1080p Playback Issues with Zotac Boxes

OK, have been trying to find the perfect small form-factor Media Center PC for my living room. For the most part, I find the Zotac boxes really nice. But there is one title that I can't play back and I'm wondering if these boxes, despite what everyone is saying about them, are really a bit underpowered.

I've tried both a ZBox Nano AD10 (AMD’s dual-core E-350 APU with integrated, DX11-class Radeon HD 6310 graphics) and the newer Zotac ID82 (Intel Core i3 2330M 2.2 GHz Dual-Core with Integrated Intel HD-3000 graphics). Both boxes have plenty of RAM (4gb and 8gb respectively) and are running Win7 64-bit.

The title I'm trying to play back is "Hugo" with a DTS-HD-MA bitstreamed audio over HDMI (WASAPI) to a Pioneer SC-57 AV receiver. Because I'm bitstreaming the HD Audio, I've tried both DanielaE's Win7 HD Audio Eden build, and the latest June 30th release of the AudioEngine/Frodo build.

I get constant buffering of the video with the Nano AD10, and horrible stuttering/buffering/macro-blocking with the ID82.

I've ensured that HW acceleration is enabled, and I've bumped up the video buffer via <advancedsettings> to 500mb since RAM isn't an issue on the boxes.

Has anyone with either of these boxes successfully played "Hugo" 1080p with HD audio? Or am I dreaming that these Zotac boxes have enough juice to handle this?

Dave

What does XBMC say the video format is? 'h264 (HIGH)' or something else like 'h264 (High 10)'?

Also in the video line during playback, after where it says dc:, what decoder does it say it's using to decode the video?

XBMC reports the video format is 'h264 (HIGH)'.

If I'm reading the log correctly, I believe it is using dvdplayer: CDVDVideoCodecFFmpeg::Open() Using codec: H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10
Is this the right info you were asking about?

If not, here is the raw log : http://pastebin.com/KHyMrUHx

I should have also noted that it's a BluRay ISO rip (not MKV, etc). And even tho the video file name is "Hugo (3D) it's not 3D, just an ISO rip of the 2D BluRay.

There seemed to be a lot of errors generated when it was trying to figure out the kind of .ISO to parse.

Bump

Hi, I'm running XBMC on my Zotac with Windows 7 (x64) and the stock 2gb of ram on a 42" LED via HDMI with optical output to my DTS receiver. For some of the really big 1080p movies in the 15 - 25gb single file range I was noticing some random choppy playback. I had everything configured properly in XBMC, yet these files were still giving me some issues. Finally I decided to check my Windows updates for Win 7 (x64) and noticed I was about 100+ updates behind including some video drivers. By the time I finished updating everything through Windows the playback issues were resolved. Unfortunately I didn't do them 1 at a time so I have no idea which update(s) fixed it, but it did work. My LOTR Extended Edition files which are in the 20gb range now run smooth as silk.

I've also heard from people that upgrading the stock 1gb ram modules in the unit to two good 2gb modules will also increase performance. 2gb is pretty much the bare minimum for Windows 7 (x64) edition and runs much smoother with 4gb total.

Food for thought. Good luck man!

@Jrio69...

Thanks for the tip. Since my ID82 is a brand new box/Win 7(x64) setup, the first thing I did after installing the OS was run Windows update. As far as I can tell, I'm totally up to date. I also have 8GB RAM in this thing (overkill, I know!). Very choppy playback still.

I should note that I'm using HDMI out to my Pioneer SC-57 receiver (which is then HDMI video out to my 70" Sharp Elite panel). So a bit different setup than you. The video file is about 25gb, and it has a DTS-HD MA audio track. I don't suppose you have the Hugo DVD to test with your setup huh?

Thanks for the well wishes...if I could get all my 1080p with High Def audio to play on my system I would recommend the Zotac box as the perfect media PC, but this issue is preventing me from giving it a thumbs up.

I added anydvd that somehow seems to help with xbmc playback.
There is also a setting somewhere for the ion video card that has to be set in anydvd or xbmc, cant remember atm

Bazzle

I decided to see what MediaInfo has to report on this ripped title, in case anyone is interested in seeing more details:

Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2h 6mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 30.7 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 35.1 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.618
Stream size : 27.1 GiB (93%)

Audio
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile : MA / Core
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 2h 6mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 1 606 Kbps / 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s) : 8 channels / 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, Back: L R, LFE / Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossless / Lossy
Delay relative to video : 1mn 5s

I have the AD10 and haven't had any issues with 1080p content, but I haven't tried HD audio yet as I seem to always pick a day to try it when the nightly Frodo build is borked. If I have time tonight or tomorrow, I'll throw on Alpha 3 and just try an hd-audio title. Anyway I'd be a little surprised if it was the box, given my near perfect experience with it, but who knows. Looking at your log I see this error everywhere:

CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuity - was:22388847.292752, should be:22388366.333333, error:-480.959418

Not that I know what it means. Have you tried any other HD audio titles? I tend to blame the rip first in cases like this.

(2012-08-26 19:40)Broken9754 Wrote:  I have the AD10 and haven't had any issues with 1080p content, but I haven't tried HD audio yet as I seem to always pick a day to try it when the nightly Frodo build is borked. If I have time tonight or tomorrow, I'll throw on Alpha 3 and just try an hd-audio title. Anyway I'd be a little surprised if it was the box, given my near perfect experience with it, but who knows. Looking at your log I see this error everywhere:

CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuity - was:22388847.292752, should be:22388366.333333, error:-480.959418

Not that I know what it means. Have you tried any other HD audio titles? I tend to blame the rip first in cases like this.

Thr first time I tried playing this was from an ISO rip using AnyDVD-HD to perform the rip. I then re-ripped using MakeMKV. Similar issues. I'm wondering if it's the combination of HD Audio and 1080p. I guess I'll have to experiment further.

And no, I don't know what those errors mean either

I stopped trying to play around with the AudioEngine build...it's still a bit too unstable for my liking currently. Since I'm running Win7, I'm quite appreciating DanielaE's HD Audio build for Windows.

Thanks for responding