Solved Issue 10-bit h264 (Hi10) Support?

Here's an updated build for everyone to try out. This is the latest from XBMC's main branch, since elupus' branch has now been merged. The '-mt' version is the same build, just with the relevant code from the a0fc63d commit removed. Compare and contrast.

XBMCSetup-20120405-fc6564d-dx.zip
XBMCSetup-20120405-fc6564d-dx-mt.zip

Thanks for this.
I've just tested with the file i use to test. No difference seen in play, no significant drop frames difference between both (9 vs 5). I'll try to get a 10bits file with higher bitrate, to make sure my CPU (an i7@870) is not able to decode it even without mt, but for now, 1rst impression is that my fears were wrong, and i was mistaken about the meaning of "slice".

Thanks for the latest releases maruchan.

Thought I would metion the following:

I downloaded and installed the XBMCSetup-20120405-fc6564d-dx-mt.zip.

After that I downloaded the latest UTW releases from the series Fate Zero ([UTW]_Fate_Zero_-_01_[BD][h264-1080p_FLAC][50256238].mkv)

My XBMC setup does encounter problems playing this file, resulting in choppy panning camera shots, and sometimes audio stuttering/repeating.

My setup is the following:

Zotac Zbox AD02 (with AMD E-350 APU)
OCZ Vertex 60 GB SSD
2 x 4 GB DDR3
USB connected hardddrive with media files.
HDMI connected to Samsung TV for picture
Optical connected to Philips HTS for audio
OS W7 X64

I hope this will help you to further evaluate your custom version of XBMC.

I will continue testing with the non mt version you posted.
I will also take one of the episodes and convert the Flac Audio to AC3.

I will post my findings here.

Can you test it with the subtitles disabled? As mentioned a few pages back, it could be a bottleneck with subtitle rendering rather than with video decoding.

I will do that in a few hours, but that doesn't solve my problem, since I don't speak Japanese.

I did download the same file in 720P resolution, with AC3 audio, that had some minor video stutter.
I also converted the Flac audio to ac3 inside the 1080p version, but that still gave me the same problems.

I do have one small problem, I can't seem to find the option in the video library to switch from library mode to list view ?

(2012-04-03 22:37)sereny Wrote:  @radx: I'm afraid you're out of luck. Most of us use quadcore CPUs for 1080p hi10p material because even a strong dualcore is easily pushed to its limits (on a sidenote though, some subtitles are also using up a good chunk).

This current build of xbmc looks very very promising indeed, especially with seeking fixed. I'm currently having a few minor issues with weird subtitle-delay/offsets, but that might just be my system because I need some audio-delays. New AV-Receiver will arrive soon though, will test more then. Also I got a very very few framedrops even with DXVA scaling.

My current benchmark for droppiness is the fate/zero OP in hi10p/1080p, camera movement below the bridge followed by complex subtitle rendering in the sky shortly after.

Thanks for your input!
Do you think hardware acceleration support for hi10p/1080p will be possible in future releases or do you think we will always be stuck to software decoding the stuff?
I might have to consider setting up a transcoding enviroment on my server so i can atleast watch these movies on my cpu weak htpc. That or using some conversion of some kind. I think i might have to do it on the server though as that has way more cpu power than my htpc.

(2012-04-09 21:19)radx Wrote:  Thanks for your input!
Do you think hardware acceleration support for hi10p/1080p will be possible in future releases or do you think we will always be stuck to software decoding the stuff?

We're going to be stuck on software decode at least until the next big shift, which will likely be for h.265/HEVC, which will beat the pants off of High Profile and Hi10P. Really awesome stuff, but HEVC only just started their first draft standard and is planned for a final draft next year. Even then it will take the market a while for those hardware decoders to be wide spread, and there's no guarantee that Hi10P will also be added.

You have to remember that Hi10P isn't a new codec/profile, it's actually 8 years old. It just wasn't meant to be used in the consumer space, so no one bothered to support it in any consumer hardware. The only people using Hi10P in mass are anime fans in the last year or so, and in the big picture they make up a very small fraction of the hardware decoding market. There's no reason for companies to pump out new hardware decoding chips for Hi10P, especially with h.265/HEVC so close.

In other words, we're going to have maybe another year of this Hi10P stuff, then everyone is going to jump ship to h.265/HEVC.

(2012-04-06 03:18)maruchan Wrote:  Here's an updated build for everyone to try out. This is the latest from XBMC's main branch, since elupus' branch has now been merged. The '-mt' version is the same build, just with the relevant code from the a0fc63d commit removed. Compare and contrast.

XBMCSetup-20120405-fc6564d-dx.zip
XBMCSetup-20120405-fc6564d-dx-mt.zip

tried the non "mt" build right over the latest eden distro and it worked perfectly for me.!

(2012-04-10 14:40)mrpeterparker Wrote:  

(2012-04-06 03:18)maruchan Wrote:  Here's an updated build for everyone to try out. This is the latest from XBMC's main branch, since elupus' branch has now been merged. The '-mt' version is the same build, just with the relevant code from the a0fc63d commit removed. Compare and contrast.

XBMCSetup-20120405-fc6564d-dx.zip
XBMCSetup-20120405-fc6564d-dx-mt.zip

tried the non "mt" build right over the latest eden distro and it worked perfectly for me.!

I also tried the non Mt build and all files play fine, the only issue is Cast Details is broken as well as ass subtitles are stuck on super large setting, can't decrease the font size but everything else works great. Good work on modding the codec engine.

You guys should mention whether you actually tested using 1080p Hi10P stuff or not to get comparable results. Anything else (even 720p Hi10P) should be playable flawlessly on most non-ancient (and non-Atom, non-Fusion) CPUs in a single thread. Core-i with TurboBoost at close to or more than 3GHz will likely decode everything you can find nowadays flawlessly without the need for multi-threading.

Check task manager while XBMC is playing, too. If decoding is truly multi-threaded, all CPU cores should be loaded similarly high or low. Single-threaded decode causes high load on one core and significantly lower (not zero) load on the other cores. If none of your cores is experiencing high load, then you either have a super-fast CPU or the files you're playing aren't challenging at all to the decoder.

Last not least, if you don't have any Hi10P stuff at hand, make sure to disable DXVA when testing. Using DXVA will leave all your CPU cores idle while the GPU is doing the work. In addition, you migt want to check the h.264 profile of your test files, e.g. using MediaInfo - in case your files are L4.1, they may very well be sliced - which even the non-mt builds above will decode multi-threaded. These builds aren't actually non-mt at all - it's just frame based mt that is disabled for stability, leaving only slice based.