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> And the RPI has, despite its fundamental shortcomings (needing the proprietary GPU to manage bootup, etc.), the best story in that particular department by so

> And the RPI has, despite its fundamental shortcomings (needing the proprietary GPU to manage bootup, etc.), the best story in that particular department by so much that it's not even a contest. Exactly! On the RPI if I want to watch HBO Max without stuttering, all I do is apt install Chromium in Raspbian Buster, fuck around with a dozen or so startup flags, give up, try Kodi, notice that there's no official plugin, install a conceivably legal plugin from "http://k.slyguy.xyz http://k.slyguy.xyz", unzip it, twiddle some quality settings, and put up with intermittent stuttering that's slightly better than when I started the whole process. I'm just guessing at the Kodi part[1] since I've only made it to the "give up on Chromium" part so far. Anyway, it's probably less work than what the author describes. Probably. 1: https://www.firesticktricks.com/hbo-max-kodi-addon.html https://www.firesticktricks.com/hbo-max-kodi-addon.html

RealStickman_ 4y ago
I have a Pi 4 and a Rock64Pro, both with LibreElec (basically Kodi) installed. The video playback performance and stability of the Pi 4 beat the Rock64 handily.
- petre 4y ago
  I run LibreElec on a RPi3 A+, which has the advantage of a regular HDMI port. It runs 1080p H264 smoothly. I haven't tried 4k or H265 yet.
  - dspillett 4y ago
    Using Kodi via LibreElec on a Pi3 (a B IIRC, not a B+) and x265 was a mixed bag. There is no hardware acceleration unlike on the Pi4 so it runs the general CPU cores hard. 720P was fine, but without extra cooling 1080P in summer months would eventually (60 to 90 minutes) cause it to thermal throttle and playback would fall apart. Given how warm it felt soon after starting playback, I was surprised it managed that long before throttling. You will likely get much better results with a cooling solution of some kind, particularly an active one.
    - petre 4y ago
      I'm using a regular radiator in a 3D printed box with big holes (2…3 mm wide and 4 cm long). If it needs a fan, I wouldn't use it as a media player.
      - dspillett 4y ago
        > If it needs a fan, I wouldn't use it as a media player. Same here. You might get away with higher resolution x265 with passive cooling (a really good heatsink), especially if the device is in a reliably cool environment, but around the time I started using such encoded media the Pi4 was readily available which does 265 in hardware so no similar heat problem (the Pi3 is now used for other experiments). Unfortunately current supply issues might preclude you using that upgrade option!
zokier 4y ago
best doesn't imply good
edapiieaway 4y ago
Streaming is a huge weakness of the Pi platform. It seems like the big sites change their DRM every few months, and everything stops working. A couple of years ago, I could happily use a Pi400 as a streaming box for my TV. Today, it's only good for playing videos off of an external drive with stock Raspbian. This was one big reason why I cancelled my Netflix subscription. In fairness though, I seriously doubt that other SBCs have better streaming support. Is there a project like OpenWRT for HDMI sticks like Roku, Fire TV, etc?
luma 4y ago
The process you link doesn't seem to be related to an rPi, rather, trying to get Kodi to play HBO. Am I misunderstanding something? Would this process be any easier on a Rock64?
bsder 4y ago
> On the RPI if I want to watch HBO Max without stuttering Then you're probably not in the "embedded" space. You're in the "I want a cheap desktop/laptop" space. You don't need video to run a gateway. You don't need video to drive a piece of machinery. etc.
- frostwarrior 4y ago
  The amount of performance that these SBCs are capable of delivering makes them attractive for power users that want to use them as little Linux desktop machines. Only to be incredibly disappointed once they don't deliver what they're expected by specs alone
  - imtringued 4y ago
    I have a phone with a Snapdragon 888 and it is still too slow to do anything useful with it. Building software with gradle takes forever.
- jancsika 4y ago
  > You don't need video to run a gateway. Sure. But if you get almost all the way through watching an entire episode of Barry on your gateway and then it stutters, trust me-- you're going to loudly ask why the hell this gateway won't do the goddamned thing it's supposed to.
Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
The day when RPi's browsers can play HW accelerated video without stutter, It's truly ready for desktop; Then again even with intel GPU's excellent Linux support getting HW accelerated (4k) video on browsers is not possible without some funny business(at least on Wayland). Interestingly x86 ChromeOS machines with low memory (4GB) didn't have issues with HW accelerated videos, I wonder whether the ARM ChromeOS machines of that era had issues?

