[a91738246]

Hello,

I have been using XBMC on an old xbox for years now, and I have been using Handbrake on Linux for encoding DVD's. Everything was working fine, until recently (I just noticed it 2 weeks ago, but I have discovered that the problem was born May 4-16).

When I try to play a newly encoded video on XBMC, I get *mostly* grey output. Reference frames get rendered correctly, but quickly get filled with grey boxes and then replaced by the next reference frame. Audio and subtitles work fine.

These problematic videos play fine using mplayer on my Linux machine, and other older videos encoded with the same settings from the same version of Handbrake play fine on XBMC. Also, new videos encoded in xvid play fine in XBMC.

I would really appreciate any help or tips anyone could give. I haven't found anyone else complaining about it, or any other similar symptom in either mplayer or XBMC, so I am stumped.

Thanks,
MM

[SlaveUnit]

Need an XBMC version at a bare minimum. A debug log may help as well.

[a91738246]

> Need an XBMC version at a bare minimum. A debug log may help as well.

I am using the T3CH build, XBMC4XBOX pre-3.0-r30442 (Compiled: Jul 8 2010). It has mplayer version MPlayer XBMC-SVN-r17397 (Jan 27 2009 - 23:40:31).

I have also uploaded a smallish (53 MB) sample video that does not play correctly:

http://euclid.colorado.edu/~mooremd/xbmc_test.mkv

The debug log (generated while playing above file) was long, so I put it on pastebin:

http://pastebin.com/WU2t4w2w

Using the debug report (which I didn't know about before), I've googled the errors mplayer is throwing, and I find reports of similar things with h264 files from some 2005-2009 versions of mplayer.

Thank you,
MM

[a91738246]

Hello,

After quite a bit of investigation I think that I've tracked down the problem. In r1347 x264 added default weighted p-frames to most of the presets. Old mplayer versions, like the one in XBMC, do not handle this correctly and instead you get persistent grey macro-blocking between reference frames. The solution is to explicitly disable weighted p-frames.

Are there plans to update mplayer, or should I file a wishlist bug?

Thanks,
MM

[bobo1on1]

Xbox isn't supported here anymore http://xbmc.org/theuni/2010/05/27/farewell-xbox/