AppleTV Playback Issues
#1
Hi guys,

I'm having issues playing back videos that I've encoded.

I encoded them using handbrake and the AppleTV preset:
MP4
Encoder: x264
Average kbps (2500)
Anamorphic picture

The tv I'm using is a Samsung 61"

What video settings should I be using?

Currently my picture playback is extremely choppy and pixelated and I've tried changing the cache size and it doesn't seem to be helping.

Any Ideas what settings I should be using?

Please help cause right now my entire video library is completely useless
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#2
chansearrington Wrote:Hi guys,

I'm having issues playing back videos that I've encoded.

I encoded them using handbrake and the AppleTV preset:
MP4
Encoder: x264
Average kbps (2500)
Anamorphic picture

connection to video is a) local, b) wired, c) wireless ?
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#3
Have you tried copying the movie to /Users/frontrow/... to see how it performs locally? If the move plays fine, it's down to a network performance issue with your storage.
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#4
davilla Wrote:connection to video is a) local, b) wired, c) wireless ?

It's a local connection.

I have a 2TB Western Digital Drive that's connected over USB

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4470
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#5
tyche Wrote:Have you tried copying the movie to /Users/frontrow/... to see how it performs locally? If the move plays fine, it's down to a network performance issue with your storage.

I'll try that, but the movies play perfectly for that actual apple tv system
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#6
tyche Wrote:Have you tried copying the movie to /Users/frontrow/... to see how it performs locally? If the move plays fine, it's down to a network performance issue with your storage.

Ok,

I tried a couple different methods.

1. Movie on 2TB External Drive, playing using DVD file player in ATV menu

2. Moving it to the local drive.

Both played the movies perfectly so the problem is with xbmx.

Not only is xbmc not playing back smoothly, it's also extremely pixelated when compared to the other two ways of playing the file

Any idea why it's playing like this?

I think it has something to do with my resolution settings.

Is there a way to completely reset the xbmc settings?
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#7
chansearrington Wrote:Ok,

I tried a couple different methods.

1. Movie on 2TB External Drive, playing using DVD file player in ATV menu

2. Moving it to the local drive.

Both played the movies perfectly so the problem is with xbmx.

Not only is xbmc not playing back smoothly, it's also extremely pixelated when compared to the other two ways of playing the file

Any idea why it's playing like this?

I think it has something to do with my resolution settings.

Is there a way to completely reset the xbmc settings?

launch xbmc, play a video, stop, quit xbmc. paste ~/Library/Logs/xbmc.log to http://www.pastebin.com and post the url here.
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#8
davilla Wrote:launch xbmc, play a video, stop, quit xbmc. paste ~/Library/Logs/xbmc.log to http://www.pastebin.com and post the url here.

Here you go.

http://pastebin.com/m523668e3
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#9
chansearrington Wrote:Here you go.

http://pastebin.com/m523668e3

Quote:05:19:29 T:43518464 M: 5222400 DEBUG: OutputPicture - change configuration. 720x362. framerate: 23.98
05:19:29 T:43518464 M: 5222400 NOTICE: Display resolution AUTO : 1280x720 (Full Screen) (12)
05:19:29 T:43518464 M: 5210112 WARNING: Upscale: possible given resolution increase.
05:19:29 T:43518464 M: 5210112 WARNING: Upscale: selected algorithm 2

so far so good.

Quote:05:19:39 T:43518464 M: 6799360 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 1546, consumed: 0
05:19:39 T:43518464 M: 6799360 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 1594, consumed: 0
05:19:39 T:43518464 M: 6619136 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 873, consumed: 0
05:19:39 T:43518464 M: 6619136 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 887, consumed: 0
05:19:40 T:43574272 M: 6602752 DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:10714387.366953, should be:10701491.883953, error:-12895.483000
05:19:40 T:43574272 M: 6488064 DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:10794284.740953, should be:10808204.947620, error:13920.206667
05:19:40 T:43574272 M: 6414336 DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:10924896.113620, should be:10914824.285287, error:-10071.828333
05:19:40 T:43574272 M: 6393856 DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:10926022.925287, should be:10936156.430620, error:10133.505333

ok, CDVDPlayer is hiccuping all over the place. I'd like to get a copy of one of the problem files. PM me so I can email you the location of a private ftp server.
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#10
Hello,

Firstly I'd like to say I really appreciate you and the others are doing with the ATV and XBMC, davilla.

