bad stutter viewing 1080i on 6200 agp

[dkossman]

I am unable to get playback of mpeg2 1080i files to work. files play,k ut the playback stutters horrifically and eventually just stops. this does NOT seem to be a CPU issue, as i can run "top" during playback and CPU is generally less than 40% busy. so it seems that the card is doing mpeg decoding in hardware.

i see the same issue whether i pull the data from a hard drive, or directly from my ATSC DVB tuner (pcHDTV5500).

i am using the following software:
- latest ubuntu edgy 6.1
- latest nvidia binary driver 9746
- gxine 0.5.7 (same problem or worse with mplayer)
- xxmc driver (same or worse with xvmc, xv, etc)
- latest pchdtv 5500 driver from pchdtv site
- BIOS: AGB aperture set to 128Mb

hardware
- soyo ultra dragon with celeron 2Ghz, AGP4x
- 512Mb ram
- ATA133 250Gb hdd
- nvidia PNY 6200 AGP (@4x - motherboard is only 4x)
- pchdtv5500 (connected to terrestrial antenna)
- Sony KDS60A2000 (1080p) TV connected to component adapter of the nvidia 6200

====================

starting gxine from an xterm:
myth@myth:~$ gxine dvb://KCET-HD
video_out_xxmc: Unichrome CPU saving is off.

(gxine:5590): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_style_detach: assertion `style->attach_count > 0' failed
lirc: cannot initialise - disabling remote control
lirc: maybe lircd isn't running or you can't connect to the socket?
CDROMREADTOCHDR: Input/output error
WARN: could not retrieve file info for `image.nrg': No such file or directory
WARN: can't open nrg image file image.nrg for reading
input_dvb: continuing in get_instance
input_dvb: ERROR: Trying to get lock...
pid type 0x81, has audio 0
libmpeg2: output port has XxMC capability
video_out_xxmc: Using hardware decoding for this stream.
Warning! Changing xoverlay

--> video plays, but stutters horribly.

[netllama]

Does this problem also reproduce with mplayer?
Where can I obtain movie content which reproduces this problem?
Does this problem persist if you're not using the Composite extension in X?

Thanks,
Lonni

[dkossman]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, i have exactly the same issue with mplayer.
To test, i used a stream i captured as an mpg file from my HD tuner card- it is 500Mb, i can upload it if you have an FTP site i can use.

I'll try turning off the Composite extension and let you know what happens.

One more datapoint: i tried running glxgears and got about 1400 FPS. this may be a silly question but what FPS performance do i need to play back a 1080i HD mpeg stream?

thanks
- Don

[netllama]

glxgears is not a benchmark, so its results aren't indicative of anything.

If this only reproduces with Composite, then it sounds like a compositing manager problem, and not a driver bug. If this problem persists without Composite, I'll provide you with a location to upload the content.

Thanks,
Lonni

[dkossman]

I didn't have Composite specifically enabled in xorg.conf, but in any case i added a section to disable it - and see the same stutter problems.

by the way, I also tried enabling/disabling Vsync in nvidia-settings - didn't seem to have any effect.

I'd be happy to upload the test file if you can provide access details.

regards
- Don

[netllama]

I've sent you a PM with details where you can upload the content.

Thanks,
Lonni

[dkossman]

i started the transfer (about 500mb) but the ftp server seemed to go down after a couple of hours, and i was unable to log back in. i've got a DSL connection, and upload speeds are not very fast. anyway, i'm not sure if the resulting file (test3.mpg) will be useful, but have a look. let me know when i can retry...

[netllama]

I don't see anything uploaded to the FTP server. Is there a reason why you can't capture content of a smaller duration so that its not 500MB in size?