enabled but not Frame Packed output - or maybe it was the other way round...)

The Pi 4B+ is still a work in progress - but is being developed to work with the mainline Linux routes that Kodi 19 (or is it now 20?) will support - whereas lots of other platforms that currently support HDR etc. are using workarounds (though those platforms may also be able to switch to mainline routes)