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Full Version: AFTV dropping & skipping frames. (Gotham)
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Ok first, here's a debug log: http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=212538

The log is not a complete run of a video, but is parts of 2 videos playing, the first had "drop: 6" at the beginning and the 2nd video had "skip: 9" during the first 10 - 15 mins or so.

Test Video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xr8659h6570o2t...g_test.mkv

All my mkv/h.264 @1080p videos are showing skipped frames, as well some are showing dropped frames (with the Codec info pulled up).

The dropped frames aren't really that much of an issue as it seems that it only drops frames at the very beginning of the file and only affects some of my videos. However, frame skipping happens with all my videos and is through-out the entire video, although is not constant as seems to happen every 2 - 4 mins. depending on the file.

When it skips, it will skip 1 - 3 frames at a time (have seen up to 5 frames at a time) and it causes a hiccup in playback when it does skip. And it will skip anywhere between 40 - 100 frames per video over the entire time.

Also, as "skip" is not shown in the wiki for CodecInfo (is now because I added it), I assume this is something new for Gotham. But XBMC has exhibited the same behavior for all versions that I have tried. Currently I am on Beta 1 build (xbmc-20140511-692cfba-Gotham-armeabi-v7a.apk), but I have also tried the 13.1-RC1 build, which seems to be a little worse and has other problems also.

As well, I have attempted all combinations of libstagefright & mediacodec. Libstagefright only and libstagefright + mediacodec seem to be worse, mediacodec only appears to be better, but only by a slight margin.

Image
To update & make a clarification.

I should have mentioned that with Libstagefright ONLY enabled, the CodecInfo does not show any skipped frames. However, playback is nearly the same and there is still dropped/skipped frames whether it displays it or not.

Also, playback with only libstagefright only enabled is not a smooth as when Mediacodec is enable (with or without libstagefright also enabled).

Anyway, here are some more debug logs playing the same file:

Libstagefright Only: http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=213655

Libstagefright & Mediacodec: http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=213776 (Codecinfo displayed 108 skipped frames over the duration of the entire movie)

Here's a test file of the same video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/75yemkm5dwqwf9...le-001.mkv

On side note, every once in a while when playing a video it will begin stuttering all over the place (dropping frames) and here's a log of when that happens
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=213542

Sometimes skipping back will fix playback. Other times it takes a complete reboot of the Fire TV to get to play files correctly.
To update again.

After attempting nearly every setting that I could possible think of as well as adding the “advandedsettting.xml” and making different changes to it as well, including setting the buffer size to 200MB and the readbufferfactor to 10, this caused the cache to fill up almost instantly. Although, at 200MB it seems that the most it would cache was about 115MB.

I also tried 4 different NAS’s, as well as using different network protocols, NFS, SMB and FTP. Both NFS and FTP seemed worse, not for the skipping, but in general playback.

Anyway, so since nothing that I attempted appeared to make any difference (neither making it worse or better) I decided to just start from scratch. So I did a complete factory rest of the AFTV, then after I only installed XBMC as so to make sure that the issue wasn’t caused by another app that I installed.

After I installed XBMC, I set it up as normal, not making any changes other than to the audio settings for pass-through and enabling the remote control settings (something I’ll get back too). I didn’t make any changes to the video settings other than setting group sets and play back next file automatically.

Then I added my videos to the library, as SMB because as I stated these appears to give the best playback. I didn’t install any add-ons, not that I had any before other than Aeon-Nox 4 (Gotham) and it’s prerequisite add-ons.

I then played the same video as above. This time it played for about 20 min. before showing a skipped frame in the Codecinfo, and during the entire length of the video it only showed skipping about 5 frames. However, even though it only showed 5 frames skipped, while the video was playing you could still see where it would skip a frame here and there even when it didn’t recorded a skipped frame.

Now back to the remote control settings. I enabled the remote controls settings so that I could use the Yaste app to control XBMC (Zeroconfig doesn’t seem to work, even though it does with my RPi). Yaste does not seem to be causing any issues, however, on the app when I would slide the page from the controller screen to the movie info/playback screen XBMC would skip frames. Going the other way it would not, but every time I pulled up the movie info/playback screen it would.

