Playback getting a little choppy

[seth]

 
I noticed this as well. Using UI2 w/masking, my menu's became non-responsive. I changed back to UI2 Alpha Blending, and the issue went away completely. When I get home this evening, I am going to try removing "UseEvents" "True" to "False" and see if I get the same result. My alpha blended UI works exceptionally well, however, I noticed yesterday while playing some music, that it is very hard to see the track titles and such. This is what made me switch back to UI2 Masked. But I cannot handle the delay and latency of masked. It is much smoother and cleaner transition while using UI2 Alpha.

Just my experience.

Regards,
Seth

[Viking]

Hi,

For completeness, I think "choppy" and tearing are quite different problems. I get choppiness, mostly - this is visible in big pans/zooms, lots of motion. It is irregular, but it looks like the image is "sticking" and then suddenly jumping to the new position in the pan/zoom without going through the intervening steps. So effectively missing frames which I know exist in the media (happens on media files, live TV, DVDs, etc). Doesn't appear to be CPU related as the CPU is very low. I have been completely unable to determine how much hardware acceleration LMCE is able to achieve out of my nVidia chipset - it should be more than capable, but just doesn't seem able to achieve it.

This exactly descibes the problems I am having with my setup. See signature.

EDIT: interesting enough it offen happens at the same place in the recording ...


I would say it has something to do with xine.

I have tested with VDR and I am now pretty sure it has nothing to do with the xinelibout settings.

On the same MD system I did an default automatic install of EasyVDR on an IDE disk i attached and after that followed the instructions for adding a HD repack - both  described here (click).

Then I just did add a Modes line to xorg.conf like this :
Modes "1920x1080_50"
rebooted and entered the setup of xineliboutput under VDR and changed to use tvtime deinterlacer.

After that I had a very nice stutterfree replay of my videos on the same Hardware that is not able to play stutterfree on LinuxMCE. So the question is what is different and what can we do to fix it ?


Any ideas ?

Anyone tried 0810 if it is the same problem there ?

Is 0810 going to use VDPAU ?


Greetings
Viking

[Viking]

Hi,

Here some differences between EasyVDR and LinuxMCE :

- different kernel - 2.6.28.7 / 2.6.22-14
- kernel options :
   EasyVDR  CONFIG_HZ_1000=y
   LinuxMCE CONFIG_HZ_250=y
- different Xine and Xineliboutput

- IRQ's are different :

Code: [Select]

Linuxmce# cat /proc/interrupts
           CPU0       CPU1
  0:        143          0   IO-APIC-edge      timer
  1:          4        170   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
  6:          1          4   IO-APIC-edge      floppy
  8:          1          6   IO-APIC-edge      rtc
  9:          0          1   IO-APIC-fasteoi   acpi
 12:          6        105   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
 14:         11        398   IO-APIC-edge      ide0
 16:       2484     444417   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ohci_hcd:usb3, ohci_hcd:usb4, ohci_hcd:usb5, eth0, nvidia
 17:       3923     217935   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ohci_hcd:usb1, ohci_hcd:usb2, HDA Intel
 18:          1          3   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb6
 19:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb7
 20:       2137     172294   IO-APIC-fasteoi   saa7146 (0)
NMI:          0          0
LOC:     197824     197923
ERR:          0
MIS:          0

Code: [Select]

EasyVDR# cat /proc/interrupts
           CPU0       CPU1
  0:        125          2   IO-APIC-edge      timer
  1:          7        395   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
  6:          0          3   IO-APIC-edge      floppy
  9:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   acpi
 12:         16        106   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
 14:        133      18689   IO-APIC-edge      ide0
 15:          0          0   IO-APIC-edge      ide1
 16:         85     100439   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ohci_hcd:usb3, ohci_hcd:usb4, HDA Intel
 17:          3        143   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb1
 18:         21      14418   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ohci_hcd:usb5, ohci_hcd:usb6, ohci_hcd:usb7, nvidia
 19:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb2
 22:          0          3   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ohci1394
507:          4       4088   PCI-MSI-edge      eth0
508:          0          0   PCI-MSI-edge      ahci
511:     119536          0  HPET_MSI-edge      hpet2
NMI:          0          0   Non-maskable interrupts
LOC:        111     137321   Local timer interrupts
RES:      15767      15248   Rescheduling interrupts
CAL:        123        885   Function call interrupts
TLB:        993        657   TLB shootdowns
TRM:          0          0   Thermal event interrupts
SPU:          0          0   Spurious interrupts
ERR:          0
MIS:          0
and so on.

