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noggin · (This post was last modified: 2018-03-15, 03:26 by noggin.)

In the UK we have SD MPEG2 on DVB-T muxes, and SD and HD H264 on DVB-T2 muxes. (The 'Freeview HD-only' SD channels - like Film4+1 - are all H264)

AIUI only the USA, Canada, Mexico, Korea (ATSC 1.0 8VSB), Australia (DVB-T) and Japan (ISDB-T) use MPEG2 for HD OTA - the rest of the world is using H264/AVC for HD - apart from Germany who jumped to 1080p50 H265/HEVC for their DVB-T2 HD upgrade (previously they were DVB-T MPEG2 SD).

noggin · 2018-03-15, 03:27

(2018-03-14, 22:43)tjay260476 Wrote: @hick the pi is a very good live tv client when you have a TVheadend backend. Even with HD content. With Kodi, there is no need for extra codecs either, it works straight out of the box as it were.

Yes - the Pi 3B is only let down by poorly performing 2.4GHz WiFi when it comes to Live TV-over-WiFi duties. With 5GHz 802.11ac the new Pi 3B+ could make a very neat little Kodi frontend for a TV Headend (or similar) back-end.

Exstaz · 2018-03-15, 09:56

Will this be able to replace my computer? I mostly watch movies with DTS HD 1080.

**tjay260476** · 2018-03-15, 11:22

(2018-03-15, 09:56)Exstaz Wrote: Will this be able to replace my computer? I mostly watch movies with DTS HD 1080.

Short answer for a HTPC solution is yes. I have two of the previous models running right now.

noggin · (This post was last modified: 2018-03-15, 11:31 by noggin.)

(2018-03-15, 09:56)Exstaz Wrote: Will this be able to replace my computer? I mostly watch movies with DTS HD 1080.

If your movies have DTS HD Master Audio tracks, then these won't be bitstreamed from the Pi, but 48 and 96kHz 5.1 tracks (and 192kHz 4.0 and below) can be losslessly decoded to PCM 5.1 or 7.1 (effectively moving the decode from the AVR to the Pi)

If your content is high-bitrate HEVC/H265 you may have some issues (though the Pi 3 B+ apparently is the best Pi yet for CPU/GPU decoded HEVC - as the VPU in the Pi doesn't do hardware decode of H265/HEVC) - but H264 1080p at very high bitrates isn't a problem for the Pis. (Even a Pi Zero...). I have 1080p50 H264 at 30+Mbs that play fine on every Pi I've tried (and my 3B+ hasn't arrived yet Smile

)

speedwell68 · 2018-03-15, 12:05

I'm planning on getting one for the Gigabit ethernet.

**Klojum** · 2018-03-15, 14:25

(2018-03-15, 12:05)speedwell68 Wrote: I'm planning on getting one for the Gigabit ethernet.

You'll get some 200-300Mb/s out of it (USB channel speed).

honcho · 2018-03-15, 16:02

Anyone with ARM experience care to estimate how much faster the new CPU is?

50%

100%

200% ??

speedwell68 · 2018-03-15, 16:30

Which is far better than the 80 - 90 Mbps I am getting now.

noggin · (This post was last modified: 2018-03-15, 16:38 by noggin.)

(2018-03-15, 16:02)honcho Wrote: Anyone with ARM experience care to estimate how much faster the new CPU is?

50%

100%

200% ??

It's gone from 1.2GHz to 1.4GHz - which is a difference of 200MHz - so I think you'd expect around 17% speed increase? It's the same SoC architecture as the SoC in the 3B but in a new package to help with heat dissipation (hence the higher standard clock speed) That extra speed is definitely useful though.

It's not really a new CPU - just slightly different packaging of the same CPU.

The new features are quite interesting for certain market areas. There are lots of people building clusters of Pis for distributed computing stuff - and being able to power it via PoE (with the new optional hat) and reliably boot it from Ethernet with no need for an SD card, means you can build clusters with just a single connection (Ethernet) and no need to separately distribute power or put in uSD cards into each Pi to boot. (The previous Pi 3B also had network boot, but it's apparently improved a bit in the 3B+)

The GigE is interesting for media player duties (buffers will fill more quickly) - but because it is still shared with the same USB 2.0 bus as any external USB-connected storage, you don't get the full benefits. Fast WiFi and GigE in one box is quite interesting though (WiFi isn't on the USB 2.0 bus)

honcho · 2018-03-15, 20:38

whaaaaa

Sorry, i assumed it was a newer generation processor.

movie78 · 2018-03-15, 22:53

(2018-03-14, 21:01)nickr Wrote: Pi does HD audio.

And there we go again..

wrxtasy · 2018-03-16, 01:44

(2018-03-15, 11:30)noggin Wrote: If your content is high-bitrate HEVC/H265 you may have some issues (though the Pi 3 B+ apparently is the best Pi yet for CPU/GPU decoded HEVC - as the VPU in the Pi doesn't do hardware decode of H265/HEVC).

Testing of HEVC needs to be real specific. There is 8bit and 10bit HEVC out in the "wild" and 10bit decoding is the more demanding of the two if a media player's VPU does not hardware decode it.

Milhouse · 2018-03-16, 06:56

The stock sdram frequency is also increased by 50MHz to 500MHz on the Pi3+ which is a benefit for HEVC decode as this is usually limited by sdram bandwidth. The Pi3+ also appears to have plenty of sdram overclocking headroom - my sample is stable at sdram_freq=720, over_voltage_sdram=8, sdram_schmoo=0x02000020.

Pienoet · 2018-03-17, 10:25

(2018-03-16, 01:44)wrxtasy Wrote:
(2018-03-15, 11:30)noggin Wrote: If your content is high-bitrate HEVC/H265 you may have some issues (though the Pi 3 B+ apparently is the best Pi yet for CPU/GPU decoded HEVC - as the VPU in the Pi doesn't do hardware decode of H265/HEVC).
Testing of HEVC needs to be real specific. There is 8bit and 10bit HEVC out in the "wild" and 10bit decoding is the more demanding of the two if a media player's VPU does not hardware decode it.

I used this settings too and it was running stable but mi pi 3b+ was really getting hot above 70 degrees with an active fan with a hevc 1080p 10bit file.

What the any recommended settings to get the temperature below 70 degrees?

Maybe usung a kodi flirc case?