Video stuttering when using Android HQ on quad core 2.5GHz (1 Viewer)

mrceolla

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December 11, 2010
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Hello,

I have a quad core Xeon L5240, each core at 2.5GHz. My video stream of recorded or live TV stutters terribly using MX VideoPlayer when using Android HQ or Android Better. I see ffmpeg is using 25% of CPU during streaming. I read about ffmpeg being multi-thread capable. I tried adding the switch "-threads 3" but that did nothing.

How can I increase the transcoding performance? There must be a way for me to utilize additional cores, no?

If there is no possible solution along those lines, does anyone know if I can overclock this Xeon L5420 on a SuperMicro X7DA8 motherboard?

There is a lot of horsepower in this machine. It would be a shame if it couldn't transcode in realtime just because ffmpeg is limited to 1 core.

I welcome any advice. Thank you for your time.

Mike
 

DieBagger

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    Hello,

    I have a quad core Xeon L5240, each core at 2.5GHz. My video stream of recorded or live TV stutters terribly using MX VideoPlayer when using Android HQ or Android Better. I see ffmpeg is using 25% of CPU during streaming. I read about ffmpeg being multi-thread capable. I tried adding the switch "-threads 3" but that did nothing.

    How can I increase the transcoding performance? There must be a way for me to utilize additional cores, no?

    If there is no possible solution along those lines, does anyone know if I can overclock this Xeon L5420 on a SuperMicro X7DA8 motherboard?

    There is a lot of horsepower in this machine. It would be a shame if it couldn't transcode in realtime just because ffmpeg is limited to 1 core.

    I welcome any advice. Thank you for your time.

    Mike

    Did you restart the service after changing the config?

    Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk
     

    mrceolla

    Portal Pro
    December 11, 2010
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    Thank you for your reply. Yes, I did restart both gmawebservice and tv4home...not knowing exactly which one was in charge of transcoding. My guess is gmawebservice since the transcoding profiles are in that directory. But that -threads switch didn't appear to have any effect what so ever. ffmpeg was still maxing out at 25% CPU time. I want to be able to give it 50-75% or improve transcoding performance in some other way. Any suggestions or other boards/threads you could steer me to?

    Thanks,
    Mike

    P.S. Have you ever experimented with the -threads switch? Does gmawebservice and/or tv4home have the latest ffmpeg and codecs?
     

    Oxan

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    Adding -threads to the GMA and TV4Home config works fine for me. GMA is used for media streaming, TV4Home for TV streaming. So if you've problems with TV, you shouldn't add it to the file in the GMA directory but instead to the one in the TV4Home install directory (it's called TranscoderConfig.xml).
     

    mrceolla

    Portal Pro
    December 11, 2010
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    Ah! That could have been my problem. I have renewed hope.

    What is Recorded TV handled by? GMA or TV4Home? I assume live TV is TV4Home, but since Recorded TV is coming from a file is that considered 'Media'?

    Thanks,
    Mike
     

    DieBagger

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    Ah! That could have been my problem. I have renewed hope.

    What is Recorded TV handled by? GMA or TV4Home? I assume live TV is TV4Home, but since Recorded TV is coming from a file is that considered 'Media'?

    Thanks,
    Mike

    No, recorded tv is also handled by tv4home when you watch it through the "Recordings" section. If you access them via a share, Gma is doing the streaming...
     

    mrceolla

    Portal Pro
    December 11, 2010
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    Ok, I've made progress. Setting '-threads 3' in the correct file allows ffmpeg to use between 60-70% CPU which is apparently what it needs in order to not have stuttering audio/video. However, using MX Player, the video sometimes plays in slow mo and the audio becomes out of sync. I'm on an EVO 3D BTW.

    Is this an MX Player problem or something on my MP machine?

    Also, I've noticed through my testing and looking at Windows Task Manager, that there are routinely 'dead' ffmpeg.exe processes in my Processes tab. They're taking up between 60-75MB or memory but are doing nothing. Why are these not being ended after I stop a stream?

    Thank you for your help!

    Mike

    Ok, I just discovered that this slow-mo, progressive audio-sync problem, is limited to TV stations that are 720p vs 1080i. With these TV stations the video seems to ramdomly play in slow motions and the audio gets progressively out of sync. This is with MX Player as Mobo Player doesn't want to play TV streams at all on my EVO 3D.

    1080i TV stations have slightly delayed audio but it doesn't progressively get worse.

    Streaming movies works great with no audio delay issues.

    What could be going on?

    Thanks,
    Mike
     

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