[boomslang20117]

hi, is it only me or there's a problem with xbmc not being able to handle 1080p mkv files? the video stutter badly with fps dropping like mad and cpu jumps up to 100%. but with 720p it's all fine? any suggestions anyone?


OSX Version
10.6.7
Platform
custom build mac pro hackintosh
Install Method
dmg
SVN Revision
xbmc 10.1 git:e9e9099 (complied: mar 9 2011)
FULL Debug Log
http://pastebin.com/uGZtXurZ

The.Social.Network.1080p.BluRay.x264-METiS
ViDEO ......: 1920x800 @11486 kbps
AUDiO ......: 1509 kbps DTS

System hardware specs
Gigabyte P55A-UD4P F14
intel core i7 860 2.8ghz
8GB G.SKILL 1600ghz ddr3 cl7-8-7-24 1.6v
ATI Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X
Intel 160GB SSD(SL 10.6.7/32),
3x Seagate 1TB HD

architecture
i386

[Chris!]

Depends what's in the MKV container. Seems to be h.264.

Your hackintosh is decoding it with it's CPU using ffmpeg, ffmpeg on xbmc is only single threaded so cpu will reach 100% which doesn't necessarily represent 100% of total cpu but 100% of a thread/core. The video may need more than one core to be smoothly played.

My mac is dual core and hyper threaded so for some reason the cpu is out of a total of 400%. (though i always think of it like spinal tap - my amp goes to 11!)

You could try enabling hardware acceration as the latest macs with ATIs have support for this, although i'm not sure if XBMC needs changing for this to happen.

[idioteque]

CPU offloading to GPU is only supported for nvidia GPU's

ATI Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X is not a nvidia GPU.

However there are efforts on the way to use the video toolkit instead of VDA for hardware acceleration so it could be possible to use the ATI as a GPU but not at this moment nor in the near future.

[Chris!]

Yep, just realised that it was an Nvidia thing only. Makes me feel better about not having the lastest macbook pro!

[D-tyme]

hmm... shouldn't matter. My quad core i7 handles full bluray mkv rips without breaking a sweat.

[davilla]

I see the scraper running while you are trying to do video play back. Might want to do your video playback test with that off.

[ix400]

Depends what's in the MKV container. Seems to be h.264.

Your hackintosh is decoding it with it's CPU using ffmpeg, ffmpeg on xbmc is only single threaded so cpu will reach 100% which doesn't necessarily represent 100% of total cpu but 100% of a thread/core. The video may need more than one core to be smoothly played.

My mac is dual core and hyper threaded so for some reason the cpu is out of a total of 400%. (though i always think of it like spinal tap - my amp goes to 11!)

You could try enabling hardware acceration as the latest macs with ATIs have support for this, although i'm not sure if XBMC needs changing for this to happen.

Are you sure? On my MacPro it seems that ffmpeg uses more than just one core.

Chris

[Chris!]

Yea i'm sure as I had a lot of frames dropped when playing the dark knight mkv rip using ffmpeg to decode and the cpu wouldn't go about 112% (of which the vcpu was 100%)

[boomslang20117]

@pseudo7 yes it's h.264.

@davilla i tried playing the movie again without the scraper running. still having the same problem. somehow vlc, boxee and plex 8 do have the same problem as well.

the only thing i've tried so far that was able to play the movie smoothly so far is plex 9. but i'm not like plex one bit at all. hence i'm still sticking with xbmc.

the only time i recalled xbmc playing 1080p smoothly was either 9.11 or 9.04 which i can't really remember.

having problem playing all 1080p h.264 but all 720p h.264 works fine.

but somehow while watching Boys.Don't.Cry.1999.BluRay.1080p.AVC.DTS-HD.MA5.1-CHDBits did not cause any problem at all.

Disc Size: 40,065,686,379 bytes
Protection: AACS
BD-Java: Yes
Playlist: 00500.MPLS
Size: 38,937,010,176 bytes
Length: 1:58:32
Total Bitrate: 43.80 Mbps

Video:
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 29519 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1

Audio:
Audio: English / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 4113 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)

[Chris!]