So I disabled the remote control settings (just letting external devices control XBMC). Once I did this the skipping seemed to lessen and I played a few different movies and all played without XBMC recording any skipped frames. Again though, you could still see frames being skipped/dropped during playback, but it didn’t seem to do it as frequently.

Then I decided to change my skin back to Aeon-Nox 4 (Gotham) to see if it made any difference. It did, as soon as I started using Nox the skipping was back, but no were near as bad as it was before I did the factory reset. So I disabled Nox and went back to Confluence, which gave me the same results as before, no recorded skipped frames but still able to see some visually.

To make sure that this wasn’t an issue with just Nox I tried several other skins, all of which produced the same skipping as Nox, more or less, with the exception of Alaska which seemed to have even better playback results than Confluence.

Now, this doesn’t seem that it’s something specific to just skins, as just about anything seems to cause skipping. Even using the default skin (Confluence), pulling up the on-screen-display causes videos to start to skip frames.

This also shouldn’t be an issue with the AFTV not having enough CPU power, as I have run the exact same setup on my RPi, overclocked to 900, and it does not have any of these problems, even using Nox which is way too heavy a skin for the RPi.


Anyway, this is the last I’m adding to this post since it’s been nearly 2 weeks since I started it and no one has seemed to take any interest.
I cant really add anything to your problem of dropped/skipped frames, as its not an issue I'm seeing (well, except for pausing high bitrate files, when unpausing there are always 3-6 dropped frames as it stutters for a fraction of a second before resuming smoothly, but thats different to what you're seeing). However, for info, regarding the HW accel settings. Having Mediacodec and libstagefright enabled at the same time, is exactly the same as only having mediacodec enabled. ie, only one of them is used, and mediacoded takes preference. To use libstagefright, you need to have mediacodec disabled. I would guess that any small differences you might be seeing with both enabled over just mediacodec are a placebo effect, or just random differences for that run.
(2014-06-09, 11:59)Apothis Wrote: [ -> ]However, for info, regarding the HW accel settings. Having Mediacodec and libstagefright enabled at the same time, is exactly the same as only having mediacodec enabled. ie, only one of them is used, and mediacoded takes preference. To use libstagefright, you need to have mediacodec disabled.
I confirm.
Yes, I was already aware of that. This is why there are only 2 different log files in the 2nd post, one for libstagefright only and one for libstagefright + mediacodec (since this is the default setting).

But as I stated, libstagefright + mediacodec is only slightly worse than having mediacodec only set as where it comes to skipping frames and as the issue doesn't appear to be related to h/w acceleration (at least not directly) anyway, it's a moot point.

Also, as I stated above I have the exact same setup on my RPi and there are no issues with it, not even dropping or stuttering when pausing then resuming playback or skipping/dropping frames when pulling up the on-screen display. So this is something specific to Android.

EDIT: I will also add this. I have sideloaded MX Player on the AFTV and it does not have any issues playing the same files.
And for anyone interested, June 10 Helix nightly does the same thing on Ouya, as well as 13.1 Final.
Ok..............splain this Lucy!

So I pull my G-box MX2 out of it's drawer where I had it stored for the last 3 months or so, updated it's FW, then uninstalled the XBMC version that came with it and installed 13.1 Final.

Then I made sure it was set up the same way as both my Ouya and AFTV. Played a few movies and ALL of them played with no issues..........smooth as butter, no skipping at all.

Now, even though visually there were no problems, on any movie I would pull up the codecinfo on it would display this:

Image

This particular image was taken a little over halfway through 2 Guns, but was pretty much the same with any video that I played.

According to the codecinfo it's skipping nearly every frame, but as I stated visually there's no skipping.

So the skipping problem isn't a ARM issue or an Android issue, but at the least in my case is particular to the Ouya an AFTV.
(2014-06-10, 17:29)Tinwarble Wrote: [ -> ]And for anyone interested, June 10 Helix nightly does the same thing on Ouya, as well as 13.1 Final.

I don't have a FireTV, but I have an OUYA, so I took your test files for a spin. Using XBMC v13.1. I'm not seeing any visual skipping with my eyes on either sample file (skipping_test.mkv or B_S_testfile-001.mkv). Does the issue show up on the OUYA when using those specific samples? Maybe they're too short or in the wrong spots to show off the skipping for the OUYA?


