[Z3rO]

Vsync was set to always on in my fresh xbmc install. Just got home with a new mini since the old one had black flickering bars when booting.

Inserted the 4GB ram upgrade, but nothing new on this side.
I'll digg into the plex settings now.

[Z3rO]

Here's what I found in "application support/plex/guisettings.xml

Code:

<postprocessing>
        <auto>true</auto>
        <autobrightnesscontrastlevels>false</autobrightnesscontrastlevels>
        <dering>false</dering>
        <enable>false</enable>
        <horizontaldeblocking>false</horizontaldeblocking>
        <horizontaldeblocklevel>0</horizontaldeblocklevel>
        <verticaldeblocking>false</verticaldeblocking>
        <verticaldeblocklevel>0</verticaldeblocklevel>
    </postprocessing>

<videoplayer>
        <autoselectaudiostream>false</autoselectaudiostream>
        <displayresolution>10</displayresolution>
        <dvdautomenu>true</dvdautomenu>
        <dvdplayerregion>0</dvdplayerregion>
        <editdecision>false</editdecision>
        <highqualityupscaling>0</highqualityupscaling>
        <sep1></sep1>
        <sep1></sep1>
        <sep1></sep1>
        <skiploopfilter>0</skiploopfilter>
        <upscalingalgorithm>1</upscalingalgorithm>
    </videoplayer>

<videoscreen>
        <displayblanking>0</displayblanking>
        <guicalibration></guicalibration>
        <panelbrightness>0</panelbrightness>
        <resolution>12</resolution>
        <testpattern></testpattern>
        <testresolution></testresolution>
        <vsync>2</vsync>
    </videoscreen>

Hope it helps somehow. I tried setting upscalingalgorithm to 1 (it defaults to 7 in xbmcs guisettings.xml) didnt help.

The strange thing is that my Vista rig (Core2Duo E6300 1,86 GHz, 2gig ram) has no problems playing those video files when using xbmc. Should I really install windows on my mini? *shudder*

[davilla]

Here's what I found in "application support/plex/guisettings.xml

Code:

<postprocessing>
        <auto>true</auto>
        <autobrightnesscontrastlevels>false</autobrightnesscontrastlevels>
        <dering>false</dering>
        <enable>false</enable>
        <horizontaldeblocking>false</horizontaldeblocking>
        <horizontaldeblocklevel>0</horizontaldeblocklevel>
        <verticaldeblocking>false</verticaldeblocking>
        <verticaldeblocklevel>0</verticaldeblocklevel>
    </postprocessing>

<videoplayer>
        <autoselectaudiostream>false</autoselectaudiostream>
        <displayresolution>10</displayresolution>
        <dvdautomenu>true</dvdautomenu>
        <dvdplayerregion>0</dvdplayerregion>
        <editdecision>false</editdecision>
        <highqualityupscaling>0</highqualityupscaling>
        <sep1></sep1>
        <sep1></sep1>
        <sep1></sep1>
        <skiploopfilter>0</skiploopfilter>
        <upscalingalgorithm>1</upscalingalgorithm>
    </videoplayer>

<videoscreen>
        <displayblanking>0</displayblanking>
        <guicalibration></guicalibration>
        <panelbrightness>0</panelbrightness>
        <resolution>12</resolution>
        <testpattern></testpattern>
        <testresolution></testresolution>
        <vsync>2</vsync>
    </videoscreen>

Hope it helps somehow. I tried setting upscalingalgorithm to 1 (it defaults to 7 in xbmcs guisettings.xml) didnt help.

The strange thing is that my Vista rig (Core2Duo E6300 1,86 GHz, 2gig ram) has no problems playing those video files when using xbmc. Should I really install windows on my mini? *shudder*

"<skiploopfilter>0</skiploopfilter>" is the important bit. It's off so that matches the default xbmc setting. This is very strange.

[Z3rO]

Does this mean when I insert it into an advancedsettings.xml (since I dont find the setting in guisettings.xml) the videos should run smooth?

I just tried watching The Spirit in 1080p. After a few minutes the Audio went out of sync and the movie started to stutter heavily.

Plex went through the hole thing without hiccups.

[davilla]

Does this mean when I insert it into an advancedsettings.xml (since I dont find the setting in guisettings.xml) the videos should run smooth?

I just tried watching The Spirit in 1080p. After a few minutes the Audio went out of sync and the movie started to stutter heavily.

Plex went through the hole thing without hiccups.

"It's off so that matches the default xbmc setting", that means plex has a skiploopfilter value of zero and xbmc has a skiploopfilter value of zero. They are the same.

[davilla]

I would need to see a pastebin of xbmc.log next.

[Z3rO]

"It's off so that matches the default xbmc setting", that means plex has a skiploopfilter value of zero and xbmc has a skiploopfilter value of zero. They are the same.

Sorry, I should have read what you wrote...

I would need to see a pastebin of xbmc.log next.

Here's a full log from playing The Spirit on both programs:

XBMC:
http://pastebin.com/m25f1e077

Plex:
http://pastebin.com/mb4527a6

[jmarshall]

The Plex log isn't a debug one.

From the XBMC one, there's a lot of output from the audio renderer, which could be related. Unsure really without seeing more information from the Plex debug log.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[Z3rO]

I'll try to get a debug one asap

[Z3rO]

Plex debug log:

http://pastebin.com/m2315465c

I played the file to after the scene where xbmc freaked out.

[Z3rO]

Iron Man starting scene

XBMC:
http://pastebin.com/m3ccb49b5

PLEX:
http://pastebin.com/m45c79158

[jmarshall]

Thanks - nothing obvious from the logs - everything appears to be being setup basically the same way as far as ffmpeg is concerned. My last idea (given your xbmc log) is that the audio output stage isn't as optimal as it could be in XBMC - it uses a fairly small buffer I believe which may be being emptied too quickly, but I'm just guessing here. Will ping phi2039 for his comments with respect to this.

EDIT: Ironman log is quite different, interestingly enough. This may point to more differences in ffmpeg.

EDIT2: No idea where one is supposed to get the Plex ffmpeg changes from - it's not clear to me from elan's github repo exactly where he generates his build from in this regard. Perhaps I'm missing something?

Cheers,
Jonathan

[Z3rO]

Do you need more logs?
I have quiet a big collection with movies and I'm sure that I can find some others that don't play as optimal as they should on my shiny new cake box.

EDIT: That might help: http://github.com/elan/plex/commits/ryan-new-ffmpeg

[jmarshall]

Probably don't need more logs, unless they're significantly different from the ones you've already posted.

The above commit is just 0.5 which is what we use. It does allow me to find any other changes though

Will take a look through.

EDIT: Github's web interface sucks bigtime. As far as I can tell, their ffmpeg is essentially identical to ours, but I can't guarantee it without checking out the code and doing a direct compare - there's some commits there just to the binaries with no obvious matching source change commits for instance.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[davilla]

CDVDMessageQueue(audio)::Get - retrieved last data packet of queue

play "The Spirit" again, type 'o' to bring up the codec display. Watch "aq" in the first line of text. Does it drop to zero? What is "vq" on the next line down?

The above message in the log indicates the audio demux queue is being starved.