How to Install XBMC PVR Xvba for AMD/Nvidia/Intel GPUs

By crash I mean that XBMC process is destroyed.

I'll provide the logs later this evening when I'll get home.

I would recommend to add to the OP to set VSync to always on under System->Video settings, so the CPU usage on idle wouldn't be so high.

Edit: What extra packages or settings are required for suspend/resume besides what stated in the OP?

DejaVu Wrote:Installing using Oneiric Minimal is not an option for me. My Wifi card is not detected by it (I only have a Wifi card in this device!)

I've since downloaded the full 11.10 Ubuntu CD with the hope of installing a minimal CLI version of Ubuntu from that which does include the driver - but no dice - I couldnt work out or google the correct answer.

Can anyone assist getting a Minimal install on my system so I can attempt to do this please?!

Did you try to follow the logs?
On mine, my DVB card and network wasn't detected with 11.10, so I needed to download a firmware and deb files and install them manually.

Hello,

first off, huge thanks for this effort. It made me - finally - seriously consider dumping the MythTV frontend.

However, there's one BIG showstopper: in MythTV, I used to have the player automatically switch the screen to the proper refresh rate, most notably 24p. While XBMC seems to support this, and even actually and properly xrandr's to the correct mode, the display is totally garbled. It's ok when I escape out of fullscreen mode back into the menu. xrandr works just fine on the console, and of course in the MythTV frontend.

Everything else seems to work just fine, including advanced shaders, XvBA, and shared surfaces. When I turn off all XvBA options, the problem persists.

My system: RS 780G Radeon HD 3200 on Mythbuntu 10.04 Natty. Compositing turned off in xfwm4. Catalyst 11.12. Using the xbmc-xvba ppa. I did turn on debugging and analysed the log, no apparent errors. Anything else needed to pinpoint the cause?

Thanks for any help and pointers!

grad Wrote:Hello,

first off, huge thanks for this effort. It made me - finally - seriously consider dumping the MythTV frontend.

However, there's one BIG showstopper: in MythTV, I used to have the player automatically switch the screen to the proper refresh rate, most notably 24p. While XBMC seems to support this, and even actually and properly xrandr's to the correct mode, the display is totally garbled. It's ok when I escape out of fullscreen mode back into the menu. xrandr works just fine on the console, and of course in the MythTV frontend.

Everything else seems to work just fine, including advanced shaders, XvBA, and shared surfaces. When I turn off all XvBA options, the problem persists.

My system: RS 780G Radeon HD 3200 on Mythbuntu 10.04 Natty. Compositing turned off in xfwm4. Catalyst 11.12. Using the xbmc-xvba ppa. I did turn on debugging and analysed the log, no apparent errors. Anything else needed to pinpoint the cause?

Thanks for any help and pointers!

This works fine with us. Could you give the output of xrandr -q?
Does it work, if you switch the mode in xfwm before and just leave it untouched in xbmc?

Hai, are there people already making wheezy packages of this.. if not, i am.
are there people intrested in these packages, send my a message, and maybe i'll respond..

Im building atm, xbmc_11.0~git20111217.b5bffc2-0ubuntu1~ppa1~oneiric
to xbmc_11.0~git20111217.b5bffc2-0debian1~beta1~wheezy

if done, and tested i'll post here again.

Hi guys and thanks for a fantastic job so far. I finally decided to remove my nVidia card and try this setup with the onboard gfx (I'm on a ASUS E35M1-M mobo). I have followed the guidelines in this thread and it works, sort of but I experience some problems (both with the initial setup yesterday and the new binaries today after an apt-get update).

First of all, is there a python-simplejson dependency? I noticed some error messages in the log initially generated by the weather plugin. It was complaining about an simplejson import error. A "sudo apt-get install python-simplejson" took care of that problem.

The rest is a bit more problematic. It seems like xbmc always crash on boot and then another instance seems to get respawned. I guess this is what happens becuase it takes quite some time before the xbmc ui shows up after a reboot and there is always a new xbmc_crashlog-xxxxxxxx_xxxxxx.log in ~ and the content is the same as in ~/.xbmc/temp/xbmc.old.log. Some of the errors are also in the running instances ~/.xbmc/temp/xbmc.log, anyone got something similar in their log files? Error lines from the crashlog:
This is the context for the last set of errors, what's the XBPyThread (another python import error)?

