[IDEA] Raspberry Pi 2 and H.265/HEVC?

[syco]

Hi guys,

I just wanted to ask, if it would be possible now with
the new Pi 2 to play H.265 movies or will those 4 x
900 MHz still be too less?

Thanks for your output, guys.

[Exnor]

(3rd Feb, 2015 02:40 AM)syco Wrote:  Hi guys,

I just wanted to ask, if it would be possible now with
the new Pi 2 to play H.265 movies or will those 4 x
900 MHz still be too less?

Thanks for your output, guys.

The Videocore 4 is the same... so it will need software decoding for H.265 (HEVC)... dont know if this will be enough to soft decode the Codec...

[syco]

Yeah, I know about the same video hardware,
but I was wondering, if the added CPU power
will suffice to let us indulge in watching the new
HEVC stuff per our Pis.

[rikardo1979]

to be honest that thing is need i7 to play properly and I do not think it would ever work on ARM of any kind
Hi10P H.264 possibly as it runs now without stutter just lots of picture artifacts and discolouration, but honestly doubt it would run H.265

[f1vefour]

My tablet is more powerful and it can't decode H.265 in real time, so no it won't be able to do this.

[Exnor]

(3rd Feb, 2015 04:01 AM)rikardo1979 Wrote:  to be honest that thing is need i7 to play properly and I do not think it would ever work on ARM of any kind
Hi10P H.264 possibly as it runs now without stutter just lots of picture artifacts and discolouration, but honestly doubt it would run H.265

I agree with you. Unless the Soc as built in hardware decoders i'm not seeing been possible to decode properly HEVC just with soft algorithms. And certainly not on a A7 core based CPU (baring in mind that the CPU have to handle a lot more stuff than just the codec part...)

The current gen Qualcomm SoC's that are said to support H.265 all have GPU's that decode and encode by hardware (and the same goes for Nvidia, Samsung, Lg, etc...).

Also there is the question of the max resolution output that the Pi can do.... isn't limited to 1080p ? Or is it possible to bypass that limit with coding?

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(3rd Feb, 2015 04:11 AM)f1vefour Wrote:  My tablet is more powerful and it can't decode H.265 in real time, so no it won't be able to do this.

Same here mate... my desktop is running on a i5 with a Nvidia GPU and it can't handle H.265

[syco]

Thanks, mates, for the information. What I just do not understand,
is the massive CPU power needed just to watch one of those movies.

I do not mean the physical facts, but are we really talking about the
same stuff regarding the coded files?

What I have in mind are not those huge 10 GB blu-ray sizes. I am
talking about small 300 MB movies with a resolution of max 480p
or 720p.

Something like that: http://kickass.so/white-collar-s06e06-au-revoir-720p-web-dl-2ch-x265-hevc-psa-mkv-t10171535.html

I just can not imagine, a dual-core processor would not be enough
and really EVERY user now has to own an i7 quad-core computer
to watch that stuff.

I have an i7, so I can not test it on my PC, but I also have a four or
five year old laptop with an old dual-core processor. I will check out,
if I can watch one of those files there.

[rikardo1979]

it's not about the size but rather amount of data to process in the time

[IriDium]

@syco If you could provide a snippet of a video (If legal) encoded as H.265/HEVC and we might be able to do some comparisons on different hardware.

Most UK users cannot use Torrents for fear of the Internet Police.

My thoughts are that behind the scenes most processing is done in H/W without us knowing it, whilst H.265 is new and not included in the H/W and thus has to be done in S/W. As it has double the compression ration of H.264 there's a lot more processing power required. I'm sure this was true when DTS was announced.

For now, you'd be better off transcoding them to something else. Handbrake is supposed to be able to handle H265.

[CurlyMo]

It runs fine on my Pentium G3220 with VLC and integrated GPU.
It doesn't run well on my Hummingboard Solo.

Code:

17:47:41 T:1392505776  NOTICE: Creating video codec with codec id: 1211250229
17:47:41 T:1392505776   ERROR: iMX VPU : codecid 1211250229 is not (yet) handled                                                .
17:47:41 T:1392505776  NOTICE: CDVDVideoCodecFFmpeg::Open() Using codec: HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding)

Will test the Raspberry Pi 2 tomorrow.

[syco]

Rikardo, yeah, I know, but still I think/hope my five year old dual-core laptop will be able to play such a file. I will test it in about an hour. If it will not even play there, then there is no chance for our Pi, of course. Maybe not even with the new Pi 2.

