[ilovethakush]

Chromebox related.

Now I'm not a coder or a developer, I don't have much knowledge regarding the super technical aspects of developing a video player. I do know a lot about technology and a lot about computers, I know my share of c++, c#, vb, etc for coding actually but that has nothing to do with this and I'm not going to pretend to know any more than that. What I do have however, is my eyes and ears.

I've been using a chromebox running OpenELEC for a few months now and before that I was running Kodi on windows for over a year. Version 5.0.something was the first version I ran of OpenELEC, right now I'm running fritch's 6.0.98. And in every version, in every test build, and in every stable version (and I've tested all of them), something about the audio/video sync never seemed right to me, it wasn't out of sync for sure, unless it was by milliseconds but something just didn't seem right to me, it's hard to describe.

Which leads me to this

The recommended settings for the chromebox according to the wiki are...

System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: Enable HQ Scalers for scalings above: 20%
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: Allow hardware acceleration (VDPAU): Off
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: Allow hardware acceleration (VAAPI): On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Use MPEG-2 VAAPI: On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Use MPEG-4 VAAP): On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Use VC-1 VAAPI: On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Prefer VAAPI render method: On (default)

This is the same for version 5 and 6 of OpenELEC.

And then for video playback settings it's

Deinterlace video : Auto
Deinterlace method : VAAPI Motion compensated
Video scaling method: Lanczos3 optimized (this was Auto for version 5 of OpenELEC)
View mode: normal

I changed the settings to the following, and in my opinion it's better, that audio/video sync problem I was talking about is COMPLETELY gone, and I don't notice any difference in video quality or CPU usage.

In system-settings-videos-accelaration, I left everything the same except I changed enable hq scalers to 0% instead of 20%. I admittedly don't really know what this does, but it definitely didn't hurt.

Then in video playback settings I changed Deintelace method to Auto and video scaling method to Auto.

I don't use passthrough, I watch a lot of SD content and a lot of 720p content, I don't really have 1080p content. For SD on Auto, it's supposed to use lanczos 3 anyway, so that didn't really change anything. But I feel like changing it from "VAAPI Motion compensated" to "Auto" helped a lot. Looking at the codec info, Kodi is still using hardware acceleration and I don't see any difference in the CPU usage or video quality.

I honestly feel like these should be the recommended settings for users running a chromebox

System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: Enable HQ Scalers for scalings above: 0%
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: Allow hardware acceleration (VDPAU): Off
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: Allow hardware acceleration (VAAPI): On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Use MPEG-2 VAAPI: On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Use MPEG-4 VAAP): On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Use VC-1 VAAPI: On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Prefer VAAPI render method: On (default)

Deinterlace video : Auto
Deinterlace method : Auto
Video scaling method: Auto
View mode: Normal

[McButton]

I vote default to all. I use the same as you and after stressing over each setting went default. all looks fine.

[Karnis]

The only problem kush is that if you have any interlaced HD content...for me, that would be Rush Clockwork Angels Blu Ray...it won't be in A/V sync unless deinterlace is set to VAAPI-Motion Compensation. That's where fritsch's settings come into play. If you don't have any interlaced content that says "VAAPI" when you press the O key then it won't affect you. I learned the hard way & got fritsch-slapped, too.

EDIT: Let me back track a bit by saying that I've since moved to a Braswell Beebox & that's when I had to switch to VAAPI-Motion Compensation for accelerated interlaced content. The AUTO setting worked just fine on the Chromebox on 6.0.95 fritsch as I remember. When i moved from Chromebox to Beebox, I used the same settings, it was out of sync, & that's how I found out I had to set deinterlace to VAAPI-MC.

So I believe your settings are fine for a Chromebox (except for the scaling value) & fritsch's settings are a must if you have a Braswell. Seems to be my experience so far with both boxes.

The reason scalers are set to 20% is so you only apply scaling to content greater to or less than 20% of your screen resolution....no reason to scale 1920x1080 content at 1920x1080 screen rez. Otherwise that Lanczos 3 scaling gets applied when it shouldn't, causing an extra amount of CPU load (it will eat some CPU), which might account for your slight loss of audio sync (and improvement with it turned off). Since you don't use pass thru, how are your results with sync to monitor enabled/disabled? Do you auto switch refresh rates to match the source? Just curious...

I hope that makes sense....gives me a headache.

[ilovethakush]

The only problem kush is that if you have any interlaced HD content...for me, that would be Rush Clockwork Angels Blu Ray...it won't be in A/V sync unless deinterlace is set to VAAPI-Motion Compensation. That's where fritsch's settings come into play. If you don't have any interlaced content that says "VAAPI" when you press the O key then it won't affect you. I learned the hard way & got fritsch-slapped, too.

EDIT: Let me back track a bit by saying that I've since moved to a Braswell Beebox & that's when I had to switch to VAAPI-Motion Compensation for accelerated interlaced content. The AUTO setting worked just fine on the Chromebox on 6.0.95 fritsch as I remember. When i moved from Chromebox to Beebox, I used the same settings, it was out of sync, & that's how I found out I had to set deinterlace to VAAPI-MC.

So I believe your settings are fine for a Chromebox (except for the scaling value) & fritsch's settings are a must if you have a Braswell. Seems to be my experience so far with both boxes.