[colinjones]

set your tvtime deinterlace setting for cheap_mode to 0

[Viking]

Hi Colin,

thanks for your reply.
Already did that, it makes the picture better, but does not fix the stuttering. I tried different settings for almost all TVtime settings - does not remove the stuttering.

Did it help on your system ?

Greetings
Viking

[royw]

Well, the choppy playback finally got on my nerves a couple of months ago, so I solved the issue by switching to svn XBMC running on gentoo ~x86.  Just created mirrored media directories with hard links from .dvd to .iso files, then mounted each of my NFS volumes on the new box and added them as sources.

I still have my LMCE box in place but am just using it for a firewall/DHCP server until I take the time to migrate those functions.

Have fun,
Roy

[totallymaxed]

I was watching a dvd last night on my hybrid/core and noticed that the playback was starting to get a little choppy. I thought that this might be just an issue with the dvd but then I noticed it on regular TV and playback of recorded video.

Has anyone else had this issue?
If so, is there a work around?

-Dustin

Thats caused by a known bug in the version of libxine that is used by LinuxMCE-0710. It goes away in 0810 :-)

But for now you can usually fix the 'choppyness' by doing stopping the media playback and then doing a reload... not ideal but it does fix the problem.

All the best

Andrew

[colinjones]

Andrew - do you happen to know which bug number this is? I would like to research it for other effects...

Col.

[totallymaxed]

Andrew - do you happen to know which bug number this is? I would like to research it for other effects...

Col.

Hmmm... not off hand. But it was in the old pluto Mantis bug tracking DB I know for sure...I cant see it in Trac though currently... at least not based on the quick scan I just did ;-)

Andrew

[Viking]

Hi,

This stuttering is a very big showstopper - I (and my wife) can definetly not live with that
I now have got my Sattelite dish running and live TV is also choppy on big pans/zooms
If it can not be solved I will have to look for some other system even if I really like LinuxMCE - that would be very sad. And I assume others feel the same way.

 

I am quite sure that it has something with xine(liboutput) to do and I would really like to debug this error, but to do that I will need the sources for VDR and xineliboutput - as thay are changed in some ways. Amongst others vdr-sxfe is renamed to plutovdr and there are also other changes ...

So I need :
- VDR sources used in LinuxMCE (any version)
- Xineliboutput sources used LinuxMCE (any version)
- and maybe some help about the changes that have been made between normal VDR/xineliboutput and the LinuxMCE ones ... Who did the main work on the VDR implementation ? Burgiman ? posde ?

- Xine sources are in the SVN.

I have already used well above 30 hours trying to get different VDR versions running. But mostly it breaks when i compile my own xineliboutput so I did not get anywhere up til now

Please help me getting the sources so that I can recompile VDR / Xineliboutput and try some patches and other things to get this solved.

Greetings
Viking

[colinjones]

why don't you get onto the IRC channel and ask there.

[Viking]

Hi Colin,

just posted in the VPDAU thread, I am now tired and will go to bed as I have to get up really early tomorrow.

Thanks, I might try IRC next time I find some time.

Greetings
Viking

[totallymaxed]

Hi,

This stuttering is a very big showstopper - I (and my wife) can definetly not live with that
I now have got my Sattelite dish running and live TV is also choppy on big pans/zooms
If it can not be solved I will have to look for some other system even if I really like LinuxMCE - that would be very sad. And I assume others feel the same way.

 

I am quite sure that it has something with xine(liboutput) to do and I would really like to debug this error, but to do that I will need the sources for VDR and xineliboutput - as thay are changed in some ways. Amongst others vdr-sxfe is renamed to plutovdr and there are also other changes ...

So I need :
- VDR sources used in LinuxMCE (any version)
- Xineliboutput sources used LinuxMCE (any version)
- and maybe some help about the changes that have been made between normal VDR/xineliboutput and the LinuxMCE ones ... Who did the main work on the VDR implementation ? Burgiman ? posde ?

- Xine sources are in the SVN.

I have already used well above 30 hours trying to get different VDR versions running. But mostly it breaks when i compile my own xineliboutput so I did not get anywhere up til now

Please help me getting the sources so that I can recompile VDR / Xineliboutput and try some patches and other things to get this solved.

Greetings
Viking

Is the 'stutter' you see continuous or does it only happen briefly and then go away?

Does this only happen in vdr? ie if you play a DVD or a ripped DVD is playback ok?

Sorry to ask this if you've already mentioned it somewhere but what is your hardware setup?

