View Full Version : Audio dropouts and skipping/juddering frames
Are others experiencing audio cuts and dropped frames on 720p and 1080p mkv files?
Every film I watch has at least 10-12 points at which I lose audio and the frame skips forward and back repeatedly for a couple seconds. It's hilarious to watch, but kinda takes you out of the movie.
I'm wondering if the app settings or perhaps my Mac can be tweaked or if it's just a limitation of the Mini or the stage at which this software is at.
For a 0.1 release, it's an AMAZING piece of software however and a VERY welcome addition to the Mac Home Theater community. Thank you.
My system specs:
Mac Mini, 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM, Firewire 400 Media Drive
I've generally be able to watch movies straight through without glitches, mostly MKVs, some 720p, some 1080p. I connect over wireless gigabit. Log in with another computer, run top, and see what you see with respect to CPU usage. It can be as simple as spotlight crunching away that can make things glitch, especially if you aren't running with a lot of CPU headroom. Also, hit 'i' to see if frames are dropping.
While watching No Country for Old Men (720p) last night the frame skipping happened in about 6 places, completely at random it seemed. This time there was no audio dropout, only a quick burst of high speed frames, almost like fast forwarding.
The info window tells me I am dropping frames, but why I wonder? The mkv files sit on a FW400 drive, a much faster connection than your wireless, so it can't be that.
Does the app rely on any QuickTime AVC decoders? - I have some non-standard components for H.264 decoding, but I'm pretty sure XBMC is using its own method to handle this codec. Right?
I'm not that savvy on monitoring from another cpu. How would I go about this?
A "a quick burst of high speed frames" is a dead giveaway of dropped frames. I access over Gigabit WIRED Ethernet, not wireless. Move the movie to the local drive to eliminate that variable. Otherwise, enable remote access, and ssh to the box (the System Preferences pane will tell you what to type, e.g. "ssh albo@192.168.1.100") and then type "top". On the second line, see what percentage of your CPU is idle, and see what percentage of the CPU XBMC is using. I suspect either CPU overload or network issues.
A "a quick burst of high speed frames" is a dead giveaway of dead frames.
Meaning dropped frames?
I access over Gigabit WIRED Ethernet, not wireless.
You said wireless in your first post, I thought that was odd. My FW400 connection should at least be equal to an ethernet one, but I will try playing a file from the local drive.
Otherwise, enable remote access, and ssh to the box
Excellent, thanks for the info on how to do this.
I suspect either CPU overload or network issues.
Ok. Let me see what I can find out.
Meaning dropped frames?
Yep. Early, can't type :)
You said wireless in your first post, I thought that was odd.
Not enough coffee, sleep...
-elan
I have some small audio dropouts when I play movies no matter what filetype it is! I dont have high speed frames or any dropped frames just occasional audio dropouts.
I am playing all my files over a gigabit network and I am using a 2Ghz Mac Mini with 2Gb of RAM!
I have some small audio dropouts when I play movies no matter what filetype it is! I dont have high speed frames or any dropped frames just occasional audio dropouts.
I am playing all my files over a gigabit network and I am using a 2Ghz Mac Mini with 2Gb of RAM!
Without logs, I'm a mindreader. And I can't read minds :)
Without logs, I'm a mindreader. And I can't read minds :)
I shall send you my logfile as soon as I quit work! :)
Here is my logfile taken just after a audio dropout when playing an ISO DVD.
Hope this will help you to read minds! ;)
http://pastebin.com/m7ecebf09
Thanks
Thanks, Evol. If you wouldn't mind, please post future logs to Pastie (http://pastie.caboo.se/), I get better results with that :)
There are some logs like this:
CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:416210602.238621, should be:416200059.544620, error:-10542.694000
This will definitely lead to audio dropouts. I can't speak as to whether it's a bad file, there's networking issues, or there's a bug in XBMC, unfortunately.
Like I've said in other posts, try to figure out which one it is by eliminating possibilities: Play it off the local hard drive, play it in other players, play other similar videos.
