[osxster]

Hello,

I am experiencing a problem playing back SOME H264 content. Specifically mpeg4 H264 transport stream content via a satellite provider through MythTV. Content plays back fine via VLC, but does not play direct through SMB:// or via MYTH:// protocol. This particular example is 1080, however I have the same problem with all other 720 H264 content from this provider. Anything mpeg2 from this provider plays back fine.

Basically all I get out of playing this is sound, I never get video. I can see from the logs that CDVDPlayerVideo is returned continuous errors while trying to play the content back. It looks like it doesn't like something about the format of this video. Sound does come through though. Once in a while it crashes, but usually it does not crash, I can exit and play something else that works fine.

Hardware: AppleTV2
iOS: 4.2.1
Build: 10.0-7 - XBMC PRE-11.0 Git:20110401-97b5e9f

syslog doesn't have much good, other than -> http://pastebin.com/Gs26kzTQ

xbmc.log -> http://pastebin.com/Hu57P8ac

An example of content: http://www.filedropper.com/15520090518234900 (34.1 MB)

If anyone could take a look at this, that would be great.

osxster

[bircoe]

Please provide a text dump of the video file from Mediainfo, and please add the file size to the download link so people know what they're getting into as filedropper doesn't tell you how big the file is before (or during) download.

[osxster]

The filesize is the video is 34 Meg. It's basically just two commercials..

MediaInfo Dump is attached: http://pastebin.com/MuTzxBwB

Let me know anything else you need, I've got lots of other HD MPEG4 TS files that won't play, so I'd be willing to test or supply more video to help..

The other interesting thing to note, if i turn off Hardware Acceleration, the videos all play. However the shudder really badly as the ATV2 obviously isn't fast enough to decode these via the CPU. It appears to be some sort of problem when using the hardware decoding.

[dtviewer]

Not sure how to fix your issue but wanted to commend you on your post asking for help.
Now THATs how to correctly post an issue on these forums, and I will probably point others to it when they incorrectly post for help.
(You know, the 'I have a atv and some videos dont play, what can be wrong' posts)

[davilla]

I'll look into this in a bit, just because such a fine report was done for it. Others could learn by example here.

[bircoe]

MediaInfo Dump is attached: http://pastebin.com/MuTzxBwB

That's one of the most strange mediainfo dumps I've ever seen... try running the video through mkvmerge and see if the resulting file plays any better.

http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/

[Woja]

Thanks for the tip "if i turn off Hardware Acceleration, the videos all play"
This has now let me watch some mp4 but with bigger ones it struggles ofcourse.
If acceleration is left on my apple tv xbmc just crashes (goes back to Apple TV menu) whenever I try to play an mp4.
Another one of my friends has the same issue and I've been trying all different things over the last couple of month, including refreshing Apple tv to latest firmware last night.

I used nitoTV to install XBMC this last time.

Apple tv 2 homesharing is so flaky (once in a blue moon it actually detects my itunes library) it is not funny but when it does I can play the mp4 on it...

So, do I just wait for future releases of xbmc?
I still have my old trusty xbox which plays everything fine except those bigger quality videos which is why I got the apple tv.... So I guess I'm just downloading AVI only for now...
Mkv files don't work either....

[keith]

Woja,
Since you upgraded to the latest apple firmware, you need to use unofficial nightlies for hardware acceleration to work on your device.
See the sticky at the top of this section.

[Woja]

Thanks very much, the nighly build does play the files OK,
Cheers

Peter

[mekanix]

@Woja

Does it still works for you? I've got at very similar issue with DVB-T MPEG4 recordings in mythtv, and I'm running Eden beta1.