en/cubie/a7z/app-dev/video-codec

[giscus[bot]]

en/cubie/a7z/app-dev/video-codec

https://docs.radxa.com/en/cubie/a7z/app-dev/video-codec

[devfuzz]

Hardware encoders aren't working on Cubie A7Z

with radxa-a733_bullseye_kde_r5.output_512

uname -a
Linux radxa-cubie-a7z 5.15.147-18-a733 #18 SMP PREEMPT Thu Apr 9 03:55:10 UTC 2026 aarch64 GNU/Linux

Camera 4k works with:

DISPLAY=:0 gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video1 en-awisp=1 en-largemode=1 ! \
video/x-raw,format=NV12,width=3840,height=2160,framerate=24/1 ! \
xvimagesink

and capturing raw YUV works as expected:

gst-launch-1.0 -e v4l2src device=/dev/video1 en-awisp=1 en-largemode=1 num-buffers=100 ! \
video/x-raw,format=NV12,width=1920,height=1080,framerate=30/1 ! \
filesink location=raw_test.yuv

cma=512M is on kernel command line...

cat /proc/meminfo | grep -i cma
CmaTotal:         524288 kB
CmaFree:           14196 kB

But hardware encoding from camera or test source fails.

I tried the usual Allwinner tricks to get buffers coordinating...

gst-launch-1.0 -e v4l2src device=/dev/video1 en-awisp=1 en-largemode=1 pull-mode=1 ! \
video/x-raw,format=NV12,width=1920,height=1080,framerate=30/1 ! \
queue max-size-buffers=2 ! \
omxh264videoenc ! h264parse ! matroskamux ! filesink location=test.mkv

sudo gst-launch-1.0 -e v4l2src device=/dev/video1 en-awisp=0 en-largemode=1 ! \
video/x-raw,format=NV12,width=1920,height=1080,framerate=30/1 ! \
videoconvert ! queue leaky=downstream max-size-buffers=2 ! \
omxh264videoenc ! h264parse ! matroskamux ! filesink location=final_test.mkv

but Cedar is giving h264 encoder wait interrupt overtime errors and "Hardware Error (0x80001009)".

---

radxa@radxa-cubie-a7z:~/Videos$ ls -l /dev/cedar_dev*
crw-rw----+ 1 root root 239, 0 Apr 30 21:59 /dev/cedar_dev
crw-rw----+ 1 root root 238, 0 Apr 30 21:59 /dev/cedar_dev_ve2

but as far as modules:

radxa@radxa-cubie-a7z:~/Videos$ lsmod | grep sunxi_cedar
radxa@radxa-cubie-a7z:~/Videos$ lsmod | grep cedar
radxa@radxa-cubie-a7z:~/Videos$

---

There's no cedar in /sys/bus/platform/devices to try to tweak power.

sudo dmesg | grep -i cedar
[    6.461272] sunxi:VE:[INFO]: 2215 sunxi_cedar_init(): sunxi cedar version 1.1
[    6.461592] sunxi-cedar 1c0e000.ve: Adding to iommu group 0
[    6.462063] sunxi:VE:[INFO]: 2137 sunxi_cedar_probe(): probe ve
[    6.462324] sunxi-cedar 1c0e000.ve: supply ve not found, using dummy regulator
[    6.462976] sunxi-cedar soc@3000000:ve1@1c0e000: Adding to iommu group 0
[    6.463376] sunxi:VE:[INFO]: 2140 sunxi_cedar_probe(): probe ve1
[    6.463532] sunxi-cedar 1c10000.ve2: Adding to iommu group 0
[    6.463919] sunxi:VE:[INFO]: 2143 sunxi_cedar_probe(): probe ve2
[    6.469704] sunxi-cedar 1c10000.ve2: supply ve not found, using dummy regulator
[  334.648069] sunxi:VE:[INFO]: 525 enable_cedar_hw_clk(): execute set_vcu_en_regmode_to1_to0
[  418.197655] sunxi:VE:[INFO]: 525 enable_cedar_hw_clk(): execute set_vcu_en_regmode_to1_to0
[  418.379814] sunxi:VE:[INFO]: 525 enable_cedar_hw_clk(): execute set_vcu_en_regmode_to1_to0

"supply ve not found, using dummy regulator" - that doesn't sound good...

I don't see any codec-specific overlays in rsetup. It looks like I'm stuck until there's a device tree update that addresses this?

[developakr]

Use:
https://github.com/radxa-build/radxa-a733/releases
radxa-a733_bullseye_kde_r6.output_512.img

Install cedarc:
wget "https://github.com/radxa/allwininer-debian/raw/7f592b79a85cb7b5ef86dabaf2016013b85a8d4d/packages/arm64/libcedarc/libcedarc-dev_2.0.0_arm64.deb"
-O libcedarc-dev_2.0.0_arm64.deb
sudo dpkg -i libcedarc-dev_2.0.0_arm64.deb
sudo ldconfig
dpkg -l | grep cedarc

This solved the problem. The code started working.

[ZivenMan]

@devfuzz
I am using A7Z 1GB RAM, and use :https://github.com/radxa-build/radxa-a733/releases
radxa-a733_bullseye_kde_r6.output_512.img.

But No need to update the libcedarc-dev_2.0.0_arm64.deb (actual update from v1.0.0 to 1.0.7). Just change the file saving method may resolve this issue. Here are some CMDs work well in my OS:

1. encode & save to raw h264 file:
   #sudo gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc ! video/x-raw,format=YV12,width=1920,height=1088,framerate=30/1 ! omxh264videoenc control-rate=2 target-bitrate=6000000 ! fdsink > test.h264

2. decode stream & encode to raw h264 file:
   #gst-launch-1.0 rtspsrc location=rtsp://192.168.31.250:8554/0 latency=0 ! rtph264depay ! h264parse ! omxh264dec ! omxh264videoenc control-rate=2 target-bitrate=6000000 ! fdsink > test.h264

3. How to Play h264 raw video file?
   change it to mp4 file: #ffmpeg -i test.h264 -c copy test.mp4
   play it with ffplay directly: #ffplay -f h264 -framerate 30 /path/to/your/file.h264

May this solution help you.

[developakr]

You are using the test video stream "videotestsrc". But have you tried it with a real connected camera? The problem is when we want to encode the image from the camera.

[ZivenMan]

@developakr

[ZivenMan]

Actually, I did not connect to a camera by MIPI CSI, I just pull down video stream from a IPC, my CMDs:decode stream & encode to raw h264 file:
gst-launch-1.0 rtspsrc location=rtsp://192.168.31.250:8554/0 latency=0 ! rtph264depay ! h264parse ! omxh264dec ! omxh264videoenc control-rate=2 target-bitrate=6000000 ! fdsink > test.h264

or:
gst-launch-1.0 rtspsrc location=rtsp://192.168.31.250:8554/0 latency=0 ! rtph264depay ! h264parse ! omxh264dec ! omxh264videoenc control-rate=2 target-bitrate=6000000 ! filesink location=test.h264

[ZivenMan]

These CMDs work well on my Platform.