Stuttering video

Help and Support Vero 4K / Vero 4K +
1

I thought I already posted this a while ago but can’t find it so probably not.

There is very small stuttering in many video’s. You hardly see it, but I do. Specially when the camera is moving slowly. When the camera doesn’t move it’s not noticeable.
I’m not sure if it’s only in HEVC content. Everytime I see it I think “write down which movie you’re watching” but then later on forget about it.
I tried a while ago to record it happening so I can show you but it was very difficult to record.

Do you know about this issue Sam?
Is it perhaps already on the list somewhere to fix?

2

No I’m not aware of this issue

Do you have Adjust Refresh Rate enabled? Do you have any kind of motion smoothing enabled on your TV?

3

Sorry to hijack the post, but i have noticed this as well, it would occasionally occurs prior to the April update but it seems to happen much more regularly.

i have tested the files on other devices and they play perfectly, however via the Vero 4k i get the occasional stutter, its not constant and does seems to happen at points of movement when the camera is panning around.

I have adjust refresh rate on start stop enabled and in order to do a test, i disabled this and played the same file and i didn’t notice the same stutter, albeit i didn’t watch a whole episode so its possible i hadn’t watched enough to suffer a stutter.

4

Media info for file:

General
Unique ID : 188522254614913128514135460421638784144 (0x8DD410C6E091B0AA8C53E64DB0AF8490)
Complete name : /Volumes/3Tb/TV/The Flash (2014)/The.Flash.2014.S03E21.1080p.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 2.00 GiB
Duration : 42 min 8 s
Overall bit rate : 6 803 kb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2017-05-10 11:54:47
Writing application : mkvmerge v9.0.1 (‘Obstacles’) 64bit
Writing library : libebml v1.3.3 + libmatroska v1.4.4

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 42 min 8 s
Bit rate : 6 417 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 076 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.130
Stream size : 1.89 GiB (94%)
Writing library : x264 core 148 r2762 90a61ec
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=16 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=230 / keyint_min=22 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=17.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=17500 / vbv_bufsize=17500 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 42 min 8 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 spf)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : 156 ms
Stream size : 116 MiB (6%)
Language : English
Service kind : Complete Main
Default : Yes
Forced : No

5

And my logs:

https://past.osmc.tv/erukuqeleh

6

I have noticed the same issue. At least with hevc videos. I haven’t tried h264 to be honest

7

I tried to record the phenomena with my phone camera but then it’s hardly visible. I’ll try to record with another device.

8

It isn’t always perceivable as my wife sat through a couple of episode of TV and didn’t notice a thing wrong, but I am a little OCD about these things and once i know it is there, I notice it all the time.

9

Exactly. Same here. My wife also didn’t notice it, but I can, every time.

I had adjust refresh rate set to start/stop… Changed to disabled but the same issue.
I checked all motion settings in my tv and they are all disabled.

10

yeah i cant stand watching a TV with the motion stuff on (on my set it is intelligent frame creation) it just looks weird.

11

I also have this issue on both my Vero 4Ks (connected to two different LG TVs, 2K & 4K), it’s pretty minor but occuring across all media.

My partner isn’t noticing it, but I can see it immediately - probably as I have a background in video production and am used to spotting issues like this.

No motion-smoothing or other horrible motion-modifying settings are enabled on the TVs. Media is coming off a NAS, but the problem persists if playing directly off a USB drive. “Adjust Refresh Rate” is on “Start/Stop” but the same problem still occurs on “Always”.

This is a different issue to the massive stuttering/skipping I posted about a while ago, which was only occurring on VC1-encoded Blu-ray MKV files (which I solved by simply re-encoding them to 10bit H.265 HEVC).

Edit to Add: Despite the minor “early-days” bugs which seem to be quickly fixed as they come up, the Vero 4K is a great device which is very well supported, and I’m very happy with it. Thanks to Sam, the Vero team, and the OSMC community!

1 Like
12

Do you still need a video recording of it? Or can you work with the info we gave you now?
Because it’s a bit difficult to capture.

This is the last serie I watched and where the stuttering (while the camera is panning) can be seen:

General
Unique ID                                : 178707858121870507066105861154152196744 (0x8671E1ABA668686AB2A3CE8D05692A88)
Complete name                            : Black.Mirror.3x01.Nosedive.ITA.ENG.1080p.WEBMux.x264-Fratposa.mkv
Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 4 / Version 2
File size                                : 3.46 GiB
Duration                                 : 1 h 2 min
Overall bit rate                         : 7 908 kb/s
Movie name                               : [3x01] Nosedive - Caduta libera
Encoded date                             : UTC 2016-10-22 11:32:00
Writing application                      : mkvmerge v8.9.0 ('Father Daughter') 64bit
Writing library                          : libebml v1.3.3 + libmatroska v1.4.4

