x265 video decoding possible??

[Ottoman]

It looks like x265 video encoding is gaining popularity... seeing a lot of x265 encoded videos around, and talk about it offering a lot better compression and support for ultra HD. I tried playing some video clips using Raspbmc and only the audio plays, no video. Is there any software for the Pi that supports x265? Is the Pi's hardware even capable of playing it?

[jamesh]

No.

[Smeulf]

Hello,

Jamesh, can you be more specific about your 'no' ?

Let's ask it a bit differently : is there any chance that Raspberry Pi B(+) can in the future decode x265 video streams or will we have to wait for a "C" or even a "D" model ?

Anyway, that's really a good platform, and I'm very happy with mine

Best Regards.

Smeulf.

[drgeoff]

RPis have GPU hardware assist for real-time H.264 decode. The SoC (CPU and CPU) in the model B+ is exactly the same as in the A and B

[jamesh]

Hello,

Jamesh, can you be more specific about your 'no' ?

Let's ask it a bit differently : is there any chance that Raspberry Pi B(+) can in the future decode x265 video streams or will we have to wait for a "C" or even a "D" model ?

Anyway, that's really a good platform, and I'm very happy with mine

Best Regards.

Smeulf.

I thought No was pretty specific!

Anyway, as above, the GPU does not have any HW in it to decode H265 (I'm pretty sure the H264 blocks cannot be retasked). I cannot see any Pi in the medium term being able to support H265 in HW, but as faster CPU's become available it *may* be possible to do it in software on the ARM. That's a long way away though (years), so please do not hold your breath.

[aalaap]

Does anyone know if it's technically possible to create an add-on HW x265 decoder that plugs into the Pi over USB, if not GPIO? Just a thought...

[ghans]

Where would you send the decoded data ?? At HD resolution , you already
need Gigabit bandwidth for that , not to think about 2K or 4K.
No way USB 2.0 with its 480 MBit/s can handle that , which is still the fastest openly
available interface on the Pi.

ghans

[aalaap]

I don't know about 4K, but perhaps just HD video at x265 to begin with?

The lack of a gigabit ethernet port on the Pi is still a bummer, though. Sigh.

[dom]

It looks like x265 video encoding is gaining popularity... seeing a lot of x265 encoded videos around, and talk about it offering a lot better compression and support for ultra HD. I tried playing some video clips using Raspbmc and only the audio plays, no video. Is there any software for the Pi that supports x265? Is the Pi's hardware even capable of playing it?

Latest (Helix) xbmc does support H.265 on Pi, but it's software decode on the ARM and will only keep up at about QVGA resolution.
If you need H.265 support the the Pi is not the best platform to use.

[rpdom]

I don't know about 4K, but perhaps just HD video at x265 to begin with?

The lack of a gigabit ethernet port on the Pi is still a bummer, though. Sigh.

What would a Pi do with a Gigabit Ethernet port? It can't quite cope with the full speed of 100Mbit without serious CPU load.

[aalaap]

What would a Pi do with a Gigabit Ethernet port? It can't quite cope with the full speed of 100Mbit without serious CPU load.

Even for simple data transfer? I use my Pi to download directly to my NAS and then XMBC to play back from the same NAS. Both operations happen fine, but I assumed that a gigabit port would make file transfers a little quicker.

[ghans]

A gigabit Ethernet port would not solve your problem because
1) it would still be internally connected via USB 2.0 which limits the
theorhetical throughput already to less than half
2) HD resolution actually needs 1,5 GBit/s

ghans

[emma24xia]

you are right, more and more media players and devices tend to support x265 encoded videos, but might if I ask where did you get the original h265 videos? Few devices could create.

[elatllat]

The nuc is the only SBC like thing that can do 4k/x265 AFAIK.
The Amazon Fire TV ($75) with kodi side loaded on it is a more closed option (That can be rooted but can't run custom OSs at the moment.)

There are a bunch of GPUs that do this but not many are used in SOCs yet.

Amlogic (S905,T886,S812,S802,T868,M802) Mali-T450 MP8
Samsung Exynos 8 Octa (8890) Mali-T880 MP12
Intel GPUs with no name or data

I have not found any SBCs that use any of those SOCs.

[fruitoftheloom]

The nuc is the only SBC like thing that can do 4k/x265 AFAIK.
The Amazon Fire TV ($75) with kodi side loaded on it is a more closed option (That can be rooted but can't run custom OSs at the moment.)

There are a bunch of GPUs that do this but not many are used in SOCs yet.

Amlogic (S905,T886,S812,S802,T868,M802) Mali-T450 MP8
Samsung Exynos 8 Octa (8890) Mali-T880 MP12
Intel GPUs with no name or data

I have not found any SBCs that use any of those SOCs.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/80 ... escription

SoC – Intel Atom x5-Z8300 “Cherry Trail” quad core processor @ 1.44 GHz (Burst frequency: 1.84 GHz) with Intel Gen8 HD graphics @ 500 MHz

[elatllat]

...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/80 ... escription

SoC – Intel Atom x5-Z8300 “Cherry Trail” quad core processor @ 1.44 GHz (Burst frequency: 1.84 GHz) with Intel Gen8 HD graphics @ 500 MHz

Cool but it's not available yet and it's $134 which is the same price as a nuc on sale,
and some details are lacking (like if it support HDMI 2.0/4k/x265).

[jamesh]

Anyone tried x265 on the quad core Pi yet? With NEON it may be possible to decode H265 at sensible resolutions.

[dom]

Anyone tried x265 on the quad core Pi yet? With NEON it may be possible to decode H265 at sensible resolutions.

In Kodi you can play DVD resolution x265 on a Pi2.
The Milhouse OpenELEC builds include additional GPU acceleration (using both VPU and QPU) which means most 720p content can be decoded.
This is really pushing the chip to it's limits (and provides an effective stress test for overclocking and your power supply).

[notmyidea]

I just did an experiment decoding x265 on the Rasp Pi 2.

Decoding 480p video put all four cores on average at 50% load. I watched for 5 minutes and there were a dozen missed frames.

Decoding the same video encoded with x264 put all four cores on average at 10% load. There were no missed frames.

[dom]

I just did an experiment decoding x265 on the Rasp Pi 2.

Decoding 720p video put all four cores on average at 50% load. I watched for 5 minutes and there were a dozen missed frames.

Decoding the same video encoded with x264 put all four cores on average at 10% load. There were no missed frames.

For this to mean anything you'll have to explain what software you were using.

[notmyidea]

Good point.
This is with OpenElec and Kodi. It was actually 480p video.

[dom]

Good point.
This is with OpenElec and Kodi. It was actually 480p video.

Okay. You may get better performance with a Milhouse nightly build which includes GPU acceleration.

[RaspberryGraham]

Hi all

I have some out of the box success... now.

I was using a raspberry pi 2 model b with osmc installed from noobs. it would run h.265 but the video was playing slower than the audio which was also stuttering. so was totally unwatchable.

the trouble is that h.265 is really processor hungry so the 2 was not quite up to it. it was however close. to put that into prospective my ps3 can't do h.265. although my friend's xbox one can do it fine.

The raspberry pi 3 which arrived today works a treat with h.265

I am using an out of the box raspberry pi 3 model b. 8gb micro sd class 10. the video is stored on an external hdd.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/ra ... 3-model-b/
osmc is installed from noobs. https://www.raspberrypi.org/help/noobs-setup/

realise this info is a bit late for you Ottoman but hopefully it will help others.

[kodr]

what was the video resolution?

[RaspberryGraham]

Many apologies, that sort of information would have been very useful.

So far i have only tried 720p.