rpi4 up-to-date hardware encoding/decoding status

[CharlieMurphy 90]

I'm getting up to speed on this subject and so much has changed with discussion threads around it over the past year or so. I'm seeing OpenMAX, v4l2, and even VAAPI referenced.

I'm running Emby server in the Linuxserver.io Docker. I passed through all the devices suggested in the readme, just for testing. Emby only offers only decoding for "ARM V4L2 H.264" in the advanced options. Jellyfin offers every option and obviously isn't trying to detect what's available.

So I'm wondering if "ARM V4L2 H.264" decoding is the right choice. Should I have encoding options or more decoding options if I had it configured correctly?

Are there different use cases for OpenMAX, v4l2, and VAAPI? Or did v4l2 support supersede the others?

So many of the guides are old and they contradict each other. Thanks!

[Luke 40123]

Hi, did you try our official docker container for comparison?

[CharlieMurphy 90]

Looking at the documentation for that, it only mentions VAAPI and NVDEC/NVENC and nothing at all specific to RPI in the instructions. Linuxserver.io docker readme has info specifically for passing through OpenMAX and v4l2, but it doesn't specify what the use cases are for each or what currently works.

And in the install steps for the official docker there is this line that would be helpful for amd64, but not this Pi.

"--device /dev/dri:/dev/dri \ # To mount all render nodes for VAAPI/NVDEC/NVENC"

[Luke 40123]

@CharlieMurphy we will look at improving the instructions for using Docker on RPI. Thanks for the feedback.