Hope this helps a bit...
-elan
Thanx Elan!
I will continue to narrow down the problem.
As a matter of fact I am about to begin watching a movie from the local harddrive right now.
I have this problem with all my files so I dont think it is a bad file and I have been watching all my movies over the network in the past with Mac OSX DVD player, quicktime player and VLC without problems.
I will report back after the move!
Thanx again for your amazing work Elan!
Here is a new log file taken just after watching a whole movie on a DVD/ISO file from the local harddrive.
http://pastie.caboo.se/159545
I could not paste the whole log in pastie due to limitations to 125000 chars, if I did cut out anything of importance for you just let me know.
As you can see there is tons of logs with "CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:36264076.723505, should be:36244764.361174, error:-19312.362332"
The difference I noticed by playing the file from the local harddrive was that the audio dropouts was much smaller than when I did play it over the network.
//Evol
The other thing to check would be the CPU usage. Run in windowed mode with iStat Menus running or Activity monitor or top in a Terminal. However, for playing a DVD I doubt that's a problem. Do you see the same thing with lot of different movies (in different formats)? What hardware do you have?
-elan
I do have this this problem with all DVD/ISO files and all MKV files I have tested.
I have not tested any DivX files, but if that is any help to you I will gladly test that to!
XMBC uses around 18% of CPU while playing DVD/ISO and around 80% when playing MKV 720P files.
My setup is a Mac Mini with Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz with 2Gb of RAM.
/Evol
I have the same problem (I think its the same as the above) I have my movies (mkv 720p files) on a USB2 drive and it plays smooth and nice for a couple of minutes and the CPU usage is around 40-60%.
Then it suddenly spikes up to 140% CPU usage and the autio and video starts to flicker and it doesn't seem to stop either, once stuck always stuck.
I have tried:
MacBook Pro connected to projector - happened
MacBook Pro not connected to proj, played movie on the internal screen - happened
iMac Alu not connected to proj - doesn't seem to happen (?)
Tried with alot of different movies and it doesn't seem to be any different.
Any thoughts on whatI should do? Anything you want me to test? I really love osxbmc and would love to use it on my MBP togehter with my projextor :)
Hmm that doent sound like my problem, I can watch a whole movie with good video, for me it is only the sound that has dropouts!
iordonez
2008-03-04, 01:36
Hmm that doent sound like my problem, I can watch a whole movie with good video, for me it is only the sound that has dropouts!
I watched a 720p rip of Assassination of Jesse James the other night and the only problem I did see was audio drop outs as you described. I'm trying to watch more movies so that I can get a feel for what has problems and what doesn't... I'll try and produce some logs when it happens next time.
iordonez
2008-03-04, 01:39
I have the same problem (I think its the same as the above) I have my movies (mkv 720p files) on a USB2 drive and it plays smooth and nice for a couple of minutes and the CPU usage is around 40-60%.
Then it suddenly spikes up to 140% CPU usage and the autio and video starts to flicker and it doesn't seem to stop either, once stuck always stuck.
I have tried:
MacBook Pro connected to projector - happened
MacBook Pro not connected to proj, played movie on the internal screen - happened
iMac Alu not connected to proj - doesn't seem to happen (?)
Tried with alot of different movies and it doesn't seem to be any different.
Is XBMC using the whole 140% CPU or is another program stepping in and eating it in the background? How comfortable are you with turning ssh on and using terminal commands?
Is XBMC using the whole 140% CPU or is another program stepping in and eating it in the background? How comfortable are you with turning ssh on and using terminal commands?
It's XBMC that goes crazy and hogs all the cpu. If I pause the movie it goes down, start again and it goes up in the air again. Weird part is that it happend on different occations, If I'm lucky I can play the same movie for one hour without the problem and sometimes only 5 minutes.
