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How to Install XBMC PVR Xvba for AMD/Nvidia/Intel GPUs
@fritsch,wsnipex: I've been wondering about the next steps for this project. Somewhere in this thread you mentioned that XvBA support will most likely not land in Eden, which is sad but understandable. So what happens after Eden will be released? Will you rebase and maintain your code in git/launchpad? Is a merge into Eden after it's release likely, or will then only bugfixes be accepted by the xbmc project and XvBA will have to wait for the next major release?

I'm asking out of curiosity and also because I'm waiting for a fix of the dreaded Linux DVD player bug.
Ubuntu 11.10 -- Athlon X2 5000 -- AMD 780G (Radeon HD3200) -- Catalyst 12.1 -- xbmc-xvba -- tvheadend
The plan, as we last talked was the following:
merge xvba into xbmc-pvr, merge xbmc-pvr into mainline.

xbmc-pvr is pretty much up to date with mainline. Lars just rebased yesterday. Fernetmenta rebased (on lars, our upstream) just today. So all the mainline fixes should be in our xvba version as of now.

We are just discussing on building new uptodate packages. We also want to integrate libbluray dependency to get the isos playing.
First decide what functions / features you expect from a system. Then decide for the hardware. Don't waste your money on crap.
Thanks for sharing that, sounds like a reasonable plan!
Ubuntu 11.10 -- Athlon X2 5000 -- AMD 780G (Radeon HD3200) -- Catalyst 12.1 -- xbmc-xvba -- tvheadend
I just pushed new packages to the ppa.

changelog:
.) reworked reference clock
- sync playback to display works now with method video clock
- method audio clock still has issues
.) libbluray support
- Isos do work now
wsnipex Wrote:I just pushed new packages to the ppa.

changelog:
.) reworked reference clock
- sync playback to display works now with method video clock
- method audio clock still has issues
.) libbluray support
- Isos do work now

libbluray tested ok, iso works too

Thanks a lot
kobik Wrote:Guys,
How do I enable SPDIF?
Thnx

Please help.

BTW, the random crashes was really the plugins fault.
Thanks for the help fritsch!
please pastebin:
aplay -L

and have a look with alsamixer -c0 or alsamixer -c1 to see if it is muted
First decide what functions / features you expect from a system. Then decide for the hardware. Don't waste your money on crap.
I had some random crashes initially but it looked more like x or lightdm than xbmc. I am running a dedicated htpc (do desktop or other users than xbmc) so I swapped out lightdm for nodm (less dependencies and easy to configure). I have had no crashes since. Not sure nodm would be the root cause but fyi; nodm is a great replacement for lightdm on a dedicated htpc.

My htpc is running 24/7 and it is connected to my projector with a hdmi cable. My major grief with this arrangement is that the resolution tend to change when the projector been turned off for a while. This is really annoying but it was quite easy to fix in xorg.conf when I was running an nVidia gfx card. The problem resurfaced when I switched to the bult in AMD gfx card but I might have found a solution. Seems like disabling randr in x solves this problem. Run the following command:
Code:
sudo aticonfig --set-pcs-str="DDX,EnableRandR12,FALSE"
And make sure the following option is inserted under the "Device" section in your xorg.conf:
Code:
Option      "EnableRandR12" "false"
I was also running the following command to limit available resolutions to the projectors native resolution (1920x1080):
Code:
sudo aticonfig --resolution=0,1920x1080
It should insert the following setting under the subsection "Display" under section "Screen" in xorg.conf:
Code:
Modes    "1920x1080"
When starting a movie, there is an initial flickering/artifacts, lasting about .5secs. At first I thought is related to mode switching but when I made sure there is no mode switching, the flickering stays. Is that a known issue? It's just cosmetic, but annoying and visible enough to be noticed by the wife ;-)
Ubuntu 11.10 -- Athlon X2 5000 -- AMD 780G (Radeon HD3200) -- Catalyst 12.1 -- xbmc-xvba -- tvheadend
Thats probably because we wait for an I Frame before we start decoding. Know issue and worth another look.
grad Wrote:When starting a movie, there is an initial flickering/artifacts, lasting about .5secs. At first I thought is related to mode switching but when I made sure there is no mode switching, the flickering stays. Is that a known issue? It's just cosmetic, but annoying and visible enough to be noticed by the wife ;-)

Could you provide a xbmc.log file when this does happen? Cause this does happens exactly at the beginning, you could also provide a sample of the first 10/20 seconds?

mencoder can do this for you with dumpstream.
First decide what functions / features you expect from a system. Then decide for the hardware. Don't waste your money on crap.
@fritsch,wsnipex: I just realized that this issue happens when I play a normal mpeg file, and NOT an h264 encoded movie. So this is most likely not XvBA related. I'll need to test again with an h264 file.
Ubuntu 11.10 -- Athlon X2 5000 -- AMD 780G (Radeon HD3200) -- Catalyst 12.1 -- xbmc-xvba -- tvheadend
grad Wrote:@fritsch,wsnipex: I just realized that this issue happens when I play a normal mpeg file, and NOT an h264 encoded movie. So this is most likely not XvBA related. I'll need to test again with an h264 file.