I seem to be having a similar problem to the OPs. Choppy & blocky 720P x264 video play back. Interestingly I have a couple 1080P rips where the picture looks fantastic but the video and sound stutters very badly (Of course I'm not really expecting an ATV to be able to handle 1080P content - I just found it interesting).

A few notes about my setup, trying to stream from my PC as source across a wired gigabit lan with no routers in between or anything like that.

This is from the xbmc.log

Code:
11:40:17 T:43460608 M:  7647232   DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:2274845.343620, should be:2264173.089620, error:-10672.254000
11:40:18 T:43277312 M:  7532544 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 3513, consumed: 0
11:40:18 T:43277312 M:  7548928 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 5102, consumed: 0
11:40:18 T:43277312 M:  7548928 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 42, consumed: 0
11:40:18 T:43277312 M:  7565312 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 318, consumed: 0
11:40:18 T:43460608 M:  7548928   DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:2669942.967620, should be:2680174.021620, error:10231.054000
11:40:18 T:43277312 M:  7565312 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 1724, consumed: 0
11:40:18 T:43277312 M:  7573504 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 4371, consumed: 0
11:40:18 T:43277312 M:  7667712 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 6122, consumed: 0
11:40:18 T:43277312 M:  7667712 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 10111, consumed: 0
11:40:18 T:43277312 M:  7704576 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 6133, consumed: 0
11:40:18 T:43277312 M:  7720960 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 8072, consumed: 0
11:40:18 T:43277312 M:  7680000 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 9756, consumed: 0
11:40:18 T:43277312 M:  7680000 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 8188, consumed: 0
11:40:19 T:43277312 M:  7823360 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 4135, consumed: 0
11:40:19 T:43277312 M:  7802880 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 5643, consumed: 0
11:40:19 T:43460608 M:  7802880   DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:3586275.611620, should be:3576167.663620, error:-10107.948000
11:40:19 T:43277312 M:  7753728 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 6359, consumed: 0
11:40:19 T:43277312 M:  7749632 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 5684, consumed: 0
11:40:19 T:43277312 M:  7831552 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 5057, consumed: 0
11:40:19 T:43277312 M:  7823360 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 3598, consumed: 0
11:40:19 T:43277312 M:  7823360 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 3624, consumed: 0
11:40:19 T:43277312 M:  7823360 WARNING: Decode - avcodec_decode_video didn't consume the full packet. size: 4795, consumed: 0
11:40:19 T:43460608 M:  7823360   DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:3981799.538620, should be:3992163.879620, error:10364.341000

Appreciate any help you're able to offer. Please let me know if you need any other information. Thank you.
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#11
for those having play back issues back sure

Quote:settings->video->player-> high quality software upscaling

is disabled. This takes a lot of cpu to do this and even on low rez video content cpu usage will spike.
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#12
This may be a bit different from OP, but I have XBMX/Boxee on my ATV and was comparing video playback to the "native" and have noticed that the upscaling does not seem to be as good in either compared to ATV--I'm seeing in particular more blocky artefacts (in this case a high quality Handbrake 264 from DVD TV show). The video and audio itself is smooth and these are not fast motion scenes, its just the overall 'quality' seems a bit lower but still noticeable. When I immediately switch over to native ATV and playback the same scene that blockiness is smoothed out and overall just looks a bit better.

I have software upscaling disabled (which chokes the ATV anyway), and choosing among the hardware accelerated variants (bilinear etc) doesn't seem to help. I am also trying 720p 264 that seems OK so far, which is why I thought would be the upscaling..

My question then is how XBMC/Boxee upscaling compares to how the ATV does it?

FYI Setup:
---streaming from external Firewire800 connected to Imac, wireless N network to ATV (ATV is very near the airport express)--streaming is flawless normally through 720p.

Thanks in advance for your help!
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#13
osohardy Wrote:I'm seeing in particular more blocky artefacts (in this case a high quality Handbrake 264 from DVD TV show). The video and audio itself is smooth and these are not fast motion scenes, its just the overall 'quality' seems a bit lower but still noticeable.

I am having the same issues as the above poster. I made a thread about it here http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=39594
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