Default player and deinterlacing of SD Live TV
#1
I have access to a number of MPEG-TS IP-sources, matching terrestrial TV in my area (interlaced SD content). I've bought a license for and set-up hardware decoding of MPEG-2 Video and now sources plays back fine -- I've followed Audio/video add-on tutorial and made a list with 10 channels or so.

As MilhouseVH instructed (in Additional Testing Notes), I use DVDPlayer as a default video player. When I start watching TV media stream is opened via DVDPlayer. Media stream, however, is interlaced SD (PAL, 576i) and looks pretty comby in 1080p, and enabling deinterlacing in DVDPlayer seems to do nothing. OMXPlayer does much better, except each time I have to open Video playback settings and have to enable deinterlacing (in addition to go via "Play using..."); not very user-friendly. So my quesion is: can I somehow force "use of OMXPlayer for this content" as well as "deinterlacing enabled for this content"?

Update: Strange, but some channels looks great with default DVDPlayer with no deinterlacing enabled (foreign ones mostly); local channels, tho, looks pretty bad.
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#2
Set deinterlace to automatic. The select set as default for all videos. Then stop and play the video again.
It should be deinterlaced with dvdplayer.
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#3
Thanks, somehow I've missed that option.

What you've said works, however playback with DVDPlayer is a little bit jerky (jumpy), but a definitely crisper (sharper), whereas OMXPlayer is smoother, but somewhat blurry. Streams bandwidth is between 4 and 6 Mbits (MPEG-2 Video + MPEG-Audio + DVBSub here and there). So, is there a way to select preferred player per media content/type/whatever instead of having just one default?

I've noticed, that a thread named "FileCache" is eating Pi's CPU -- from 30% to above 55%, leaving below 5% idle; what does this thread do? If possible, maybe, if this pressure is lowered DVDPlayer will keep up.

I also want to ask if there is a way to select specific audio track and subtitle stream? Seems like XBMC plays 1st available (as per PMT) by default.

Update and clarification: I know how to change audio/subtitles. I also see that audio and subtitle settings can be set as default, too, but that didn't worked at my end: even after I chose preferred audio track & subtitle stream and asked this combination to became "the default", next time the very same TV channel were started with 1st available streams of each type. Also, even if that worked, not all channels have their language correctly marked in PMT or have localized audio (because I prefer to have localized audio first, English audio next). Therefore I'm asking if there is a way to select audio track and subtitle stream via media stream URL, options parameter (if such) or in any other way.
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#4
(2014-03-23, 14:15)606u Wrote: I've noticed, that a thread named "FileCache" is eating Pi's CPU -- from 30% to above 55%, leaving below 5% idle; what does this thread do? If possible, maybe, if this pressure is lowered DVDPlayer will keep up.

Have you enabled buffermode in advancedsettings?
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#5
Maybe not related, but I too have transferred TS formatted files from my Topfield PVRt and tried to view them in XBMC.
After getting the MPEG-2 license it sort of worked even though not optimally.
So I decided to convert them to MP4 format instead and now the files play much better and they shrunk to half the size too.
I used the freeware program "Handbrake" to do the conversion.
It has the ability to do it as a batch job (you can add multiple files to a queue of conversion jobs) so there is no need to baby-sit the conversion.
The program is using all cores of the PC too, so it is quite fast.
Then one needs no special player to show the files either, just go via video/file and select the file to play.
Bo Berglund
Sweden
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#6
(2014-03-23, 15:58)popcornmix Wrote:
(2014-03-23, 14:15)606u Wrote: I've noticed, that a thread named "FileCache" is eating Pi's CPU -- from 30% to above 55%, leaving below 5% idle; what does this thread do? If possible, maybe, if this pressure is lowered DVDPlayer will keep up.

Have you enabled buffermode in advancedsettings?
Made some tests with 0 (default) and 3 (no caching) for buffermode; according to the wiki "default" is supposed to cache http media streams. No notable change (by perception), DVDPlayer still stutters, total utilization not much different, just moves from one thread to another. I've noticed unusually high sirq utilization for the channel with larger bitrate, but still, that is just 6,4 Mbits.

That aside, I've watched a hour and a half subtitled movie (with OMXPlayer) and it worked great.

Regarding deinterlacing: Seems like changing deinterlace options in DVDPlayer's video settings doesn't apply on currently played stream; change is visible the next time stream is started if settings are saved as defaults. For comparison, OMXPlayer applies the change immediately and displays artifacts for a brief moment (probably 'till next keyframe).

(2014-03-23, 18:51)Bosse_B Wrote: Maybe not related, but I too have transferred TS formatted files from my Topfield PVRt and tried to view them in XBMC.
After getting the MPEG-2 license it sort of worked even though not optimally.
So I decided to convert them to MP4 format instead and now the files play much better and they shrunk to half the size too.
I used the freeware program "Handbrake" to do the conversion.
It has the ability to do it as a batch job (you can add multiple files to a queue of conversion jobs) so there is no need to baby-sit the conversion.
The program is using all cores of the PC too, so it is quite fast.
Then one needs no special player to show the files either, just go via video/file and select the file to play.
Handbrake is a great piece of software, but it doesn't work for live, on-line TV.
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#7
OK, did not realize it was a live stream....
Bo Berglund
Sweden
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