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 4 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 1 h 2 min
Bit rate                                 : 7 074 kb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 012 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 1.897
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.152
Stream size                              : 3.10 GiB (89%)
Writing library                          : x264 core 148 r2705 3f5ed56
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=18 / lookahead_threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=17.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Color range                              : Limited
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : A_AC3
Duration                                 : 1 h 2 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 192 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 kHz
Frame rate                               : 28.711 FPS (1536 spf)
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 86.1 MiB (2%)
Language                                 : Italian
Service kind                             : Complete Main
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Audio #2
ID                                       : 3
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : A_AC3
Duration                                 : 1 h 2 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 640 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 31.250 FPS (1536 spf)
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 287 MiB (8%)
Language                                 : English
Service kind                             : Complete Main
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

Text #1
ID                                       : 4
Format                                   : UTF-8
Codec ID                                 : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info                            : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration                                 : 53 min 4 s
Bit rate                                 : 3 b/s
Count of elements                        : 44
Stream size                              : 1.25 KiB (0%)
Title                                    : Forced
Language                                 : Italian
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : Yes

Text #2
ID                                       : 5
Format                                   : UTF-8
Codec ID                                 : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info                            : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration                                 : 1 h 1 min
Bit rate                                 : 67 b/s
Count of elements                        : 892
Stream size                              : 30.5 KiB (0%)
Language                                 : Italian
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

Text #3
ID                                       : 6
Format                                   : UTF-8
Codec ID                                 : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info                            : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration                                 : 1 h 1 min
Bit rate                                 : 56 b/s
Count of elements                        : 719
Stream size                              : 25.6 KiB (0%)
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
13

I can see this stuttering as well. Especially in 1080p movies. I thought that it is just HEVC at first, but now more and more 1080p x264 also appear to stutter. All options are default except buffermode set to 2. I didn’t see this issue on RPi3. I have pretty old Sharp TV, I’ve never messed with any TV features before.
It seems like the CPU cannot handle the video for fraction of second and then the stuttering appear - also it is pretty random - when I rewind it is not usually appearing in the same moment. Of course, since it is HW decoded, the CPU load is pretty idle. I’m just trying to describe how it looks like.
I am using ethernet and new HW NAS and I easily get 10MBps on vero (using dd) reading from hard mounted nfs share, so it is definitely not the network issu. I was even considering that I imagine this, but then I came across this topic.

Example media info of the movie that stutters:
http://paste.osmc.io/ipajacevix.md

14

CPU shouldn’t be decoding video at all.
Do you have Adjust Refresh Rate enabled?

Sam

15

It is ok with “Adjust Refresh Rate”, but there is annoying flapping (renegotiating) hdmi connection every time I start and stop video. So knowing what is causing the stutter, I recognized that majority of movies have 24 Hz refresh rate so I’ve just changed the default kodi refresh rate to 24 and I believe that for like 99% of movies it will be ok. For the rest I can live with the renegotation.

Thank you

16

Unfortunately I am witnessing the stutter across pretty much all media regardless of refresh rate or the codec used, it is worse on some but i haven’t been able to narrow down a cause and its pretty much frustrating.

Not going to lie, disappointed i am having to resort to other methods to play back media i bought the vero 4k to do.

17

Does the issue occur if you copy and play a problematic file from local storage on the V4K itself? Have you tested with ethernet instead of wifi?

18

Yes to both unfortunately. At first i thought it might be the file, but they play perfectly on other devices so it seems to be specific to the Vero 4k.

I have tried different NAS (i have three) with both wifi and Ethernet as well as local storage and the problem is the same in all scenarios.

19

Sorry to hear you are disappointed.

The issue for @msieminski was seemingly that Adjust Refresh Rate was not enabled. This can cause video to not be played back smoothly, particularly during something like a panning shot.

A fresh debug log playing back a file from the eMMC would be good.

Sam

20

Here you go

Logs

and the media info for the latest file:

General
Unique ID : 210630065156078365692831925866606503038 (0x9E75DFFDDA410882BF25BCA490FA247E)
Complete name : /Volumes/UNTITLED/Test.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 2.13 GiB
Duration : 42 min 33 s
Overall bit rate : 7 172 kb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2017-05-11 10:33:48
Writing application : mkvmerge v9.0.1 (‘Obstacles’) 64bit
Writing library : libebml v1.3.3 + libmatroska v1.4.4

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 42 min 33 s
Bit rate : 6 787 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 076 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.137
Stream size : 2.02 GiB (95%)
Writing library : x264 core 148 r2762 90a61ec
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=16 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=230 / keyint_min=22 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=17.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=17500 / vbv_bufsize=17500 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 42 min 33 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 spf)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : 21 ms
Stream size : 117 MiB (5%)
Language : English
Service kind : Complete Main
Default : Yes
Forced : No