Playing MPG2 .vob files with OSMC in raspberry pi 2

Help and Support Raspberry Pi
1

Hi,
I am using OSMC with Raspberry PI 2.
Thanks for this great software.

When I am trying to play any .vob files, nothing happens. I have purchased the required license keys, installed them and verified that it is installed by running vcgencmd codec_enabled MPG2.

I have uploaded the logs at: http://paste.osmc.io/obewebuqif

I could see few posts but they all refer to a menu that could be used to enable hardware acceleration; but I don’t find this menu ( I am using the latest osmc).

For audio, I want to get 5.1 digital output; therefore I have installed hifiberry digi+ board. I tried disabling the related overlays in the pi-config, but still the problem persists and I am not able to play any .vob files.

Please let me know if you need any more information. Thanks.

2

Could you provide a sample of the vob file please.

3

Your log doesn’t show you playing a file.
Enable debug logging. reboot. Play vob file. Then capture logs.

4

Hi Popcornmix,
Here is the new log with debug enabled: http://paste.osmc.io/ahusukuzar

I still see no trace of me clicking on the .vob files; Just to check I played an mp4 and it shows up in the log file.

Please let me know if you want me to try out anything else. Thanks.

5

Can’t see any attempt to play a vob file. Looking carefully I suspect it was around here:

20:03:54  36.018360 T:1957691952   DEBUG: OnKey: return (0xf00d) pressed, action is Select

(did you try to play a number of files from /media/9C97-D6DF/Dhanush Hits/VIDEO_TS/ ?)

No idea why nothing happened. Possibly a permissions issue? Does copying a vob file to the working path (/media/9C97-D6DF/Songs/Latest/) allow it to be played?

If not can you ssh in and run

ls -l /media/9C97-D6DF/Songs/Latest/

to see if the two files look any different?

6

Thanks for the clue. I will check this out tomorrow and let you know. Thanks again for your time.

7

Hi Popcornmix,
I ran ls -l on the files. I don’t see any difference in the permission bits.
Please let me know if there is anything else you would suspect.

(This is mp4 and it works)
-rw-rw-rw- 1 osmc osmc 87493810 Sep 13 00:08 /media/9C97-D6DF/Songs/Latest/Agayam Theepiditha Official Full Video Song - Madras - Karthi, Catherine Tresa - Santhosh Narayanan.mp4

(This is vob and it does not work)
-rw-rw-rw- 1 osmc osmc 101681152 Oct 25 20:18 /media/9C97-D6DF/Dhanush Hits/VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB

8

Did you try copying the VOB file to a directory that is known to work.
Might also be worth copying it to sdcard.

9

Hi Popcornmix,
I did a fresh image of OSMC into the sdcard and the same .vob videos are now playing fine.
( I guess, it could be because of one of the many packages I installed (like vim and gpsd). Anyway my problem is resolved. for now.)

I also notice that OSMC plays .vob files with and without the MPG2 license keys. I do not see any difference in performance ( My video files are only HD). Is there a way to check if hardware acceleration is being used while playing a video.

Thanks again for this beautiful software.

Thanks and regards,
Suresh

10

The new image also stopped playing the .vob files now. I had few hard power-supply switch-off of the system. I am suspecting some corruption due to hard-shutdown now.

11

If you’re having issues causing hard freezes that require you to pull the power, you really ought to be solving that problem first, as trying to troubleshoot on an unstable system is just going to lead you around in circles…

12

SD (e.g. DVD) playback a without license is okay.
Software decode keeps up. Software deinterlace can only manage half rate output (e.g. 60i -> 30p)
With licence cpu will be much lower and gpu deinterlace can manage full rate output (e.g. 60i -> 60p)

(1080i video from live TV or BluRay will need the licence as software decode is too slow. Pi1 needs the licence for SD video).

13

The power supply here in India is not so reliable. I think I will need to arrange a backup power supply with a battery.

Is there any way to make OSMC stable with respect unreliable power supply. The standard DVD players never get corrupt because of hard power offs. I am wondering how they are different with respect to this aspect comparing to a raspberry pi.

14

When hardware acceleration is used, do you know if audio through hifiberry is supported. I read from other forums that when hardware acceleration is used, kodi uses omxplayer which can not support ALSA and thus hifiberry-digi. But I have not seen this limitation even when I have provided the MPG2 license keys. Maybe kodi does software decoding whenever ALSA sound out is required regardless of license keys.

15

They don’t have their OS on a read-only Flash which can not be corrupted by a power outage

16
17

I guess it is impossible to do a similar thing on the Linux based devices. However, if there is any way to do it in Raspberry PI (Or Vero or the hummingboard boards), I would be more than interested about this.

Also, in my case, only mpg2 playback gets affected after power outage. mpg4 continues to play without a problem. I have fair understanding of Linux and can code in Python. If anyone provides some pointer, I would like to debug and find the root cause.

Thanks.

18

No. There are two hardware acceleration modes, omxplayer and MMAL.
omxplayer runs the whole player on the GPU.
MMAL uses the normal dvdplayer but with video decode accelerated by the GPU.

omxplayer has lower cpu, so is recommended for Pi1, but on a Pi2 either is fine.

ALSA audio is not supported by omxplayer, but MMAL is fine, and you can play 1080p raw BluRay rips without problem on a Pi2.

19

Hi Popcornmix,
That is great news for me.
Thanks again for clarifying this.

20

Popcornmix,
I assume MMAL hardware acceleration would also require the MPG2 license keys. Is that right?