[mythtv-users] HEVC/H.265 playback

[Leo Butler]

Stuart Auchterlonie <stuarta at squashedfrog.net> writes:

> On 21/04/2021 17:45, Leo Butler via mythtv-users wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I briefly did some experimenting with transcoding recordings using
>> libx265+ffmpeg in an mpegts container.
>> While the transcoding was fine and playback is fine over my lan
>> using
>> ffplay on my (old, slow) laptop, on my dedicated frontend only cartoons
>> playback ok; other transcoded recordings have a lot of stutter and are
>> unwatchable. I will guess that this is because the dedicated frontend is
>> about 8 years old and has a slower cpu [*,**].
>> I wonder if anyone has experience in these matters? Would a graphics
>> card be an option (the frontend has a couple low profile pci-e slots
>> available)? I am using ubuntu 20.04 and v0.31/fixes from the mythbuntu
>> ppa, if that matters.
>> 
>
> Try transcoding to a format your existing hardware can accelerate.

Yes, I currently transcode to h264.

>
> You didn't say what graphics card / video playback profile you are
> using. You will need to look at that first, to determine
> "what formats" it'll support.
>
> Given you are speculating about adding a graphics card, then I would
> hazard a guess you have an embedded intel gpu. So try running `vainfo`

Thanks for the suggestion. You are right, I do not have a graphics card
installed at the moment. My current hardware gives:

# vainfo
error: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set in the environment.
error: can't connect to X server!
libva info: VA-API version 1.7.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/r600_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_7
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.7 (libva 2.6.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Mesa Gallium driver 20.2.6 for AMD SUMO (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.4.0-72-generic, LLVM 11.0.0)
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Simple              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline:	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileNone                   :	VAEntrypointVideoProc
# 

Leo