[AppleTV] Action scenes not so smooth for 720p MKV on Apple TV
#1
Sad 
Hi,

I am new to this forum. I have XBMC on my old xbox and decided to get an appletv last week right on the day XMBC and Boxee was possible on it.

Anyway I found that the video tends to stutter a bit (?dropped frames) especially on high action scenes. MKV is slightly worse. On Boxee it is fine. I prefer XBMC at the moment for offline videos (Not supported on boxee)

Any suggestions? I thought of reducing the quality of video but will take some re-encoding, if so what is best settings? I thought maybe I can tweak something in XBMC to make it run better.

Thanks
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#2
zul277 Wrote:Hi,

I am new to this forum. I have XBMC on my old xbox and decided to get an appletv last week right on the day XBMC and Boxee was possible on it.

Anyway I found that the video tends to stutter a bit (?dropped frames) especially on high action scenes. MKV is slightly worse. On Boxee it is fine. I prefer XBMC at the moment for offline videos (Not supported on boxee)

Any suggestions? I thought of reducing the quality of video but will take some re-encoding, if so what is best settings? I thought maybe I can tweak something in XBMC to make it run better.

It would help us to have a copy of the mkv in question. PM me and I'll give you the location of an ftp server to place it on.
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#3
I have one also that doesnt play well if you need a 2nd example
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#4
Same here.....none of my mkv's play (TV shows like Prison Break, CSI...).

(well they do play....but it's not pleasant to watch)
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#5
Same problem here... 720p MKV very "unsmooth"... also tried 720p mp4 thats plays perfect on "native" Appletv, don't run that smooth in xmbc...
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#6
I've tried playing and MKV via a network share and an the MKV on the ATV. Playback with both is very "unsmooth".

The same video played on a PopCorn Hour A100 has no issues.
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#7
Same here, 720p MKV plays well most of the time but gets jumpy when there is a lot of action. I'm on 100Mb wired LAN playing media on a SMB share.
Any settings we might tweak to get smoother playback?
I'm back to original xbox and AVI files for a while I guess.
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#8
make sure the software upscaler is off.

I would need to get a sample of the video content to see if you are seeing a user setup issue or some other issue.
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#9
Software upscaler is off in my settings.
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#10
Same thing here on all 720p MKV TV shows downloaded.... it accelerates through frames for about a half-second, then continues playing smoothly for about 5 seconds, then restarts again the accelerated frame rate. Endless loop.
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#11
SimonMTL Wrote:Same thing here on all 720p MKV TV shows downloaded.... it accelerates through frames for about a half-second, then continues playing smoothly for about 5 seconds, then restarts again the accelerated frame rate. Endless loop.

yes! pretty much the same thing happening to me
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#12
This is starting to get real annoying and I'm only going to say this ONCE and then I'm going to stop answering future posts that reference mkv container format without any information regarding the encoding format and bit-rates of the audio/video content INSIDE the mkv container. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroska. Now see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264 and look at all the possible encoding flavors and cpu requirements. I cannot help anyone without knowing the audio/video encoding format/bit-rate.

It's the audio/video content encoding format and bit-rate that determines the required CPU resources and not the file container format (MKV). If the video encoding format or bit-rate requires too much cpu resources, then the AppleTV cannot handle it, sorry, end of story, there is no free lunch.

Unfortunately many MKV files "found" on the net are setup for smallest file size with best quality which means using a lot of cpu resources to just decode it. That's what you get for "free" access. If you are having problems with mkv files, then use one of the numerous programs available (google for them) that will tell you all sorts of information about your mkv file and what's inside it. XBMC can also display this info, search these forums for xbmc_remote for info one how to use it.
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#13
davilla Wrote:I cannot help anyone without knowing the audio/video encoding format/bit-rate.

Info I got:
audio: A_AC3, -aid 0, -alang und
video: V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC, -vid 0

Does that help at all?? Encoded as 720p x264.


AppleTV 2.2, Loader 0.5, XBMC Beta2

PS: Loader 0.5 does not fix the -- "change tv channel/turn off" and lose the picture from XBMC -- bug.
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#14
SimonMTL Wrote:Info I got:
audio: A_AC3, -aid 0, -alang und
video: V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC, -vid 0

Does that help at all?? Encoded as 720p x264.


AppleTV 2.2, Loader 0.5, XBMC Beta2

PS: Loader 0.5 does not fix the -- "change tv channel/turn off" and lose the picture from XBMC -- bug.

check for a PM.

No one said Loader 0.5 would fix the "change tv channel/turn off" issue. Other threads do say that it is fixed in current svn.
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#15
I doubt anyone can help me since before I even reached this thread I was coming to the same conclusion as Davilla, but for the record, this is what mkvinfo is reporting:

+ EBML head03e01.720p.hdtv.x264-bia.mkv
|+ Doc type: matroska
|+ Doc type version: 1
|+ Doc type read version: 1
+ Segment, size 1565134754
|+ Seek head (subentries will be skipped)
|+ EbmlVoid (size: 4044)
|+ Segment information
| + Timecode scale: 1000000
| + Muxing application: libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1
| + Writing application: mkvmerge v2.4.1 ('Use Me') built on Dec 5 2008 18:30:05
| + Duration: 3510.816s (00:58:30.816)
| + Date: Mon Jul 06 22:03:34 2009 UTC
| + Segment UID: 0xab 0xfb 0xbb 0xd8 0xa8 0xc2 0xec 0x86 0xb9 0x2e 0x6c 0x06 0x24 0xbb 0xfd 0x98
|+ Segment tracks
| + A track
| + Track number: 1
| + Track UID: 1
| + Track type: video
| + Enabled: 1
| + Default flag: 1
| + Forced flag: 0
| + Lacing flag: 0
| + MinCache: 1
| + Timecode scale: 1
| + Max BlockAddition ID: 0
| + Codec ID: V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
| + Codec decode all: 1
| + CodecPrivate, length 41
| + Default duration: 40.000ms (25.000 fps for a video track)
| + Language: eng
| + Video track
| + Pixel width: 1280
| + Pixel height: 720
| + Interlaced: 0
| + Display width: 16
| + Display height: 9
| + A track
| + Track number: 2
| + Track UID: 2484956080
| + Track type: audio
| + Enabled: 1
| + Default flag: 1
| + Forced flag: 0
| + Lacing flag: 1
| + MinCache: 0
| + Timecode scale: 1
| + Max BlockAddition ID: 0
| + Codec ID: A_AC3
| + Codec decode all: 1
| + Default duration: 32.000ms (31.250 fps for a video track)
| + Language: eng
| + Audio track
| + Sampling frequency: 48000
| + Channels: 6
|+ EbmlVoid (size: 1024)
|+ Cluster

So, can anyone confirm that this is unplayable on an first gen AppleTV due to its complexity, and further, is there any way I can watch this without spending 24 hours recoding it (i.e. on the order of a 24:1 ratio on conversion)?
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[AppleTV] Action scenes not so smooth for 720p MKV on Apple TV1