[AppleTV] 1080p video playback sluggish on Apple TV with Broadcom Crystal HD?
#1
Question 
I tried searching this sub-forum before submitting this post as any good boy scout would, but I couldn't find a suitable place for this.
I play all of my content from an external drive (USB). I noticed that my aTV with crystal HD has issues playing movies that are 1080p. I have also tried 720p content which doesn't seem to have any trouble playing, but all of my 1080p test movies have the same issue. they play fluidly for a couple of seconds, but then start to play sluggishly.
fast forwarding temporarily resolve it but the sluggishness kicks back in after just another 5 seconds or so.
I pastbinned the media info 3 of my test movies.
all of them show the same output in the XBMC log, what I see when ssh-ing into the aTV and doing:
Code:
grep -i crystal /Users/frontrow/Library/Logs/xbmc.log
results in the following messages:
Code:
14:17:27 T:52248064 M:  3100672   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 1
14:17:27 T:52248064 M:  3141632   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 0
14:17:27 T:52248064 M:  3117056   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 1
14:17:27 T:52248064 M:  3174400   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 0
14:17:27 T:52248064 M:  4300800   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 1
14:17:27 T:52248064 M:  4411392   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 0
14:17:28 T:52248064 M:  4386816   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 1
14:17:28 T:52248064 M:  4415488   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 0
14:17:28 T:52248064 M:  4390912   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 1
14:17:28 T:52248064 M:  4321280   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 0
14:17:28 T:52248064 M:  4362240   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 1
14:17:29 T:52248064 M:  4366336   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 0
14:17:29 T:52248064 M:  4362240   DEBUG: CrystalHD: SetDropState... 1

xbmc.log right here.

the SetDropState messages seem familiar to me and I think I have seen them before on this forum, but I was not able to find how or if this could be resolved.
if anyone needs more info, I'll gladly provide it.

P.S. using r26841 at the moment
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#2
Something odd going on under OSX with CrystalHD, will be looking into it this weekend.
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#3
Looking forward to getting this fixed... hope you will look into the audio going out of sync too?

I guess it's probably related to the other problems Smile

Thanks for all the hard work on this!
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#4
Hope you will be looking at making me be able to install it Wink

haha.
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#5
Ayla Wrote:Thanks for all the hard work on this!

I keep forgetting to mention that. I think you have deserved a night out tonight. the tab will be picked up by all of us aTV/crystal owners Wink
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#6
if i choose DIGITAL audio output, every mkv or m2ts is running smootly, but if i choose analog audio output in few seconds, it's start laggin, maybe atv cpu is not strong enough for multichannel audio decoding Smile
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#7
problem9 Wrote:if i choose DIGITAL audio output, every mkv or m2ts is running smootly, but if i choose analog audio output in few seconds, it's start laggin, maybe atv cpu is not strong enough for multichannel audio decoding Smile

Look at "top" and stop guessing Smile
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#8
davilla Wrote:Something odd going on under OSX with CrystalHD, will be looking into it this weekend.

Boxee should take some of their VC (assuming they got some) and match your salary... A 40 hour a week Davilla would do a lot for both XBMC/Boxee Wink That goes for the other Dev's too.
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#9
problem9 Wrote:if i choose DIGITAL audio output, every mkv or m2ts is running smootly, but if i choose analog audio output in few seconds, it's start laggin, maybe atv cpu is not strong enough for multichannel audio decoding Smile

I ran into the same issue as the topic starter, but CPU use for downmixing to stereo does not seem to be the problem. CPU use is usually around 30 or 40% without real spikes.

I noticed that if I leave playing and resume a movie again, playback is sometimes good for at least a few minutes, but may be choppy again after a pause/resume.

By hte way, I would like to echo the 'thanks' here. While playback for 1080p movies is not working well yet, it seems close, and must have cost a lot of work. So a lot of kudos to davilla and the rest of the team!
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#10
danieldk Wrote:I noticed that if I leave playing and resume a movie again, playback is sometimes good for at least a few minutes, but may be choppy again after a pause/resume.

If a movie plays smoothly, and subtitling is enabled, it seems to become choppy again once the second subtitle is shown. With subtitles disabled, things seem to be a lot better.
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#11
Having kind of the same issues as stated here.. But with my 720p movies.. I dont have the Crystal HD card but shouldnt need it since they all play well on all other players.

I have a thread about this here http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=67463&page=2 where i managed to get my playback alot better than before by doing some modding. Maybe this could improve your plackback to.

cheers
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#12
danieldk Wrote:If a movie plays smoothly, and subtitling is enabled, it seems to become choppy again once the second subtitle is shown. With subtitles disabled, things seem to be a lot better.

this is not something I'm noticing?
I also don't really understand the part about digital and analog audio. I have the same issues connecting the aTV over HDMI to my TV in the living room and connecting over DVI and analog audio in the bedroom.

the pixel buffer objects menu item has always available and I can't really see a difference whether it's turned on or off...
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#13
nerpissad Wrote:the pixel buffer objects menu item has always available and I can't really see a difference whether it's turned on or off...

Well as i stated in my post i never noticed it there before and it helped my playback. After i did these things my playback improved much more than earlier.

Eather way there is something wrong with xbmc playing good quality movies.
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#14
nerpissad Wrote:this is not something I'm noticing?

Strange...

I just played a whole movie, which goes fine without subtitles, only some occasional slowdowns. Like I mentioned previously, I have to try a few times resuming the movie. But once it plays fine, there are only occasional slow-downs.

This is with SVN revision 26853, playing a mkv file. From mkvinfo:

Code:
| + A track
|  + Track number: 1
|  + Track UID: 1
|  + Track type: video
|  + Enabled: 1
|  + Default flag: 1
|  + Forced flag: 0
|  + Lacing flag: 0
|  + MinCache: 1
|  + Timecode scale: 1
|  + Max BlockAddition ID: 0
|  + Codec ID: V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
|  + Codec decode all: 1
|  + CodecPrivate, length 40
|  + Default duration: 41.708ms (23.976 fps for a video track)
|  + Language: eng
|  + Video track
|   + Pixel width: 1920
|   + Pixel height: 816
|   + Interlaced: 0
|   + Display width: 40
|   + Display height: 17
| + A track
|  + Track number: 2
|  + Track UID: 2962305948
|  + Track type: audio
|  + Enabled: 1
|  + Default flag: 1
|  + Forced flag: 0
|  + Lacing flag: 1
|  + MinCache: 0
|  + Timecode scale: 1
|  + Max BlockAddition ID: 0
|  + Codec ID: A_DTS
|  + Codec decode all: 1
|  + Language: eng
|  + Name: DTS 5.1 @ 1.5Mbps
|  + Audio track
|   + Sampling frequency: 48000
|   + Channels: 6
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#15
My Crystal HD ATV is also suffering from this stuttering. It seems like it's doing something weird with refresh rates when it stutters; possibly flickering in-between 60Hz and 50Hz. My untrained eyes couldn't see anything to explain it in the log, but here's the pastebin anyway. Lots of scrobbling rubbish, playback starts after line ~935.
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[AppleTV] 1080p video playback sluggish on Apple TV with Broadcom Crystal HD?0