Problem with movies over mplayer

    I’m having a problem with mplayer. None of my divx/xvid/mpeg/… is running ok. The problem with all of them is that they don’t run smooth. Some 25fps movies do run ok, but when special effects show up, the smoothness is gone and it starts stuttering. An extra problem with the 23.976 movies is that the picture moves up and down a little (trembles). I’ve set the mplayer.sh(0.8.4) ntsc and pal to true, framedrop to false and lavc to 9000, but next to this I tried almost every possible option. I’m using VDR 1.2.5 with the 050903 dvb drivers and I tried mplayer version 0.92 and 1.0pre2. My tv supports pal and ntsc(auto). The whole thing is running on a clean (non-x) slackware with kernel 2.4.22. The rest of the specs are: PIV-2.4 Ghz 512 internal(dual-ddr400) 160Gb sata Maxtor disk, DVB-S rev1.6.

    Next to all this I also tried the linvdr0.3 distro witch runs great, but has exactly the same problem with my movies. If I use top to check the activity, mplayer is taking about 30 %. Hdparm –t gives me 56 MB/sec.


    Is there anything that I can try to fix this problem


    Thanks in advance, I123Sat

    How exactly do you call mplayer (in mplayersh).


    I had some timing problems when I scaled to small (like 352:288 or something), with a scaling of 704:576 it runs really smoothly on my Athlon1000


    Maybe you could try that....

    The stuttering of scenes with fast motions or zoom in/outs is a problem of MPlayer's internal MPEG encoder - or at least I think it is. I also have a P4 with 2.4 GHz and it has plenty of compute power left but Mplayer still isn't capable of proper reencoding some videos.
    I found that, when setting LAVC to 5000, all movies run smoothly, though you might get block artefacts on those problematic scenes.


    What buffles me is that nearly identical videos (e.g. Moulin Rouge in german and in english) have different behaviour. The english version suffers badly from this problem on some scenes whereas the german version has no problems at all at the same scenes (I also have NTSC and PAL set to true). So there might be another variable in that game, e.g. the codec or the bitrate of the video. But I haven't found a good theory yet.


    Again, I experimented a lot with MPlayer and this is the only solution I found. That's why I dropped the default value for LAVC to 5000 in the new mplayer.sh.


    We should report this issue to the mplayer-dvb mailing list in the hope that Arpi is still reading it.


    Are you going to do this?


    Cheers,
    Juri

    Hello, my adsl modem/router broke down last week and I'm at work right now, so my reply's may take a while.


    This weekend I tried a lot of different options and the one that stutteres the least is the 704x576 scaling, but with this scaling, some scenes (no action of something special) just begins stuttering a lot (sound also). I also tried to change the lavc option. I tried every option from 9000 to 1000 with steps of 500, and the only thing that changes is that the block artifacts get bigger. The stuttering stays the same.


    This happens with every possible movie file on my hd (divx, xvid, mov, ...). If I play a dvd or a vcd over mplayer, it runs perfect.


    Is it possible to encode(convert) a divx or xvid file to mpeg2 (HQ) and then to a vdr video file, so I can play it smooth over vdr?


    I tried some things with mencoder and mjpeg, but i got really strange outputs, with bad quality that also stutter, and some of them can't even be read.


    juri
    I just started with movies over mplayer and I first wan't to experiment for a while, so I know what to talk about. I think I'll end up with the same problem you,or maybe everyone, have, but I first want to experience the problem before I can report it.

    Hi,


    yes, converting to mpeg(1/2) is possible with transcode or mencoder, but don't ask me for the actual parameters.


    I assume that any MPEG video that has a DVB compliant resolution also runs smoothly (as long as you set MPEG_DIRECT="true" in mplayer.sh.conf).


    I'd recommend to use FRAMEDROP="true" and to concentrate first on one or two movies that have a frame reate 25fps. Also try SLOW_CPU="true" just see if it makes a difference.


    Cheers,
    Juri

    This weekend I tried some things with mplayer. For pal everything works fine now. I changed ntsc to false and they run perfect. The problem is that most of my movies are ntsc and I just can't find a way to make them run smoothly. I searched a lot of forums and most of the conclusions are that if you wan't to play an ntsc movie perfectly, you'll have to buy a tv that supports ntsc.