Btw, how long will it take until Xbian supports it (the Pi 2)? Just estimated.

Iridium, I will search for a no-problem-causing file coded the same way the usual HEVC-PSA stuff is coded and then upload it somewhere for everyone's convenience.

[IriDium]

@syco If you remember about a year ago, xbian had problems decoding DTS, high CPU but the Dark Wizard @mk01 found a solution, and it now just works.

Give us some time, but first we need a legal file to test on. The RPi 2 may work (Suck in breath - just like a builder giving a quote)

[Exnor]

(4th Feb, 2015 02:41 AM)IriDium Wrote:  @syco If you could provide a snippet of a video (If legal) encoded as H.265/HEVC and we might be able to do some comparisons on different hardware.

Most UK users cannot use Torrents for fear of the Internet Police.

My thoughts are that behind the scenes most processing is done in H/W without us knowing it, whilst H.265 is new and not included in the H/W and thus has to be done in S/W. As it has double the compression ration of H.264 there's a lot more processing power required. I'm sure this was true when DTS was announced.

For now, you'd be better off transcoding them to something else. Handbrake is supposed to be able to handle H265.

Off topic: Police really goes after bittorrent client users in the UK? wow thats really petty of them

On topic: H.265 is well documented on this site so if anyone wants to learn a little more about it just follow the link .

And yes it requires dedicated hardware decoders (like the ones on the new GPU's) to free up the CPU... The same goes for the current H.264 (AVC) as we use it on the VideoCore 4 GPU on the Pi (or at least i have that impression lol).

My question here is: is it possible to write code for the VideoCore 4 (is a GPGPU right?) to handle the computation of the new codec? i mean if is the GPU is partially free it could do some of the job no?

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(4th Feb, 2015 03:00 AM)IriDium Wrote:  @syco If you remember about a year ago, xbian had problems decoding DTS, high CPU but the Dark Wizard @mk01 found a solution, and it now just works.

Give us some time, but first we need a legal file to test on. The RPi 2 may work (Suck in breath - just like a builder giving a quote)

On the Site you can find several HEVC legal samples to test

[IriDium]

@Exnor Thanks for the info - that will enable other users to "experiment" and see what results they get.

Off topic: Yes the RSA (I think) are in cahoots with BB suppliers in the UK (at a cost of £3,000,000 pa) to monitor BB torrent traffic and collect IP addresses which they then pass onto the BB supplier, who then can suspend your BB connection without notice. Many Torrent sites are already blocked.

I'm glad we live in a free world!!!

[syco]

Alright, guys, I just came back from testing with my old laptop. It has
an Intel Core2 Duo processor:

http://ark.intel.com/de/products/27255/Intel-Core2-Duo-Processor-T7200-4M-Cache-2_00-GHz-667-MHz-FSB

So, I tried to play a 360 MB file from the above-mentioned torrent site
(http://goo.gl/BnJ5PC) and at first there was a problem, playing only
audio and no video.

Then I updated to the latest K-Lite Codec Pack and the latest VLC, just
to be sure ... et voila ... there was absolutely no problem with playing
that video.

After that I tried some more even bigger files and also there was no
problem, even not in stressing like fast forward or just jumping around
on several points of the movies.

I think, those .265 problems with massive data start only when using
4K material or when using those ten to 20 GB sizes for not even a complete
movie but only one single episode of a series (30 - 45 minutes).

Well, I am not sure about our lovely little Pi, but maybe the Pi 2 could
get the job done.

Also, I think the stuff coded in the warez scene is not as data hungry
as those examples, Exnor posted.

Well, if you need any beta testing for the Pi 2 ... I would be gladly buying
one and deliver my time/energy, if it is not that difficult. I am not so
much the linux programming guy. That would be your specialty. =)

---

Well, well, well, I just tested now those files from Exnor's
site and those make really problems to be played at my
laptop.

But that just states, what I was thinking before. Of course,
you can use the HEVC codecs to show profoundly brilliant
quality with utmost data consumption ... but the scene will
just be about minimizing file size and still showing crazy nice
quality.

I checked about ten files between 300 - 400 MB and those
have better image quality than most 600 to 1000 MB files
coded with whatsoever. Might even better DVD quality.

... and I would be very happy, if we get to play those 100 to
500 HEVC files on our Pi/Pi 2.

So, if you still need some examples I will try to get some and
upload somewhere. Do not worry, no complete movies, just
cuts or episodes of series, where there are no problems with
copyright bullshit.