Composited XVideo flicker

[piotrq__]

Hell... Now that is strange. I noticed that if I open a movie using mplayer foo.avi
(I was using this command previously) then flickering and tearing appears, but if I do the same thing using kmplayer foo.avi (with mplayer set as its back-end) then there's no tearing at all...


Naaah... Damn, I was wrong... Tearing's still there, maybe it just appears a bit less often...

[fgrasset]

Well, the problem seems to be obvious when watching the movie in fullscreen on bright scrolling background. Then the syncs option are on, I see only one distorsion line. When off distorsion lines are randomly distributed.
try this torrent:
http://mononoke-bt.org/gettorrent.php?id=1025
In the episode 1, there is such scene brgining at 22 seconds from the start.

[shijtin]

Same thing here. I tried compiz, xfce with compositor and xcompmgr, no matter the settings, I can't get rid of this "z" line.

Then I tried Beryl and after some tweaking the videos with xv became flawless (I had to remove the __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK in my start file). But I think it is because it doesn't seem to use the indirect rendering by default because I tried Compiz without indirect rendering : same result.

Alas, I can't use beryl or compiz with direct rendering for an everyday use because of a strange bug : when too many windows are opened every new window/menu/fullscreen app is black or blank (the limit is soon reached but the number depends on their complexity, I can open more terminals than firefox windows). I'm using a geforce 6200 turbocache.

[netllama]

I'm still not have any success reproducing any problems while playing mvice.avi. I've tested with varying degrees of transparency on a white background, and there isn't any obvious flickering or tearing on the group of CRTs and DFPs that I have here.

I see some people referring to flickering, and others referring to tearing, and I'm not convinced that they are the same problem. While difficult, is anyone able to capture any of these problems in a screenshot?

Thanks,
Lonni

[shijtin]

I have the same problem than the one described in the first post. I didn't manage to do a proper screenshot. I'll try to do some gimp.

When playing a video with xv on fullscreen (I tried the xfce compositing), I have half top of the frame at time "t" and half bottom of the frame at time "t-1". The separation between the two halves isn't a straight horizontal line, but something that looks like a wide reversed "Z" (I assume it is because, with composition, the screen is divided in triangles). With every vsync settings on, this "line" is very stable on the exact middle of the screen.

It is very noticeable when the video showing flashes or horizontal scrolling.

By the way, my screen is a LCD.

[piotrq__]

shijtin described this problem very accurately. This is exactly what I'm seeing here (and that's what is called tearing I guess). I was trying to capture a screenshot, or create a movie with xvidcap, but xvidcap's frame-rate is too low and screenshot won't show you that I'm afraid.

And I'm using LCD here too.

I'll try to get a camera and record that bastard, so we can have a live proof :-)

[shijtin]

Yes, I think a video will show the thing in all its glory

I tried compiz a little more (compiz --replace --indirect-rendering --use-cow gconf&). Now the line of separation is at the first 1/3 of the screen's height (instead of the middle). And the funny part comes : this position varies vertically if I change the alpha of the player's window. Exactly like the bug described in the first post.

[netllama]

I'm reading over this thread in greater depth, and I'm not clear on whether this requires Compiz/Beryl to reproduce. Is anyone here experiencing this problem without Compiz/Beryl (and only with the composite extenion enabled)?

Thanks,
-Lonni

[shijtin]

Originally Posted by netllama

I'm reading over this thread in greater depth, and I'm not clear on whether this requires Compiz/Beryl to reproduce. Is anyone here experiencing this problem without Compiz/Beryl (and only with the composite extenion enabled)?

Thanks,
-Lonni

My post #17 is about xfce with composition enabled.
I tried with metacity+xcompmgr and had the same result ("z" separation on the middle of the screen).

[netllama]

shijtin,
Can you post a bug report from your system?

thanks!

[shijtin]

Originally Posted by netllama

shijtin,
Can you post a bug report from your system?

thanks!

Sure

[netllama]

Thanks, I've finally reproduced the tearing with mvice.avi, and opened bug 257335.

-Lonni