Hello,
I’m currently using A RaspberryPi model B+ with Raspbmc (Kody).
I’m having difficult times playing h264 videos encoded with the Hi10P profile.
Does the Vero is capable of handling such videos in 1080p?
In any case, what is the minimum hardware requirement to play those videos?
Thanks 
Hi
Unfortunately Vero cannot play 10-bit.
Sam
Thank you for your prompt response 
Well, for the moment, I’m using ffmpeg to transcode Hi10p video streams back to 8-bit.
If it can help someone, here is an example:
I just transcode the video stream, copy one audio track and 2 subtitles from a .mkv container.
To inspect .mkv or .mp4 files in order to get streams ID, one can use mkvinfo or ffprobe.
nohup ffmpeg -i input.mkv
-map 0:0 -map 0:2 -map 0:7 -map 0:8
-c:v libx264 -preset veryfast -tune animation -crf 19
-c:a copy
-c:s:0 copy
-c:s:1 copy
output.mkv > progress &
No available hardware video decoder chips support Hi10, which means it can only be decoded in software.
Because of this systems with embedded processors such as the Vero, Pi and Pi 2 are too slow to decode HD video in software alone, thus can’t play Hi10.
A fairly fast PC or Mac is the only way you will be able to play HD Hi10.
I found that using Handbrake with “appropriate” settings (e.g. audio passthrough, etc.) worked great. The resulting 8-bit stream was indistinguishable from the 10-bit “original”.
MediaInfo’s report on the movies I was trying to convert helped me configure Handbrake. I used profile “High” and level “5” for my transcode.
Opinion: I wish anime fansubbers weren’t so addicted to using 10-bit, but that’s another matter entirely.
Hope this helps!
The purpose of using ffmpeg in my case is to automate video stream conversion when the transmission daemon put a new file in the download folder. Basically, it’s a combination of inCron and PHP: the PHP script run ffprobe and parse the stdout to figure out if the file contain a HI10 video track, get its ID, and run ffmpeg in the background if necessary).
I don’t know much about Handbrake, but if your tool is smart enough to transcode the video and keep audios tracks and subtitles untouched, well, it is good enough
Regarding anime, in Japan, shows are broadcasted using the ISDB-Tb standard. It is only capable of using H264 (High profile or HiP).
The main advantage of the Hi10P profile (10 bit) is to prevent banding and save bitrate.
With a HiP video source, it is kind of silly to transcode raw sources in 10 bit because the banding is already there.
Understood…
I’ve just noticed that the “fansubbers” and the quasi-experts at Doom9 treat questions/“challenges to their authority” diffferently. I never understood the High to High10… requiring others to trans back to High just to watch on HW decoders either.
I used High/5.0 in my transcoding and it worked great.
Handbrake has been remarkably powerful in spite of it’s intuitive GUI, even though one might assume that makes it less versatile. I set it to use audio passthrough and include the subtitles present in the source material. There’s a field to enter command line arguments to x264, etc. to override some of the GUI configuration elements. Handbrake also seemed to include the 3 TrueType fonts encoded in the MKV file in the transcoded version as well, so I’m satisfied. (Handbrake also has a CLI, but I’ve never used it.)