So I have some movies that play fluently and others that stutter (both video and audio) and are unwatchable.
I already tried adding caching in the advancedsettings file, toggling syncing with display, toggling play with omxplayer etc.
It must be something with decodeing I think because on the pc it works fine (also using kodi).
But what I find strange is that the movie that doesn’t work is smaller in size has less audio channels and smaller resolution.
What can I do to solve this? I have a Pi3 running the latest OSMC version.
This is the log file where the first file (Revenant) plays perfect and second file (Spy) doesn’t. http://paste.osmc.io/vupipuwixo.vhdl
There are a few Blu-Ray class h.264 videos that won’t play without stutter on a Raspberry Pi. A Blu-Ray can theoretically have a bit rate a little bit faster than the Raspberry Pi can handle. The point is usually moot because the movie complexity keeps the bit rate below the Raspberry Pi limit. However, some animated movies, with a much simpler scene structure, are artificially made larger by goosing the bit rate. I think this is likely done to make sure the movie won’t fit on a single-layer Blu-Ray blank. The movie Frozen is an example. Something like this might be the cause of your stutter.
h.263 does not have hardware support, so the stutter there may be caused by the software decoder not keeping up. Do you have any add-on processes chewing up CPU cycles?
Also, I see that you’re using WIFI. In my setup, some videos played over WIFI, and other stutter. Again, I think this is bit-rate dependent. I switched to a hard Ethernet connection. I can count on one hand the videos that had to be massaged to eliminate stuttering.
I don’t believe this is true. We can actually play 3D MVC Blu-Rays which have a bitrate 50% higher than 2D Blu-Rays (60Mbit/s for video, compared to 40Mbit/s).
If you have a Blu-Ray that doesn’t play smoothly, can you produce a two minute sample (e.g. with makemkv) and get that to me (e.g. using a hosting site like dropbox or google drive).
Obviously if you are using wifi, or have network throughput issues, then you will struggle to play high bitrate files, but there should be no issues when network is good, or if files are played locally (e.g. from sdcard or USB stick).
I can’t find the blurays so I only have the files as they are.
BTW I first had WIFI setup but that’s a while ago. Wifi sis disabled and it’s all connected via network cable.
For Spy this is the info, does that help to say something useful about my issues?:
The filesize is only 3,8Gb
[mediainfo]
Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Simple@L5
Format settings, BVOP : No
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 2h 10mn
Bit rate : 3 796 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 534 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.232
Stream size : 3.46 GiB (95%)
Writing library : Lavc56.20.100
Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Mode extension : MS Stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 2h 10mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 179 MiB (5%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 24 ms (0.58 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 504 ms
Writing library : LAME3.99.5
It says the issue is more likely timestamp related than network bandwidth or CPU.
XVID often uses (esp. in avi container) a horrible hack to handle B-frames before they were generally supported.
It becomes quite tricky to associate the timestamps back to the frames after this hack, especially with a hardware decoder. You might want to try disabling omxplayer and mmal acceleration and see if software decode works better (a Pi3 will probably handle this file, Pi2 will be borderline and Pi1 no chance).
If you provide a sample of the file (e.g. cut a two minute sample from it and upload to a hosting site like dropbox or google drive) I can try to improve the playback. Try to pick a point where the stutter is obvious (e.g. with camera movement).
I tried turning off mmal and omxplayer but no difference. Also tried it by switching them on (each at a time).
I have a pi3 btw.
I can’t make a smaller file as I can’t find the blueray but I’ll PM you the link where another copy can be found.
I don’t know if you already saw my other reply and personal message but indeed it seems to be the case for XVID files.
I tried a few XVID video’s and they all have this issue.
Strangely, if I remember correctly, they did work fine in the previous OSMC version. So do you think it can be fixed in a newer version again?
Also is there a workaround like using a certain addon or so?
Is there another device other than the Raspberry Pi3 that does play it well? And then of course I’m looking for something around the same price. Would the Vero work!?
Well, this is embarrassing. I am unable to reproduce the stuttering problem I had earlier. I retrieved the “Frozen” Blu-Ray that caused me issues before. In the intro where snowflakes show up, the picture and sound would start stuttering. I solved the issue at that time by cutting the movie size down to something smaller. At the time, “Inside Out” had a similar issue. No other Blu-Rays that I’ve watched through OSMC had any problems at all. Disney movies?
I’m now running the latest OSMC. I’m sure that when I had stuttering before, I was running a version at least a couple of months earlier.I run a pretty vanilla flavor of OSMC. The only add-ons I typically use are Pandoki and sometimes Samba server. I’m not running that now.
Today, the entire movie played perfectly from the Blu-Ray .iso. I checked on a Raspberry Pi 3 (no overclock) and a Raspberry Pi 2 (overclocked to OSMC “turbo”). No problems at all. Clearly, as you indicated, this is not a bit-rate problem. I have no idea what was causing me grief before. Something to do with Blu-Ray structure? No an issue any more.
Strangely, if I remember correctly, they did work fine in the previous OSMC version. So do you think it can be fixed in a newer version again?
Also is there a workaround like using a certain addon or so?
Is there another device other than the Raspberry Pi3 that does play it well? And then of course I’m looking for something around the same price. Would the Vero work!?