Win Ultra choppy playback (codec issue?)
#1
So I've been using XBMC for Windows 7 since about a year now and I've run into a weird issue in the last two months or so.

My CURRENT version is 12.2, I'm using the Aeon Flux skin with a few plug-ins, mostly for scrubbing, weather, Vox Commander (excellent for PAUSE/MUTE) and for the TV tuner I have in the HTPC.

I normally stream the videos from a fileserver on a wired gigabit network, but the same files have the same symptoms when played locally, copied directly on the hard drive (Seagate Momentus 500 hybrid) my PC specs are Core2Duo@3Ghz, 2Gb RAM, nVidia 470GTX, Asus Xonar DX audio.

I used to be able to play all 3D-SBS videos AS IS, meaning that they'd play with two frames one next to the other, and my television (LG 5800) would do the conversion to 3D. That worked perfectly for almost a year and some 3D movies still play normally.

But since about two months ago one movie in particular wouldn't play. It takes 30 seconds to show the first frame, and from there on it just CRAWLS along at like 3fps (according to the statistics overlay it peaks at 4.6fps, but sometimes is as low as 1fps) with only a crunching sound playing through the speakers (SPDIF-Optical out to a HT amplifier) the video was obviously unwatchable.

This seemed to spread, at first only to other 3D-SBS movies in my collection, but now I've discovered a few normal 2D movies are showing the same symptons. THE VIDEOS WOULD PLAY NORMALLY BEFORE.

In all cases, the same file copied locally to the HTPC has the same choppyness when played through XBMC, but when I play it using VLC it plays normally regardless of whether it's local or on a file server on my file server.

I`ve updated the drivers to no avail, I've also done the usual checks, malware/virus, windows updates, etc.

Now I'm concerned it might be a codec issue, is there a codec pack available for XBMC 12.2? I've searched but couldn't find anything.

Thanks in advance and great work on the whole project, it's amazing that such a fabulous front end is available for free considering all the alternatives are costly and don't work as well (Boxee, Smart TV, ASUS oPlay, PS3 media center, etc.)
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#2
Sounds like it could be incorrect audio settings, check this thread http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=146911

If you can't resolve yourself using that thread then post a debug log_file (wiki) taken while you play a video that had this problem and also post a screenshot of your audio settings.
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#3
I notice you only have 2GB of RAM. The recommended amount for running XBMC on Windows is 4GB. I had video issues on my old PC running 3GB RAm with a Nvidia graphics card. I could play most stuff (not 1080p videos) using PotPlayer and had no problem, but when I tried to use PotPlayer as an external player for XBMC I could not play them well. The videos were choppy and sucked. Live streaming video through XBMC was also poor, since the video would speed up and slow down continuously.

After much research, I found that my problem was probably caused by a lack of RAM. XBMC seems to use a lot of computer power. Last night I noticed my CPU usage while running XBMC was at 60% and above (it was stuck on a bad live stream, and I don't know if that added to the CPU use). I guess it's just too much for the old PC. I tried everything I could to improve the performance, but nothing worked. We have a laptop with 4GB of RAM and a little better processor. Everything works fine on that computer.

Knowing this, we have now purchased a new PC for our main TV and moved the old one to a TV where it is used only occasionally. We now enjoy the full use of XBMC and all it's benefits. Video looks great and everything's cool.

I don't know about codecs for XBMC, but my guess is that it probably comes with all you need. If you have any other codec packs installed, Try uninstalling them and installing something else ( we use "Win7codecs_v386" on our laptop and have no conflict problems with XBMC and something else on our Vista PC) or search for an update to what you have.

My guess is it may be a RAM issue, though I am not an expert. Here are some things to consider though:

1. Have you installed any new programs that may be running in the background, using CPU power and RAM?
2. Have you installed anything with new codecs that may conflict with others you have?
3. Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling XBMC?
4. Have you checked Windows Task Manager for background process that may be running that you don't know about?

Like I said, the only solution for our problem was to increase our RAM. That's what you may consider, if nothing else works. That or buy a new computer.

Hope it helps you some.
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#4
Thanks for the input. I had seen the audio settings thread and I did play around with the settings but that didn't change anything. Keep in mind I used optical SPDIF since day one and never changed the settings. I'll take a second shot at that next chance I get,

I agree that 2Gb seems low for Windows 7 but the only thing running on that PC are XBMC, Netflix, YouTube and a few "live TV" streaming sites and nothing else has any issues playing back. The antivirus runs regular scans on the PC and I've run a manual scan last week-end, which didn't find anything out of the ordinary.

Having said that I hadn't realized that XBMC required 4Gb. I'll get right on that.

There's nothing in the task manager.

I will tweak my audio some more and see what I can do to post a log file in this thread as early as tonight. THANKS!
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#5
The quick test to see if it's audio related, change settings to:

Audio output: Analog
Speaker configuration: 2.0
Audio output device: Directsound - SPDIF (try WASAPI option as well if no different)

If playback is then smooth then something was wrong previously.

Even though you haven't done anything, maybe a driver update or something else has.
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