(EDIT: also, what movie is skipping_test.mkv from? I kind of want to see this now...)
Yeah, I would have to probably have to upload a 30 min clip for it to show up because as I stated it's not a continuous thing and not predictable.

Right now it seems to happen about every 10 to15 min. (and only skips 1 or 2 frames then) although sometimes it may be longer or short even during the same movie and it's not one of those deals where I can say at any given point it will happen. It may skip at the beginning of a movie or playing the same movie it may not skip until 10 min. or more into the movie.

It doesn't appear to connected to any issue with my network, nor the files themselves because as I already stated I don't see this on my RPi nor my MX2 set up the same way as both the Ouya and AFTV and connected with the same cables, to the same AVR and same TV. As well I have multiple different version of WDTV Live players and they have no issues with the playback of these files.

If I had to take a guess at the cause, because of what it's doing, it seems as though there's a issue with some shared resource that both the UI and DVDPlayer use. That's the only thing that I can think of that might make it skip every time I use the Yatse Android remote app to pull up the Movie info/Playback screen (on Yatse not XBMC). This also doesn't happen on the RPi or MX2. Either that, or there's some issue with how XBMC on Ouya and AFTV is handling network streams. (By the way I'm using a wired Gigbit network)

There could also be some relationship to what it's doing and this: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=194932

I'm willing to provided any additional info, clips, debug logs or what ever to get this solved because except for these little hiccups XBMC works great (well there is another issue with audio, but that I can live with right now). And I don't won't to have to downgrade back to my MX2 or RPi just to get smooth playback.


The movie from the test file is R.I.P.D.

EDIT: The one difference that I should have mentioned on the MX2 is that I do have amcodec on, rather than libstagefright or mediacodec so that might make a difference.
Well - I am not sure if I am skipping frames or not... but I am experiencing jerkiness with a 720p 60fps mkv file.

Here's the pastebin.

Everything I've read indicates this should play with no problem. Can anyone see anything in the logs that looks funny?

Otherwise, the FireTV appears to work very nicely.
Random question(s): if you playback the original source in an ISO file do you get frame drops?

If you play the same file over and over do they drop in the same place?

Does this http://youtu.be/fK5TiehvnxA look like what you are seeing (you described something different I think)?

I do not use Yatse, but xbmc remote on ipad and have noted strange stoppages of xbmc on the AFTV once I have connected the App to the AFTV. Do your frame drops match an interval? Maybe turn off some of the network control options.

Is your database SQLite (local) or MySQL (remote)?

You have many pieces better put together in this post than I have managed. Unfortunately, the observed behavior usually occurs with folks that are very less excited to stop to turn on debug logging rather than get on with the movie as soon as possible.

I suspect it,is not the video, but some interaction of the playback of the video with some other task that xbmc or the fireOS is performing.

P.S. R.I.P.D. Was under rated. I may have to watch it again now.
@thefrog,

Pretty much NO to all your questions.

As for your youtube vid, that appears to be a buffering issue, which, yes, is different from what I was having issues with.

My issue seems to have been mostly solved by switching to Koyings SPMC 13.3.0 and probably was due, at least somewhat, to h.264 prepend.
(2014-07-30, 22:00)Tinwarble Wrote: [ -> ]@thefrog,

Pretty much NO to all your questions.

As for your youtube vid, that appears to be a buffering issue, which, yes, is different from what I was having issues with.

My issue seems to have been mostly solved by switching to Koyings SPMC 13.3.0 and probably was due, at least somewhat, to h.264 prepend.

I only have one video that is h.264 in MKV container, '9', because the source was VC1. This one video was experiencing skipped frames pretty reliably. I kind of blamed the transcode, because I am not experienced at using transcoding and MKV containers -- should probably have used ffmpeg on the command line.

I am unfamiliar with the h.264 prepend, I will look into it.
(2014-07-30, 22:00)Tinwarble Wrote: [ -> ]@thefrog,

Pretty much NO to all your questions.

As for your youtube vid, that appears to be a buffering issue, which, yes, is different from what I was having issues with.

My issue seems to have been mostly solved by switching to Koyings SPMC 13.3.0 and probably was due, at least somewhat, to h.264 prepend.

My slight studder (frame skip) also stopped once I switched to Koyings SPMC 13.3.0. Its my new build of choice.
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