RealStickman_ 4y ago

I have a Pi 4 and a Rock64Pro, both with LibreElec (basically Kodi) installed. The video playback performance and stability of the Pi 4 beat the Rock64 handily.

petre 4y ago
I run LibreElec on a RPi3 A+, which has the advantage of a regular HDMI port. It runs 1080p H264 smoothly. I haven't tried 4k or H265 yet.
- dspillett 4y ago
  Using Kodi via LibreElec on a Pi3 (a B IIRC, not a B+) and x265 was a mixed bag. There is no hardware acceleration unlike on the Pi4 so it runs the general CPU cores hard. 720P was fine, but without extra cooling 1080P in summer months would eventually (60 to 90 minutes) cause it to thermal throttle and playback would fall apart. Given how warm it felt soon after starting playback, I was surprised it managed that long before throttling. You will likely get much better results with a cooling solution of some kind, particularly an active one.
  - petre 4y ago
    I'm using a regular radiator in a 3D printed box with big holes (2…3 mm wide and 4 cm long). If it needs a fan, I wouldn't use it as a media player.
    - dspillett 4y ago
      > If it needs a fan, I wouldn't use it as a media player. Same here. You might get away with higher resolution x265 with passive cooling (a really good heatsink), especially if the device is in a reliably cool environment, but around the time I started using such encoded media the Pi4 was readily available which does 265 in hardware so no similar heat problem (the Pi3 is now used for other experiments). Unfortunately current supply issues might preclude you using that upgrade option!

zokier 4y ago

best doesn't imply good

edapiieaway 4y ago

Streaming is a huge weakness of the Pi platform. It seems like the big sites change their DRM every few months, and everything stops working. A couple of years ago, I could happily use a Pi400 as a streaming box for my TV. Today, it's only good for playing videos off of an external drive with stock Raspbian. This was one big reason why I cancelled my Netflix subscription. In fairness though, I seriously doubt that other SBCs have better streaming support. Is there a project like OpenWRT for HDMI sticks like Roku, Fire TV, etc?

luma 4y ago

The process you link doesn't seem to be related to an rPi, rather, trying to get Kodi to play HBO. Am I misunderstanding something? Would this process be any easier on a Rock64?

bsder 4y ago

> On the RPI if I want to watch HBO Max without stuttering Then you're probably not in the "embedded" space. You're in the "I want a cheap desktop/laptop" space. You don't need video to run a gateway. You don't need video to drive a piece of machinery. etc.

frostwarrior 4y ago
The amount of performance that these SBCs are capable of delivering makes them attractive for power users that want to use them as little Linux desktop machines. Only to be incredibly disappointed once they don't deliver what they're expected by specs alone
- imtringued 4y ago
  I have a phone with a Snapdragon 888 and it is still too slow to do anything useful with it. Building software with gradle takes forever.
jancsika 4y ago
> You don't need video to run a gateway. Sure. But if you get almost all the way through watching an entire episode of Barry on your gateway and then it stutters, trust me-- you're going to loudly ask why the hell this gateway won't do the goddamned thing it's supposed to.

Abishek_Muthian 4y ago

The day when RPi's browsers can play HW accelerated video without stutter, It's truly ready for desktop; Then again even with intel GPU's excellent Linux support getting HW accelerated (4k) video on browsers is not possible without some funny business(at least on Wayland). Interestingly x86 ChromeOS machines with low memory (4GB) didn't have issues with HW accelerated videos, I wonder whether the ARM ChromeOS machines of that era had issues?