720p playback stutters, 1080p seems fine (coreavc) (1 Viewer)

[kkendall]

Unfortunately I have sort of the same problem.
Some 720p stutter here too. Some play fine though. And as far as I have seen it also sometimes happens to 1080p files. All are 24p material x264.mkv movies.
Have you tried hitting [Control]+1 (or [Shift]+1, I can't remember)? It will show you the framerate. I noticed that the stuttering is caused because the framerate that is supposed to stay at a constant 24fps, becomes variable... It sometimes drops to 10/12 fps!! My pc should be able to handle all HD material flawlessly, it's powerfull enough to decode it, even without hw.acc..

So I probeably have the exact same problems you have, the only difference is I use SPDIF to output my audio and use the PowerDVD8 codec for x264 content. EVR is always on here too.
I haven't tried to check what happens with graphstudio, but I thought the info could already be usefull. I'll try graphstudio when I have the chance.

Have the devs a clue what it could be and are they looking at it or is this something that has not yet been picked up?

 

[Nazgulled]

I don't think the framerate he's my problem here but I can't fully test this until I get home tomorrow night...

I have access to my computer at home through remote administration but this disables Aero (and as far as I've read around here, it's important to have it turned on) and makes the whole computer a little bit slower. But I tested that through remote administration and the fps were always between 22-25, but like I said, I can only test this for real when I get home. Either way, with that Shift+F1 trick I noticed that when playing a movie it said VMR9 instead of EVR. Is this because I was using remote administration and Aero was disabled? I'm sure EVR is selected on MP settings.

 

[edterbak]

Just recently I had a problem which could be similar. When I played some 720p files, I had a horrible judder even if the display was in the correct refreshrate. But in my case, it turned out that the codecs were a bit screwed. MPA audio codec picked up any signal, despite the fact I had AC3filter selected as output. Because of this, a AC3/DTS signal which could be sent in 44.1 or 48kz to my receiver, got transmitted at fixed 48hz stereo signal. Thus resulting in a sound and video judder.
I lowered the merit of MPA Audio and the problem was solved with me.

If you are absolutely sure that something like the above, codec related, is not the case, then I have no other idea's. Sorry.

 

[Nazgulled]

I'm not sure of anything, I'm wiling to try anything to see if it fixes the problem...

How did you realize, on your case, that MPV Audio Codec was being an issue? cause I used Studiograph when playing files on MP and that audio codec was nowhere to be seen. My audio output is set to ffdshow by the way. But how can I try to find if I have an issue similar to yours?

I have a feeling that my problem might be related to MP using 3pins for EVR as opposed to 1 in MPC-HC. If there was anyway to force MP to use only one pin, I would like to test that, even if I had to dig into the source code myself, I wouldn't mind. I have knowledge in C#, I just don't have knowledge in DirectShow filters and stuff like that and I wouldn't know where to begin...

 

[edterbak]

I corrected my post before this one. I meant MPA instead of MPV. Sorry for the mix up. Its a big difference probably.

Well, just by using the program you already used, the monogram graphstudio. When starting MP in windowed mode and play something, I could see it in the graph. In your case, there is ffdshow in both graphs. I presume this is correct. You can try different audio codecs, but if you are not using spdif out to a receiver (I am) I dont think it will make any difference. Trying never hurts though. My problem was cause by the transmission of the digital audio.

I hope you get this problem sorted out.

 

[Nazgulled]

Yes, I'm using ffdshow in both and it doesn't matter if it is MPV or MPA, there's no sign of them... And no, I'm using a receiver, just a basic stereo speakers from my old radio plugged in to the front speakers jack in the back of the board

You're saying I could try using something different than ffdshow for the audio? But I don't know what else I could try...

I too wish I get this problem sorted out, but I'm not seeing it happen

 

[irelandp]

I have also see a similar problem. It does not appear as stutter more it looks like stop / start motion when you start playing a video file. I think it is something to do with Vista or DirectX rather than with MediaPortal. It affecs BBCi player, Windows Media Player and Windows Media Centre. In my case, when I first built my PC (Vista Extreme 64) video playback worked OK. I think the stop / start playing occurred after I installed SP1.

I have seen an number of other forums on the subject but as yet no real suggested solution. Fortunately for me after about 1 -5 minutes of playng a video, the it starts playing normally. Sometimes pausing the playback for a couple of seconds fixes it.

 

[Nazgulled]

I think your problem is very different from mine because my problem is only affected in MediaPortal. In every other player, it works fine...

Anyway, I just realized (by using the Shift+1 shortcut suggested by kkendall) that the framerate of my "stuttering" movies is constantly below 20 and like kkendall said, sometimes it drops a lot to 10fps.

I tried AC3Filter (and I even uninstall ffdshow) but the problem was there anyway. I don't know what can be the cause of this besides the EVR thing that non one seem to be able to help me out, I'm getting desperate with this...

 

[Nazgulled]

Just made a couple of new testing but can't seem to relate the problem to anything... I downloaded 12 mkv x264 movie samples, 6 at 720p and 6 other at 1080p, all from different movies. Then I tested them all at 1920x1080x32@50 and 1280x720x32@50 and here's what I found out:

1920x1080x32@50
[1080p] Death Race: OK
[1080p] Jarhead: OK
[1080p] Planet Terror: OK
[1080p] Sin City: NOT OK
[1080p] Stargate: The Ark of Truth: OK
[720p] 3.10 To Yuma: OK
[720p] Fight Club: OK
[720p] Ice Age 2: OK
[720p] King Kong: OK
[720p] Saw V: OK
[720p] The Chronicles of Riddick: NOT OK

1280x720x32@50
[1080p] Death Race: OK
[1080p] Jarhead: OK
[1080p] Planet Terror: OK
[1080p] Sin City: OK
[1080p] Stargate: The Ark of Truth: OK
[720p] 3.10 To Yuma: OK
[720p] Fight Club: OK
[720p] Ice Age 2: OK
[720p] King Kong: OK
[720p] Saw V: OK
[720p] The Chronicles of Riddick: OK

Seeing that problems were only visible at 1920x1080x32@50 I decided to try the same resolution but with 24Hz but the results were exactly the same.

What might be the problem?

 

[kkendall]

EDIT:
Ah, ok, so when you set your videocard to 1920x1080x32@50, the 1080p sin sity file and the 720p Riddick file start to drop frames, when your videocard is set to 1280x720x32@50, all is ok.
Some extra info: Fast scenes with a lot of movement drop far more frames than slow scenes. (do you have that too?)
Weird...like when the videocard is in 1920x1080 it gets too hard to handle with some files...
I'd have to check this out...(Looking at my hardware, I'm sure my pc can handle all HD material that is thrown at it with ease so that just can't be it)