[mythtv-users] MacOSX frontend & 1080i

[Andrew Gallatin]

Todd Ignasiak [ignasiak at gmail.com] wrote:
> On 3/12/07, Andrew Gallatin <gallatin at cs.duke.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Is anybody able to play smooth, 1080i video using the MacOSX frontend?
> 
> 1080i works well for me, on my 1.66GHz Core Duo Mac Mini + 720P DLP Display.

Cool!  What output resulution do you run at? 

I've always 1080i problems on my Linux box as well, and was thinking
about purchasing a Mini to use as a frontend, which is why I was
playing around on MacOSX.

> > After upgrading my Linux combined front/backend to 0.20-fixes, I
> > decided to try the MacOSX frontend on my 2.16GHz Core2 Duo iMac with a
> > Radeon x1600 (1680x1050 lcd).  I'm running the MacOSX binary from
> > http://www.goof.com/~mmead/MythFrontend-MacOSXUniversal-0.20-fixes-20061001.dmg.bz2.

Do you run this same binary, or did you build it yourself..?

> > Standard def, and 720p content works flawlessly, but 1080i has
> > annoying jerkiness. The same 1080i files play flawlessly with vlc.  I
> > have tried the hints in the Wiki, and have tried libmpeg2, etc, but to
> > no avail.  The machine is 65-75% idle when playing 1080i, so I don't
> > *think* CPU is the issue.
> >
> > One thing I've fixated on is the messages I find in the log when
> > I enable verbose playback.  This is printed roughly 4 times per
> > second:
> >
> > 2007-03-12 09:52:05.459 NVP: Video is 3.57936 frames ahead of audio,
> >                         doubling video frame interval to slow down.
> 
> Have you tried changing the video playback settings?  I have "Use
> video as timebase" disabled in my configuration.     Maybe also try
> different de-interlacing settings to see the effect.

I've tried enabling and disabling the "video as timebase", as well
as totally disabling de-interlacing.  No matter what I do, I still
see the "NVP: Video is 3.x frames ahead of audio" several times
per second, corresponding to surging, or jerkiness in the video.

Can you do me a favor, and play a 1080i video with verbose audio and
playback enabled
(/Applications/MythFrontend.app/Contents/MacOS/mythfrontend -v
audio,playback > log ) and check your log for these messages?  And
maybe see what the audio format of the recording is and what your
audio device gets set to?  That might put my mind at ease as to
whether this audio thing is what is killing me.

Thanks,

Drew