I still reckon its single threaded ffmpeg that is the "issue".
Am I right in thinking ffmpeg is single threaded?

The other thing you could try is playing the file from a different hard drive to see if it is something to do with a high bitrate (which would explain why 720p works - that said the cpu pattern also fits this)

[D-tyme]

@pseudo7 yes it's h.264.

@davilla i tried playing the movie again without the scraper running. still having the same problem. somehow vlc, boxee and plex 8 do have the same problem as well.

the only thing i've tried so far that was able to play the movie smoothly so far is plex 9. but i'm not like plex one bit at all. hence i'm still sticking with xbmc.

the only time i recalled xbmc playing 1080p smoothly was either 9.11 or 9.04 which i can't really remember.

having problem playing all 1080p h.264 but all 720p h.264 works fine.

but somehow while watching Boys.Don't.Cry.1999.BluRay.1080p.AVC.DTS-HD.MA5.1-CHDBits did not cause any problem at all.

Disc Size: 40,065,686,379 bytes
Protection: AACS
BD-Java: Yes
Playlist: 00500.MPLS
Size: 38,937,010,176 bytes
Length: 1:58:32
Total Bitrate: 43.80 Mbps

Video:
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 29519 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1

Audio:
Audio: English / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 4113 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)

So if all those other players have problems as well, then its not an XBMC issue. And as I always stated before, using "Scene" rips as a source to test your issue isn't the best way to go about it. If you didn't rip it yourself, then you don't know what you are really getting.

[Bitwize360]

So if all those other players have problems as well, then its not an XBMC issue. And as I always stated before, using "Scene" rips as a source to test your issue isn't the best way to go about it. If you didn't rip it yourself, then you don't know what you are really getting.

Here's my setup:

- 2010 Mac Mini
- Mac OS X 10.6.7
- Latest XBMC build
- Shares via local drive, external drive, gigabit NAS
- Audio/Video out via HDMI -> Pioneer A/V receiver -> Pioneer Elite plasma

I have consistent stutter w/ Mini display setting at 60Hz or 24Hz with 1080p MKV, w/ compressed or uncompressed video. I have tried LOTS of setting combinations in XBMC. The share source or video codec (H264/VC-1) do not seem to make a difference.

PLEX 9 at 60Hz plays back most 1080p files without stutter. High bitrate VC-1 video tracks still stutter. At 24Hz, I get stutter in Plex 9.

I am suspecting something in the XBMC video player in combination with Mac OS X. Version 10.6.3 of OS X was the last version that seemed to play nicely with high bitrate 1080p files, in both XBMC and PLEX.

[idioteque]

if you want you can play these files but at a slight loss of quality.

Plex uses this option, its called skiploop

<skiploopfilter>
This amount of the loop filter to skip on h264 decoding. This can help the performance of slower machines when decoding h264 content. Values, in decreasing CPU usage (and decreasing quality)
-16 None.
0 Skip only empty frames (default)
8 Skip non-reference frames (default on ATV)
16 Skip bi-dir frames
32 Skip all non-key frames
48 Skip all frames.
Example:
<skiploopfilter>8</skiploopfilter>

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Adv...pfilter.3E

[Bitwize360]

if you want you can play these files but at a slight loss of quality.

Plex uses this option, its called skiploop

<skiploopfilter>
This amount of the loop filter to skip on h264 decoding. This can help the performance of slower machines when decoding h264 content. Values, in decreasing CPU usage (and decreasing quality)
-16 None.
0 Skip only empty frames (default)
8 Skip non-reference frames (default on ATV)
16 Skip bi-dir frames
32 Skip all non-key frames
48 Skip all frames.
Example:
<skiploopfilter>8</skiploopfilter>

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Adv...pfilter.3E

Thanks for the suggestion but I've already tried changing the skiploop filter values in XBMC. Same playback results.

[idioteque]

have you tried the 10.1 build of the main website ?