Binaries for Hardware Accelerated Qt 5.6.0-beta1 Multimedia Backend on Raspbian Jessie (POT 5.1.0)

This is a experimental build of POT 5.1.0 running on Qt 5.6.0-beta1 built for Raspbian Jessie for armv7 (Raspberry Pi 2). Do not use in production. The package includes:

• Qt 5.6.0-beta1 optimised for armv7.
• QtConnectivity including BLE support.
• QtWebKit including both WebKit 1 and WebKit 2. Video decoding is implemented in WebKit with gstreamer (won't even do 720p properly).
• QtWebEngine with unaccelerated video decoding using ffmpeg.
• QtFtp.
• valgrind-3.12.0.SVN: using it on PiOmxTextures requires to disable libarmmem.so in /etc/ld.so.preload. Also the default valgrind in Raspbian was not working for me.
• POT 5.1.0 for accelerated playback in Qt.

No accelerated video playback is implemented in QtWebKit nor QtWebEngine in this build. CSS animations instead are properly accelerated when OpenGL rendering is used.

Download PiOmxTextures 5.1.0 for Raspbian Jessie Pi2 here (extraction code is: 508d).

Playing YouTube Videos on Raspberry Pi 2 Using POT and QtWebKit

This is the first attempt at playing YouTube videos using POT and QtWebKit on Raspberry Pi 2 (Raspbian Jessie). I tried two ways: one is from the YouTube website and one is using the iframe YouTube API. What you'll see in the video is done using the old WebKit 1 in QtWebKit with the OpenGL paint engine. This is good if you need to place a YouTube video in your application. Unfortunately this is still very experimental and cannot be placed in QML applications. Much more work is needed for that.

Unfortunately what you'll see in the demo is just HD quality (720p). YouTube doesn't seem to be willing to let my Pi have the 1080p version for some reason.

Have fun! ;-)

Hardware Acceleration on WebKit 1, WebKit 2 and QtWebEngine with Qt on Raspberry Pi 2

There are a few solutions to get a browser with good performance on Raspberry Pi 2, but I wanted to test solutions that provide this to a Qt app on OpenGL without X11. The two main options I know are the "old" QtWebKit and the new QtWebEngine. I know that there are a couple of ways to use QtWebKit, one is with the first implementation, WebKit 1, the other is through WebKit 2. Also, it is possible to use WebKit 1 using the regular software raster paint engine and the OpenGL paint engine, which is the one I used in the previous article to implement the HTML5 video feature.
I therefore wanted to have a look at the performance of the animations (I'm not talking about WebGL here), so here it is; the video shows three samples (thanks to the authors!) run on each of these alternatives: WebKit 1 on raster, WebKit 1 on OpenGL, WebKit 2 and then QtWebEngine.

As you can see WebKit 1 on raster is completely unusable and WebKit 1 on OpenGL is clearly better, but still not very good. Also you can see how the pointer moves: the main thread is too busy and user interaction is difficult. WebKit 2 and QtWebEngine solve this issue and improve performance.

Hands-on WebKit and HTML5 Media Elements on Raspberry Pi

I tried to do this a few months ago actually, but I got lost in the huge amount of code and architecture variants of WebKit. Now I convinced myself it would be too interesting to see it working. I don't have much spare time, so I wanted to start with the path of least-resistance and then, depending on the time available, continue climbing. This activity is very time consuming, so I do not know where I'll get.

This is however the first stage: using POT to implement 1080p hardware accelerated zero-copy video playback in the Qt port of WebKit1. No QML here. Of no use, but it somehow works. I read there are far better results out there, but I learned much by doing this, and I had fun :-)
Of course, as you can see, there is much much work being done in the UI thread. JavaScript is mostly run in the main thread, making the framerate pretty bad on heavy websites. That is why WebKit2 is there after all :-)

Demo

Bye! ;-)

Bluetooth (BLE) Support with Qt on Raspberry Pi

There are many ways to access Bluetooth capabilities on Raspberry Pi. Qt has its own API to use Bluetooth and to implement a BLE central device. The last build I provided a few days ago didn't support Bluetooth: this package should support it. I tested the low energy scanner example and it worked properly.
Have fun! Bye ;-)

Download POT 5.1.0 with Qt 5.5.1 for Pi2 Raspbian Jessie here (extraction code: 96aa).

