Stutter after refresh rate change (3 Viewers)

[vuego]

Here's my experience of the problem. I use MP on the secondary monitor.

I saw the problem for a long time. Possibly since 1.1.0 Beta1.
After refresh rate change the video plays normally for a long time. About 50 min - 1 h 20 min.
When the stuttering begins it's dropping lots of frames per second. By pressing shift+1 I see the amount of dropped frames, often over 1000.
Stopping the video and starting it again doesn't help.
Restarting MP doesn't help.
Both video and TV has the problem.
I tried several different video/audio decoders and video card drivers. No help.

Here's what fixes it:
1. Alt+enter to resize MP to window.
2. Starting video here again and it still stutters.
3. Move window to primary monitor. Video starts playing normally again with no dropped frames.
4. Move window back to secondary, alt+enter to enter fullscreen and start playing the video again.

 

[onyx666]

I discovered yesterday that I only get this behavior if I don't have both my screens activated in windows.
When I run MP on my tv, and still got my computer-monitor activated I am not able to reproduce this.

i only have single screen and have the poroblem since i started using refresh rate for 24 hz

 

[tourettes]

Here's what fixes it:
1. Alt+enter to resize MP to window.
2. Starting video here again and it still stutters.
3. Move window to primary monitor. Video starts playing normally again with no dropped frames.
4. Move window back to secondary, alt+enter to enter fullscreen and start playing the video again.

Most likely a driver issue. Nvidia for example has had such statement in their driver release notes that MCE (most likely any other video playback application as well) is not recommended to be run in clone or dual screen configurations.

 

[Scythe42]

Edit:
Idea didn't work. Back to square one...

 

[csapollo]

Is there anything I can do to help narrow this issue down? It must be very difficult to troubleshoot because my personal experience finds that it's completely sporadic and there's absolutely no consistency with it!

I never get this issue on live TV (50hz PAL), but it almost always occurs with 24hz material. I have to stop/start the file several times before it plays correctly. Sometimes it might be twice, sometimes it might be 4 times, sometimes it might be 5 times, sometimes it works first time! Like I said, no consistency. Sometimes, it's playing fine, and I skip to a point in the movie, and it's stuttering again, so I skip back 15 seconds, and it's playing fine again.

The only way I can avoid this issue, is by changing my refresh rate via my ATI profile (or manually, doesn't matter as long as you change it to 24hz), then open MediaPortal, and play a file. No worries!

Is it possible to build a play file delay into MediaPortal if the refresh rate is being changed? ie, allow 3 seconds or so for the refresh rate to change before it starts to play? I would be interested to see if that makes a difference since, as I said, if the refresh rate is already at the target rate when the file is played, I do not get the issue.

I also just upgraded from my integrated HD3200 to a HD5750 and I still get the issue (HDMI to TV). I have seen people reporting this issue with nVidia cards but I will try this on my client PC and see if I have the issue (don't normally watch movies on it which is why I haven't tested it there yet), it uses a 8800GTX with DVI to my monitor (1080p, supports 24hz).

 

[Scythe42]

THe problem is that I can't reproduce it on demand like the others here in the thread. With the current SVN it happens for me when I start MP in fullscreen and the first file I play back is a 1080p transmuxed BR and then never again. I can start and stop the first file forever - makes no difference as the problem stays with the first file I select for playback after starting MP. Only Alt-Tab helps every time. I played around with everything in the EVR presenter. Doesn't change a thing. I am running out of ideas. We already tried delays after the refresh rate change. Made no difference.

Before the 24th Dec. SVN build it happened once in a while on the first playback. At least it's now reproducible as is happens always with the first file.

I still have the feeling that it a general DirectShow and/or GPU driver problem as it only happens with 23.976Hz. When googling the net I find reports about this with any player where people change the RefreshRate with a kind of Program when no switching to the player window after the change is involved.

At the moment my gut tells my it's something with the DirectShow graph we need a workaround for...

It could be related to the MP problem where every X playbacks, the playback doesn't start and you only get a black screen. Could be a different problem though.

You can help with testing new DLLs should I come up with a new idea. I keep on working on this problem but I need ideas where to look.

 

[onyx666]

maybe it is an idea to look at the xbmc solution like someone posted a few pages back.
there it had someting to do with different methods of handling full screen

 

[nyt]

I've had this issue for quite some time and have been posting in the SVN thread's about it. I have this behavior every time when starting 23.976 material. If playback is started in a window, the stutter disappears as soon as you move the window (if this helps in tracing it any).

I'll be happy to help with any testing, as leaving my desktop in 23.976hz display mode is kind of irritating =]

 

[johan_80]

maybe it is an idea to look at the xbmc solution like someone posted a few pages back.
there it had someting to do with different methods of handling full screen

Still working without a single problem with XBMC actually...
But when using one of the two fullscreen mode I get the same problem as in MediaPortal.
So even if XBMC does not use a standard DirectShow graph (well dsplayer builds does...but not stable yet), the same stuttering can be found.

 

[nopax]

AW: Re: Stutter after refresh rate change

Is there anything I can do to help narrow this issue down? It must be very difficult to troubleshoot because my personal experience finds that it's completely sporadic and there's absolutely no consistency with it!

I never get this issue on live TV (50hz PAL), but it almost always occurs with 24hz material. I have to stop/start the file several times before it plays correctly. Sometimes it might be twice, sometimes it might be 4 times, sometimes it might be 5 times, sometimes it works first time! Like I said, no consistency. Sometimes, it's playing fine, and I skip to a point in the movie, and it's stuttering again, so I skip back 15 seconds, and it's playing fine again.

The only way I can avoid this issue, is by changing my refresh rate via my ATI profile (or manually, doesn't matter as long as you change it to 24hz), then open MediaPortal, and play a file. No worries!

Exactly the same for me.