Thanks for the quick response!

fritsch Wrote:This works fine with us. Could you give the output of xrandr -q?

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 1920 x 1920
DFP1 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 1600mm x 900mm
1920x1080 60.0*+ 50.0 30.0 25.0 24.0
1776x1000 60.0 + 50.0 30.0 25.0
1680x1050 60.0 + 50.0
1400x1050 60.0 + 50.0
1440x900 59.9 + 50.0
1280x1024 60.0 50.0
1280x960 60.0 50.0
1280x800 60.0 50.0
1152x864 60.0 50.0
1280x768 59.9 50.0
1280x720 60.0 50.0
1024x768 60.0 50.0
1152x648 60.0 50.0
800x600 60.3 50.0
720x576 50.0
720x480 60.0 50.0
640x480 60.0 50.0
CRT1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

fritsch Wrote:Does it work, if you switch the mode in xfwm before and just leave it untouched in xbmc?

I'll check this as soon as possible, right now I'm in the middle of an upgrade process to Ubuntu 10.10 (thought it might be good to come as close as possible to the reference system of the OP). I think xbmc accepts whatever it's presented, just the switching doesn't work, but I'll report back asap. Anyway it's good to know this is supposed to work!

EmuMannen Wrote:Hi guys and thanks for a fantastic job so far. I finally decided to remove my nVidia card and try this setup with the onboard gfx (I'm on a ASUS E35M1-M mobo). I have followed the guidelines in this thread and it works, sort of but I experience some problems (both with the initial setup yesterday and the new binaries today after an apt-get update).

First of all, is there a python-simplejson dependency? I noticed some error messages in the log initially generated by the weather plugin. It was complaining about an simplejson import error. A "sudo apt-get install python-simplejson" took care of that problem.

The rest is a bit more problematic. It seems like xbmc always crash on boot and then another instance seems to get respawned. I guess this is what happens becuase it takes quite some time before the xbmc ui shows up after a reboot and there is always a new xbmc_crashlog-xxxxxxxx_xxxxxx.log in ~ and the content is the same as in ~/.xbmc/temp/xbmc.old.log. Some of the errors are also in the running instances ~/.xbmc/temp/xbmc.log, anyone got something similar in their log files? Error lines from the crashlog:

Code:

/home/xbmc# cat xbmc_crashlog-20111218_145406.log | grep ERROR
[color=Red]13:49:41 T:139836123625344   ERROR: GLX: Same window as before, refreshing context
13:49:42 T:139836123625344   ERROR: Keymapping error: no such action 'language' defined
13:49:42 T:139836123625344   ERROR: Unable to open audio mixer
13:49:42 T:139836123625344   ERROR: CZeroconfAvahi::addService(): failed to add service named:XBMC JSONRPC@$(HOSTNAME) type:_xbmc-jsonrpc._tcp port:8080. Error:Invalid Error Code :/ FIXME!
13:49:43 T:139835679405824   ERROR: SetThreadInfo: error Permission denied
14:19:44 T:139835687798528   ERROR: SetThreadInfo: error Permission denied
14:49:45 T:139835687798528   ERROR: SetThreadInfo: error Permission denied[/color]

can you try this please:
edit /etc/security/limits.conf
add following line at the end of the file:
this should get rid of the Permission denied errors.

and thanks for reporting the missing python dependency.

about the crashes @boot. This probably has nothing to do with xvba, but its interesting and probably annoying nonetheless.
Maybe xbmc is being started too soon. Could you pastebin one of those crash logs?

wsnipex Wrote:can you try this please:
edit /etc/security/limits.conf
add following line at the end of the file:

Code:

xbmc             -       nice            -1

this should get rid of the Permission denied errors.

and thanks for reporting the missing python dependency.

about the crashes @boot. This probably has nothing to do with xvba, but its interesting and probably annoying nonetheless.
Maybe xbmc is being started too soon. Could you pastebin one of those crash logs?

Thanks for your swift reply wsnipex, the added line in /etc/security/limits.conf took care of the permission denied errors

This is a copy of my latest crachlog:
http://pastebin.com/hCNc30Pc

The only thing I can think of is my custom boot splash. I followed the wiki instructions for the custom boot splash: http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=XBMCbuntu

Funny thing is that the boot splash newer show up during boot, only when taking down the system (call reboot or shutdown from xbmc will show the xbmc boot splash while taking down the system). Thats why I'm a bit suspicious regarding the custom boot splash...