Strange playback issues in MP (1 Viewer)

[The3]

Hey all,

I'm totally new to MP, but I've got a bizarre playback issue going on that I'll try to explain -- hopefully someone out there knows what might be wrong.

Several days ago, I installed MP and the "My Films" and "TV Series" plugins. I started by importing some HD TV shows and movies (H.264 .mkv) that I had previously downloaded, and they all played perfectly after I installed the LAV filters. Then, I began the long and tedious process of ripping & transcoding my DVD collection. I've been using Handbrake, and creating the same kind of files (e.g. same codec and container).

Now's when things get strange. These new files, when I try to play them in MP, are crippled by stuttering video. The audio plays perfectly smooth and continuously, but I'll have a static frame onscreen for a second, then it will jump as if the video is catching up, possibly play smoothly for a moment, and then stutter again. But when I pull up the videos in VLC, they play perfectly.

Any idea what might be going on here? After a little investigation on the forums here, I didn't find any obvious answers. Presumably, this is SOME sort of codec issue, but the fact that other H.264 MKVs play just fine while others don't has me completely stumped.

 

[The3]

Small update:

When I bring up the "shift+1" info display, all of the plotted lines are smooth and straight (more or less) for the videos that play back properly. But for the ones that don't, the red line looks like a short period sine wave continuously, and occasionally plummets with a deep valley (along with the green line) when the image freezes for a moment.

Also, I did some experimenting in Handbrake to try to identify exactly what resulted in the problematic files. The videos that stutter were transcoded using the "High Profile" preset with all of its settings left alone except for the RF value manually adjusted from 20 to 19. When I transcode the same source files with the "Normal" preset, again making the same adjustment to the quality RF, the videos play smoothly.

Ideally, I'd rather not have to steer clear of the high profile settings, as the normal preset produces files that are slightly too low in quality for my taste.

 

[nfox]

Please fill in your system specs (accessible from your personal details menu, top right), then reproduce the problem and post the logs as described here.

 

[The3]

I've updated my system specs, and attached a log of attempting to play one of the videos with massive stuttering. Thanks for any insight you can provide![DOUBLEPOST=1342024271][/DOUBLEPOST]Not sure if it's useful for comparison, but here is a log from playing one of the videos that doesn't stutter.

 

[legnod]

Hi,

if the graph looks fine the problem maybe is caused by the wrong refreshrate setting. If the Series were ripped from Blueray they may have got 24 FPS (24p mode) and if they were recorded from TV they may got 50fps (50hz PAL) or 60fps (60Hz NTSC).
Just try to set the refreshrate changer to the correct settings inside MP configuration and it should be fine i hope .

 

[The3]

Hi,

if the graph looks fine the problem maybe is caused by the wrong refreshrate setting. If the Series were ripped from Blueray they may have got 24 FPS (24p mode) and if they were recorded from TV they may got 50fps (50hz PAL) or 60fps (60Hz NTSC).
Just try to set the refreshrate changer to the correct settings inside MP configuration and it should be fine i hope .

Well, I wouldn't necessarily say it "looks fine." From what I understand reading other threads, if everything is working ideally, all three lines should be relatively smooth, but my red line is a continuous zig-zag.

When you say "refreshrate changer," are you referring to the "Dynamic Refresh Rate" page in the configuration? I tried to activate that by checking the "Enable Dynamic Refresh Rate Control" box, but it was a no-go. The minute a video started to play, my display lost the input (i.e. gave a "no signal" message), even though I know the video was playing because I could hear the audio. I ended up having to reboot the computer to get the display working again.

 

[legnod]

Yes i meant the automatic refresh rate changer. If your display lost the connection on changing the refreshrate, it doesnt support the settings the graphic card wants to set. It would be the best if you upload some screenshots while the graph is active and you are playing a video.

 

[The3]

Okay, here are two screenshots with the graph active. The first (MPgraph_Farscape.png) is from a video that has very noticeable stuttering, but it at least draws more frames than it drops.

The second one, here, is absolutely unwatchable. The stuttering is so severe that the graph & data don't even update continuously. This grab was taken after ~45 seconds of play, and as you can see, only 13 frames have been drawn.

 

[Luca Brasi]

looks bad... both are absolutely not ok, act fps is way too low... don't know why but I can see that you're not using lav. the graph shows mpc filter and ms dtv. But it should run with them smoothly as well...

What I would do:
- update your gpu driver
- make sure there are no other codecs installed on your sys (packs, divx, nero...)
- make sure that lav is installed and properly set in mp config (atm I would suggest 0.50.5 as there might be some issues with the latest one)
- check with graphstudionext that everything is connected the right way (file>connect to remote graph while playing vid in mp)

 

[The3]

looks bad... both are absolutely not ok, act fps is way too low... don't know why but I can see that you're not using lav. the graph shows mpc filter and ms dtv. But it should run with them smoothly as well...

What I would do:
- update your gpu driver
- make sure there are no other codecs installed on your sys (packs, divx, nero...)
- make sure that lav is installed and properly set in mp config (atm I would suggest 0.50.5 as there might be some issues with the latest one)
- check with graphstudionext that everything is connected the right way (file>connect to remote graph while playing vid in mp)

My GPU driver is current, so that shouldn't be an issue, and I don't have any other codecs installed that I can see.

Now, as for lav, I *believe* it's set up properly right now. After I posted those screen grabs, I put both the AAC & AC3 decoders to LAV, and the behavior is identical; that's actually how it was to begin with, and I only changed because I was randomly trying different combinations of codecs to see if I could make everything work. Do I need to do any configuration within LAV itself?

And re: graphstudionext, I'm not really sure what I'm doing. I ran the 64-bit exe and tell it to connect to a remote graph while one of the problematic videos is playing in MP. It brings up a dialog box with "refresh" and "connect" buttons, but nothing happens when I refresh, and hitting "connect" just dumps me back to the blank main screen.[DOUBLEPOST=1342051541][/DOUBLEPOST]My bad: I missed that you needed a supplemental DLL for the program to work (the graphstudionext site could definitely benefit from some documentation!). This is the graph it produces.