[TESTING] Linux 4.9 kernel and improved video stack for Vero 4K / 4K +

jahutchi · 6 October 2020 07:38

@sam_nazarko this morning I tested LiveTV using the 4.9 usb image you supplied, and the results were not good I’m afraid. The video was like it was running in slow motion on a 1080i h264 stream (ITV HD). I tried several HD channels all with the same result. I also tried some SD channels and those stuttered really badly too. Basically unusable

I have a video of the result shot from my phone if you’d like me to upload somewhere.

I had carried over my .kodi directory so was running with the same settings as per my working 3.14 setup.

grahamh · 6 October 2020 12:10

FWIW I’ve been running 4.9 for months and it’s working fine right now playing Loose Women

Better than a phone video would be debug logs as there must be something different about your setup. I’m not running that usb image but should be something close.

lancelot · 6 October 2020 14:02

Yeah u r right, when i disabled HW acceleration in kODI menu, video playback is fine. I have an idea how to solve this. I tried change settings like this

   <setting id="videoplayer.useamcodec" default="true">true</setting>
   <setting id="videoplayer.useamcodech264">800</setting>
   <setting id="videoplayer.useamcodecmpeg2">800</setting>
   <setting id="videoplayer.useamcodecmpeg4" default="true">800</setting>

but this didnt work. I expect HW acceleration off for videos lower than HD(it means 1080p??). Where are these settings processed exactly integer value 800?

Thanks for the help.

angry.sardine · 6 October 2020 14:10

It means 720p.

grahamh · 6 October 2020 14:20

There’s something wrong with that USB image. I’m getting:

2020-10-06 14:06:17.209 T:3443519712   DEBUG: CDVDVideoCodecAmlogic::Opening: codec 70 profile:3 extra_size:31
2020-10-06 14:06:17.209 T:3443519712   DEBUG: SECTION:LoadDLL(libamcodec.so)
2020-10-06 14:06:17.210 T:3443519712   DEBUG: Loading: libamcodec.so
2020-10-06 14:06:17.212 T:3443519712 WARNING: Unable to resolve: libamcodec.so codec_get_vdec_is_buffering, reason: /usr/osmc/lib/libamcodec.so: undefined symbol: codec_get_vdec_is_buffering
2020-10-06 14:06:17.212 T:3443519712   ERROR: Unable to resolve exports from dll libamcodec.so
2020-10-06 14:06:17.212 T:3443519712 WARNING: CAMLCodec::CAMLCodec libamcodec.so not found

and a sad face when using HW acceleration. Sam is aware.

lancelot · 6 October 2020 14:55

Ok. So i guess there is no way to set hw acceleration on for height >720p (not equal)

sam_nazarko · 6 October 2020 18:10

What version of libamcodec is installed?
Try dpkg -l | grep libamcodec

sam_nazarko · 6 October 2020 18:23

FYI, the correct and working version should be

dpkg -l | grep -i libamcodec
ii  libamcodec-osmc                       1.6.0-2                             armhf        libamcodec

sam_nazarko · 6 October 2020 22:37

@jahutchi Mirror might have failed (FAU was recently down) preventing the USB image from carrying the correct version of amcodec. SD was unaffected. I have updated the image. Same link as before.

Sam

jahutchi · 8 October 2020 07:58

I’ve updated my USB stick using the new image and tried playing LiveTV again, but had the same result I’m afraid. The picture runs like it’s in slow-motion whilst the audio is fine. Here are some debug logs:

http://paste.osmc.tv/zigogejiga

Here is where I started playback of LiveTV :

2020-10-08 07:36:23.143 T:4070100160 NOTICE: VideoPlayer::OpenFile: pvr://channels/tv/All channels/pvr.hts_983057789.pvr

NOTE: ignore kodi.old.log - that is from my working 3.14 setup (I copied over the .kodi directory to carry over my settings).

grahamh · 8 October 2020 15:00

It’s still playing without HW decoding. Can you do this:

As you were - I can see you’re on the latest.

AML: no proper permission, please contact the device vendor. Skipping codec...

Can you check the file permissions?

osmc@vero4kp2:/usr/osmc/lib$ ls -l
total 3820
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  170404 Sep 16 19:50 libamadec.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   38712 Sep 16 19:50 libamavutils.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    1273 Jul 24 18:00 libamcodec.LICENSE
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   71772 Sep 16 19:50 libamcodec.so

jahutchi · 8 October 2020 16:29

Permissions on those look good here

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  170404 Sep 16 18:50 libamadec.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   38712 Sep 16 18:50 libamavutils.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    1273 Jul 24 17:00 libamcodec.LICENSE
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   71772 Sep 16 18:50 libamcodec.so

sam_nazarko · 8 October 2020 17:16

The problem is that your bootloader is too old

Oct 08 07:29:16 osmc systemd-modules-load[2154]: Inserted module 'optee'
Oct 08 07:29:16 osmc systemd-modules-load[2154]: Inserted module 'optee_armtz'
Oct 08 07:29:16 osmc kernel: optee_armtz: api uid mismatch
Oct 08 07:29:16 osmc kernel: optee: probe of optee.0 failed with error -22

You need a bootloader which incorporates secureOSMC.
This normally comes automatically if you’d enabled / installed from the 4.9 repo in the past.

Try:

wget http://apt.osmc.tv/pool/main/v/vero3-bootloader-osmc/vero3-bootloader-osmc_1.5.0-1_armhf.deb -O bootloader.deb
sudo dpkg -i bootloader.deb
reboot

Sam

afonso1.6 · 8 October 2020 18:59

Hi guys , long time I don’t check my vero , I am using 4.9 and noticed there isn’t any latest updates , last one was in June , I haven’t follow the thread lately , so my question is if last update available was indeed that one from June .

sam_nazarko · 8 October 2020 19:35

The latest release was in September.
Make sure that you’ve added the new repository which is only supported under Buster.

Sam

jahutchi · 9 October 2020 11:44

That makes sense; I’ve never tried a 4.9 kernel prior to using this USB image.

Thanks, this did the trick. My streams are now playing via AMCodec, and looking much better based on a quick 5-minute test.

I’ll perform more testing over the coming weeks to see whether my specific issue of intermittent frame skipping in h264 streams is resolved in the 4.9 kernel. Will keep you updated…

sedit1 · 9 October 2020 19:11

Just recieved my vero 4k. Im using it to watch 3d movies and wanted to install 18.6.0 version but it didn’t go well and I dont know what is the problem. First I updated the kernel. Vero says that it’s now 4.9.113-22-osmc and kodi is 18.8. Now I’m trying to revert the kodi version to 18.6.0 by typing sudo apt-get install --reinstall vero3-mediacenter-osmc=18.6.0-13 in terminal but it just says: Version ’ 18.6.0-13 ’ for ’ vero3-mediacenter-osmc ’ was not found .

I noted that someone had the same problem but he didnt have the 4.9 kernel installed. Can you help me with this? Here is the log file https://paste.osmc.tv/uzohocowan
Thank you!

angry.sardine · 9 October 2020 20:04

Reverting to 18.6 isn’t necessary any more. The 18.8/4.9 build plays 3D just fine.

sedit1 · 10 October 2020 05:10

Thank you! My mistake, my av reciver was not passing 3d signal through and just got black screen but now everything works when connected straight to projector!

petersasi · 11 October 2020 11:58

It just went green again, tried playing a few different resolution TV Shows and movies: all green.
The output of the above command is empty.
Also tried with sudo. Also tried:
sudo cat /sys/class/video/amvideo/subsystem/dump_reg
all comes up empty.
https://paste.osmc.tv/akevawecom I could however get you the usual logs.