Talk:Android hardware

unnecessary detail
I really appreciate any work that is done on the wiki, and I don't want to do anything to discourage people, but please resist the urge to add unnecessary detail on a page such as this. Normally details are good, but on this page the entire point is to help clear up a very confusing aspect of XBMC hardware support.

The three decoding categories are grouped basically by what you are likely to see as supported or not. There's no point in listing two codecs in their own columns if they are always supported in mediacodec/libstagefright/amlcodec. "H.264" is mentioned simply as the most common example of the common codecs. If a codec isn't currently supported by any chipset/decoding codec in XBMC then there's also no point in making a column for that, and it should instead be noted "globally". -- Ned Scott (talk) 00:47, 25 February 2014 (EST)

VP9 required for YouTube in 4K
VP9 hardware decoding support needed for YouTube support in 4K (2160p), plus even YouTube in 720p and 1080p benefits as it uses half the bandwidth on H.264 so wondering if that is not enough reason to have VP9 i this matrix for Android hardware? And yes there are already Android hardware out there now which supports hardware decode and it is also suppose to be supported via the Android MediaCodec API on those devices, not surprisingly since it is Google who promotes both VP9 and Android. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamester17 (talk • contribs)
 * http://youtube-eng.blogspot.de/2015/04/vp9-faster-better-buffer-free-youtube.html VP9 needed for "faster, better, buffer-free YouTube videos", and "Thanks to our device partners, VP9 decoding support is available today in the Chrome web browser, in Android devices like the Samsung Galaxy S6, and in TVs and game consoles from Sony, LG, Sharp, and more. More than 20 device partners across the industry are launching products in 2015 and beyond using VP9."
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP9 Chromium, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera support playing VP9 video format in the HTML5 video tag.


 * It's pointless to mention on this page until there is anything on the list that uses it in Kodi. Theoretical support means nothing to the people viewing this page. It either works in Kodi or it doesn't. -- Ned Scott (talk) 21:11, 4 May 2015 (EDT)


 * @Ned Scott : Can you stop destroying other people work ? We want to choose an android Box with a VP9 decoding chipset, we don't care if Kodi does not support it, we know it's just a software matter to be integrated in few months. So please restore the VP8/VP9 columns. Freechelmi (talk) 09:53, 9 May 2015 (EDT)


 * if you don't care about what Kodi supports then you are on the wrong website. So far it was a column of "no" and "probably not". Find a box that can play 1080 VP9 in Kodi and I will put the column back. -- Ned Scott (talk) 20:27, 9 May 2015 (EDT)


 * I read that Nvidia SHIELD Android TV (Nvidia SHIELD Console) does supposedly have VP9 hardware decode enabled for the MediaCodec API in its Android firmware by default according to their official specifcations, (you are suppose to see this in "/system/etc/media_codecs.xml"), but I don't have one so can not confirm if it work in Kodi or if it just works in other players such as MX Player. Can someone who have it maybe test and confirm with different player apps? Gamester17 (talk) 02:04, 6 July 2015 (EDT)

MPEG-2 CPU decode is not HW decode
Should the matrix really be green for those hardware claiming "MPEG-2 (CPU)"? There is no way that we can verify performance of proper MPEG-2 software decode, especially with software decode with deinterlacing, so why not just put a "No" on devices which can only do MPEG-2 software decode? Hardware decode is hardware decode, and if a device can not perform hardware decode of a codec then that should not be green in my opinion. Most modern Android hardware today could now even software decode H.264 in 1080p but again that is noting that we can verify so we could not either list "H.264 (CPU)" or should we? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamester17 (talk • contribs)


 * First, the ability to decode MPEG2 or not is a separate issue than being able to hardware deinterlace or not. There are several boxes that can hardware decode but not hardware deinterlace.


 * There is a way to verify which boxes can play something, and that is with our eyes. That's what this page is all about. The end user doesn't care if it is the CPU or the VPU that is decoding the video. All that matters is if it works or not. For example Mac OS X can only hardware decode H.264, but no one cares because the CPUs on all supported Macs are pretty much all fast enough to handle everything else. It's never been something we've had to warn people about.


 * If an Android box comes along and has no hardware decoding, but has an insanely fast CPU, then why would anyone care? It either works or it doesn't work. -- Ned Scott (talk) 21:16, 4 May 2015 (EDT)