[hdmkv]

I'm not seeing Video -> Acceleration (Turn on Expert Settings view) and enable "User SW Filter". Which setting specifically?

[Matt Devo]

I'm not seeing Video -> Acceleration (Turn on Expert Settings view) and enable "User SW Filter". Which setting specifically?

from ze wiki:

An Intel Linux video driver bug ( https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=78960 ) causes intermittent freezes/pauses.
Workaround: (OpenELEC) enable the 'Use SW filter for VAAPI' option Settings-->Video-->Acceleration.
Workaround: (XBMC 13.2+?) disable the 'Prefer VAAPI Rendering' option Settings-->Video-->Acceleration.

same setting, just worded differently and functionally reversed.

[movie78]

I'm not seeing Video -> Acceleration (Turn on Expert Settings view) and enable "User SW Filter". Which setting specifically?

Base on this picture.

What should be check and what should be uncheck?

Thanks!

[Matt Devo]

Base on this picture.

What should be check and what should be uncheck?

Thanks!

deselect 'Prefer VAAPI render method', everything else is fine.

[movie78]

Base on this picture.

What should be check and what should be uncheck?

Thanks!

deselect 'Prefer VAAPI render method', everything else is fine.

Thanks!

[hdmkv]

Thanks! I assume this is a temporary fix until there's a hardware solution from Intel.

[Matt Devo]

Thanks! I assume this is a temporary fix until there's a hardware solution from Intel.

the Intel Linux driver devs are working on it

[Sunflux]

Hmm. Not sure what I was expecting from 4K from the Chromebox, but it does actually support those output resolutions, so I had to try. XBMC menus feel a bit... I dunno, not laggy, but perhaps the term is "non-fluid". Tiny thumbnails look fantastic. However...

Upscaling from 1080p sucks! It's blurry as all heck compared to letting the TV do the job. The only scaling modes that perform at full framerate are the bottom two, the "better" upscaling modes seem to top out at 15-16fps performance, which as you can imagine isn't exactly acceptable.

What I wish... is that XBMC would simply start allowing resolution switching based on video resolution. There may not have been much reason for that before, but it's otherwise a huge pain to have to manually change to 4k to watch a 4k video, and then go back to 1080p for everything else.

[D-an-W]

Is that the Celeron or i3 Chromebox Sunflux (My fiancee is buying the i3 one for me as a Christmas present)?

[FreeMan xbmc]

This was spectacularly easy, thank you so much!

Only 3 minor issues:
1) The only HDMI input screen I have is my 720p TV, and the box (actually, every box I've plugged into it) sends an image that's too big. Part of the text of your installer script disappears off the top & left edges of the screen. I got it figured out, and this isn't an issue with the script, just a minor pain.
2) In all the times I've installed XBMC/Kodi on a new box, I've never been able to get the library to import. Again not a script issue, just an annoyance.
3) I picked up the very last Asus Chromebox they had at Fry's for $120. As a matter of fact, it was the demo sitting out. Unfortunately, it didn't come with the USB dongle for the keyboard, and it didn't come with the wireless mouse. Anyone have any idea what type of dongle it needs for the keyboard? (Again, not a script issue, just another inconvenience.)

Thanks again, Matt! You made this a piece of cake!

[nickr]

1. You need to turn off overscan on your tv.

[Sunflux]

Is that the Celeron or i3 Chromebox Sunflux (My fiancee is buying the i3 one for me as a Christmas present)?

It's the el-cheapo HP Celeron. The i3 Chromebox is a bit spendy, no? Almost in Intel NUC territory. .

Now, I didn't buy this for 4k video performance... but kind of funny that the real issue is with measly 1080p content! When you have a great external hardware scaler, it frankly makes no sense to burden your media player with those duties... especially when it's not going to do anywhere near as good a job (and that's even if the better methods were usable).

[noggin]

Hmm. Not sure what I was expecting from 4K from the Chromebox, but it does actually support those output resolutions, so I had to try. XBMC menus feel a bit... I dunno, not laggy, but perhaps the term is "non-fluid". Tiny thumbnails look fantastic. However...

