2012-11-15, 16:13
I'm having significant playback problems with a wide variety of machines using XBMC 12 alpha's and beta. These machines previously (and still if I reinstall) played back fine on v11/11.1.
Since starting the draft of the email I've narrowed the problem down to surround sound. I'll leave the details of the machine and test info below in case it helps.
If I have a video with 5.1 channels of audio, the settings in XBMC are configured for 5.1 and the hardware can handle 5.1 I get the below symptoms. If I play a video with stereo audio only and the machine is configured for 5.1 the playback is fine. If I configure XBMC to playback as 2.0 and playback a file with 5.1, the playback is fine. This completely reproducible for me on multiple machines with multiple audio chipsets (one is an on motherboard crappy chipset the other problem machine has a Creative Labs X-Fi (also on the motherboard) and an external USB headset that is 5.1 (which was my usual test case for this machine) with 8 physical speakers (not simulated surround). During further testing it appears 2.1 also causes the problem.
I'd be happy to test whatever might help or provide further details.
Symptoms:
Playback of any video media shows is at 4 fps.
Source files:
Multiple different SD and 1080p ish HD files, all encoded with Handbrake (various versions from v.95 to v.98) via x264 with [email protected] or [email protected] generally (according to MediaInfo). All source media were DVD or BD discs (sourced and encoded by me). Bitrates ranging from ~1mb/s to 11mb/s depending on file/source media. All use soft subtitles. Most are AC3 5.1, some are stereo some are DTS 5.1.
Machines:
At least 2 computers have the problem. All running Intel processors, nVidia GPUs, Windows 7. Slowest machine is E8400 with GTS8800 and 4GB RAM running W7 32bit, fastest is overclocked I7-2600k running @ 4.5Ghz with 32GB RAM running W7 64bit with a GTX 590.
I also have a third machine that does NOT exhibit the problem and it's a Dell M6600 notebook with 16GB of RAM on W7 64bit running @ 2.3Ghz with an nVidia Quadro M3000.
Details:
I've been running XBMC since about v9 without problems, most recently v11. The recent releases of Frodo have started exhibiting this. When XBMC starts FRAPS (which I run on the 2600k since it's my gaming machine) shows 60 FPS and everything is fine. When the content starts FRAPS immediately drops to 4 FPS. If I pause the movie FRAPS jumps back to 60 FPS while it's paused. The in app details (O from the keyboard) shows ~4 FPS as well. At no time do I see dropped frames (maybe 1 total) and the entire movie plays. just at 1/6th the normal speed.
XBMC correctly identifies the movie framerate as 23.976.
CPU load is low (5-10% max), disk load is low (in one test case I'm playing from a SSD). Free RAM is not a problem. Disk space is not a problem. I've rebooted recently. 1 machine has latest Windows updates, 1 is rarely updated (months since the last update). 1 has the latest DirectX one is whatever came with W7.
The only thing of note I can find that might be interesting is the in XBMC details (O) on the problem machines show an extremely low bitrate (~127kb/s audio and 0.12mb/s video) on the problem machines and good rates on the good machine (~650kb/s audio and 4.5mb/s video). Oddly enough, the machine without problems is playing via WiFi (802.11n) which should have higher latency than the others which are connected wired via 1Gbit/s ethernet (or in a test case, local hard drive). Neither of the wired (problem) machines are network or disk bandwidth starved. I can do file copies while the movie is playing back with good transfer rates.
Since starting the draft of the email I've narrowed the problem down to surround sound. I'll leave the details of the machine and test info below in case it helps.
If I have a video with 5.1 channels of audio, the settings in XBMC are configured for 5.1 and the hardware can handle 5.1 I get the below symptoms. If I play a video with stereo audio only and the machine is configured for 5.1 the playback is fine. If I configure XBMC to playback as 2.0 and playback a file with 5.1, the playback is fine. This completely reproducible for me on multiple machines with multiple audio chipsets (one is an on motherboard crappy chipset the other problem machine has a Creative Labs X-Fi (also on the motherboard) and an external USB headset that is 5.1 (which was my usual test case for this machine) with 8 physical speakers (not simulated surround). During further testing it appears 2.1 also causes the problem.
I'd be happy to test whatever might help or provide further details.
Symptoms:
Playback of any video media shows is at 4 fps.
Source files:
Multiple different SD and 1080p ish HD files, all encoded with Handbrake (various versions from v.95 to v.98) via x264 with [email protected] or [email protected] generally (according to MediaInfo). All source media were DVD or BD discs (sourced and encoded by me). Bitrates ranging from ~1mb/s to 11mb/s depending on file/source media. All use soft subtitles. Most are AC3 5.1, some are stereo some are DTS 5.1.
Machines:
At least 2 computers have the problem. All running Intel processors, nVidia GPUs, Windows 7. Slowest machine is E8400 with GTS8800 and 4GB RAM running W7 32bit, fastest is overclocked I7-2600k running @ 4.5Ghz with 32GB RAM running W7 64bit with a GTX 590.
I also have a third machine that does NOT exhibit the problem and it's a Dell M6600 notebook with 16GB of RAM on W7 64bit running @ 2.3Ghz with an nVidia Quadro M3000.
Details:
I've been running XBMC since about v9 without problems, most recently v11. The recent releases of Frodo have started exhibiting this. When XBMC starts FRAPS (which I run on the 2600k since it's my gaming machine) shows 60 FPS and everything is fine. When the content starts FRAPS immediately drops to 4 FPS. If I pause the movie FRAPS jumps back to 60 FPS while it's paused. The in app details (O from the keyboard) shows ~4 FPS as well. At no time do I see dropped frames (maybe 1 total) and the entire movie plays. just at 1/6th the normal speed.
XBMC correctly identifies the movie framerate as 23.976.
CPU load is low (5-10% max), disk load is low (in one test case I'm playing from a SSD). Free RAM is not a problem. Disk space is not a problem. I've rebooted recently. 1 machine has latest Windows updates, 1 is rarely updated (months since the last update). 1 has the latest DirectX one is whatever came with W7.
The only thing of note I can find that might be interesting is the in XBMC details (O) on the problem machines show an extremely low bitrate (~127kb/s audio and 0.12mb/s video) on the problem machines and good rates on the good machine (~650kb/s audio and 4.5mb/s video). Oddly enough, the machine without problems is playing via WiFi (802.11n) which should have higher latency than the others which are connected wired via 1Gbit/s ethernet (or in a test case, local hard drive). Neither of the wired (problem) machines are network or disk bandwidth starved. I can do file copies while the movie is playing back with good transfer rates.
