digging deeper into codecs
#1
First off.. sorry for asking the basic questions.

Second.. thanks in advance for any thorough conversation.

Ok, so I'm using http://gspot.headbands.com/ to attempt to narrow down some issues I'm having.

It seems XBMC has trouble with every other bluray rip I've done myself using makeMKV. My dvd rips work. I've even torrented various file types to do testing, and sure enough, they work.

I've tried running the files from various internal and external hard drives.. no difference. I've set up MPC as an external play, this helps but not quite 100% and its a little "clunky" compared to launching "in the box" for times that I don't need lossless bitstreaming.

The problem: that subtle frame skip/sluggish/hiccup/stutter that I've read and read about.

I've upgraded the video card to a radeon 6450.

So I'm sure its that I'm missing codecs.. or I have too many installed.

With gSpot I'm having trouble learning anything new.. except that I did notice that under gSpot's "list codec" panel pretty much anything to do with MPEG is red with means "problem".

So. Would anyone who is using XBMC to play makeMKV bluray rips care to discuss an elite set of codecs for optimum performance?

edit: might as well list some more specs; I'm running w7 64 bit on a quadcore Q6600 2.4ghz each core.. 4gb of ddr2 ram.. should be sufficient no?

I've also installed these codec packs: Combined Community Codec Pack, Shark 007, Windows 7-Codec Pack, and FFDshow (audio?)

whats weird is how almost all guides say to try VLC.. it seems to work much worse than xbmc and expecially MPC.. and Windows Media Player will now load anything but will not actually play anything I've tried (not much since I don't care about it).
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#2
5meohd Wrote:First off.. sorry for asking the basic questions.

Second.. thanks in advance for any thorough conversation.

Ok, so I'm using http://gspot.headbands.com/ to attempt to narrow down some issues I'm having.

It seems XBMC has trouble with every other bluray rip I've done myself using makeMKV. My dvd rips work. I've even torrented various file types to do testing, and sure enough, they work.

I've tried running the files from various internal and external hard drives.. no difference. I've set up MPC as an external play, this helps but not quite 100% and its a little "clunky" compared to launching "in the box" for times that I don't need lossless bitstreaming.

The problem: that subtle frame skip/sluggish/hiccup/stutter that I've read and read about.

I've upgraded the video card to a radeon 6450.

So I'm sure its that I'm missing codecs.. or I have too many installed.

With gSpot I'm having trouble learning anything new.. except that I did notice that under gSpot's "list codec" panel pretty much anything to do with MPEG is red with means "problem".

So. Would anyone who is using XBMC to play makeMKV bluray rips care to discuss an elite set of codecs for optimum performance?

edit: might as well list some more specs; I'm running w7 64 bit on a quadcore Q6600 2.4ghz each core.. 4gb of ddr2 ram.. should be sufficient no?

I've also installed these codec packs: Combined Community Codec Pack, Shark 007, Windows 7-Codec Pack, and FFDshow (audio?)

whats weird is how almost all guides say to try VLC.. it seems to work much worse than xbmc and expecially MPC.. and Windows Media Player will now load anything but will not actually play anything I've tried (not much since I don't care about it).

It has to be the codecs you have installed on your computer because VLC and MPC HC are by far the least glitchy, play anything you throw at them right out of the box players out there. Does XBMC even require any codecs to be downloaded? I'm pretty sure I have a computer set up where I didn't do anything but install an OS and XBMC and it works fine with everything.