    My tv supports ntsc, but when I switch ntsc to true in mplayer.sh, the picture trebles once of twice a second. With this trembling I mean that the picture moves up and down a millimeter. I tried to play some movies from the commandline, but the results are the same. If I change slow_cpu to true, it doesn't tremble anymore, but the quality is really bad and the movies stutter a little bit. I tested the ntsc from my tv and it works fine. I take it that the DVB card can't be the problem, because it supports ntsc. I tried another DVB-S card and the results are exactly the same.


    Is there anything left that I can try to make my ntsc movies run smooth?


    Thanks in advance, I123Sat

    Actually I'm a bit lost here. My TV also is capable of PAL and NTSC and I can play NTSC videos just fine. There must be something about your TV in conjuntion with the DVB-card.


    I'm sorry, but It Works For Me(tm).


    If your card has a J2 connector on it you might want to build and try a SCART adapter.
    Are you really sure that your TV is NTSC-capable?


    Cheers,
    Juri

    Hey jha,


    I haven't tried to play a ntsc vcd or dvd, they were all pal. I don't think I have one around here, but I'll tryto find one.


    I both tried composite out and J2 scart out(default) and they give me both the same results. Both with my rev 1.3 and 1.6 card.


    I'm very sure that my tv is ntsc capable. If I configure an ntsc output on my windows machine (GForce card output) it works fine. Also on the same scart input.


    The only problem is that when I enable the ntsc setting, there's much more stuttering and the picture starts trembling.


    First I'll try to find a ntsc dvd or vcd, to test my ntsc over dvb.


    thanx, I123Sat

    This weekend I loaned a region free dvd-player from a friend and I got myself 4 different ntsc dvd's and a couple of ntsc vcd's. Then I tested it with my tv and it played perfect.


    I also loaned a tv from someone. This was an aristona tv with ntsc support. I connected it to my vdr machine and it gave the exact ame output as on my own tv. It always keeps stuttering a little with non 25fps movies.


    So the problem must be my vdr machine. I don't think installing everything again will help, because the previous 3 times it didn't work either.


    Is there anything I can still try, or is my hardware just....Not compatible.


    greetings, I123Sat

    Last time I totally forgot to test the ntsc dvd's in my vdr, so I tried it this time.


    I noticed that all the NTSC dvd's have got a 29.97 framerate, while all my divx movies are either 23.976 of 23 FPS. If I try to play a ntsc dvd (with 29.97) in my vdr, it works fine. Only all my divx (23 and 23.976 FPS) don't.


    Could it be that the telecine function doesn't work correct with my configuration, or is telecine not to be configured?, I tried some things with the -fps attribute, but this only made the stuttering worse.


    Thanx in advance, I123Sat

    Hmm, I still don't have an idea of what's going wrong with your setup :(
    I'm also a bit confused about your problem:
    You say that the the picture is trembling (up and down), then you say it is stuttering.


    The latter is sometimes a known problem and can be worked around in most cases - the first one is completely new to me and I don't know what can be the source of it.


    Just to rule out something obvious:
    You do have set PAL and NTSC to true, don't you?


    If you have a NTSC-MPEG file, does it show the same problems?
    If so, are you using MPEG_DIRECT=true?


    Sorry,
    Juri

    Because I thought that the problem was my hardware, yesterday I tried 2 other computers. An athlon xp1800 and a PIII-800. Both with a linvdr 0.4 install. The result: Both exactly the same problems.


    I have set pal and ntsc both to true.
    When I put the slow_cpu to true, the ntsc videos stutter a little bit. When I change the slow_cpu to false the ntsc videos start trembling.


    If I put ntsc to false, all the videos play well, but that way with ntsc movies the audio isn't synchronised most of the time.


    I haven't got a ntsc mpeg file, but i'm working on that.


    Can the DVB card (both the rev 1.3 and 1.6) be the problem? Because the tv supports ntsc and I now tried 3 different computers (with a lot of different clean installs and setups), And it all gives me the same result.


    greetings, I123Sat

    I don't think that it is an interlacing problem, but you never know.


    The only thing I can say is:
    It's the first time I heard such a problem report and I have not the slightest idea, what could be the reason for your problem.


    The only suggestion I have is to try an experimental patch to mplayer and the mplayer.sh that will enable proper playing of NTSC material as PAL.
    I'll send the original mail including the patches to your email adress, but I haven't tested it myself yet.


    Juri

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