Fully Optimised Raspbian Jessie with Accelerated Qt Multimedia Backend (Pi2)

This is an image of Raspbian Jessie ready to test (and use) the Qt Multimedia Backend POT. This image is optimised for maximum performance (see the demos below). This is the current setup:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd version
Nov 11 2015 21:31:07 
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version 54011a8ad59a9ae1c40bd07cddd9bcf90e779b66 (clean) (release)
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 4.1.13-v7+ #826 SMP PREEMPT Fri Nov 13 20:19:03 GMT 2015 armv7l GNU/Linux
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Raspbian
Description:    Raspbian GNU/Linux 8.0 (jessie)
Release:        8.0
Codename:       jessie

Download image here.

The image includes:

• Qt 5.5.1 built for armv7 with neon optimisations, including support for touch screens, gstreamer, libinput, X11 (no multimedia), tslib, and Bluetooth/Bluetooth BLE using bluez (complete configuration below). Modules provided include QtWebKit (no multimedia support).
• Dependant libs: evdev, icu (not the one provided by raspbian), mtdev, libts.
• POCPlayer and QML samples to show the performance of the backend and test bugs.
• POT library including ffmpeg 2.7.2.

Everything is built for armv7 including neon optimisations. To quickly test the performance there are a few things you can launch:

/home/pi/piomxtextures_pocplayer --multipleanimtest /home/pi/sintel_trailer_720p.mp4 /home/pi/big_buck_bunny_720p_h264.mov

This is the result you should expect with a proper overclocking:

It will show you a continuous animation while running two 720p videos concurrently. To improve the frame rate of the animations you can also overclock your Pi2 (see below).

Other samples to test the features of the plugin are stored in /home/pi/samples:

/usr/local/Qt-rasp2-5.5.1/bin/qmlscene /home/pi/samples/video_simple.qml file:///home/pi/big_buck_bunny_1080p_h264.mov

Another interesting test is running qmlvideofx example included in the Qt sources. This will show you the perfomance of the effects applied on the video using shaders. You can find an executable in /usr/local/Qt-rasp2-5.5.1/examples/multimedia/video/qmlvideofx/qmlvideofx. This shows approximately what you should expect (the video shows the result on Pi1, Pi2 is just a little better):

Overclocking

The Pi can be overclocked by tuning parameters in /boot/config.txt. I provided a configuration that I find useful:

#force_turbo=1  # Voids Warranty!

#boot_delay=1   # Helps to avoid sdcard corruption when force_turbo is enabled.

#arm_freq=1100

#sdram_freq=450

#core_freq=550

#over_voltage=4

#temp_limit=80  # Will throttle to default clock speed if hit.

In the image this is all disabled. If you intent to enable please keep in mind I don't take responsibility for any consequence. Please refer to the documentation for this procedure.

Have fun! Bye ;-)

Qt Configuration

   Configure summary

Building on:   linux-g++ (x86_64, CPU features: mmx sse sse2)

Building for:  devices/linux-rasp-pi2-g++ (arm, CPU features: neon)

Platform notes:

            - Also available for Linux: linux-clang linux-kcc linux-icc linux-cxx

        

qmake vars .......... styles += mac fusion windows QT_CFLAGS_GLIB = -pthread -I/opt/rpi/sysroot/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/opt/rpi/sysroot/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/glib-2.0/include  QT_LIBS_GLIB = -L/opt/rpi/sysroot/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf -lgthread-2.0 -pthread -lglib-2.0  QT_CFLAGS_PULSEAUDIO = -D_REENTRANT -I/opt/rpi/sysroot/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/opt/rpi/sysroot/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/glib-2.0/include  QT_LIBS_PULSEAUDIO = -L/opt/rpi/sysroot/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf -lpulse-mainloop-glib -lpulse -lglib-2.0  QMAKE_CFLAGS_FONTCONFIG = -I/opt/rpi/sysroot/usr/include/freetype2  QMAKE_LIBS_FONTCONFIG = -L/opt/rpi/sysroot/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf -lfontconfig -lfreetype  QMAKE_INCDIR_LIBUDEV =  QMAKE_LIBS_LIBUDEV = -L/opt/rpi/sysroot/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf -ludev  QMAKE_LIBINPUT_VERSION_MAJOR = 1 QMAKE_LIBINPUT_VERSION_MINOR = 0 QMAKE_INCDIR_LIBINPUT = /opt/rpi/sysroot/home/pi/qtdeps/include  QMAKE_LIBS_LIBINPUT = -L/opt/rpi/sysroot/home/pi/qtdeps/lib -linput  QMAKE_LIBXI_VERSION_MAJOR = 1 QMAKE_LIBXI_VERSION_MINOR = 7 QMAKE_LIBXI_VERSION_PATCH = 4 QMAKE_X11_PREFIX = /usr QMAKE_XKB_CONFIG_ROOT = /usr/share/X11/xkb QMAKE_CFLAGS_XCB =  QMAKE_LIBS_XCB = -L/opt/rpi/sysroot/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf -lxcb-sync -lxcb-xfixes -lxcb-render -lxcb-randr -lxcb-image -lxcb-shm -lxcb-keysyms -lxcb-icccm -lxcb-shape -lxcb  INCLUDEPATH +=  "/opt/rpi/sysroot/home/pi/qtdeps/include" LIBS +=  -L"/opt/rpi/sysroot/home/pi/qtdeps/lib" sql-drivers =  sql-plugins =  sqlite qmake switches ......... 

