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Like MBT but... It's unusable for video playback


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Is MBT using DirectShow for video playback?  I get smooth playback in all other DirectShow applications including the rudimentary GraphEdit so I don't understand why MBT would be any different?

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Is MBT using DirectShow for video playback?  I get smooth playback in all other DirectShow applications including the rudimentary GraphEdit so I don't understand why MBT would be any different?

 

It would be different because MBT is still in developmental stages and is not a release ready application.

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  • 8 months later...
Any update on this front? I assume MBT is "release ready" now as there is no "alpha" or "beta" when I download it.

I have being trying MBT over the last couple of days and am getting the same stuttering others have reported.

I have tried various combinations of video settings with no luck. I do not get these issues with MBC on the same PC.

Admittedly my PC is a few years old, but if the same videos play fine in MBC then it mustn't be the hardware.

 

MBT: 3.0.5377.16926

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 2.70 GHz

RAM: 4GB (3.12GB usable, 896MB allocated to GPU)

GPU: Onboard ATI Radeon HD 4250

 

MBC CPU usage ~20%

MBT CPU usage ~50%

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I have the same situation as noski, AMD A6-6400 with stuttering in MBT but smooth sailing using MBC (same PC, same video). 

 

Willing to do some testing when the team is ready to start polishing MBT playback.

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Getumzz

I dont have any problems with MBT.

Playback is working really good.

The only problem is that i get audo desync some times but i think its more the encode.

And random crashes thanks to the R9 drivers (I think, dont have the same problem with 4770)

MBT: 3.0.5362.41853
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 3.20 GHz
RAM: 8GB

GPU: AMD Radeon R9 270

 

CPU usage: 3-14%

Edited by MrDon
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Ghostm

I have the same situation as noski, AMD A6-6400 with stuttering in MBT but smooth sailing using MBC (same PC, same video). 

 

Willing to do some testing when the team is ready to start polishing MBT playback.

 

Did you try disabling custom renderer in the system xml?

 

Set it to false, seems to work for many amd users.

 

?

Also if you disable custom renderer set hardware acceleration to none in the gui, that worked for me and at least 2 other amd users before, its worth a shot.  And it worked for this guy with an amd 6400 apu.

 

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/10217-unable-to-get-smooth-playback/

 

The team is going to need more info as well on your system  if the above does not work. What is your audio renderer set to, do you have hardware accel enabled. 

Edited by Ghostm
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Hi Ghostm, thanks for the quick replies.

I did try setting UseCustomPresenter to false in the system.xml config file as you suggested. Unfortunately for me it wasn't the miracle cure that it has been for others.

I suspect that is because they have beefier hardware than I do. For me it had no noticeable affect.

Disabling Hardware Acceleration Mode makes things worse and CPU goes to 100%. For my PC, I need Hardware Acceleration.

Enabling madVR also makes things worse. I believe the onboard graphics can't handle it.

Audio render is set to Default.

I just spent the day formatting the PC and starting from scratch to ensure there wasn't any previous filters interfering from something else. I installed just the server and MBT.

Playback improves when in windowed mode, however when it goes to fullscreen, it stutters.

 

I am not sure if this is related, but when I click on "Configure Subtitles" I get an error message "The was a problem starting C:\Program Files (x86)\LAVFilters\x86\LAVSplitter.ax. The specified module could not be found". I understand MBT uses LAV filters from its own installation location so this error is confusing. A bug?

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Ghostm

Dont know if it was similar to mine but suddenly i could not configure the audio settings either with a similar error, yours might be different but luke instructed me to remove my system.xml file, that worked for me.

Back up your system.xml file though especially if you have external players configured. 

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Thanks Ghostm, but mine was with the subtitles, not audio. And this is with a fresh install so I assume everyone is getting this error.

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Unfortunately it seems that dxva2 hardware acceleration just isn't working properly in MBT.

Looks like I will have to abandon MBT and go back to MBC. Hopefully this will get fixed.

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Ghostm

Hardware acceleration is causing stutter on some systems, without explanation, i spent a week with babgvant trying to diagnose why its stuttering turned on for me and it simply does not work for some. His amd test system (an A8) works fine, and A8htpc on here confirms it works fine for his as well. My A10 it causes stutter with it enabled, i have no idea why sadly.

