How to enable VENC (hardware encoder) support in kernel for S905X3?

[Antom91]

Hello,

I am using an X96 Air (S905X3) with Armbian (6.1.127-ophub) and I can see the hardware decoder working:

v4l2-ctl --list-devices
Amlogic Video Decoder (platform:meson-vdec):
    /dev/video0

However, the hardware encoder (VENC) does not appear:

ls /dev/video*
/dev/video0

ls /dev/amvenc*
ls: cannot access '/dev/amvenc*': No such file or directory

I want to use ffmpeg with hardware encoding (h264_v4l2m2m) for real-time RTMP streaming, but without the encoder device, it is not possible.

Could you please explain:

Does this kernel support VENC on S905X3 at all?

If not, what changes are required to enable hardware encoder in the kernel?

Is there a recommended branch or configuration for Armbian / ophub that includes VENC support?

Any guidance or examples would be very helpful.

Thank you!