Okay. As we also want to have a fluent mpeg-2 playback for our users and mpeg-2 is really important for pvr users, I would take a xbmc.log never the less. Cause this error must be somewhere else in xbmc.
First decide what functions / features you expect from a system. Then decide for the hardware. Don't waste your money on crap.
EmuMannen Wrote:... so I swapped out lightdm for nodm (less dependencies and easy to configure). I have had no crashes since...

Would you mind to give some details/How-To? I assume "apt-get install nodm" does the job but what needs to be configured for xbmc autostart...? Maybe it would be a good idea to change the "official" How-To in OP in case this proves the more stable method. I also have tons of xbmc crashes (most of them don't seem to be xvba related and since I started with a completely new xbmc installation I cannot imagine that plugins/user settings are responsible).

EmuMannen Wrote:... the resolution tend to change when the projector been turned off for a while. ... Seems like disabling randr in x solves this problem...

Cool, had the same issue with my LCD TV occasionally. Will try this, too.
I tried the nodm approach and had a bad crash concerning audio device at first. After this i used console kit to start it.

I do not know if it is better, though you can try it out by:

sudo apt-get remove lightdm && sudo apt-get install nodm

edit your /etc/default/nodm config to look like this:
Code:
# nodm configuration
# Set NODM_ENABLED to something different than 'false' to enable nodm
NODM_ENABLED=true
# User to autologin for
NODM_USER=[b]xbmc[/b]
# xinit program
NODM_XINIT=/usr/bin/xinit
# First vt to try when looking for free VTs
NODM_FIRST_VT=7
# X session
NODM_XSESSION=/etc/X11/Xsession
# Options for the X server
NODM_X_OPTIONS='vt7 -nolisten tcp'
# If an X session will run for less than this time in seconds, nodm will wait an
# increasing bit of time before restarting the session.
NODM_MIN_SESSION_TIME=60

After this you have to create .xsession file your xbmc users home. In my case it is: /home/xbmc/.xsession with the following content:
Code:
exec ck-launch-session xbmc-standalone

If i ommited the ck-launch-session i had sever problems concerning audio and stuff i did not have before.Boot time is about the same. What perhaps is important for users who want to unmount local drives from within xbmc. nodm does not set the session active, so it does not allow to umount drives.

I worked around this by polkit and a udev rule. The udev rule just mounts whatever it gets read only with xbmc user as owner (ids hardcoded). I found this script somewhere on this forum and adapted it, to auto mount every drive from sdb - sdz which is plugged into usb:
/etc/udev/rules.d/11-media-by-label-auto-mount.rules

Code:
KERNEL!="sd[[b]b-z[/b]][0-9]", GOTO="media_by_label_auto_mount_end"
# Import FS infos
IMPORT{program}="/sbin/blkid -o udev -p %N"
# Get a label if present, otherwise specify one
ENV{ID_FS_LABEL}!="", ENV{dir_name}="%E{ID_FS_LABEL}"
ENV{ID_FS_LABEL}=="", ENV{dir_name}="usbhd-%k"
# Global mount options
ACTION=="add", ENV{mount_options}="ro"
# Filesystem-specific mount options
ACTION=="add", ENV{ID_FS_TYPE}=="vfat|ntfs", ENV{mount_options}="$env{mount_options},utf8,uid=[b]1001[/b],gid=[b]1001[/b],umask=002"
# Mount the device
ACTION=="add", RUN+="/bin/mkdir -p /media/%E{dir_name}", RUN+="/bin/mount -o $env{mount_options} /dev/%k /media/%E{dir_name}"
# Clean up after removal
ACTION=="remove", ENV{dir_name}!="", RUN+="/bin/umount -l /media/%E{dir_name}", RUN+="/bin/rmdir /media/%E{dir_name}"
# Exit
LABEL="media_by_label_auto_mount_end"

And at last the correct rights to umount:
/etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/custom-actions.pkla
Code:
[Actions for xbmc user]
Identity=unix-user:xbmc
Action=org.freedesktop.upower.*;org.freedesktop.consolekit.system.*;org.freedesktop.udisks.*
ResultAny=yes
ResultInactive=yes
ResultActive=yes

Ah, what i forgot: nodm does not stop plymouthd, so I added infront of the exit 0 to /etc/rc.local:
Code:
plymouth quit

Update:
At least on one of my computers it breaks suspend.
First decide what functions / features you expect from a system. Then decide for the hardware. Don't waste your money on crap.
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How to Install XBMC PVR Xvba for AMD/Nvidia/Intel GPUs23