[FAQ] Video playback

1. Overview

All WayDroid-ATV builds use c2.ffmpeg as the default video decoder, while the official Waydroid builds use OMX.google

Common Android audio/video decoders are listed below:

Decoder	Type	Supported decoding paths	Available in
c2.ffmpeg	Codec2	Software/Hardware (VA-API for x86/V4L2 for ARM)	BlissOS, LineageOS-TV-x86, WayDroid-ATV
c2.android	Codec2	Software only	BlissOS, LineageOS-TV-x86, WayDroid-ATV
OMX.ffmpeg	OpenMAX	Software/Hardware (VA-API)	Older WayDroid-ATV builds
OMX.google	OpenMAX	Software only	Official Waydroid builds

2. System requirements

^{In order to get video playback working on WayDroid-ATV builds, your system needs to meet the following requirements.}

2.1. DMA-BUF heap support in kernel

It is strongly advised to run WayDroid-ATV builds on a kernel that supports DMA-BUF heaps, otherwise video playback might not work as expected.

To check if your kernel supports that, run the following:

for cfg in CONFIG_DMABUF_HEAPS=y CONFIG_DMABUF_HEAPS_SYSTEM=y; do
    zcat /proc/config.gz | grep -q "^$cfg$" && echo "[OK] $cfg" || echo "[MISSING] $cfg"
done

To enable DMA-BUF heap support, rebuild your kernel with the following configs:

CONFIG_DMABUF_HEAPS=y
CONFIG_DMABUF_HEAPS_SYSTEM=y

2.2. GPU with VA-API support (if you need hardware-accelerated video decoding)

The following GPUs are supported:

• AMD GPUs, supported by Mesa Gallium
• Intel iGPUs (Haswell or older), supported by intel-vaapi-driver
• Intel iGPUs (Broadwell or newer), supported by intel-media-driver