[mythtv-users] mpeg2 video stuttering

[ojw at weilerfamily.com]

Quoting Yeechang Lee <ylee at pobox.com>:

> ojw at weilerfamily.com <ojw at weilerfamily.com> says:
>> The problem I'm having is that when I try to view either a recorded
>> show or something live'ish (from the ringbuffer),
>
> MythTV hasn't used a ringbuffer for live TV in almost three
> years. Live TV is essentially an automated recording rule's that's
> created and deleted on the fly.

My mistake, I apologize for not using the right terminology.

>> the view jitters.  What should be obviously smooth scene pans turns
>> into jerky stutter steps through the scene.
>
> Given that you specifically refer to pans I presume you get smooth
> playback elsewhere, so it's not a driver issue that switching to the
> proprietary Nvidia ones from the free Xorg ones would solve. As you've
> already noted in your reply to Mike Dean, what you have isn't a
> prebuffering-delay issue (although the Wiki page he pointed to, which
> I hadn't seen, is great for those with that problem).

I am actually using the proprietary drives from nvidia (v173.14.12).
As for the "smooth pans", I experienced those on a Windows based PC
running XP using Windows Media Player on the mpeg2 file I copied
from my mythtv data directory.  I have yet to get smooth playback
using anything on my mythtv box.

> Does
> <URL:http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/203862#203862>
> help? (Written more than two years ago so adjust driver version
> numbers and some of the playback-settings wording accordingly. I'd
> also try Standard decoder first.)

It's got lots of good info in it that I'll try.  Thanks for
the link!

> mplayer is great for what it does, but is irrelevant when discussing
> how MythTV's internal player works.
>
> mplayer's performance-related error messages are very generic and will
> pop up in any context involving inadequate performance, whether
> CPU-related or not.

Gotcha.  I'll stick to mythtv when testing.

I asked this question in another email that I just sent but for
completeness, I'll ask it here too: is a dual core 2.53Ghz intel
CPU (E7200) powerful enough to do 1080i on mpeg2 data?  Based
on some benchmark data I found, it appears to at least twice as
fast as a P4 3.0Ghz processor (no idea what benchmark was run
but that's gotta say something).

Oliver