HELP! MP1 can't play HEVC video (1 Viewer)

sunfish

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For some unknown reason I can't play HEVC encoded video with MP1 on my system. I have tried every trick I know, but nothing works. Video stutters and jumps, audio lags. However these same files WILL play with other media players such as VLC, MPV for Windows, stand alone Windows Media Player, and the MS Movies and TV app. So why, if HEVC plays on Windows Media Player in stand-alone mode, does it not play using MediaPortal?

I have ruled out skins, since changing them does not matter. I prefer StreamedMP.

I have ruled out my wifi connection to my media server (an SSD hardwired to my router), buy attempting to play HEVC directly from the OS Desktop. No change.

I even tried different monitors and nothing changed.

I changed the power settings for performance in the UEFI firmware and OS (probably redundant) and nothing changed.

Here are some of my media computer specs:

Version 10.0.19042 Build 19042
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Atom(TM) x5-Z8350 CPU @ 1.44GHz, 1441 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 1.001, 12/14/2019
SMBIOS Version 3.0
BIOS Mode UEFI
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 3.93 GB
Available Physical Memory 1.46 GB
Total Virtual Memory 8.32 GB
Available Virtual Memory 2.39 GB
Page File Space 4.39 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware Yes
Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes

I would post a MediaPortal log but I don't know which one is relevant.

Here are some of the HEVC file specs:

Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4
File size : 594 MiB
Duration : 23 min 39 s
Overall bit rate : 3 508 kb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2021-07-02 01:10:12
Writing application : mkvmerge v58.0.0 ('Supper's Ready') 64-bit
Writing library : libebml v1.4.2 + libmatroska v1.6.4

Video
ID : 1
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main 10@L4@Main
Codec ID : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration : 23 min 39 s
Bit rate : 3 251 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 800 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.085
Stream size : 550 MiB (93%)
Writing library : x265 3.5+20-4c4aee0bc:[DJATOM's Mod][Windows][GCC 10.2.1][64 bit] 10bit

Audio
ID : 2
Format : E-AC-3
Format/Info : Enhanced AC-3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital Plus
Codec ID : A_EAC3
Duration : 23 min 39 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 256 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 43.3 MiB (7%)
Language : English
 

joecrow

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    Can you take a look in Task Manager and let us know how much CPU usage you have when trying to play the vid. in MP and also the same when playing with VLC. Also what graphics do you use and/or does your CPU have integrated graphics?
     

    sunfish

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    Playing MP v 1.28

    H265 cpu usage 100%
    H264 cpu usage 70%

    Playing VLC

    H265 cpu usage 76%
    H264 cpu usage 22%

    Looks like the CPU is overloaded. The graphics is integrated Intel HD Graphics, whatever that means. My guess is that if there is hardware acceleration MP is not using it.
     

    ajs

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    My guess is that if there is hardware acceleration MP is not using it.
    MP in contrast to VLC, itself does not play files, it all depends on the codec and its settings.
     

    Sebastiii

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    You need to set up LAV video and correct hardware acceleration :)
    MP use GUI that take a lot of GPU memory too

    1627411671610.png


    Like you can see, DXVA2 is used for HEVC 4K video ;)
     
    Last edited:

    sunfish

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    OK. Two things.
    ajs is right. MP is not a player, but it must use a lot of overhead that Windows Media Player (default player, right?) needs to play H265 files. VLC does not have that overhead, but it doesn't have the nifty database and UI. Same goes for MPV player.

    Sebastiii suggests that I need to set up my LAV codec as he has. I don't have an Nvidia graphics card and I'm not trying to play HEVC 4K video, just plain old 720 or 1020. I have tried different video decoder options but none of them seem to make any difference. I am using LAV 0.75 with all my boxes checked as you have them.
     

    joecrow

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    Sebastiii suggests that I need to set up my LAV codec as he has. I don't have an Nvidia graphics card and I'm not trying to play HEVC 4K video, just plain old 720 or 1020. I have tried different video decoder options but none of them seem to make any difference. I am using LAV 0.75 with all my boxes checked as you have them.

    I think @Sebastiii was just showing you an example of a working setup in LAV, as I have done with the screenshot below but with my AMD graphics card. You need to see if any of the decoders, highlighted in yellow, will give you a "Active Hardware Accelerator" result when playing HEVC as highlighted in green for your selected GPU in red. If you do not get that then it is highly likely that your graphics does not support HEVC decoding in which case the CPU usage you are seeing is typical, prior to having a GPU with H265 decoder capability I could not play HEVC content on a 3.8 Ghz 8 core AMD CPU it always stuttered with 100% usage!
    The bottom line is you most likely need to install a GPU that has an H265 decoder, failing that you can always set up MP1 to use VLC as an external video player and even enable it only for a specific file type if you wish, see 2nd screenshot below.

    hevc2.jpghevc3.jpg
     
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    Sebastiii

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    Thanks @joecrow you are totally right :)

    @sunfish, MP1 use direct show 32 filters, where VLC not, it use directly FFMpeg but those can use hardware acceleration too, LAV is based on FFMpeg for direct show codec by magic done from Nevcariel :)

    And yep MP eat more memory for the GUI, etc.
    So if your GPU is able to handle HEVC, it should work with LAV Video.

    Also, to proper bug report, like I have tagged you in first post, you should grab debug log from watchdog.
    Setup MP as debug and start watchdog first option and play your video ;)

    1627460527337.png


    1627460624073.png
     

    Jasmeet_181

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    Video decode hardware acceleration including support for H.263, MPEG4, H.264, H.265 (HEVC,8bit), VP8, VP9, MVC, MPEG2, VC1, JPEG.

    The video is HEVC 10-bit but the Atom x5-Z8350's IGPU only has hardware acceleration for HEVC 8-bit and no hybrid decoding.
     

    sunfish

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    The video is HEVC 10-bit but the Atom x5-Z8350's IGPU only has hardware acceleration for HEVC 8-bit and no hybrid decoding.

    That kinda says it all. I'm going to set MPV as an external player and be done with it.
     

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