There’s hardware video encoding/decoding support. I used a Pi3b+ to transcode video for a while and would easily get 2x or better on full 1080p video. The 4 is better and I’ve heard even better on the 5, but I’ve not had a compelling reason to spend that much to find out.
Yet I've still been unable to achieve that despite trying multiple distros. Only Android of all things has successfully played YouTube (via smart tube) and video without any issues. I've also yet to see video evidence of smooth playback aside from one person on YouTube (Computers Explained I think), and it was only on Raspberry Pi OS. Which in fairness I kinda do too, but it takes like 12 seconds average to load a webpage on their version of Firefox (no added extensions) and either 5 or 30 on Chromium for some reason.
I've been trying to set the Pi as a htpc (that's not a lobotomized Kodi box) that can also do minor streaming and a few other things, for 5 days and counting. I made a nice click friendly desktop with Manjaro KDE for Pi, and the OS itself is snappy and fast. But any major video graphical elements and it becomes a geriatric Commodore 64.
I know (read:guess) it must be that something going wrong with hardware acceleration, but just can't figure it out. Maybe my Pi is cursed.
Even on the Pi 5 the basic desktop environment in RPI OS with hardware acceleration working feels sluggish. I'm not sure if it's some weird power savings thing, but the pi just drops frames whenever it feels like it.
But I'm just talking about puttering around in the basic desktop environment, not even with a web browse. Just dragging around the file browser it will randomly lag for absolutely no reason.
My Pi5 plays 1440p60 YT in Firefox with zero issue, from a high-performance SD card. The OS is sluggish, as another poster had mentioned. It could use an SSD.
There’s hardware video encoding/decoding support. I used a Pi3b+ to transcode video for a while and would easily get 2x or better on full 1080p video. The 4 is better and I’ve heard even better on the 5, but I’ve not had a compelling reason to spend that much to find out.
Yes.
Everything you say is correct.
I have a 4B, with 4 gigs.
Everything is logical.
Yet I've still been unable to achieve that despite trying multiple distros. Only Android of all things has successfully played YouTube (via smart tube) and video without any issues. I've also yet to see video evidence of smooth playback aside from one person on YouTube (Computers Explained I think), and it was only on Raspberry Pi OS. Which in fairness I kinda do too, but it takes like 12 seconds average to load a webpage on their version of Firefox (no added extensions) and either 5 or 30 on Chromium for some reason.
I've been trying to set the Pi as a htpc (that's not a lobotomized Kodi box) that can also do minor streaming and a few other things, for 5 days and counting. I made a nice click friendly desktop with Manjaro KDE for Pi, and the OS itself is snappy and fast. But any major video graphical elements and it becomes a geriatric Commodore 64.
I know (read:guess) it must be that something going wrong with hardware acceleration, but just can't figure it out. Maybe my Pi is cursed.
Even on the Pi 5 the basic desktop environment in RPI OS with hardware acceleration working feels sluggish. I'm not sure if it's some weird power savings thing, but the pi just drops frames whenever it feels like it.
The RPi 5 SoC does not have VP9 hardware decoding which is necessary for YouTube videos. Anything above 1080p30 inside a window will suck.
Weird part is that RPi4 SoC has it.
Edit: confirmed by Raspberry Pi Foundation themselves, only hardware video decoder is HEVC.
Wait wtf really? That's dumb.
But I'm just talking about puttering around in the basic desktop environment, not even with a web browse. Just dragging around the file browser it will randomly lag for absolutely no reason.
Yeah, I noticed that too - another reason I worked so hard trying to get that KDE Manjaro going - it was the only one which wasn't sluggish.
using a Pi 4 4GB model as a desktop, I had the best luck with Ubuntu MATE.
Will try too
My Pi5 plays 1440p60 YT in Firefox with zero issue, from a high-performance SD card. The OS is sluggish, as another poster had mentioned. It could use an SSD.