The only way to get it back to normal is to restart the computer (I think log out and back in again wotks too). If I only quit XBMC and start it again it starts off with 140% as soon as I start playing the move (or any movie)
I'm not very good on using terminal sorry :(
p.S Off topic: Why can't I see my own posts in the thread when I'm logged in? it's weird, if I'm logged out I can see them :p
iordonez
2008-03-04, 19:46
Looks like you should open a bug report with some information. First get the log contents of /var/tmp/xbmc.log and put it on http://pastie.caboo.se You can get this log by going opening "console.app" in Utilities folder. Click Show log list.
You can open a new ticket here http://dn-0.com/xbmc-trac/newticket make sure to include your E-mail address so we can contact you for more info I'd also suggest you include your system specs (model, Memory, CPU, etc.)
iordonez
2008-03-04, 19:49
Looks like you should open a bug report with some information. First get the log contents of /var/tmp/xbmc.log and put it on http://pastie.caboo.se You can get this log by going opening "console.app" in Utilities folder. Click Show log list.
Sorry that log won't show up in console you will have to open terminal and run the following command:
cp /var/tmp/xbmc.log ~/Desktop/xbmc.log
This will put a copy of xbmc.log on your desktop allowing you to open in text edit, etc. and paste onto pastie.
I tried to upload it at pastie but it was too big aparently :P You can download it at the link below if you want.
I have also created a ticket. The weird part is that it only seems to happen on my MacBook Pro, I've tried a mac mini today and it didn't have any problems with it, and as mentioned before my iMac doesn't seem to have the problem either.
http://web.mac.com/heron.nu/files/xbmc.log.zip
I hope the logfile will tell you something, I'd be very happy if you can see what problem my macbook pro have with xbmc :)
Regards
iordonez
2008-03-05, 00:59
Great I cleaned up your ticket a little and attached the logfile to the bug ticket. You should get E-mail notifications of any changes to your ticket or if the developers need anything more.
heronnu I was looking through your log file and I can see that you have lots of logs with: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:726302904.227286, should be:726285879.375287, error:-17024.851999.
I have exactly the same logs in my log files after watching a movie which may be the cause of the audio dropouts.
heronnu I was looking through your log file and I can see that you have lots of logs with: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:726302904.227286, should be:726285879.375287, error:-17024.851999.
I have exactly the same logs in my log files after watching a movie which may be the cause of the audio dropouts.
Yeah, I'm a total n00b on log files but I could see lots of errors at the time around 22:46:xx and it's was there it xbmc started to go wild and hog all the cpu.
I have played that whole movie on the mac mini and I didn't get the problem (haven't checked the log-file on the mac mini though)
Update: I checked the mac minis log file and I could notice occational "T:2961989632 M: 15843328 DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:307768585.179000, should be:326264059.911621, error:18495474.732621" strings but nothing like the one on the macbook pro. I guess the writing of 10-20 lines per second in the logfile with errors are causing the cpu usage to spike alongside the movie playback.
Another update, I have done a process sample during the high cpu usage and pasted it on pastie
http://pastie.caboo.se/pastes/161672/download
or
http://pastie.caboo.se/pastes/161672.txt
I dunno how to add comments to the ticket so I hope you can help me with that.
Sorry for spamming :P But it seems like pastie didn't get all the text from the sample (I bet pastie doesn't like me)
So to watch the whole file, check this link:
http://web.mac.com/heron.nu/files/sample_process.txt
Regards
iordonez
2008-03-05, 20:42
I attached process sample to your ticket.
I attached process sample to your ticket.
Thank you very much :)
Hi again,
Just an update on this matter. It still behaves badly on my MBP with the latest version :( And on top of that it's allways bad now. I've tried to make another user and its the same on that user too.
Well well, I'm so close on ordering a Mini now but then they say they might update it, bleh :P
jeremymc7
2008-03-17, 18:13
Hi again,
Just an update on this matter. It still behaves badly on my MBP with the latest version :( And on top of that it's allways bad now. I've tried to make another user and its the same on that user too.
Well well, I'm so close on ordering a Mini now but then they say they might update it, bleh :P
That is "if" and "when" they update the Mini. It will likely not be until June if at all, and even that might not be a notable update.