I would completely clean out what you've done. Uninstall XBMC, VLC, MPC, all those codec packs, everything. Then install everything again from scratch except the codec packs. If you really want to try out MPC, download the latest LAV filters (0.40 I believe) and install them as external filters in MPC. Those filters and splitter play everything on my machine from mkv to avi to 1080i .ts files to .m2ts full blu ray rips.
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#3
XBMC does not need any external codecs. Everything it needs is built right in. Remove any and all codecs that you have installed. It sounds like you just forgot to enable DXVA2 in the settings.
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#4
Do you really need DXVA2 enabled to play mkv files off a 6450 card? I have a 6670 and I play full 30Mbps blu ray rips in MPC HC with madVR and that doesn't allow the use of hardware acceleration.
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#5
wow. really? I mean before installing this stuff it was MUCH worse.. of course I did do a lot of tinkering and have lost track of all the individual steps.

btw I am talking about dharma 10.1 and I do need the option of bitstreaming lossless audio for the more "audio" filled films.

still apply?
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#6
clubwerks Wrote:Do you really need DXVA2 enabled to play mkv files off a 6450 card? I have a 6670 and I play full 30Mbps blu ray rips in MPC HC with madVR and that doesn't allow the use of hardware acceleration.

Your processor does the work when not using DXVA not your GPU so it doesn't matter what card your using if your processor is up to the job

You need to turn on DXVA2 if using XBMC because ffmpeg isn't multi-thread so it cant make proper use of all four cores on the CPU

@5meohd

Turn on DXVA 2.0 and make sure XBMC is running in "True Fullscreen" and not in "Fullscreen Window Mode"
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#7
5meohd Wrote:I've upgraded the video card to a radeon 6450.

edit: might as well list some more specs; I'm running w7 64 bit on a quadcore Q6600 2.4ghz each core.. 4gb of ddr2 ram.. should be sufficient no?
You should at least be able to playback bluray ripped file with the standalone MPC-HC fluently.

As far as codec, you do not need codec for XBMC. Since you have a very nice HD6450, you might want to select DXVA2 in XBMC. You might want to update the latest AMD control panel center from here- Graphics Drivers & Software. You can try to select "Smooth Playback" option in CCC and select "High Performance" power option in w7 control panel.
>Alienware X51- do it all HTPC
>Simplify XBMC configurations
>HOW-TO Bitstreaming using XBMC
I refused to watch movie without bitstreaming HD audio!
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#8
Is that really the consensus of these 1080p 'stuttering' issues in XBMC.. to get a video card and enable DXVA2? This person seems to have a decent set up here with his CPU alone. In my case I have an AMD APU A6-3500 and 8gb of ram. Hoping I don't have to get an additional video card for this considering my CPU clocks at 20% during most of the playback (and 100% during some scenes).

If I got to do it, I got to do it.. just seems though that there is something wrong with the codecs XBMC is using if WMP is playing these files fine
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#9
mega-f Wrote:Is that really the consensus of these 1080p 'stuttering' issues in XBMC.. to get a video card and enable DXVA2? This person seems to have a decent set up here with his CPU alone. In my case I have an AMD APU A6-3500 and 8gb of ram. Hoping I don't have to get an additional video card for this considering my CPU clocks at 20% during most of the playback (and 100% during some scenes).

If I got to do it, I got to do it.. just seems though that there is something wrong with the codecs XBMC is using if WMP is playing these files fine
DXVA2 or not is up to the user! Smile

For me, I preferred DXVA2 so that GPU can do most of the works during playback. In your case, HD6530D should work great with DXVA2 option! Smile
>Alienware X51- do it all HTPC
>Simplify XBMC configurations
>HOW-TO Bitstreaming using XBMC
I refused to watch movie without bitstreaming HD audio!
Reply
#10
Can you post a screen shot of the information that "mediainfo" detects. http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en
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#11
5meohd Wrote:wow. really? I mean before installing this stuff it was MUCH worse.. of course I did do a lot of tinkering and have lost track of all the individual steps.

btw I am talking about dharma 10.1 and I do need the option of bitstreaming lossless audio for the more "audio" filled films.

still apply?
Try these....

1. Update HD6450 latest driver from here- Graphics Drivers & Software
2. Select DXVA2 in settings\video\playback
3. If you want to bitstream DTS-HD/TrueHD, you can try this latest version- [WINDOWS][PATCH]Bitstream output of HD audio formats
>Alienware X51- do it all HTPC
>Simplify XBMC configurations
>HOW-TO Bitstreaming using XBMC
I refused to watch movie without bitstreaming HD audio!
Reply

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