HiKey Media stack and non-Android mode

I’ve got finally my HiKey board and have few questions for which I didn’t find any references nor answers which could help me:

  1. Where I can find the Media playback stack SDK/Drivers/APIs/Docs? HiSilicon SoC used on this board has the hardware accelerated Audio/Video playback which I am interested in.

  2. Is it possible to run non-Android Linux on this device or I have to do some crazy porting work from Android to non-Android kernel?

Best Regards

debian release:
https://builds.96boards.org/releases/hikey/linaro/debian/latest/

docs:

Hi MrTomasz,

For your second question, please refer this documentation to install Debian on your HiKey.

For the first question, unfortunately what I know at the moment is that the information of hardware accelerated Audio/Video playback is not disclosed and can not use it right now.

I hope you would enjoy your HiKey. :slight_smile:

Hi,

Thanks for the links, but I saw them already and that’s not really solving my problems :slight_smile:

The Debian kernel shall be non-Android one, so I assume this git repo and branch from the Debian build

* git URL: https://github.com/96boards/linux.git
* git branch: origin/hikey

shall be fine for my purposes.

Regarding media stack - if there’s no HW A/V stack available, everybody uses software AV decoding? (i.e. GStreamer, ffmpeg, etc.)

Do not assume, instead just follow all the available information - that should keep you out of trouble.

Reference Platform:
https://builds.96boards.org/releases/reference-platform/debian/hikey/15.12/
Based on Kernel release: 4.3.0-linaro-reference-hikey

Landing Team Release:
https://builds.96boards.org/releases/hikey/linaro/debian/latest/
Based on Linux kernel v3.18 and Debian 8.2 (“Jessie”)

Typically the landing team release provides more functionality but on an older kernel. Depending what is more important for you, you should choose one or the other kernel.

Hi MrTomasz,

For the media playback;
it should be able to play video with these tools.

From command line:
mplayer

From GUI:
smplayer

Need to install these packages with apt-get but it should show you the video.

I am still asking internally either it is using software decoding or done by hardware.

Hi @MrTomasz

I had an answer.
The media play back is done by software decoding on 96boards HiKey.

Thanks,