On Mon, 4 Jan 2021 15:50:48 +0100
Stefan Seyfried <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 04.01.21 13:47, Torsten Duwe wrote:
> > Hi all!
> >
> > Our current HTPC runs happily with Leap + Kodi, but it's too bulky
> > for most of the prospected new furniture ;)
>
> HTPC == only play back local / streaming media, no live TV via
> DVB-S/T/C?
Well, the current PC has a twin DVB-S2 tuner in a PCIe x1 slot. This is
one of the major problems for a non-x86 replacement. I look at the
LibreELEC RPi3 next door with envy. But it needs to hook into the second
tuner of the PC for a live signal.
> > After a lot of research for FLOSS, I consider to replace it with a
> > Ferguson Ariva ATV TT [1]. The Hisilicon hi3798cv200 seems to be
> > designed specifically for STBs and is supported mainline, and even
> > the reference board's DTS (hi3798cv200-poplar.dts) only hooks up a
> > few LEDs to GPIOs. I assume H.264 on Panfrost works?
>
> I don't know what panfrost is, but if it is not a software decoder
> then I doubt it will work.
> And if it is a software decoder, then I doubt the chips performance
> will be good enough, and integrating the bits and pieces for live tv
> will be ... interesting.
Since VAAPI is buggy for MPEG-2, the current PC decodes it on a <1GHz
CPU core and sends it to the Radeon HD 6xxx (or so) for scaling. (H.264
does work via VAAPI and hardware)
Panfrost is the code name for Mali-6xx / Mali-7xx GPUs in Mesa/kernel,
and I estimated a Cortex-A53 with ASIMD should be capable, with some
help from the T720MP, to decode H.264 in software. The specialised
video engine is an indicator that it would at least run a little hot
trying to do it this way.
> > My biggest concern however is the SoC's support for secure boot.
> > Alternative firmware images for Ferguson boxes show now hints
> > towards that, but maybe someone here can confirm this?
> > Any other hints or pointers?
>
> The main market of this linux Satellite TV boxes is still
> stealing/sharing paytv subscriptions. The manufacturers will not do
> anthing like "secure boot" that will prevent people from shipping
> their favourite custom image. In fact most of the manufacturers do
> not even try to provide their own software but just ship some variant
> of openATV or openPLI, or they ship somehting akin to "openDOS" in
> old PC days: Software solely made to be replaced before first boot ;-)
>
> So I would not worry about secure boot, if the box is sold with "e2"
> on its label.
One even gets the choice between android TV, debian and enigma2.
Ferguson is a Polish company BTW.
> But I would also not hope for a recent kernel, a documented boot
> mechanism, good drivers.
>
> And do not even dream about open source drivers ;-)
I did when I saw the mainline kernel support :(
> But for the unlikely case that I'm wrong and the box has all that,
> then I'd be interested to hear about your success, my STI7111 boxes
> are growing old now and the platform is long abandoned by ST ;-)
Yes, it's hard. For the record: the runner-up company was Vu+, but the
only 64-bit box they made[1] is deprecated and I don't feel like
running Tumbleweed or building another 32-bit distro locally[2].
Thanks for the input.
Torsten
[1] https://vuplus.de/produkte/detail/17/?p=17
[2] http://code.vuplus.com/index.php?action=start
