Hello, All,
I’ve been fighting for this for a while so I’m hoping someone else has run into this and can point me in the right direction.
The Problem:
When playing a DVD, the first few seconds of the video will stutter or become choppy, for about 3-5 seconds before stabilizing. When I was running XBMC Dharma, it would only do this when first playing the DVD, or after tracking forward or backwards. Now that I’m running Eden, it also does this when reaching a new “chapter” of the DVD, so every 5 or so minutes. I’m not sure if this is something in the settings, something with audio stream, etc., but I’ve tried several things after researching similar issues reported in the forums with no luck.
Software:
Ubuntu 12.04
XBMC Eden 11.0
Hardware:
CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz
GPU: Integrated ATI 4250 (running proprietary drivers)
My current settings:
Things I’ve tried:
Disabling VDPAU/VAAPI, first one at a time then both.
Enabling Adjust disply refresh rate to match video
Enabling Sync playback to display
Disabling vertical blank synch, enabling always on.
When I rip the DVD, it plays back flawlessly. As does local HD content.The DVD also plays back flawlessly in VLC and MoviePlayer.
NOTE: I have noticed that Eden seems to take up more resources than Dharma, even with Vertical blank sync set to enabled during video playback.
NOTE: This is on Vizio 37' TV with 720p
Thoughts?
Thanks everyone.
Okay, I’ve tried a few more things.
OSD Settings:
With default settings, I was seeing around 24fps (sometimes 23.76 sometimes 28.24, etc), but pretty consistent. When selecting “DeInterlace” the frames jump up. The most I’ve seen is when using the “Bob” deInterlace method, cruising at around 48fps, (which is around what I see when I play back local content.) When selected, it will immediately clear up the initial stutter, but it will return again when the DVD rolls over to a new chapter in a few minutes. CPU usage at ~50%, so should have plenty of head-room there.
I’ve tried every combination of DeInterlacing and Video scaling method I can think of, using them in conjunction with the settings mentioned in my first post (adjust display to match video, sync playback to display, etc.) With each change, I restart XBMC before trying again.
Driver:
Running ATI’s latest catalyst drivers (I know, I know, should have gone with nvidia on a Linux box). Open source drivers had issues syncing audio on all video playback, in XBMC or out, so I’m generally avoiding them.
I’ve tried disabling/enabling Vertical Sync in the Catalyst Control Center, with the same results.
Ubuntu:
While researching, I found a post saying Compiz can sometimes cause these issues. So I tried booting into Ubuntu Classic No Effects with the same issue. Also tried booting into GNOME shell and disabling compiz, booting into Ubuntu 2D, Ubuntu Classic, and directly into XBMC for good measure: same issue.
I can post a pastebin of the debug tonight if anyone’s interested.
Thanks.
As long as your local files play ok, I would not bother about driver and other settings. DVDs are handled differently due to some reason and they don't use hw acceleration. Sorry I can't help more, my knowledge on DVD playback is limited. Need to wait for someone else to jump in.
Thanks, FernetMenta. Anything to narrow this down.
don't use bob as a deinterlacer, it takes too cpu, try blend or just turn it off.
I believe I've tried most of the other options for deinterlacer with little success, and when using bob my CPU stays around 50-60%. When deinterlacer is off is when the stutter is most visible.
Obnoxious bump.
Any other DVD gurus out there?
Did you find any answers to this? I have what seems to be the same situation: DVD playback is jumpy. Mine seems to stutter all the time, not just at chapters. I'd love any help anyone can give.
Dos286,
No luck yet, but I'm still researching when I have free time. What video card are you using? Might point us in the right direction.
I'm using an on board AMD Radeon HD 6410D
It appears that not all DVDs are problematic for me, however. I had just upgraded the OS and re-installed XBMC. The first DVD I tried had this issue. The second played without a hitch. I need to try some others and see how wide spread the problem is. The problematic disk plays just fine in MoviePlayer on the same machine, so I don't think it's hardware, or a "bad" disc. Perhaps some varieties of poorly encoded discs are hard for the XBMC player to deal with, while other players handle it ok.
Hey guys, I'm also desperate looking for a solution to have smooth DVD playback as I had in Ubuntu 10.04 + XBMC Dharma. I've been posting debug logs in 2 other threads but didn't see activitiy there. I'm willing to help debug this and I did test it with both ISO files and physical DVD disks (protected).
At the moment I'm ripping one of my Prison Break oficial DVDs to ISO to see if it might be anything related to the copyright stuff (and yes, I do have libdvdcss installed). Please take a look at the debug logs I've post in these 2 threads:
[LINUX] Iso/DVD files playback issues
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=117828
Linux Choppy playback / Video stutter with Eden
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=131393&page=3
Lets try to stick in one of these threads to solve this...
Thx!
What do you have scaling method set to? Are those interlaced DVDs? Try bilinear.
Hi FernetMenta, it didn't happen because the refresh adjustment wasn't working. It was detecting a wrong fps (around 45 fps) and using a refresh rate of 59.94 and then I had really bad stutter. Setting the <fpsdetect>2</fpsdetect> did solve it once it can correctly detect the 23.97 movie fps and then switch my display to match it.
See here for more details:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...pid1142155
Thx!
gpborges,
Thanks for your efforts investigating - especially reporting back to other threads.
I tried the advancedsettings you found but no luck.
Question: refresh rate does not show up when I enable debugging. Is there a way to enable that? Google has yet to enlighten me.
kevide, where does it not show up? When you press "o" to bring up the codec screen? Have you enabled sync playback to display?
You might be observing a different issue than gpborges. Are you playing SD PAL DVDs? The issue with PAL DVDs is the following. If scaling method is set to AUTO or to any other than bilinear, a high quality scaling method will be chosen. This is a 2-way rendering process. If this is engaged for interlaced material coming from DVD, it will result in 2 rendering cycles for each field. Means you end up with 4 cycles and your GPU might hit its limits.