If they would only take the Mac Book Pro hardware, throw out the keyboard, screen, and case and but it in a slimline (dvd style) case I think it would kill.
I did the tedious work of formatting and reinstalling Leopard on my MBP but I still get the damn error of 150% CPU usage when playing mkv files. I'm so frustrated about this :( Is it really a hardware issue? :sad:
I did the tedious work of formatting and reinstalling Leopard on my MBP but I still get the damn error of 150% CPU usage when playing mkv files. I'm so frustrated about this :( Is it really a hardware issue? :sad:
I dont have the CPU problem you have but I still got lots of audiodropouts when watching a movie and my logfiles are allways filled with "CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:726302904.227286, should be:726285879.375287, error:-17024.851999."
I will get a new MBP this week and I will test XBMC on it and see if I have the same problem on that one.
Aww, the ticket is gone and I still have the issue. I guess I have to throw out the MBP through the window and tell my boss I need a new one because I accidently dropped it :)
iordonez
2008-04-03, 19:22
Aww, the ticket is gone and I still have the issue. I guess I have to throw out the MBP through the window and tell my boss I need a new one because I accidently dropped it :)
Haha! I might have closed it because there was no contact info. Double check the open tickets and then look through the closed tickets:
http://dn-0.com/xbmc-trac/query?status=closed&order=priority&col=id&col=summary&col=status&col=type&col=priority&col=milestone&col=component
Let me know which one it is and I can help you re-open it.
Haha! I might have closed it because there was no contact info. Double check the open tickets and then look through the closed tickets:
http://dn-0.com/xbmc-trac/query?status=closed&order=priority&col=id&col=summary&col=status&col=type&col=priority&col=milestone&col=component
Let me know which one it is and I can help you re-open it.
I've tried a new thing today, I hooked up a firewire disk with 10.5 installed and used that as a startup disk. And it played fine :o
So, I guess I have some serious issue with my hard drive...>< So the ticket might as well be closed as it looks like the error is within my hardware.
However the "CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:726302904.227286, should be:726285879.375287, error:-17024.851999." errors might be investigated :)
iordonez
2008-04-03, 20:40
I've tried a new thing today, I hooked up a firewire disk with 10.5 installed and used that as a startup disk. And it played fine :o
So, I guess I have some serious issue with my hard drive...>< So the ticket might as well be closed as it looks like the error is within my hardware.
However the "CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuty - was:726302904.227286, should be:726285879.375287, error:-17024.851999." errors might be investigated :)
Great, that works. Sorry to hear about the drive! as for the Discontinuity errors they are basically just saying "hey the audio skipped or was out of sync" in this case it was caused by bad access time on your HDD or something similar.
Run Techtool Pro and see if you can get some errors generated during a test, Apple will replace the drive if you still have applecare active.
Great, that works. Sorry to hear about the drive! as for the Discontinuity errors they are basically just saying "hey the audio skipped or was out of sync" in this case it was caused by bad access time on your HDD or something similar.
Run Techtool Pro and see if you can get some errors generated during a test, Apple will replace the drive if you still have applecare active.
Hmm so does that mean that the Discontinuity errors could be because bad harddrives? Cause I have those in all my logs on both my Mac Mini and my brand new Mac Book Pro and what more can cause this?
iordonez don't you have the Discontinuity error at all in your logfiles?
iordonez
2008-04-03, 23:41
Hmm so does that mean that the Discontinuity errors could be because bad harddrives? Cause I have those in all my logs on both my Mac Mini and my brand new Mac Book Pro and what more can cause this?
iordonez don't you have the Discontinuity error at all in your logfiles?
I'm not saying its due to bad hard drives. Could be CPU not keeping up, etc. I do get the errors sometimes but rarely get audio dropouts. From what I understand is the Discontinuity error is just XBMC saying "hey the audio was out of sync a little, I fixed it".
Just because you have errors in your log doesn't mean something is wrong. If you're getting the errors but the video plays fine with no audio problems don't sweat it.