drivers/media/platform/st/sti/delta · keep-annotate

STMicroelectronics DELTA multi-format video decoder for STiH4xx set-top-box SoCs

A firmware-driven hardware video decoder block found inside STMicroelectronics' STiH407/STiH410/STiH412 "Monaco" family of system-on-chip parts, which powered set-top boxes and similar consumer media gateways from roughly 2013 onward. It handles formats such as H.264 and MPEG so the SoC can play back broadcast and streamed video without using the CPU.

keep-annotate conf=0.74 deploy=low replacement=none subsystem=media category=media-other

74%

recommendation

Worth keeping but worth flagging as niche: the STiH4xx chips it targets are marked obsolete by ST and were last designed into products over a decade ago, so it mostly matters to legacy set-top boxes and industrial media appliances still in the field. However, the code received non-trivial upstream fixes as recently as 2025 and no other in-tree driver covers this SoC's decoder block, so removing it would strand existing users.

repository signals

15 files

4,285 source lines

15 commits, 5y

+4,395 / −67 lines added / removed, 5y

11 authors, 5y

monthly commits · 2021-04-21 → 2026-04-21 · 15 total · active in 9/61 months

sources

git.kernel.org
Kernel Kconfig describes this as the STMicroelectronics DELTA multi-format video decoder for STiH4xx SoC series.
git.kernel.org
The driver still received a nontrivial upstream adjustment in 2025, indicating current maintenance rather than abandonment.
st.com
A close STiH4-series product page is marked Obsolete / Out of Production by ST, supporting that this hardware family is no longer sold new.
st.com
STiH407/STiH410 are 2013-era Monaco family multimedia/server-box SoCs, indicating the platform generation is old and tied to legacy STB deployments.
lwn.net
The driver originated as support for the DELTA video decoder on STMicroelectronics STiH4xx SoCs, confirming the hardware scope and firmware-coupled design.

codex reasoning notes (technical)

Local `rg`/`sed` on the tree showed `module_platform_driver`, compatible `st,st-delta`, and Kconfig text naming STiH4xx. Local `git -c safe.directory=... log -- drivers/media/platform/st/sti/delta` showed upstream fixes in 2025, so this is not removal-candidate code despite legacy hardware. Web search provided the ST product/databrief pages and LWN patch-posting page; ST pages indicate the surrounding STiH family is obsolete/2013-vintage, so present-day deployment is likely limited to legacy STB/industrial boxes. No natural in-tree replacement driver covers the same SoC-specific DELTA block, so annotate/retain is safer than deprecate/remove.