Ff-h264 dropping and skipping frames

Today I tried to play a file on my Vero 4k that showed a lot of stutter. The debug info shows the decoder is ff-h264(SW) and a lot of dropped and skipped frames. See the file details below.

Is this simply a format the hardware decoder can’t handle? Is there anything I can do to make this file playback better on the Vero 4k?

Edit: Ok, so this file is 10 bit x264. From the poor results I gather the Vero 4k cannot decode this in hardware, and the CPU is not beefy enough to do it in software. CPU0-3 go to 100% and simply can’t keep up?

Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 2
File size                                : 11.3 GiB
Duration                                 : 1h 33mn
Overall bit rate                         : 17.2 Mbps
Movie name                               : Moonrise Kingdom  (2012)
Encoded date                             : UTC 2012-11-21 15:23:45
Writing application                      : mkvmerge v4.9.1 ('Ich will') built on Jul 11 2011 23:53:15
Writing library                          : libebml v1.2.1 + libmatroska v1.1.1
Attachments                              : arial.ttf

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High 10@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 3 frames
Muxing mode                              : Header stripping
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 1h 33mn
Bit rate                                 : 15.3 Mbps
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 040 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 1.85:1
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (24000/1001) fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 10 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.321
Stream size                              : 10.1 GiB (89%)
Writing library                          : x264 core                      
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Hi

The Vero 4K can’t play 10-bit H264 with hardware acceleration. It can however play back 10-bit HEVC.

I’m not aware of any hardware decoders which can play this back. This format never really caught on outside of the anime scene.

Sam

It looks like there are some software improvements for H264 10-bit that will make their way in to Kodi v18. A test build might give you some improvements