[gabbott]

I have a friend who has some asian tv shows in the format. He is seeing this problem. Basically, on the xbox using mplayer it plays locally or streams over the network fine and framerate is at about 30fps. Playing with DVDPlayer it is about half that.

But using xbmc live if you play it locally it plays back at about 15fps.
If you try to play it from a network location, it sits there and doesn't seem to want to play but if you let it sit for about 5-10 minutes it will eventually start playing.

He sent the file to me and I can duplicate the behavior. I'm running XBMC live SVN 22528

I can send a megaupload link to someone that would like to take a look at this. It is an asian tv show and not sure about copyright for it so I don't want to just put the link here. You can PM me for it.

debug of it playing locally:

http://pastebin.com/m440aa2dd


debug of it trying to play from a network share:

http://pastebin.com/m775834a1

[patnyc]

I was having the same problems with rmvb files. After a week of trying without any success, I moved back to mythtv. : - (

[mw90]

what is the status on this how can we play rmvb over network i have similar issue

[makasu]

here is a link of a sample of the videos that i have found over the net. Same issue with the choppy frames and the long load time. I just want to be able to plug in a USB or play the file smoothly over the atv hard disk itself.

h t t p://www.megaupload.c o m/?d=O9I2ODDL

[ecgoh]

I have created a "workaround" patch on avformat library, tested it work on my ATV.

Please feel free to try the patch :
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?bjmydmyj1zm

Unzip the avformat-52-osx.so, and copy to where it locate on your XBMC, make sure you backup your old library.

[linbl]

Is there any "wordaround" patch for the windows version or mac version instead of ATV? I too have the same problem that it will take the average 2 mins to wait open the RMVB files. However, other than RMVB files, all other media files open normally in a second.

Since the HD format media is available, my XBMC xbox is no longer useful because it will play movies very lagging. Now the XBMC is on the windows and mac, I have no problem to use either windows or mac as long as it can play RMVB without any problem. Finally the XBMC can play RMVB on May 2009 but it is useless due to the slowness problem when open RMVB file. I really want to get back to XBMC instead of HTPC.

To those respectful programmer, if you guys can work the RMVB problem out, I would like to help. Please email me so I can pass you some RMVB files if you need. Thank you for your hard work.

From the beginning of XBMC moving to windows or mac other than xbox, I read the discussion said the DVD Player don't support RMVB and unless the codec support it. No one is going to get the RMVB working on the XBMC that is the day I lose the hope. Then after couple months wait, I tried the new built of XBMC and RMVB is working but it has problem of loading - take couple mins to start the movies instead of seconds. Too slow. Unless someone is taking this to debug, we as unprogrammer, can't do anything but wait. Hope someone is looking this and will help us who use RMVB media format.

Thank you for looking! Although it's my 1st post in the xbmc forum, I constantly come to this forum to see if there is any hope on the RMVB program. Now I have to say something to HOPE people can help this problem to be solved. Thank you.

[ecgoh]

you can find the fix for windows in this link also :

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=146b9...f6e8ebb871

I believe the same library for ATV can be use in MACOS X also.

This patch will not be available in the SVN since I am not the XBMC developers and I am not familiar with the development process here. And this particular patch is for RMVB or RM video only.

Hopefully some the XBMC team will take a look on this and put it into the next release.

[Harry Muscle]

you can find the fix for windows in this link also :

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=146b9...f6e8ebb871

I believe the same library for ATV can be use in MACOS X also.

This patch will not be available in the SVN since I am not the XBMC developers and I am not familiar with the development process here. And this particular patch is for RMVB or RM video only.

Hopefully some the XBMC team will take a look on this and put it into the next release.

Would you mind sharing the code changes you've made to create this patch. I'm sure the developers would love to see it. Plus there's been a trac ticket or two opened for this issue. If you don't mind sharing the code I'd be more than happy to post the code to one of these tickets.

Thanks,
Harry

[ecgoh]

Here is the code changed that I made in : xbmc/xbmc/cores/dvdplayer/Codecs/ffmpeg/libavformat/utils.c

function : static void av_estimate_timings(AVFormatContext *ic, int64_t old_offset)

line code from :
} else if (ic->iformat->read_timestamp) &&

to :
} else if (ic->iformat->read_timestamp && strcmp(ic->iformat->name, "rm") &&

this is to avoid RMVB files calling av_estimate_timings_from_pts2() function as this will take long time.

I have compiled and tested this on Windows and ATV platform. For me, this is just a workaround instead a real bug fix as I did not look at what the function performed.

[linbl]

you can find the fix for windows in this link also :

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=146b9...f6e8ebb871

I believe the same library for ATV can be use in MACOS X also.

This patch will not be available in the SVN since I am not the XBMC developers and I am not familiar with the development process here. And this particular patch is for RMVB or RM video only.

