[mythtv-users] Poor quality jerky video playback

[John Pilkington]

On 25/02/11 14:32, Anthony Rooney wrote:
> Hi
>
> Having got myth video to be able to read other network drive locations I
> am disappointed to see the very poor quality playback across the board
> with all video formats. I have copied some of the video files locally to
> the Mythbox to rule out network latency issues however the quality is
> still very poor. Playing DVD compilations in Myth Video does not allow
> you to just play from the parent directory level and read the ifo file
> and play back the VOB in the correct order like so many other DVD
> players . You seem to have to play each individual VOB files which is
> very useless even through it can play the content if is not presented as
> a logic package. It does not seem to honour the menu structures as you
> wouold expect. I’m sure here is a step I am missing that someone can
> help with. How do you get rid of all the questin marks on the files?

I think some people convert their dvds to .iso format, but I have done 
very little watching of commercial dvds so that may not be the best 
route.  Should preserve menus.  Or get the content with a ripper.
>
> I noticed playback of videos is particularly bad with files captured
> with my HD Camcorder VIXIA HFS 21 which saves files natively to a .mts
> format at whatever resolution you chose.

There's a very recent thread relating to playback of camera files.  it 
may help; you ought to be able to find it in the gossamer-threads 
searchable archive.  I don't know if you've found that.  keyword for 
that thread would be m2ts.

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/

  Myth Video is very jerky with
> the playback regardless to the capture resolution momentarily stalling
> every 6 seconds and VLC player is even worse. Movie Player make the best
> effort playing back footage however none are as smooth as Windows media
> player or PowerDVD, Real Player or Nero Media Hub in the Windows
> platform. I cannot imagine that playing back video files in Ubuntu
> should have such a performance difference so I was looking for some
> advice about what codecs I need to add to my Linux machine so it can
> play back video clips at the same quality as Windows or a mac with
> equivalent hardware?
>
> I have found that flip videos that are downloaded in Ubuntu are
> unrecognised by Movie player an myth video by default but are played by
> VLC without a problem. If I use video redo to edit the MP4 clips and
> resave in video redo as MP4 (H.264) movie player will play them fine.
> All of the windows applications play the flip video fine however
> ubuntu’s support for video is flaky. It plays the files without
> reporting an error but very badly making them unwatchable.
>
> What do I need to do to narrow the performance gap so I can use my Myth
> box as a media centre? Do I need to remux them at different frames per
> second to remove the jerky playback the so degrades the quality? How can
> some many windows apps play the files well by default whereas Linux apps
> seem to need fine tuning?

Probably because it's been someone's job to do the fine - or at least 
some - tuning to give some Windows compatibility for all the 
devices/file types that you're hoping to use.  Now you get the 
opportunity to do that - if someone else hasn't beaten you to it and 
shared his/her results
>
> What setting should I look at?
>
> My version of Movie Player is: 2.30.2 – G Streamer 0.10.28
>
> VLC is gcc version 4.4.3-4 ubuntu5
>
> Many Thanks
>
> Anthony
>
Cheers,

John P