[AppleTV] Slow framerate on playback of SD Material?
#1
I've been playing around with the GUI for XBMC on AppleTV for the past week or so. Today was the first time I actually sat down to watch something, but most of my SD media (DVD MPG or XviD AVI) are playing back very sluggishly. Hitting CodecInfo during playback, I'm seeing lower than normal framerate with continuous dropping frames. I have Render Method on Auto Detect, Adjust Refresh Rate and Sync Playback to Display disabled and Vertical Blank Sync on Always Enabled.

While searching for a solution, I noticed that Davilla mentioned disabling upscaling in an older post. I assume this must be enabled on my end, but I can't find that option that in the recent 9.11a1 build to disable. The only other thing I can find related to video playback is in the Video Settings screen of the OSD. I've tried setting Interlaced Handling to None, but it doesn't seem to make a difference in terms of framerate or dropped frames. I see Video Scaling Method there, but the only options are Nearest Neighbor, Bicubic and Bilinear. I don't see a difference when I change those either. Am I missing some other setting?

Here's the full debug xbmc.log. I deleted the old log, launched XBMC, played a video for about a minute, stopped playback and then shutdown XBMC:

http://pastebin.com/m54f5b0f7

I'm getting about 24fps, but it should be 29.97, CPU is pegged at 98% and frames drop continuously. Here's the MediaInfo on the AVI file I'm trying to play:

http://pastebin.com/d2f20c99

Next, I do the same with a NTSC DVD ripped MPG file. I'm getting about 19fps, but should be getting 23.976, CPU at 98%. Here's the full debug xbmc.log:

http://pastebin.com/d39a7ccc7

Here's the MediaInfo on the MPG file I'm trying to play:

http://pastebin.com/d7210e7ea

Now, oddly, one file that plays perfectly is a PAL DVD ripped MPG. It only drops a few frames at the beginning and then playback is fine. CPU sits in in the mid 30s. xbmc.log:

http://pastebin.com/d44b4fddd

MediaInfo:

http://pastebin.com/d3bc9a6b4

Thanks!

AppleTV 3.0
Launcher 3.2b2
XBMC 9.11a1
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#2
KevinSartori Wrote:I've been playing around with the GUI for XBMC on AppleTV for the past week or so. Today was the first time I actually sat down to watch something, but most of my SD media (DVD MPG or XviD AVI) are playing back very sluggishly. Hitting CodecInfo during playback, I'm seeing lower than normal framerate with continuous dropping frames. I have Render Method on Auto Detect, Adjust Refresh Rate and Sync Playback to Display disabled and Vertical Blank Sync on Always Enabled.

While searching for a solution, I noticed that Davilla mentioned disabling upscaling in an older post. I assume this must be enabled on my end, but I can't find that option that in the recent 9.11a1 build to disable. The only other thing I can find related to video playback is in the Video Settings screen of the OSD. I've tried setting Interlaced Handling to None, but it doesn't seem to make a difference in terms of framerate or dropped frames. I see Video Scaling Method there, but the only options are Nearest Neighbor, Bicubic and Bilinear. I don't see a difference when I change those either. Am I missing some other setting?

from xbmc.log

WARNING: Upscale: selected algorithm 8

That's VS_SCALINGMETHOD_LANCZOS_SOFTWARE, which is very CPU intensive.

check ~Library/Application\ Support/XBMC/userdata/guisettings.xml for highqualityupscaling and set it to zero like this

<highqualityupscaling>0</highqualityupscaling>
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#3
Thanks, that did it! <highqualityupscaling> was set to 1, so I changed it to 0. Playback is normal now, with no dropped frames and CPU usage ~40%.

Also in the <videoplayer> section, I noticed <upscalingalgorithm>8</upscalingalgorithm>. Do I need to change this as well, or did setting <highqualityupscaling> to 0 effectively turn off upscaling entirely?
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#4
KevinSartori Wrote:Thanks, that did it! <highqualityupscaling> was set to 1, so I changed it to 0. Playback is normal now, with no dropped frames and CPU usage ~40%.

Also in the <videoplayer> section, I noticed <upscalingalgorithm>8</upscalingalgorithm>. Do I need to change this as well, or did setting <highqualityupscaling> to 0 effectively turn off upscaling entirely?

I believe this is an standard config when installing xbmc, but i can be wrong here.

if not, then i would like to know if this change will make the performance better aswell.
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#5
Riderzzz Wrote:I believe this is an standard config when installing xbmc, but i can be wrong here.

if not, then i would like to know if this change will make the performance better aswell.

Software upscaling better not be default Smile I've just added a commit that will make sure that software upscaling is off if the platform is the AppleTV.
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#6
KevinSartori Wrote:Also in the <videoplayer> section, I noticed <upscalingalgorithm>8</upscalingalgorithm>. Do I need to change this as well, or did setting <highqualityupscaling> to 0 effectively turn off upscaling entirely?

No, that only defines which software upscaler to use, since upscaling is off, which one it would use is irrelevant.
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[AppleTV] Slow framerate on playback of SD Material?0