Kodi Community Forum

Full Version: Can't play 1080p on Ion?
You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.
Pages: 1 2 3
I have two XBMC boxes: one a i5 4-core with HD4000 and another with Zotac Ion (Atom 330 @ 1.6Ghz). Both have Ubuntu 13.04. I can play all movies with the i5, but the Zotac will not play some of my newer 1080p .mkv movies encoded with Handbrake. I just see a blank screen instead of movie content. I have uploaded a debug log to : http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=72363.

This Zotac is a machine that I am planning on giving to my brother. If it is underpowered then I need to upgrade it, but if I made some configurtion error, then I would like to fix it.

Thanks for any hints.
You need a newer xbmc or an older nvidia driver.

The ion is perfectly fine for 1080p.

Code:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:wsnipex/xbmc-fernetmenta-master
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc xbmc-bin
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

That will install v13 - which should work. Btw. 310 nvidia version sucks ...
That was a quick response!

I'm a bit nervous about moving to 13. I see that drivers 313 and 304 are available from the Softwatware & Updates tool. Will one of these (probably) do, or should I look elsewhere?
304 should be fine, that's what I use at the moment.
313 "appears" to work in a smoke test, but I'll revert to 304 if I have trouble. (I did see some negative things about 313).

Thanks.
304.88 and 313.30 appear to work about as well as each other and are a definite improvement over 310. However I still have at least two movies that appear very jerky with these drivers. I don't see any obvious difference in the way that the movies were created that should explain this. Both are from recordings made from TCM using a cable card at 1080i. Both were encoded with the same handbrake settings. Both are in black and white. Both play just fine on my other machine.

I uploaded a new log file in case it has anything interesting in it: http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=73019

I only checked a few of the ~2,000 recordings that I have, I am sure there are more problems, but I suspect that they only show up in the more recent, higher quality 1080p .mkv recordings that I have.

I think I'll try moving to v13, but since it is alpha and it is for my Brother who knows nothing about computers, I am a little reluctant to use it. I am more likely to buy him a new motherboard (sigh) if I don't come up with a better solution soon.
Check your audio settings the ion cant do HD audio and most audio settings in xbmc make videos go jerky. Thers good setup guides in wiki and forums
The XBMC audio output is configured for analog with 2 channels. The physical audio is through Digital Stereo(HDMI) Output. I am wrestling with the audio config. I remember having to go through this on my other machine, but I am having to rediscover what to do. It seems that I am using ALSA, at the default version shipped for 13.04.

Also, upgrading to the latest v13, using the instructions above and then rebooting yielded no improvement. Further, I must manually kill xbmc to exit it (but, hey, it's an alpha, so what do you expect).

I disabled compiz & Unity and now using "Gnome-fallback (no effects)" but the movie is still jerky.
At this point I am concluding that using an ion-330 Zotac can work most of the time, with some tweaking, but is too much trouble for my purposes. Unless proven otherwise, I'm going to look for a more powerful, but hopefully energy efficient solution.
Well I can tell you that ION works perfectly for HD video, and for audio up to and including AC3 and DTS.

Do you by chance have pulseaudio installed?
Quote:15:13:36 T:3006797632 NOTICE: m_deviceName : default
15:13:36 T:3006797632 NOTICE: m_displayName : Playback/recording through the PulseAudio sound server

Code:
sudo apt-get remove --purge pulseaudio libasound2-plugins

We hope to get real PA support with gotham - for now xbmc just sucks with it.
Yes, I did have ALSA and pulseAudio installed on both machines (Ion & i5). I removed it from both, per your suggestion. Rebooted the Ion. No improvement. (Sigh). There is probably something funny about these two recordings, but they play just fine on my i5-HD4000 and are terrible on the ion.

I thank you for all of the help, but I think it is time for me to move off of my reliable ion. It seems that 1080i and 1080p content are pushing its limits and requires quite a bit of tweaking that I will have to rediscover every time I perform some upgrade to the system. I would rather have a system closer to my main i5-HD4000 machine. I am about to order a 35W Haswell-HD4000. It uses more power than the ion, but not that much more.
mediainfo available?

sudo apt-get install mediainfo pastebinit
mediainfo your_video.mkv | pastebinit
I havent encountered any files 1080 wise that are that bad on my ION, unless these are funky in some way, everything I throw at it, it plays. Just stick to 304.88 drivers as the newer ones make quite some changes that dont benefit the ION in any way, though even make it worst.

Look at your deinterlacng settings in xbmc, these can also cause what you describe/worst, and settings for Intel are likely not going to work for the ION for same files, so look.

My signature describes how to setup the ION for 23.something and 24p HD playback perfectly even 1080 it has the settings for these portions too so do that setup for your ION also.

Finally knowing that some upgrades (software wise) in Linux always means some form of tweaking or other, no matter what platform you have, so new hardware is not going to resolve this, but add to the list. (though you seem you want an excuse to buy new kit, that's just me from reading your posts...)
MediaInfo
General
Unique ID : 14910531157337745235744945361709610380 (0xB37A9F1B299A4099FA137158F32B58C)
Complete name : /tinkie/Movies/Video/Movies/Science Fiction/The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 3.00 GiB
Duration : 1h 20mn
Overall bit rate : 5 317 Kbps
Writing application : HandBrake 0.9.8
Writing library : libmkv 0.6.5

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 20mn
Bit rate : 4 763 Kbps
Width : 1 808 pixels
Height : 976 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.85:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.113
Stream size : 2.69 GiB (90%)
Writing library : x264 core 120
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=6 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=5 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=19.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=3 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1h 20mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 448 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 259 MiB (8%)
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Pages: 1 2 3