Hopefully some the XBMC team will take a look on this and put it into the next release.

Thanks for sharing the fix. However, today I start to test it with your workaround avformat-52.dll. It won't play and after couple click on RMVB files, it shows Error: Playlist playback aborted. Too many consecutive failed items. I am using XBMC_for_Windows-9.04.1-repack2 and replace the avformat-52.dll. And I also tried the same thing on MAC with XBMC_for_Mac-9.04.1-repack.dmg. Both are having the same problem. It won't play. So I am wondering which version of XBMC you are using. Still hoping go back XBMC someday.

Although it still doesn't work for me, I really happy to get the help. Hope someday someone will get it fixed. Most of my video library are in RMVB format. That's is why I went with XBOX which is the only one machine back to 3 years ago that can play RM/RMVB file through the LAN with single remote controller. I miss that since xbox can't play HD format. I am only using HTPC now.

[ecgoh]

Thanks for sharing the fix. However, today I start to test it with your workaround avformat-52.dll. It won't play and after couple click on RMVB files, it shows Error: Playlist playback aborted. Too many consecutive failed items. I am using XBMC_for_Windows-9.04.1-repack2 and replace the avformat-52.dll. And I also tried the same thing on MAC with XBMC_for_Mac-9.04.1-repack.dmg. Both are having the same problem. It won't play. So I am wondering which version of XBMC you are using. Still hoping go back XBMC someday.

Although it still doesn't work for me, I really happy to get the help. Hope someday someone will get it fixed. Most of my video library are in RMVB format. That's is why I went with XBOX which is the only one machine back to 3 years ago that can play RM/RMVB file through the LAN with single remote controller. I miss that since xbox can't play HD format. I am only using HTPC now.

Hi linbl, this patch will not work on the XBMC_for_Windows-9.04.1-repack2 or XBMC_for_Mac-9.04.1-repack.dmg, it will only work on the latest SVN version (you can get from http://www.sshcs.com/xbmc/?mode=Builds). I tested at least it work on SVN :23263 version.
Because the implementation of ffmpeg codec has change so much since then.

[linbl]

Hi linbl, this patch will not work on the XBMC_for_Windows-9.04.1-repack2 or XBMC_for_Mac-9.04.1-repack.dmg, it will only work on the latest SVN version (you can get from http://www.sshcs.com/xbmc/?mode=Builds). I tested at least it work on SVN :23263 version.
Because the implementation of ffmpeg codec has change so much since then.

Wow.... Cool.... Your workaround patch actually works. The RMVB file open fast as normal. Thank you! Thank you!

I am going to install into my Mac Mini and have XBMC as the default and only one program to run all the time. Time to go back to XBMC for your working patch.

However, have you notice that the RMVB movie played not really smooth? Is it because of the codec that needs to updated in the not too long future? Then it will play normal like any other formate : AVI, Divx, ....

Thank you! Hope they are going to use your code to get it fix officially. Glad I come to the forum and ask for help that someone really helped.

You just make my day.....

[Harry Muscle]

Here is the code changed that I made in : xbmc/xbmc/cores/dvdplayer/Codecs/ffmpeg/libavformat/utils.c

function : static void av_estimate_timings(AVFormatContext *ic, int64_t old_offset)

line code from :
} else if (ic->iformat->read_timestamp) &&

to :
} else if (ic->iformat->read_timestamp && strcmp(ic->iformat->name, "rm") &&

this is to avoid RMVB files calling av_estimate_timings_from_pts2() function as this will take long time.

I have compiled and tested this on Windows and ATV platform. For me, this is just a workaround instead a real bug fix as I did not look at what the function performed.

Thanks for sharing. Quick question though. Wouldn't this code be compiled into the XBMC executable file? However, the precompiled patch you provided is a replacement DLL file. Or is the replacement DLL file a different patch than this code provides?

Thanks,
Harry

[ecgoh]

Thanks for sharing. Quick question though. Wouldn't this code be compiled into the XBMC executable file? However, the precompiled patch you provided is a replacement DLL file. Or is the replacement DLL file a different patch than this code provides?

Thanks,
Harry

The RMVB playback issue is cause by the external codec FFMPEG. In current XBMC, is build as shared library. That make it easier to recompile, so I only need to compile 1 specific share library rather then rebuiding the whole XBMC.

[ecgoh]

After patching the RMVB loading time, the RMVB video can be played without waiting time, but the video playback is not smooth (even local media files), I only can get average around 15fps in both windows and ATV.

So I went to check ffmpeg again and found there was another bug fix regarding RM codec, and I apply this patch to XBMC ffmpeg codecs.

To my surprise the RMVB playback improved to around 24fps.

Feel free to try out the new patch (same shared library).

WIN32 : http://www.mediafire.com/?zkyzyyywjaw

ATV : http://www.mediafire.com/?ngtl2dnxgyw