[mythtv-users] Attaining Smooth Video Playback with VDPAU

[Greg Grotsky]

On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 10:11 PM, Kirk Bocek <t004 at kbocek.com> wrote:

> I don't see any such line in /var/log/Xorg.0.log.
>

It should be in mythfrontend.log but you might have to use "mythfrontend -v
playback" in order to see it. With my GT430 I've only ever seen these two:

2014-10-26 19:08:35.136377 I  Player(0): Video timing method: USleep with
busy wait
2014-10-26 19:08:35.136392 I  Player(0): Display Refresh Rate: 59.999 Video
Frame Rate: 25.000
2014-10-26 19:08:35.136401 I  Player(0): SetFrameInterval ps:1 scan:1

or

2014-10-28 07:05:17.007008 N  Player(0): Forcing decode extra audio option
on (Video method requires it).
2014-10-28 07:05:17.096562 I  Player(0): Video timing method: RTC

>From this link <https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Frame_display_timing> there is
a method called "Video card DRI" which is apparently the best method.
However, I have not been able to get my frontend to use that method and I'm
not sure why. I'm wondering if anyone has been able to get the GT430 into
the DRI or DRM or whatever it's supposed to report when it's succesful.

By the way, I tried using the Playback->Playback Data option while playing
my "benchmark" video and it spit these numbers out to the log file:
2014-10-28 07:05:41.165219 I  Player(1): FPS:   25.87 Mean: 38660 Std.Dev:
 8184 CPUs: 7% 4% 5% 5% 7% 6% 0% 0%
2014-10-28 07:05:42.198312 I  Player(1): FPS:   24.21 Mean: 41312 Std.Dev:
 8203 CPUs: 5% 8% 3% 8% 1% 1% 0% 0%
2014-10-28 07:05:43.165098 I  Player(1): FPS:   25.87 Mean: 38659 Std.Dev:
 8266 CPUs: 4% 6% 2% 4% 4% 7% 0% 0%
2014-10-28 07:05:44.198407 I  Player(1): FPS:   24.20 Mean: 41321 Std.Dev:
 8208 CPUs: 3% 5% 4% 14% 0% 4% 0% 0%
2014-10-28 07:05:45.181776 I  Player(1): FPS:   25.43 Mean: 39323 Std.Dev:
10210 CPUs: 7% 5% 7% 5% 2% 5% 0% 0%
2014-10-28 07:05:46.198410 I  Player(1): FPS:   24.60 Mean: 40654 Std.Dev:
 7554 CPUs: 2% 7% 3% 3% 16% 2% 0% 0%
2014-10-28 07:05:47.181777 I  Player(1): FPS:   25.43 Mean: 39323 Std.Dev:
10158 CPUs: 3% 6% 7% 1% 14% 1% 0% 0%
2014-10-28 07:05:48.165192 I  Player(1): FPS:   25.43 Mean: 39324 Std.Dev:
 8990 CPUs: 4% 5% 5% 2% 11% 4% 0% 0%

Seems like that should be a more scientific way to determine if there is
any improvement. Thanks for the suggestion Frank. I've also got a
preliminary xorg.conf written up with a bunch of modelines that I ripped
out of the Xorg.0.log and retrieved using xrandr with xvidtune.

I have a question though. When I run xrandr to dump the available video
modes it shows this which makes me think I can do 1920x1080 at 24Hz. But
when I try to get into that mode it tells me:
$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
DVI-I-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-I-1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis
y axis) 1600mm x 900mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+   59.9     24.0     60.1     60.0
   1440x480       60.1
   1400x1050      60.0
   1280x1024      60.0
   1280x720       60.0     59.9
   1024x768       60.0
   800x600        60.3
   720x480        59.9     60.1
   640x480        59.9     59.9
DP-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
$ xrandr -s 1920x1080 -r 24
Rate 24.0 Hz not available for this size
$

By the way, this is still using the super-basic xorg.conf without any
modelines in it.
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