Build options:

  Configuration .......... accessibility accessibility-atspi-bridge alsa audio-backend c++11 clock-gettime clock-monotonic compile_examples concurrent cross_compile cups dbus egl eglfs eglfs_brcm enable_new_dtags evdev eventfd fontconfig full-config getaddrinfo getifaddrs glib gstreamer-1.0 harfbuzz iconv icu inotify ipv6ifname large-config largefile libinput libproxy libudev linuxfb medium-config minimal-config mremap mtdev neon nis opengl opengles2 openssl pcre png posix_fallocate pulseaudio qpa qpa reduce_exports release rpath shared small-config system-freetype system-jpeg system-png system-zlib tslib use_gold_linker xcb xcb-glx xcb-plugin xcb-render xcb-xlib xinput2 xkbcommon-qt xlib xrender 

  Build parts ............  libs examples

  Mode ................... release

  Using sanitizer(s)...... none

  Using C++11 ............ yes

  Using gold linker....... yes

  Using new DTAGS ........ yes

  Using PCH .............. no

  Target compiler supports:

    Neon ................. yes

Qt modules and options:

  Qt D-Bus ............... yes (loading dbus-1 at runtime)

  Qt Concurrent .......... yes

  Qt GUI ................. yes

  Qt Widgets ............. yes

  Large File ............. yes

  QML debugging .......... yes

  Use system proxies ..... no

Support enabled for:

  Accessibility .......... yes

  ALSA ................... yes

  CUPS ................... yes

  Evdev .................. yes

  FontConfig ............. yes

  FreeType ............... yes (system library)

  Glib ................... yes

  GStreamer .............. yes (1.0)

  GTK theme .............. no

  HarfBuzz ............... yes (bundled copy)

  Iconv .................. yes

  ICU .................... yes

  Image formats: 

    GIF .................. yes (plugin, using bundled copy)

    JPEG ................. yes (plugin, using system library)

    PNG .................. yes (in QtGui, using system library)

  journald ............... no

  libinput................ yes

  mtdev .................. yes (system library)

  Networking: 

    getaddrinfo .......... yes

    getifaddrs ........... yes

    IPv6 ifname .......... yes

    libproxy.............. yes

    OpenSSL .............. yes (loading libraries at run-time)

  NIS .................... yes

  OpenGL / OpenVG: 

    EGL .................. yes

    OpenGL ............... yes (OpenGL ES 2.0+)

    OpenVG ............... no

  PCRE ................... yes (bundled copy)

  pkg-config ............. yes 

  PulseAudio ............. yes

  QPA backends: 

    DirectFB ............. no

    EGLFS ................ yes

      EGLFS i.MX6....... . no

      EGLFS KMS .......... no

      EGLFS Mali ......... no

      EGLFS Raspberry Pi . yes

      EGLFS X11 .......... no

    LinuxFB .............. yes

    XCB .................. yes (system library)

      EGL on X ........... no

      GLX ................ yes

      MIT-SHM ............ yes

      Xcb-Xlib ........... yes

      Xcursor ............ yes (loaded at runtime)

      Xfixes ............. yes (loaded at runtime)

      Xi ................. no

      Xi2 ................ yes

      Xinerama ........... yes (loaded at runtime)

      Xrandr ............. yes (loaded at runtime)

      Xrender ............ yes

      XKB ................ yes

      XShape ............. yes

      XSync .............. yes

      XVideo ............. yes

  Session management ..... yes

  SQL drivers: 

    DB2 .................. no

    InterBase ............ no

    MySQL ................ no

    OCI .................. no

    ODBC ................. no

    PostgreSQL ........... no

    SQLite 2 ............. no

    SQLite ............... yes (plugin, using bundled copy)

    TDS .................. no

  tslib .................. yes

  udev ................... yes

  xkbcommon-x11........... yes (bundled copy, XKB config root: /usr/share/X11/xkb)

  xkbcommon-evdev......... no

  zlib ................... yes (system library)