Video stuttering

[tschak909]

yes, look at SpawnDevice.sh in /usr/pluto/bin

valgrind can be used as a memory profiler to detect memory leaks, and do simple profiling.

-Thom

[colinjones]

Today when I saw the stuttering/low frame rate issue instead of doing a quick reload I decided to take another look at the system.  What I found was the Xine_Player  process was using ~37% of the cpu and had used 184+ CPU minutes.  I killed that process (ssh in from another computer) and as expected the currently playing movie stopped and it took me back to the main menu.  I restarted the same movie and this time it played fine and Xine_Player cpu use is bouncing between 1% and 6%. 

I'm not sure if Xine_Player is supposed to exit after each movie and isn't, or of there is some other issue but the problem is definitely with Xine_Player.  I'm not really sure where to go from here.  Xine_Player is a binary not a wrapper script so it's not something I can look into, and I'm not sure if the intended use is to exit after each movie or stay running.  I'm also beginning to wonder if it's related to how I/we exit movies and go back to the main menu.

My goodness, skeptic, you're right, I hadn't noticed it before - just noticed the stuttering starting to come back, so a fired up top and noted that xine_player's CPU was pretty stablised at around 41% and mem at 4.4%.

I reloaded the router, and this immediately dropped to about 15% and 2.1%, again pretty stable... and the stuttering is gone. I'm still unable to determine whether it is pure elapsed system/process uptime or if it is related to the amount of time that xine_player is actually doing work... This happened about 27 hours after rebooting.

Continuing trying to see if I can stimulate the behaviour in any way. I have tried: play/pause, fast-forward/rewind from remote buttons, ff/rw absolute and relative slider, track forward/backward and stopping the video file part way through and starting again extensively without making any lasting difference to either xine_player's CPU or memory.

Going to try some other stuff (like different files in case it is related to the codec) and will post back...

[colinjones]

OK, checked some other video files without being able to stimulate the problem, and some other stuff. No go...

Actually, in the process it did appear to creap up from around 15% as I said (same video file) to around 20-21%. Didn't think much of that, but decided to reload the router anyway. Its gone back to 15%.... memory doesn't appear to be leaking from what I can see.

Took a look at valgrind - not sure I even know where to begin with it. I will continue reading but don't hold your collective breath!

[Charlie]

I have some problem.  I am using 7050 integrated video chipset.  I didn't expect this since this symptom caught my attention on it.  I knew cpu and memory will get higher after couple days.  Currently, I started to pay attention on it since this one is actually effecting the system functionality.  If you leave video play/stay there for whole day or couple days(I mean leave the video keep playing there without turning it off), the CPU% usage and memory leak will get higher.  And, it did effect the system after CPU usage and memory reach some certain point.  Then, you can see the stutter. 

In my case, if I force to "kill" Xine_Player under command line.  There is a chance that I won't be able to see video again when I click video to play in GUI.  The DVD video output won't work.  Except that, everything is working, FF, ip camera, routing...etc. 

So, for someone who don't have this issue, could you share your hardware list and driver version if you do any driver updates.