Does XBMC for Windows use internal or external codecs?

I have an Opteron 146 in my HTPC, not dual-core in case you aren't familiar with it. This CPU plays 720p flawlessly, under all conditions. However, 1080p is pretty hit and miss. Many times I will have playback issues, and other times I will have none.

I also have an ATI HD 3450, which as you know has x.264 hardware decoding (DXDA). BUT, know this...most videos don't even support DXDA because there is a very specific specification for this and most people aren't taking this into account when they encode a video.

So, until there is a standard, I say you made the right choice buying the Core 2 Duo. This is probably what I'm going to upgrade to as well. Even with my Opteron oc'd to about 2.8ghz playback is not smooth. And this is in Media Portal and Media Player Classic. I can't imagine how badly 1080 would play in XBMC. Though, if you are having problems playing even 720p videos, on that CPU...a new CPU might fix it. Just the same, XBMC needs to really get some optimization going - or at least allow us to choose the codec to be used.

cameron122000 Wrote:I'm having a similar problem on my HTPC, but I can't get videos to play at all. I've got an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800 overclocked to just under 3.00Ghz stable. I'm using a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H using the onboard graphics with an HDMI output.

I'm trying to watch a few different movies in the MKV format, most are 1080p, a few are 720p. I can't get any of them to play, they all say buffering. I leave them to try to buffer for about an hour, and still no go. Is my computer just not fast enough to play them, or is it just a simple issue that I'm missing?

I think you are missing some key component because that isn't supposed to happen. Are you using XBMC to do this playback? If so, try using something else like Windows Media Player or better yet Media Player Classic. If you still can't get the video to play in either of these programs, you probably have some broken codecs.

I'd make sure you uninstall all codecs, especially anything that might conflict. (FFDSHOW and CoreAVC for example).

If the videos play in the external media programs just fine, but not in XBMC...I don't really know what to tell you. I haven't played with it enough yet, but it also sounds like you can't really change any codec settings within XBMC. I guess I would still suggest looking for codec conflicts. Some of the worst playback issues are caused by codecs butting heads.

From what I know XBMC isn´t using the installed codecs - that´s the reason - isn´t it?

Similar problems here on hidef. Media Player classic running smoothly, XBMC not.

It would be nice if XBMC would make use of the installed codecs and leave it up to the user what codec to use for the playback.

Correct me if I´m wrong ...

h3llsp4wn Wrote:From what I know XBMC isn´t using the installed codecs - that´s the reason - isn´t it?

Similar problems here on hidef. Media Player classic running smoothly, XBMC not.

It would be nice if XBMC would make use of the installed codecs and leave it up to the user what codec to use for the playback.

Correct me if I´m wrong ...

No, you're absolutely right. I wish that it was setup this way as well. Though, I'd like to know their justification. I'm sure they wouldn't just do it because, without a reason. I'm sure they have SOME reason that makes sense to them. And maybe it would make sense to us as well.

My money is on compatibility issues or something like that, they want their program to have full control over how it plays what it does. The only issue is that this sort of limits the software to playing what they allow it to. And that's kind of weak sauce.

Media Portal will play anything Windows can, and I can even tell it which codec I want it to use to do so.

h3llsp4wn Wrote:From what I know XBMC isn´t using the installed codecs - that´s the reason - isn´t it?

Similar problems here on hidef. Media Player classic running smoothly, XBMC not.

It would be nice if XBMC would make use of the installed codecs and leave it up to the user what codec to use for the playback.

Correct me if I´m wrong ...

I'm not sure if this is the reason, but there's something to be said for installing XBMC on an OS and not have to worry about codecs. It would be nice to have an option to let you choose a codec, but personally I think the developers time is better spent on optimizing what's already in XBMC for HD playback and maybe add options to choose codecs later.

tusk Wrote:I also have an ATI HD 3450, which as you know has x.264 hardware decoding (DXDA). BUT, know this...most videos don't even support DXDA because there is a very specific specification for this and most people aren't taking this into account when they encode a video.

I think you mean DXVA (DirectX Video Acceleration), not DXDA, and DXVA is a subset of the DirectShow framework, and XBMC for Linux/Mac/Windows does not use DirectX nor DirectShow (we can't use it as it is not cross-platform as we want XBMC to run on multiple platforms).

MediaPortal is DirectX and DirectShow based and thus uses Microsoft's DirectShow framework as its audio/video player (not its own like XBMC, instead it is fully dependent on Microsoft libraries and APIs), XBMC is not DirectShow based but uses its own FFmpeg based player (no Microsoft dependencies at all), MediaPortal only works on Microsoft Windows operating-system and will only ever work on Microsoft Windows operating-system as long as it is DirectX and DirectShow based. XBMC on the other hand is a cross-platform that works on Linux, Mac, Windows and Xbox (XBMC can not be dependent on Microsoft libraries, or any other operating-system specific libraires or API as long as we want to stay a cross-platform software, and that is what we want). There are of course workarounds but they may be more work to implement that they are worth, please read these if you really are interested:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=32889
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=33381
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=19714
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Codec_and_Format_requests
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=DVDPlayer
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=MPlayer
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=29273

Again, XBMC does not curently use the GPU (Graphic Processor Unit) to decode video, (currently it is really the CPU that does all the work which is the reason you right now need a really fast one to decode 1080p H.264 videos), but someone is working on a cross-platform (operating-system independent) method for off-loading some of the video decoding process to the GPU, see => http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=33802

Please do not reply before you done more research and got some knowledge behind your words.

Wikipedia and Google are your friends, feel me?

scoundrel Wrote:I'm not sure if this is the reason, but there's something to be said for installing XBMC on an OS and not have to worry about codecs. It would be nice to have an option to let you choose a codec, but personally I think the developers time is better spent on optimizing what's already in XBMC for HD playback and maybe add options to choose codecs later.

That's legit. And since most people are probably not watching HD content then maybe it's ok that it works this way. However, HD content is currently dependent on a lot of different variables if you want high quality playback.

Since the program plays HD content at all, it should be playing it properly. Otherwise, they could just say "yeah, HD stuff is still in development and when it's there we'll let you know". Of course, people with monster fast computers (for their home media PC? ehhh, probably not) will have no problems with the HD content. But, as you can see from my post and the previous guys, our computers aren't Pentium III 600s or anything, they are fairly respectable machines.

Mine even has a nice fast HD decoding video card. But the CPU still isn't that great for HD x.264 decoding and I'd have to drop probably around $300 right now to get it to that point. But, other software packages allow me to play that same content better if not perfectly? I'd think the XBMC guys would not want "We'll do it, we won't do it great, but we'll do it".

And to conclude, XBMC has been around a lot longer than Media Portal - why soil their name by releasing a product that won't even do what it's supposed to? Just my opinion. I am definitely awaiting the day when the kinks are worked out. XBMC is simpler and more intuitive and I'd love to switch over to it.

some facts:

* The GPU isn't used at all for videodecoding.
* The XBMC DVDplayer is built using FFmpeg
* It does not use external codecs for videoplayback

watzen Wrote:some facts:

* The GPU isn't used at all for videodecoding.
* The XBMC DVDplayer is built using FFmpeg
* It does not use external codecs for videoplayback

Ok? I don't see that this helps at all. GPU is used for video decoding in certain situations, when the card, software and video format are all in line with each other. I have a video card that does x.264 decoding, just not in all situations, and definitely not with XBMC.

We know it doesn't use external codecs, that was what our whole conversation was about.

And the answer is so that Xbmc can remain platform independent. That's it. Xbmc is still in its infancy on platforms other than the Xbox. Use MediaPortal in the meantime, but keep checking back every so often.