2011-05-13, 05:19
Let me start by saying the love the xbmc developers. They have made an open source project that rivals, and in many ways exceeds, any commercial offering. They continue to expand to new hardware and are always listening to their user-base and are constantly improving their product...
I have been a xbmc user since early 2010, coming from using MythTV since 2004 (uggh..how far we have come) At first pass I loved xbmc (vs myth). Customizable skins, video with backgrounds and scrapers to pull in info. It was light years ahead of Myth. And best of all, an excellent music player that plays my Hi-res audio at Hi-Res! No down-sampling! But there were problems.
You can search my posts about video play back. I have never gotten them resolved. Occasional frame-skips, especially with VDPAU enabled, have plague me from the start. I understand I am a video-phile. I understand my wife and kids think I am a freak because they cannot see what I am talking about. But I also know these artifacts are not exhibited on my blu-ray play...and to the point of this article, my $99 WD TV plus.
That is the rub. I have a computer with a video card that costs more than $99 and it is humbled by the WD player. 24hz playback on the WD is flawless. There are no sync issues and color is perfect, as is contrast.
I do not lay all the blame at the xbmc developers. As I said before, without irony, they are my heroes. I believe the main fault is with VDPAU. Through I have everything in my signal chain outputting limited (or low) RGB (avoid rounding errors) it is obvious there are problems with VDPAU's implementation of it. (Option "ColorSpace" "RGB";Option "ColorRange" "Limited")
Now, this is a tough choice. xbmc's interface BLOWS away the WD player. Plus, the WD player down-samples all audio to 48kHz. (and its interface is as ugly as sin)
Where do I go? I will keep my eye on VDPAU development. I will continue to use xbmc as my digital audio playback source...and will use it's UPNP server for video sources. But to watch video, I must use the WD player.
I am not trolling here...
Do you think I am crazy?
I would love to hear from xbmc developers: Is VDPAU lacking?
Good Night and Good Luck.
I have been a xbmc user since early 2010, coming from using MythTV since 2004 (uggh..how far we have come) At first pass I loved xbmc (vs myth). Customizable skins, video with backgrounds and scrapers to pull in info. It was light years ahead of Myth. And best of all, an excellent music player that plays my Hi-res audio at Hi-Res! No down-sampling! But there were problems.
You can search my posts about video play back. I have never gotten them resolved. Occasional frame-skips, especially with VDPAU enabled, have plague me from the start. I understand I am a video-phile. I understand my wife and kids think I am a freak because they cannot see what I am talking about. But I also know these artifacts are not exhibited on my blu-ray play...and to the point of this article, my $99 WD TV plus.
That is the rub. I have a computer with a video card that costs more than $99 and it is humbled by the WD player. 24hz playback on the WD is flawless. There are no sync issues and color is perfect, as is contrast.
I do not lay all the blame at the xbmc developers. As I said before, without irony, they are my heroes. I believe the main fault is with VDPAU. Through I have everything in my signal chain outputting limited (or low) RGB (avoid rounding errors) it is obvious there are problems with VDPAU's implementation of it. (Option "ColorSpace" "RGB";Option "ColorRange" "Limited")
Now, this is a tough choice. xbmc's interface BLOWS away the WD player. Plus, the WD player down-samples all audio to 48kHz. (and its interface is as ugly as sin)
Where do I go? I will keep my eye on VDPAU development. I will continue to use xbmc as my digital audio playback source...and will use it's UPNP server for video sources. But to watch video, I must use the WD player.
I am not trolling here...
Do you think I am crazy?
I would love to hear from xbmc developers: Is VDPAU lacking?
Good Night and Good Luck.