Hardware video acceleration with recent armbian/mainline kernel (Kodi)

[XXXBold]

Hello everyone

 

Just would like to start a discussion about the current state of video acceleration (decoding only, h.265/h.264/av1).

The soc (rk3588) recently got mainline support for these features in 7.0: https://gitlab.collabora.com/hardware-enablement/rockchip-3588/notes-for-rockchip-3588/-/blob/main/mainline-status.md

 

Has anyone tested this on a OPI5 already, especially using Kodi? Does this work ootb there now?

 

Regards,

XXXBold

[chaitan3]

I have tested the following PR: https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/pull/14690

 

It needs compilation of a custom ffmpeg (linked in PR) + mpv (with this PR). My findings are reported here: https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/pull/14690#issuecomment-4159253319

 

Overall it is working, haven't tested Kodi yet.

[robertoj]

For context, he is talking about:

https://code.ffmpeg.org/FFmpeg/FFmpeg/pulls/20847 

 

There are many ffpmpeg options. Which ffmpeg did you use?

https://code.ffmpeg.org/Kwiboo/FFmpeg/src/branch/v4l2request-v3

https://code.ffmpeg.org/Kwiboo/FFmpeg/src/branch/v4l2-request-n8.1

 

And which debian/ubuntu version did you use? Which ffmpeg is included in that distribution? 

[chaitan3]

I'm using Ubuntu 24.04 noble armbian distribution, the branch I used for ffmpeg is https://code.ffmpeg.org/Kwiboo/FFmpeg/src/branch/v4l2request-v3

 

The ffmpeg included in the distribution does not matter, but regardless it is version 6.1.1. The mpv is built against the locally compiled ffmpeg with libplacebo from https://code.videolan.org/videolan/libplacebo.git

[robertoj]

I am glad that it's possible to use a different ffmpeg version than what the distribution expects.  (it gives me hope of installing it in Trixie, instead of changing over to the newest Ubuntu)

 

Did you install the locally compiled ffmpeg at OS level, or did you keep it in a folder within your /home/username/...?

Edited April 1 by robertoj

[maka]

For lazy people like me clapper from flathub is a solution.

[Joe K]

Hello, I made a buld with the vendor kernel for mekotronics R58SV2, and build ubutu desktop Gnome. I definately have no HW decoding since with fhd .mp4 h264 videos the beast runs on 100% cpu all cores what did I wrong? Help appreciated

[XXXBold]

Thanks for the responses!

 

TBH I am not very familiar with the software stack from userspace required for video playback.

 

So, some questions:

- @chaitan3: You mentioned using a custom ffmpeg for mpv. Do you know if ffmpeg is also needed for kodi (when just using it to playback videos, not converting)? In https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/pull/14690#issuecomment-4159253319 you mentioned you used kernel 6.19, but this didn't have mainline support yet, maybe the situation with 7.0 is different?

- Does anyone here have a rough idea what is still needed for Kodi (including the whole software stack below) to fully support HW video decoding on said platform (good if you know if specific PRs), without needing custom patches and possible ETA for that?

[Igor]

On 4/7/2026 at 5:13 PM, Joe K said:

and build ubutu desktop Gnome

On vendor kernel you need to enable overlay https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/extensions/mesa-vpu.sh#L18-L28

 

37 minutes ago, XXXBold said:

what is still needed for Kodi

 

mainline based gnome desktop + apt install kodi (just tested 4k/H264 video works without any problems)

[XXXBold]

@Igor Thanks for the answer!

 

So you run the latest Armbian to test? https://armbian.com/boards/orangepi5 from here? Which image? Would using the CLI version also work (I don't need a desktop).

Can you maybe also verify if HEVC works? (H264 works also quite okay in pure CPU iirc).

[Igor]

14 hours ago, XXXBold said:

Which image?

Gnome (wayland) desktop with kernel 6.18.y
 

14 hours ago, XXXBold said:

Would using the CLI version also work

 

Probably this way?

apt install mpv

mpv --hwdec=auto test.mkv

 

 (+) Video --vid=1 (*) (hevc 1920x816 25.000fps)
 (+) Audio --aid=1 --alang=mul (*) (aac 2ch 48000Hz)

AO: [alsa] 48000Hz stereo 2ch float
VO: [gpu] 1920x816 yuv420p

 

But something is still missing ... not hw accelerated. Sorry, not an expert here. I am happy when Chromium says it.

[Joe K]

Hi Igor, 
Thank you for your reply. I build an Image for Mekotronics R58V2, but I leaned today we dont have the R58S2 (yet) our current device is the R58s, with a build provided by Mekotronics and the HW decoding works with QT-Multimedia as playback back-end, 
This is this build: v26.02 rolling for Mekotronics R58S running Armbian Linux 6.1.84-vendor-rk35xx.  This device is not yet supported, at least I could not find it here. I will discuss with Mekotronics  to get also at least Standard support from Armbian in future.

 

I do have also Mekototronics R58X and R58HD devices we want to use also in ffuture the have better support level here as well. 
I could not find any Forums related to Mekotronics devices and seams can not open one or add threads to the Rockchip rk35xx section, there loads of OragePi stuff but I could not see that officially you support any of them, anyway I gave up  with them cause they are ...lets say below expectations ;-).
Please give me a hint.

As Iam new here please excuse if you get sometimes strange question, but Iam working with arm boards already for a while. 

Using CLI is not an option, we actually install LX-Qt together with the application.

 

Thanks for helping!