What you are describing as lag is almost certainly the result of the output frame rate being halved from 50/60p to 24/25/30p. The Chromebox (like almost all HTPCs at the moment) can only output 2160p at 24/25/30p over HDMI - where as at 1080p it can output 50/60p too. As a result any animation or mouse pointer movement will be rendered at half the frame rate, so appear far less fluid.

Annoyingly the HDMI 2.0 spec adds a 2160/50-60p video mode which is compatible with HDMI 1.4 bandwidths. They do this by reducing the chroma subsampling from 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 to 4:2:0 (which is how almost all consumer video is encoded in SD, HD and UHD anyway). This is how nVidia Kepler and some Sony UHD TVs were able to add 2160/50p and 2160/60p compatibility to gear which didn't support those resolution/frame-rate combos originally. I think nVidia are the only people currently offering driver support for this mode on kit which was originally HDMI 1.4 only. I don't know if the Intel and AMD GPUs can implement this - or whether they will bother. It is only really useful for playing 4:2:0 video - and not great for desktop and general PC use (as the chroma is effectively only 1920x1080 resolution overlaid over a 3840x2160 luminance signal) so coloured edges will be softer/blurrier.

You are right, it would be good if there were an optional, "Match resolution" as well as "Match Framerate" option. It could be quite complex to implement though - as so much video has non-standard resolutions (where black bars have been cropped for instance). However you could do a bit of an "educated guess" system - and let people check box at what resolution they wanted XBMC to stop scaling?

You could have different settings for "SD" (i.e. content with a horizontal resolution of 1024 or lower?), "720p" (i.e. content with horizontal resolution >1024 but <=1280), "1080" (i.e. content with a horizontal resolution >1280 but <=1920), "Above HD" (i.e. content with a horizontal resolution >1920)? Then you could have "Output at" options for these four genres (So you could chose to output "SD" as 1080p, "720p" as 720p, "1080" as 1080p but "Above HD" as 2160p?)

One thing I've noticed with an HTPC connected 1080p to a 4K set is that when playing 720/50p content you get a double scaling 720p->1080p->2160p. If you output from XBMC at 720p you just get a single scaling - 720p->2160p and the result is cleaner. (You can't output 2160p direct from the HTPC as you can't get 50p output over HDMI unless you have the nVidia solution - and 720/50p at 2160/25p looks nasty)

[noggin]

Is that the Celeron or i3 Chromebox Sunflux (My fiancee is buying the i3 one for me as a Christmas present)?

It's the el-cheapo HP Celeron. The i3 Chromebox is a bit spendy, no? Almost in Intel NUC territory. .

Now, I didn't buy this for 4k video performance... but kind of funny that the real issue is with measly 1080p content! When you have a great external hardware scaler, it frankly makes no sense to burden your media player with those duties... especially when it's not going to do anywhere near as good a job (and that's even if the better methods were usable).

Nice for looking at photos in 2160p though :-)

---

1. You need to turn off overscan on your tv.

Annoyingly this isn't always possible on some TVs when running at non-panel native resolutions. On my Sony Bravia Full HD set (c. 2007) you can only totally disable overscan when running in a 1920x1080 mode. SD and 720p inputs are always subject to a bit of overscan. If this causes me a problem I usually configure our Onkyo amp away from Pass Through (which is how it normally works) and get it to upscale to 1920x1080 (which is then displayed without overscan)

[wizziwig]

Hmm. Not sure what I was expecting from 4K from the Chromebox, but it does actually support those output resolutions, so I had to try. XBMC menus feel a bit... I dunno, not laggy, but perhaps the term is "non-fluid". Tiny thumbnails look fantastic. However...

Upscaling from 1080p sucks! It's blurry as all heck compared to letting the TV do the job. The only scaling modes that perform at full framerate are the bottom two, the "better" upscaling modes seem to top out at 15-16fps performance, which as you can imagine isn't exactly acceptable.

What I wish... is that XBMC would simply start allowing resolution switching based on video resolution. There may not have been much reason for that before, but it's otherwise a huge pain to have to manually change to 4k to watch a 4k video, and then go back to 1080p for everything else.

How did 4K video's play and look since they don't require any upscaling?

Your HP Chromebox is single channel DDR3. It's possible one might get slightly better results on an Asus model with dual channel memory installed.