Hi, my vero 4k worked flawlessly for a long time (1+ year), until an update introduced frame skipping, slowdowns and problems with blackouts. I never bothered to look into it, and a few updates later the problem was gone. Now with the latest update, the problems are back. Super annoying.
Watching a full 1080p movie means blackouts for 2-5 seconds every 5mins or so. They also skip frames a lot. Sometimes every 5 seconds, to then work as expected for 10-15mins or more until it starts skipping again.
Just now watching a movie I had the info and debug panel up. I could clearly see the frames skipping. A weird thing I noticed was it was using the HW decoder, but one of the cpu’s maxed out at 100% load quite a lot (all others at 2-10%). It later settled down by itself and by then is stopped skipping as many frames.
It’s not due to my network/nas, as the buffer was full / way ahead all the time (visible in the search bar / timeline and debug info). I’ve also tested through iPerf and get about 600mbit throughput (if I remember correctly). Using wired/wifi doesn’t matter for my issues. The movie I watched now was quite low on the bitrate and I saw no correlation between high bitrate and skips / slowdowns.
I also read something about true motion etc. in combination with auto refresh rate could introduce skipping. Well anyway all those kind of settings are off on my tv.
My full setup:
Vero 4k to Yamaha RX-V681 (mostly watch with the Yamaha off where it acts as a “dumb” hdmi switch).
Yamaha to LG B6 oled.
WD Nas hosts the files.
Hi, just tried. Still does both frame drops and blackout directly connected to the TV.
One interesting thing I caught now was that during the blackout (lasted maybe 3-5 seconds) the vero switched from 24fps output/playback to 23.976. The movie I tried is 23.976.
No cpu spikes during playback this time, stayed in the bottom 10% of all four cores.
Also this is with another hdmi cable & input on the tv, so should rule out that as well unless all my cables are somehow bad…
Logs including this last playback. Stopped playback and uploaded logs basically straight away after blackout (maybe a few minutes after). https://paste.osmc.tv/xolegataza
Also tried watching the same file on my computer. It drops a low number of frames there too, but not at all visible like the Vero (I couldn’t visibly tell at all but the debug panel told me 10 lost frames over maybe 10 minutes). The vero noticeably stutters and also does it on basically all my media.
Another thing I noticed, when it “stutters”, the debug info ticks up by 2-3 frames dropped. But in reality the stutter/hickup lasts a lot longer, maybe 0.25 to 0.5 seconds (so should be about 6-12 frames on a 24fps video). It’s really noticable.
Just tried from a thumb-drive, and the same issues was still there. It does it even on low-bitrate content so shouldn’t be due to bandwidth issues.
I made the media info logs myself using “MediaInfo” on my mac.
I think (not 100% sure) that the issues wasn’t present in the Jan. update. Perhaps I could try and downgrade and report back? In that case, how would I do this semi-simple and keep my settings etc? (I have some limited exp. with linux/ssh etc. so shouldn’t be to difficult on my end).
I just noticed you are playing 1080p files on a 4k tv.
Are 2106p files playing ok since they are native to your display?
Just thinking out loud but could it be a lose or defect hdmi cable causing the sporadic blackouts?
Do you have resolution set to 1080p and adjust refresh rate set to start/stop or Always ( this is important)
I have aladin myself on my personal pc but due to covid I work from home and have the work pc set up at the moment and can’t access the files on my personal computer.
Maybe someone else could try playing it to see if they have issues as well
The only 4k files I have are really high bitrate and stutter/buffer because my lan can’t keep up, so I would have to test it locally before commenting on this.
However, playing 1080p content hasn’t been a problem in the past, and certainly isn’t a problem with my other devices. Native tv player, chromecast, my laptop and an ancient Boxee Box all play back the same content just fine on the same tv/settings.
I’ve tried 3 different HDMI cables and several inputs on the TV, so that shouldn’t be the problem either.
Adjust refresh rate is set to start/stop. I’ve had it that way since I first set up the Vero. Sync playback is disabled. Maybe I should try to give that one a go.
I don’t think there’s an issue here with a specific film/file (Aladdin) as these issues are precent in my entire library. Also, other devices play back the same files with out issue.
Maybe I just have a hardware fault in my vero, or something is messed up software wise. If anyone has a “simple” guide I’d happily downgrade to the jan update and test as I think that one didn’t have the problem. I cannot remember exactly but the issues started for me with an update maybe 1-2 years ago and has come and gone with updates since then. Maybe a total reset of settings/library would help too, although I’d rather not go that route as I have it set up exactly as I like it…
And see if any of the options such as Lock HDMI HPD, Force 422 colour and Force RGB make a difference but enable them one by one and disable them afterwards if they don’t fix your issue.
I think you need to have settings level set to expert to see those options
Other than that I’m out of ideas but I’m sure @sam_nazarko or other helpful people here will help you
@sam_nazarko Any tips on what to do next? I could try and downgrade to the jan update to see if that fixes it. Any way to do this without loosing my settings etc?
@sam_nazarko A clean install of 2020-01 DID solve the issue! No more stutters / blackouts.
Now for the next step, I’m wondering wether I should first test a clean install of 2020-03 or reloading my backup to 2020-01 and test that first. Would any of the options be more helpful for you?