[schappim]

They state: "While the Raspberry Pi 5 is fully capable of smooth 4K playback, Raspberry Pi 4 will not be able to play 4K content due to hardware limitations."

This likely depends on the codec. The Pi 4’s BCM2711 SoC, unlike the BCM2712 in the Pi 5, has hardware support for H.265 (HEVC) up to 4Kp60. However, the Pi 5 can still support H.265 (HEVC) up to 4Kp60 through software-based decoding, thanks to its more powerful CPU and GPU.

[dividuum]

That’s incorrect: Both have hardware support for decoding H265 up to 4K. The difference is H264: the Pi4 still has a hardware decoder (up to FullHD) while the Pi5 doesn’t and will use software decoding as it’s more than fast enough. As it is software, there’s no resolution limit.

[extraduder_ire]

Does this custom lineageOS build (or android in general) use the hardware decoding features? I wouldn't be too surprised either way.

[schappim]

You’re correct; I was thinking of H.264. The Pi 5 still has a 4Kp60 HEVC decoder.

[shrx]

Do you have any info on why they dropped support for H264 hardware decoding?

[dividuum]

The software decoder is fast enough: See https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?p=2145762#p2145...

[palata]

Or they did not want to pay for the license, or for the component.

The software decoder is not fast enough if you need to use the CPUs in parallel. So removing the hardware acceleration is a net loss of compute power.

[Narishma]

So they don't have to pay the license.