My home systems Hybrid Core is an old MSI-945 board with a 3GHz Single Core Pentium, 2gig RAM and a PCI nVidia 9400 card. This happily and smoothly delivers live & recorded vdr material from DVB-T even when 5-6 recording are being simultaneously recorded/streamed to other MD's. It also plays DVD's & ripped DVD's ok too. I also have an Eee Box 202 and this also plays live & recorded TV and ripped DVD's smoothly. My home system is in no way 'shiny new' hardware with a hot processor so you should be able to get the same experience too :-)

So my instinct tells me that your hardware is probably not suitable in some way...

All the best

Andrew

[Viking]

Hallo Andrew,

Thanks for your interest

Is the 'stutter' you see continuous or does it only happen briefly and then go away?

It only happens on pan/zooms of VDR recordings as described by colin above. It sometimes happens once every 5-10 seconds, sometimes a bit more offen. What I have noticed, it offen happens at the same place in the recording. Meaning: I set an cutmark with VDR (with the remote 0 key) and then jump back to that  (with the key 7)  and then start replay at the same place everytime I test it. And then it stutters at the same place.
As soon as the movie is not moving much there is no stuttering anymore. As soon as it pans/zooms - it is back.

If I did not mention this before - Audio is always playing without any disturbance ! even while video is stuttering

I did not yet find any errors in syslog or /var/log/pluto/*VDR* saying that there were problems with the movie. And as said - with EasyVDR they all play smooth.

Maybe I could provide you with a piece of a recording that has got the problem and you can try it to see if it has something with my recordings to do ?

hmm, did not have time to watch a DVD yet - so I can't say if it also happens when watching DVD's.

Does this only happen in vdr? ie if you play a DVD or a ripped DVD is playback ok?

It also happens if I replay the same recording with the Video part of LinuxMCE.

Sorry to ask this if you've already mentioned it somewhere but what is your hardware setup?

It is listed in my signature and here :
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/User:Viking

So my instinct tells me that your hardware is probably not suitable in some way...

Might be. You mean - unsutable for LinuxMCE - as the same hardware works with EasyVDR.

Colin has the same problem, so maybe we should try to find out what is different to the rest of the systems working ...

Could it be that it has to do with IRQ sharing ?
@Colin
What IRQ's are shared on your system ?

Greetings
Viking

[totallymaxed]

Hallo Andrew,

Thanks for your interest

Is the 'stutter' you see continuous or does it only happen briefly and then go away?

It only happens on pan/zooms of VDR recordings as described by colin above. It sometimes happens once every 5-10 seconds, sometimes a bit more offen. What I have noticed, it offen happens at the same place in the recording. Meaning: I set an cutmark with VDR (with the remote 0 key) and then jump back to that  (with the key 7)  and then start replay at the same place everytime I test it. And then it stutters at the same place.
As soon as the movie is not moving much there is no stuttering anymore. As soon as it pans/zooms - it is back.

If I did not mention this before - Audio is always playing without any disturbance ! even while video is stuttering

I did not yet find any errors in syslog or /var/log/pluto/*VDR* saying that there were problems with the movie. And as said - with EasyVDR they all play smooth.

Well taking the above onboard it would seem like the xorg setup under LinuxMCE is possibly incompatible with the performance of your hardware in someway. Under EasyVDR the xorg is configured in some way differently and works ok.

Maybe I could provide you with a piece of a recording that has got the problem and you can try it to see if it has something with my recordings to do ?

Sure send me a 20 sec chunk that you know has the playback problem.

hmm, did not have time to watch a DVD yet - so I can't say if it also happens when watching DVD's.

Does this only happen in vdr? ie if you play a DVD or a ripped DVD is playback ok?

It also happens if I replay the same recording with the Video part of LinuxMCE.

So this tends to point to xorg again possibly.

Sorry to ask this if you've already mentioned it somewhere but what is your hardware setup?

It is listed in my signature and here :
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/User:Viking

So my instinct tells me that your hardware is probably not suitable in some way...

Might be. You mean - unsutable for LinuxMCE - as the same hardware works with EasyVDR.

Well I guess I'm saying that under LinuxMCE your hardware is not getting configured correctly...unsuitable is not the correct phrase.

Colin has the same problem, so maybe we should try to find out what is different to the rest of the systems working ...

Could it be that it has to do with IRQ sharing ?
@Colin
What IRQ's are shared on your system ?

Greetings
Viking

If you look at the spec of my home system compared to your system... I would say that 'on paper'...your hardware is better apart from my nVidia 9400. However I have had 6200's and 7300's in my system too and it has never had the video problem your has.

The only thing I can say is that...we install vdr all the time and I know absolutely 100% that we dont see this problem. So its not and inherent bug in LinuxMCE or vdr.

All the best

Andrew