ATV2 with subtitles enabled causes lag

You can watch the CPU utilization in top. I suggest using crunchyroll as a great source for subtitled material that is fairly low in resolution. Watch the utilization go from the 40% range to 95% (all in the AppleTV app) for simple subtitles then to 100% and stuttering for 2 lines or more of subtitling.

I think we need to get down to how does xbmc put the subtitles in there, I am sure it is a bit of cpu work but if it only takes 40% to get the video on screen, it certainly can't take another 60+% to show subtitles later in the same scene. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about turning subtitles on or off, just in the same video where subtitles are displayed then a few seconds later no speaking is going on so no subtitles and the video is smooth as glass.

BTW: if you go to the subtitles config and set a specific font/ignore ssa fonts it is "slightly" better. Still stutters and most things remain unwatchable.

Excuse me, does any developers try to solve this problem? It's still remained in the Eden beta 3 release with iOS 5.

linusyang Wrote:Excuse me, does any developers try to solve this problem? It's still remained in the Eden beta 3 release with iOS 5.

No, they all gave up and went home :P
</sarcasm>

Ned Scott Wrote:No, they all gave up and went home
</sarcasm>

Oh, it seems difficult to defeat this issue. Becuase of the CPU performance of A4, or not enough RAM to render subtitles? O_o
Anyway, thanks for great job!

linusyang Wrote:Oh, it seems difficult to defeat this issue. Becuase of the CPU performance of A4, or not enough RAM to render subtitles? O_o
Anyway, thanks for great job!

Something in iOS is eating up CPU resources. Probably one of those damn iClouds :)

Use the Crunchyroll plugin from the link in my signature until the issue is resolved.

Voinage Wrote:Use the Crunchyroll plugin from the link in my signature until the issue is resolved.

But where am I gonna get my absurd over the top combining robot show of forbidden youth love (Aquarion EVOL)?! :D

But yeah, Crunchyroll is great for this. Some fansubbers still have some bad feelings for the site (back when it was very different) but the translations are good and the releases are fast.

Is this copy of the Crunchyroll add-on any different from the one found at: http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-addon-repository/ ?

Voinage's copy uses the hardsubbed mp4 files that mobile devices use, the one in my repo actually decrypts the subs to ASS/SRT files and then has XBMC use those.

Ned: keep in mind, it is something specific to processing the subs that causes it to go super high cpu. On a portion of a streamed video where there is no audio (and therefor no subtitles) going on, the atv2 works just fine with the cpu hovering around 30-40%. No stuttering or jumpyness, but the second a subtitle pops up the cpu jumps up to 100%.

Agreed that it could be something in the apple software itself, but it seems strange. The ATV2 just doing normal apple stuff can play subtitles without any problems, so there has to be some way to feed the subtitles to the system.

Do you or does anyone else have any ideas? Is there anything we can check?

tarjan Wrote:Ned: keep in mind, it is something specific to processing the subs that causes it to go super high cpu. On a portion of a streamed video where there is no audio (and therefor no subtitles) going on, the atv2 works just fine with the cpu hovering around 30-40%. No stuttering or jumpyness, but the second a subtitle pops up the cpu jumps up to 100%.

Agreed that it could be something in the apple software itself, but it seems strange. The ATV2 just doing normal apple stuff can play subtitles without any problems, so there has to be some way to feed the subtitles to the system.

Do you or does anyone else have any ideas? Is there anything we can check?

Hi tarjan,

I have the same idea with yours. Maybe not only the system itself, but also the way XBMC rendering subtitles makes the video stutter.

Or, the Seas0nPass jailbreak of iOS 5 breaks the kernel and makes some application's function weird. As I know, the current Seas0nPass jailbreak still has the sandbox issue. It is fixed by the upcoming update of jailbreak community. Maybe we could ask some jailbreak developers to help.

Linus