WIP Rockchip RK3399 devices running LibreELEC Kodi Leia
#1
Disclaimer right off the bat...I have no affiliation or relationship with the companies linked below...

I decided to fire up a RK3399 developer board (ODROID N1) I was given sometime last year and install the latest LibreELEC 9.0 Kodi Leia on to it.
It's very similar to the Rock PI 4 below.

I've been pleasantly surprised to say the least, how smooth and snappy LibreELEC Kodi Leia was on such a Rockchip Chipset.

What is currently working:
  • HDMI CEC if your HDMI connected A/V equiptment decides to play nice..
  • The very big surprise is Hardware decoding of 10bit h264 aka Hi10P Anime !
  • For video hardware decoding virtually everything works (see below)
  • Even high quality, full motion hardware deinterlacing for Broadcast TV use.
  • When the Netflix servers decide to co-operate 1080p Netflix video plays back smoothly using the Kodi Leia Netflix Addon.
  • 5.1 AC3, 5.1 DTS. HD audio is decoded to 7.1 LPCM only at this stage. (works well with my Yamaha AVR)
  • auto refresh switching with support for all video Frame Rates
  • auto resolution switching (had a few issues with 4K content for this)

What currently does not work & limitations:
  • DD+ and HD audio passthrough, inc. Atmos. (its coming soon, use LPCM)
  • Full 4K HDR10 support. Some HDR10 Metadata is missing from the HDMI datastream. (also coming) - more info from @noggin HERE
  • Kodi Leia HDR > SDR tonemapping only works when CPU Software decoding
  • Some old VC-1 content seems a bit stuttery if SW decoded.

Many thanks go to the LibreELEC Kodi developer @Kwiboo Smile

An example of what's available....RockPro64's (click) are very similar.

Rock PI 4 tech Specs (click)
  • RK3399 SoC containing..
  • 6 core CPU package with dual 1.8GHz Cortex-A72 and quad 1.4GHz Cortex-A53
  • ARM Mali T860MP4 GPU, supports OpenGL ES 1.1 --> 3.2, Vulkan 1.0, Open CL 1.1 1.2, DX11
  • Dual channel RAM - LPDDR4@3200Mb/s
  • eMMC 5.1 flash storage 8G/16G/32G/64G/128G available
  • micro SDHC support
  • M.2 connector supports up to 2TB M.2 NVME SSD
  • USB 3.0 OTG x1 & USB 3.0 HOST x 1
  • USB 2.0 x2
  • USB Type C PD 2.0, 9V/2A, 12V/2A, 15V/2A, 20V/2A for power supply
  • HDMI 2.0a (4K @60Hz)
  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • Inbuilt Dual band 2,4/5GHz AC WiFi (optional)
  • Inbuilt Bluetooth 5.0 (optional)
  • 3.5mm Audio Jack
  • MIPS (Camera) CSI, GPIO, RTC and POE connectors

Rock Pi 4 FAQ (click)

LibreELEC 9.0 Leia on such RK3399 devices is running a v4.4 Linux Kernel which is stable and provides for great external peripheral connectivity.
The current list of LibreELEC supported Rockchip devices is found HERE (click)
You cannot buy any old Rockchip device off the street and expect it to work properly - yet !

Rockchip LibreELEC forum support found over HERE

You only need 1GB RAM for any sort of smooth, snappy LibreELEC Kodi device. LE is a fast, lean and mean, minimal Linux OS

I will say it now, pound for pound the RK3399 is the most powerful Chipset for a 4K Linux based Kodi media player on the market today.
Especially when you look at the prices of the USD $39 - $64 Rock PI 4's (click)

It's early days yet and there are a few rough edges but I suspect 2019 will be a breakout year for Rockchip devices and Linux Kodi support.
More to come...

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#2
I know I've already asked you several times, but how good is the SD upscaling quality? Same or better than Amlogic?
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#3
I cannot switch on Lanczsos3-optimised upscaling unless content is CPU Software decoded.
When I do, say for old progressive SD Star Trek - Netflix content, it appears marginally sharper - the effect is real subtle.

You cannot use any of the CPU Software upscalers when content is hardware decoded or being hardware deinterlaced - so in those cases SD upscaling picture quality (to 1080p) is the same as I see with AMLogic.
Software decoding and YADIFx2 software deinterlacing Broadcast TV content and using anything but Nearest Neighbour/ Bilinear produces jerky video playback and block picture outputs.

The 6 core CPU package in the RK3399 has enough ponies to virtually software decode anything except 8/10bit 4K HEVC / VP9

Currently playing around with this advanced settings.xml Artwork Upscaling option - imagescalingalgorithm

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#4
So if I get this for example: http://www.rikomagic.com/en/product/show...id_20.html
Put LibreELEC 9.0 (with Kodi 18) on microSD, I will have nice movie playback except HD audio passthrough ?
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#5
(2019-02-10, 15:19)jarosujo Wrote: So if I get this for example: http://www.rikomagic.com/en/product/show...id_20.html
Put LibreELEC 9.0 (with Kodi 18) on microSD, I will have nice movie playback except HD audio passthrough ?

