Tracking down video problems
#1
I am having some video problems and I don't think it is an XBMC issue but would like to confirm that. When watching a recorded TV show occasionally my screen goes black with no sound. About 10-15 seconds later the video comes back but no audio until another 10-15 seconds. I can rewind back to before this happens and watch the video with no problems so I do not believe it is a problem with the video file. Last night this happened about 3-4 times while watching one show. I had the debugging log turned on. Does anyone know what to look for in this log to know if XBMC is having an issue or if it logged an issue it had with some hardware? I have the log file but I can't see how to attach it without actually posting the file.
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#2
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You can post your debug at http://pastebin.com/ using cut&paste from the clipboard.. then in a post with your message and put the URL link to the pastbin at the end.

Wiki on how to do this...http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=42708

You didn't include a lot of details to define your issue.. like O/S, platform hardware, GPU, CPU and revisions of XBMC and skin. I suspect that your system graphics is failing, goes into recovery mode and comes back on stream, the audio is linked to this issue.

Using the keyboard 'o' command while a movie is playing will give you an idea of how fast your system is handling a video (drops cpu, gpu etc).
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#3
Sorry for not including the details. I am running a 2.8 GHz Quad core MacPro with a ATI Radeon HD 5770 card with 1GB memory. The system has 6GB RAMM. I am running OS10.6.7. I am using Big Cirrus skin but I cannot recall the exact XBMC version number. It should be the last version that was pushed down for auto updating. I will check when I get home. I sent myself a copy of the log to myself here at work but I noticed it has no carriage returns so it is very difficult to read. I will try submitting that tonight also.

If it is the system graphics failing would a link to the system log also be helpful? Thanks for the help. I will post the logs when I get home and I am sorry about the details I do know better than that.
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#4
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If the graphic driver is failing, then the log will not show it. Make sure you're running the latest gfx drivers, from the look of your system it should be able to handle just about anything. There is a remote possibility that the hardware acceleration is causing this, try to toggle DVAX2 in settings>video>playback to see if that makes any difference.
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#5
So I am running XBMC 10.1 and I missed on the RAMM it is actually 10GB. Here is the link to my log file. If this helps any I had problems just a couple minutes after starting Nakita around 7:45.

I turned off hardware acceleration. Mine didn't say DVAX2 but I am assuming that is what you wanted. I will have to see how it runs tonight. The problem with the graphics drivers is Apple keeps them pretty locked down. I have the most updated from Apple but I have no idea what that means to people in the Windows world.
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#6
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It looks like I'm out of my element, not understanding the Mac XBMC, from the log it looks like you're using an external player with external codecs and it's giving you some hick-ups. The fellas in the Mac forum would be able to see this better than I. http://forum.xbmc.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=56

ffmpeg[B0F34000]: [mpeg2video] Warning MVs not available
19:42:10 T:2968731648 M:9231314944 INFO: ffmpeg[ERRORB0F34000]: [mpeg2video] concealing 92 DC, 92 AC, 92 MV errors
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#7
There is so much going on, I have no clue where to look.
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#8
That doesn't sound good. I didn't think I was doing anything special with XBMC. All I have done is point XBMC to a folder containing SymLinks to MPG2 files that were recorded in EyeTV. I have not knowingly set up an external player. I think I will try deleting XBMC and reinstalling. I turned off the hardware acceleration and the problem seemed to get worse so I turned it back on. It ran better with it turned on but not perfect.
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#9
VDA hardware acceleration will not help one bit with mpeg2 files. It's for h264 encoded video files.

You might try one of the nighties.
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#10
I gave my reinstalled XBMC a spin last night. The computer was having issues and not recognizing my TV again so I had to watch on my regular monitor. The TV is connected via the mini displayport and several adapters. The monitor is connected directly to the DVI port. In this configuration XBMC played my recording with no problems. I did take a look at the log file to see if there was less stuff but it looked like the a lot of the same things so I am not sure why I am getting such a large log file that even the developers find confusing.
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