[yusky03]

Hi, I just finished encoding all of my Futurama DVDs for my XBMC and now I go to find they are not playing...
They play perfectly in VLC Player and KM Player.

This is what I am getting:
http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/7227/33368804.jpg

Here is a sample of the video:
http://www.mediafire.com/?la1p5l1ytl3f1xo

Edit: The video is around 50% better on the latest alpha. Sometimes for a few seconds it plays fine then craps out again.

[Ned Scott]

XBMC is probably trying to use hardware decoding. It works fine for me, but Mac OS X uses software decoding on all non-HD stuff, so it's hard for me to tell for sure. I notice the clip is using 15 ref-frames, which is abnormally high. I bet the hardware decoder doesn't like that.

If you don't feel like re-encoding them then simply turn off hardware decoding, but depending on your HTPC's specs, you might need hardware decoding for some HD files (most core2duos and equivalent from the last few years should be fine, but just a heads up):

Go to

Settings/Videos/Playback (wiki)/Allow hardware acceleration

and disable the option(s) listed there.

[yusky03]

Thank you very much, don't need to worry about the specs. I got a 2600k @ 4.9Ghz under water

I basically just maxed everything out in Handbrake and got some amazing results. I will have to do some testing and see what exactly is causing the problem. It took days straight of encoding so I think I am going to keep them.

And yes it now works for me. ^_^

[Ned Scott]

Good to hear it works now. Yeah, hardware decoding can be very picky about what it plays back. If you ever need to make an encode for compatibility and/or hardware decoding reasons (such as playing back on a low powered device, like a phone or an ATOM HTPC) you'll want to stick to the presets. Software decoding, on the other hand, is a lot more flexible.