The reason scalers are set to 20% is so you only apply scaling to content greater to or less than 20% of your screen resolution....no reason to scale 1920x1080 content at 1920x1080 screen rez. Otherwise that Lanczos 3 scaling gets applied when it shouldn't, causing an extra amount of CPU load (it will eat some CPU), which might account for your slight loss of audio sync (and improvement with it turned off). Since you don't use pass thru, how are your results with sync to monitor enabled/disabled? Do you auto switch refresh rates to match the source? Just curious...

I hope that makes sense....gives me a headache.

Let me start off by saying, I don't have any interlaced content.

Also as I said above, my content is either SD or 720p, I don't have any 1080p. I see your point about the 20% though.

I don't use sync playback to display.

My tv supports all refresh rates so that's why I don't use it there, and this also answers if I use switch refresh rate, it's a yes.

My monitor which I also use sometimes is a 1680x1050p, and only with 59.95hz (not 59.94), so I don't use sync playback to display on this one either cause I just don't like what it does, it offsets the audio like 0.024 seconds and I just don't really see the point in using it when it looks perfectly fine without it. Also, no refresh rate switching on this one cause there's only one refresh rate.

I am wondering now though, for my monitor. Would the 20% scaling apply for 720p content? (1280x720, 1680x1050). I don't feel like doing the math lol, looks like that's more than 20% though.

[Matt Devo]

the default Kodi 15.2 / OE 6.0.0 settings are just fine for most users. If you have interlaced content, you definitely want to change the deinterlacing mode to MCDI. The PQ difference between lanczos3 and bilinear (default) scaling is pretty minimal IMO, whereas the performance difference is large (since unlike bilinear, lanczos3 isn't handled by GPU), so you're not losing much there.

[fritsch]

System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: Enable HQ Scalers for scalings above: 0%
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: Allow hardware acceleration (VDPAU): Off
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: Allow hardware acceleration (VAAPI): On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Use MPEG-2 VAAPI: On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Use MPEG-4 VAAP): On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Use VC-1 VAAPI: On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Prefer VAAPI render method: On (default)

Deinterlace video : Auto
Deinterlace method : Auto
Video scaling method: Auto
View mode: Normal

The fat stuff is dangerous. As it makes absolutely no sense to allow HQ scaling when _no scaling_ (0 %) is applied -> therefore 20% should be considered.
Deinterlace method: Auto falls back to Render bob (!) so whenever you play interlaced content the surfaces are copied (!) to the system memory via CPU and deinterlaced in the render. Quality is very minor. Here I suggest trying VAAPI-BOB on platforms > Celeron 847 and VAAPI-MCDI (Motion compensation) on HSW and BSW, IVB can go with VAAPI-MADI (Motion Adaptive).

The cursive setting does the following: Use HQ scalers when upscaling SD content to HD and using bilinear otherwise. This simply won't work for low power gpus like the one in a Celeron 847 or Celeron 1007U - here in deed "Bilinear" needs to be forced.

On more capable devices like chromebox / Celeron 3050U and above one can watch and SD movie and set it to Lanczos3 Optimized and save for all files. It will then in combination with the "Use HQ scalers above: 20%" use HQ scalers for 576i / 720p and fall back to bilinear for 1080 content.

[ilovethakush]

System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: Enable HQ Scalers for scalings above: 0%
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: Allow hardware acceleration (VDPAU): Off
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: Allow hardware acceleration (VAAPI): On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Use MPEG-2 VAAPI: On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Use MPEG-4 VAAP): On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Use VC-1 VAAPI: On (default)
System-->Settings-->Videos-->Acceleration: -Prefer VAAPI render method: On (default)

Deinterlace video : Auto
Deinterlace method : Auto
Video scaling method: Auto
View mode: Normal

The fat stuff is dangerous. As it makes absolutely no sense to allow HQ scaling when _no scaling_ (0 %) is applied -> therefore 20% should be considered.
Deinterlace method: Auto falls back to Render bob (!) so whenever you play interlaced content the surfaces are copied (!) to the system memory via CPU and deinterlaced in the render. Quality is very minor. Here I suggest trying VAAPI-BOB on platforms > Celeron 847 and VAAPI-MCDI (Motion compensation) on HSW and BSW, IVB can go with VAAPI-MADI (Motion Adaptive).

The cursive setting does the following: Use HQ scalers when upscaling SD content to HD and using bilinear otherwise. This simply won't work for low power gpus like the one in a Celeron 847 or Celeron 1007U - here in deed "Bilinear" needs to be forced.

On more capable devices like chromebox / Celeron 3050U and above one can watch and SD movie and set it to Lanczos3 Optimized and save for all files. It will then in combination with the "Use HQ scalers above: 20%" use HQ scalers for 576i / 720p and fall back to bilinear for 1080 content.

Lol you bumped like a 6 month old thread.

To summarize, as always, you are correct fritsch, I agree with you 100% and disagree with what I wrote a while ago.

Right now. On my chromebox. I have it at 20%, lanczos3 and vaapi motion compensated. Works perfect.

[fritsch]

I don't know why, but this thread appeared on top or someone linked it to me - no idea :-)