Thanks Marco for posting the tips for getting the GPU working.
I was unable to get mpv, a newly compiled vlc or gst-launch to work with the GPU but the ffplay provided by liujianfeng1994 did work however it only can play up to 4k. At 8k, it chokes with a bunch of messages like
Any tips / tricks on getting 8k going?
With the orangepi distribution it can play 8k but the colors are all washed out making it unusable and I would rather go with Armbian anyway.
Cheers.