Not so fast....as posted above...

The current list of LibreELEC supported Rockchip devices is found HERE (click)

The issue as with LibreELEC / CoreELEC AMLogic is the device trees that describe the hardware and interface with the Linux Kernel.
They are all slightly different due to different hardware configs.

As an example HERE (click) is the CoreELEC master device tree repo. collected over the last 2+ years.

The same needs to be done for Rockchip devices.

Remember this is a WIP - Work in Progress.
You cannot buy any Android Rockchip box of the street just - yet - and expect it to work like you can for AMLogic devices.

You can take a gamble and hope the Hardware is similar to one of the reference boards officially listed and hope it will work.
The other thing I have forgotten is Infra Red remote support has not been added yet either.

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#6
Thanx for quick reply.
Infra remote is a must for me (using Logitech Harmony), mouse and keyboard is nono in the living room.  I will keep my Minix Neo U1 + LibreELEC + Kodi Krypton then.
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#7
Just been informed by the RK LE lead developer @Kwiboo that the Boards in the following list should already have Infra Red support...

LibreELEC Rockchip supported devices (click)

Also random off the shelf Android Rockchip media players will NOT be supported by Team LE unless someone at least attempts to get their the media players Device Tree submitted into the Upstream Linux Github codebase repository first.
ie. LE developers will NOT be chasing such must have files.

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#8
Wrxtasy, Rockchip has burned me too often, BUT there is a new sheriff in town......

I am excited about this one......... Something to look forward to..........

https://forum.freaktab.com/forum/tv-play...marked-cnx

https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/02/13/...s922x-sbc/
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#9
Hi,
Looks like a powerful wee beastie indeed for $63 / $79 for the 2GB or 4GB model.

There is an ODROID N2 - launch thread over on the Hardkernel forums (click)

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#10
What exactly is the difference between these small boards and complete device (like Minix U1) ? Is the only difference no case, power adapter and remote control ?
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#11
RockChip RK3288 & RK 3399 - already have Linux GPU drivers for LibreELEC Kodi Leia and beyond.

ODROID N2 - already has Linux GPU drivers available for the Linux 4.9 Kernel. Should be the fastest out of all of the boards once LibreELEC Kodi is up and running.

AMLogic S905 devices like the U1 already have ARM supplied GPU drivers for LibreELEC Kodi Leia and beyond.

vs the S905 U1 - the Rockchip boards will be slightly faster when running LibreELEC, but not a polished - Yet - eg. HD audio passthrough has yet to be added.
They are HDR capable as well - another feature yet to be added.

Rockchip can also hardware decode Hi10P Anime - thats really rare for Anime fans.
They are also running a modern v4.4 Linux Kernel for better plug in Hardware compatibility. eg USB dongles, TV Tuners & other peripherals.

RK3399 can CPU Software decode 1080p Netflix with the (LibreELEC) Kodi Leia Addon.
All LibreELEC / CoreELEC AMLogic devices limited to 720p SW decoding at the moment - this should improve with better GPU drivers and a modern Kernel for Kodi v19 M.

MINIX U1 has one of the best integrated Wireless remotes on the market, my favourite A2 Lite Mini Keyboard - that can also easily turn the device OFF / ON.

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#12
Thanx for ( as always) excellent reply, but I was aiming at hardware point of view. Like what kind of other hardware you actually need so you can use it. If I understand properly, it's like PC motherboard with CPU, GPU and RAM already installed. So you need power cable with proper adapter, some kind of remote control (IR, BT...) and OS (LibreELEC for example) on SD card. And some case I guess, right ?
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#13
Ah i see.
Yes you are correct these devices come as bare boards, you need to mix and match, power supplies & cables, SD cards or faster eMMC storage and a case.
Some like the Rock Pi-4 come as packages with nearly all that you need. Storage still needs to be added.

Easiest control method is a Plug in USB dongle Wireless remote like a MINIX A2 lite.
I have also been using a dirt cheap CSR Bluetooth dongle (my N1 board has no BT) and a cheap Bluetooth remote that I had to custom compile LibreELEC and add support for.

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#14
Hi
just for adding info.

Just installed LibreELEC-RK3399.arm-8.90.013-rockpro64 (latest stable) on my RockPro64 4gb, 32gb samsung evo sd.
Libreelec is very fluid and responsive and Netflix can be played ad fullhd without lag

watch gallery


BHH
HDConvertToX, AutoMKV, AutoMen author
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#15
(2019-02-16, 11:44)buzzqw Wrote: Hi
just for adding info.

Just installed LibreELEC-RK3399.arm-8.90.013-rockpro64 (latest stable) on my RockPro64 4gb, 32gb samsung evo sd.
Libreelec is very fluid and responsive and Netflix can be played ad fullhd without lag

watch gallery


BHH
 Thanks for that info.   If you use " Ctrl + Shift + o" on your keyboard, it will bring up a top overlay showing any dropped or skipped frames.
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Rockchip RK3399 devices running LibreELEC Kodi Leia0