[mythtv-users] Some DVD video will not play properly

[Stephen Worthington]

On Thu, 11 Jul 2013 16:37:50 +1000, you wrote:

>On 11 July 2013 16:06, Stephen Worthington <stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:
>> MythTV-0.26-fixes
>>
>> I have run across several old DVDs that will not play properly using
>> Mythfrontend.  I have not bothered to look into the problem as they
>> play fine using mplayer, which I have set up as an alternate player in
>> Mythfrontend.  But my mother has now had the same problem with a
>> ballet DVD she wants to see, and learning to use mplayer would be very
>> difficult for her - she is only just able to play things with
>> Mythfrontend, and finds leading new technology very hard at her age.
>> So I would like to see if there is a way to fix it for her.
>
>but are you using VDPAU in mplayer? probably not (it isn't used by
>default unless you explicitly ask for it)
>
>Seems to be a decoding error. VDPAU while much more robust that it
>used to be, isn't as robust as the software decoder.
>
>So you could try changing the video playback profile from VDPAU back
>to "Normal", or if you have powerful enough machine use "OpenGL
>High-Quality"
>
>
>>   http://www.jsw.gen.nz/mythtv/Ondine_clip.mpg
>>   (49,498,116 bytes)
>>
>> The clip plays fine with mplayer and vlc, and any player software I
>> have tried on my Windows PC.
>
>neither of them would use VDPAU
>
>Have you tried playing it with mplayer configured to use vdpau?
>(start mplayer with -vo=vdpau,xv,
>-vc=ffh264vdpau,ffmpeg12vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,ffvc1vdpau, )
>
>the trailings "," are important.

I do normally use mplayer with vdpau, or at least I thought I had set
it up right to do that - I am not an mplayer guru by any means.  Here
is the output of "ps -ef | grep mplayer" while playing the clip from
mythfrontend:

  sh -c mplayer -noborder -geometry 1368x1026+277+31 -vo vdpau
"/myth/video/Ondine_clip.mpg"

I tried using your command line from an xterm logged in as the same
user as mythfrontend and got this:

mplayer
-vo=vdpau,xv,-vc=ffh264vdpau,ffmpeg12vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,
Ondine_clip.mpg 
Unknown option on the command line:
-vo=vdpau,xv,-vc=ffh264vdpau,ffmpeg12vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,
Error parsing option on the command line:
-vo=vdpau,xv,-vc=ffh264vdpau,ffmpeg12vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,
MPlayer svn r34540 (Ubuntu), built with gcc-4.6 (C) 2000-2012 MPlayer
Team

So I tried again without the = characters and it worked and played the
clip just fine using VDPAU:

mplayer -vo vdpau,xv, -vc
ffh264vdpau,ffmpeg12vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,ffvc1vdpau, Ondine_clip.mpg |
tee mplayer.log

produced this log file:

MPlayer svn r34540 (Ubuntu), built with gcc-4.6 (C) 2000-2012 MPlayer
Team

Playing Ondine_clip.mpg.
libavformat version 53.21.1 (external)
Mismatching header version 53.19.0
MPEG-PS file format detected.
VIDEO:  MPEG2  720x576  (aspect 2)  25.000 fps  9000.0 kbps (1125.0
kbyte/s)
Load subtitles in ./
==========================================================================
Forced video codec: ffh264vdpau
Forced video codec: ffmpeg12vdpau
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
libavcodec version 53.35.0 (external)
Mismatching header version 53.32.2
Selected video codec: [ffmpeg12vdpau] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-1/2
(VDPAU))
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 192.0 kbit/12.50% (ratio: 24000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [ffac3] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg AC-3)
==========================================================================
AO: [alsa] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Starting playback...
[VD_FFMPEG] XVMC-accelerated MPEG-2.
Movie-Aspect is 1.33:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [vdpau] 720x576 => 768x576 MPEG2 VDPAU acceleration 
[mpegvideo_vdpau @ 0x7fea5942d380]allocate dummy last picture for
field based first keyframe
A:   0.4 V:   0.3 A-V:  0.139 ct:  0.000   1/  2 ??% ??% ??,?% 1 0 
A:   0.5 V:   0.3 A-V:  0.167 ct: -0.003   1/  3 ??% ??% ??,?% 2 0 
A:   0.5 V:   0.4 A-V:  0.110 ct: -0.007   2/  4 ??% ??% ??,?% 3 0 
[snip]
A:   6.3 V:   6.3 A-V:  0.023 ct: -0.032 152/305  3%  1%  0.3% 5 0 
A:   6.4 V:   6.3 A-V:  0.021 ct: -0.030 153/306  3%  1%  0.3% 5 0 

Exiting... (Quit)

So I then changed my mythfrontend settings from "VDPAU High Quality"
to "Normal", and that fixed the problem on my MythTV box - mythfronted
played the clip properly.  Unfortunately my mother's MythTV box has a
much older motherboard than mine and does not have the processor power
to play her HD recordings without VDPAU, so I can not just set her PC
to play using the processor.

So you are right - it is something to do with VDPAU, but it does not
seem to affect mplayer, just mythfrontend.

In case it matters, I am using an Asus Bravo 220 video card (Nvidia
GT220), and my mother's box is using its motherboard's builtin Nvidia
GeForce 8200 chip.  We are both using Mythbuntu 12.04 with the Nvidia
304.88 drivers.