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Ghostm

Thanks Ghostm, but mine was with the subtitles, not audio. And this is with a fresh install so I assume everyone is getting this error.

 

My htpc is working fine when i click subtitles, but I have not tried my desktop. All i can suggest is if you would want to try to fix the issue perhaps install it separately until the bug can fixed, or try installing the latest version in the alpha thread at the top of the forum. Its hard to say why my htpc does not have this problem and yours does (and again I will have to try on my desktop to confirm its fine on it as well). 

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Koleckai Silvestri

Video playback just gets worse and worse with Theater. Now if I don't use it full screen, there are always artifacts in the borders. Random borders each time. These artifacts just flicker and is a large problem in viewing video. People have to be able to resize windows, move them from one monitor to another and so forth.

 

The video in the image is a just a streaming trailer from the cinema mode but it happens in any video file whether television episode or movie. Both HD and SD.

 

fclvQV9.png

Edited by Koleckai Silvestri
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elshagon

It's weird for me in MBT all my videos play on one machine except there's one MP4 video that stutters like crazy.  To get it to work I must turn off hardware acceleration.  I'm using a nvidia video card and the pc has plenty of power.  On my other 2 pc's which have amd video cards I can turn hardware acceleration to auto and everything plays fine.  Hopefully video playback is still being worked on as madvr is a no go for me but works fine in mpc exclusive mode.  MBT needs exclusive mode I think for better playback.

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mjb2000

Just to chip in on this. I agree MBT is a great application and looks fantastic, however video playback does seem to be very CPU intensive and choppy. I have low power CPU (J1900) and this is what I observe...

 

h264 1080p 2000kbps VBR + AAC 2.0

  • Windows Media Player - Flawless playback, CPU 8-13% usage
  • VLC (No HW decode acceleration) - Flawless playback, CPU 35-50%
  • VLC (DXVA decode acceleration) - Flawless playback, CPU 16-22%
  • MBT (HWA disabled) - Occasionally choppy playback, CPU 45-75%
  • MBT (QuickSync) - Flawless playback, CPU 35-45%
  • MBT (DXVA) - Occasionally choppy playback, CPU 45-52%

So as you can see, even though playback of this relatively low bitrate mp4 was pretty good across all players, there was definitely a big difference in CPU usage. I suppose this difference in utilisation is probably not as easy to notice on higher spec machines, but something about the way in which MBT is playing this video back is definitely using more resources than necessary.

 

Looking forward to future updates! :)

 

M

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jasonmcroy

I have finally gotten MBT to play properly since the latest updates and installing a new cpu and doing as descibed in the last post.

 

The only video it will not play properly for some reason are any tv shows I record via NextPVR that are all in .ts format. I also have audio sync issues for some reason. Everything else plays perfectly now but those.

 

I am happy that it looks like MBT has come a long way!

 

-Jason

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mjb2000

Thanks Spon, but I have to agree with Koleckai - This should work without having to rely on MadVR. For me, and my low-power system using MadVR seems to suck too many system resources and as a result video ends up less smooth! Whereas playback through WMP or VLC is smoother and uses less CPU

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We are working on making MBT more efficient for low power machines, but in the meantime, the great thing about this project is we have a number of different apps to suit a number of different needs. Have you tried XBMB3C? It runs on everything, has the same feature set, and a new skin that looks very much like MBT:

 

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/11544-immersive-skin-with-mb3-support/

 

 

1AtgdRi.jpg

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Koleckai Silvestri

This may or may not help you guys, but I was having a hard time getting smooth playback in MBT until I made a couple of changes as detailed in the link below. Hope it helps!

 

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/10217-unable-to-get-smooth-playback/

 

Shouldn't need to use an external player like MadVR to get quality comparable to the Web App. Shouldn't have to change a bunch of settings to get basic playback without grid lines and flickering. These are things advanced users should do to improve things even better. I can't even get usable playback out of the box.

Edited by Koleckai Silvestri
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mjb2000

WOW! Thanks Luke

 

I've been playing around with this for a few hours and it seems fantastic. A huge amount of tweaking is possible and the playback performance is great.

 

:)

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