[Solved] Does Le Potato accelerate Kodi?

[Radius]

Hi,

Does Le Potato accelerate Kodi? I don't see 'multimedia' image, does it standard image with vanila kernel?

 

Thanks Radius

[TonyMac32]

Our images so far are vanilla kernel images with patchsets put out by BayLibre, who is doing the mainlining work for the Amlogic SoC's.  That said, video decoding will be accelerated soon, as it is being integrated into the upstream kernel. 

[Radius]

Thanks.

 

I tell because libreElec drops unofficial support, thus Le Potato / La Frite is pointless. If there will be support in kernel, it would be great!

Radius

[TonyMac32]

2 hours ago, Radius said:

I tell because libreElec drops unofficial support

Interesting, I don't keep track of them and their support.  Perhaps they haven't been following the mainline developments...  This is one of the few boards actually capable of 4K video, and the recent pacthset submitted should enable HDMI 2.0 support shortly, and the memory on the board is fast enough to actually play 4k, and with the hardware decoders working....

[c0rnelius]

On 11/24/2018 at 4:15 PM, Radius said:

Thanks.

 

I tell because libreElec drops unofficial support, thus Le Potato / La Frite is pointless. If there will be support in kernel, it would be great!

Radius

 

Have you tried CoreElec? Been using it for sometime with the Le Potato. 

[Radius]

Hi,

thanks for reply, I have found it, but seems it is one man show like LibreElec was and not really stable (users report crashes of Kodi).

 

Thus I have decide to not buy La Frite. La Frite and Le Potato is not ready for multimedia. Maybe someday when will be support in kernel...

 

Best option today (price / performance / market availability) seems to be future rpi4, there is warranty that it will be supported and it will works for some, hope long, time.

 

Radius

[TonyMac32]

8 hours ago, Radius said:

Maybe someday when will be support in kernel...

 

That is sooner rather than later, the patches are being reviewed for merging into mainline, and I see an update on the patchset we use to include it and 4K in the dev kernel.  

[TonyMac32]

8 hours ago, Radius said:

seems to be future rpi4

I didn't read this the first time, but, I don't follow your logic.  RPi hardware has gotten less reliable since the Pi2, not more.  Movement to a new SoC will mean no carryover hardware support, and I don't know of any timelines for the availability of this "future Pi".  How long did it take to get a 64-bit image for Pi3?  How long did it take to get proper software support on the original pi?  I see no reason to assume the Pi 4 will have acceptable support within a year of release, unless it is released as an Allwinner, Amlogic, or Rockchip device, at which point it means you should have bought the potato/Frite/Tinker board anyway, since Pi will offer no benefit.

[c0rnelius]

14 hours ago, Radius said:

thanks for reply, I have found it, but seems it is one man show like LibreElec was and not really stable (users report crashes of Kodi).

 

Well I can't speak for other peoples experiences, but as for my own. I haven't experienced a single crash

I think a lot of it comes down to eMMC and SD cards. I've found that if ur not using a eMMC with this device, it's best you get ur self a quality card.

The SanDisk Extreme Pro is what I'm currently using and yeah... Working Well.

 

I also have another Potato with the eMMC on board and am currently using it as a NAS. Also runs just fine.

[Tommy21]

About vpu decoding, as i understand this is just a question of hours/days before it is integrated into mainline kernel?

And all of the future Amlogic patches will also be updated in 4.19 lts kernel?

Will it be possible to watch chromium/firefox accelerated videos when it lands, i did read a little about chromium/chrome not being accelerated in Linux, so i guess that will remain an issue?

What is the status of Wayland drivers for Amlogic s905/x, will it be possible to use them in the near future?

[Szymon_Zy]

Does it make sense to buy Le Potato now and count that it would be soon usable as kodi device? I want it to use with Netflilx plugins and Retroplayer (mostly ScummVM).

[TRS-80]

Currently, this thread comes up as one of the top results when you do an internet search for "Le Potato Kodi." Plus I really like/trust the content and contributors here (as opposed to other places), so I will hope to add to this discussion.

 

I am a free/libre software/hardware guy, and I really want companies like Libre Computer Project to succeed. Having said that...

 

There is a lot to like about the Le Potato, especially for Kodi: AmLogic S-905 based (hardware decoding), RPi form factor (can re-use cute little Retro NES case I already have), very reasonably priced (considering those capabilities), etc...

 

I was getting really excited about this device as a "front-end" board for Kodi (to attach to TV), until I read that it only supports 100M ethernet... So what's the point of being able to display 4k if you can't stream it over your network? I guess if you store your content only locally on the device?

 

So dissapoint.

Edited July 10, 2019 by TRS-80
split paragraph for readability

[TonyMac32]

On 7/10/2019 at 9:06 AM, TRS-80 said:

So what's the point of being able to display 4k if you can't stream it over your network?

Compressed 4K streaming content requires at most 25 Mbps, so this should be fine.  Uncompressed, well, that's a different animal.