Official Pivos XBMC Alpha 073012 Discussion and Bug Report

[aasoror]

General
Complete name : \\10.10.10.16\media\MOVIES\ACTION\A TEAM\The A-Team (02_02_2012).mpg
Format : MPEG-PS
File size : 10.3 GiB
Duration : 2h 15mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 10.9 Mbps

Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@High
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Duration : 2h 15mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 10.3 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 18.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels

I suspect MPEG-2 is not hardware accelerated at 1080p.
Its MPEG-4 that is supported for HW accelerated playback at HD resolutions.
Are your working 720p rips MPEG-2 encoded as well ?

[emveepee]

I suspect MPEG-2 is not hardware accelerated at 1080p.
Its MPEG-4 that is supported for HW accelerated playback at HD resolutions.

Could you provide more details on this potential limitation since it would defeat the purpose of this device for me. I have posted several times about the significant a/v sync issues I've been having when my broadcast and OTA captures and they are all mpeg ts containers, with mpeg-2 or h264 video and ac3 audio at 1080i and 720p I am not seeing any pixelization though via smb or http and top doesn't show the kind of high CPU I'd expect if it was software decoding, in fact it isn't much different than playing audio files. I'll remux some of the h264 files to mp4 to test to see if that is the problem.

Martin

[aasoror]

Could you provide more details on this potential limitation since it would defeat the purpose of this device for me. I have posted several times about the significant a/v sync issues I've been having when my broadcast and OTA captures and they are all mpeg ts containers, with mpeg-2 or h264 video and ac3 audio at 1080i and 720p I am not seeing any pixelization though via smb or http and top doesn't show the kind of high CPU I'd expect if it was software decoding, in fact it isn't much different than playing audio files. I'll remux some of the h264 files to mp4 to test to see if that is the problem.

Martin

h264 is MPEG-4 so that shouldn't be a issue, my 1080i OTA samples played back fine with HW acceleration (but that was AVC so MPEG-4 also).
My assumption was because all MPEG-2 videos I tested didn't work with HW acceleration (being in SD, it doesn't chock on SW decoding so apparently decoding is lightweight).
This might also goes in line with the fact that XBMC can only decode DVD ISO (MPEG-2) in SW and now in HW (again still playable because its SD).

[emveepee]

h264 is MPEG-4 so that shouldn't be a issue, my 1080i OTA samples played back fine with HW acceleration (but that was AVC so MPEG-4 also).

No h264/avc is a compression codec,, mp4 is a container, which is why I am looking for clarification on what is potentially forcing software decoding. Broadcasts are typically in mpeg-ts containers, and many broadcast DVB are h264. Some DVB streams and QAM/ATSC here in Canada and in the US use standard mpeg2 video compression not h264 (or vc1). However I like many people also use a device called an HDPVR to capture h264/ac3 from a cable STB to mpeg-ts. In the US there are also CableCard capture which will be mpeg2 video not h264.

Martin

[aasoror]

No h264/avc is a compression codec,, mp4 is a container,

True, I meant MPEG-4 part 10 (i.e. MPEG-4 AVC/H.264) as "codec".

With that said, what would the compression codec used from the media info posted above ?

The video formate field just says "MPEG".

[thepolarbear]

I will do a mediainfo on the 720p videos I have.

Just FYI though -

These videos were not re-encoded or anything. Directly off the TIVO device using KMTGG java tool. I keep running out of space on the TIVOs so I developed a DAS solution which works brilliantly when I use PyTIVO daemon to feed back videos from my DAS library back to TIVOs when I want to watch later.

I will get the specs on the 720p.

Also, this came from support @ PIVOS:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ticket #: 634723
Subject: Issue with new pivos xios
Status: Waiting for response
Comment:
[Aug 7 2012 2:46PM] : Scott,
The XBMC is in Alpha stage right now, and we still have quite a bit work ahead of us. Although there will be a BETA release for Linux only XBMC will be available shortly for XIOS users.

For your output and audio issue should be resolved with in the BETA release, so please check our forums for more updates.
----------------------------------------------------------

Thanks

[thepolarbear]

Per previous request on specs for the 720p that plays fine.

Today I installed GB latest from this forum instead of ICS. XBMC won't play anything not even 720P.

Guess I will go back to ICS. Wait to hear from someone with ideas to fixes for playing 1080p.

Thanks
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


General
Complete name : \\media7\media\MOVIES\OTHER\THE SOUND OF MUSIC 720P\The Sound of Music 1965.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format profile : OpenDML
Format settings : rec
File size : 2.20 GiB
Duration : 2h 47mn
Overall bit rate : 1 882 Kbps
Writing application : #1 DVD Ripper 6.0, Aug 31 2007 21:07:48

Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 2h 47mn
Source duration : 10mn 2s
Bit rate : 87.6 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 436 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.651
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.011
Stream size : 105 MiB (5%)

Audio
ID : 1
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Codec ID : 2000
Duration : 2h 47mn
Source duration : 10mn 2s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 448 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 32.2 MiB (1%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 64 ms (1.60 video frames)
Interleave, preload duration : 192 ms
Title : aptemp_audio

[aasoror]

Per previous request on specs for the 720p that plays fine.

Thanks for the media info its a MPEG-4 file as I suspected.

Today I installed GB latest from this forum instead of ICS. XBMC won't play anything not even 720P.

Thats expected, XBMC doesn't run with h/w acceleration in GB (so you wont get anything in HD to run).

Guess I will go back to ICS. Wait to hear from someone with ideas to fixes for playing 1080p.

Can I trouble you in a short sample from the problematic MPEG-PS file ?

[thepolarbear]

Hi, Thanks for responding.

So you want me to provide a short sample from the problematic MPEG-PS file ? Can you please explain (PS) ? Did you want me to use a tool to carve out like a 30 second video or something?

Please let me know about the above

Also, I got email from tech support PIVOS stating that early next week they will be providing an early release of a Linux w/ XMBC only flash within these forums somewhere. So essentially it erases android and install linux only with XMBC. They provided that this will solve all my issues. I only wish to have XMBC running nicely don't care about android although would be nice to have it also.

May I ask opinion should I stick with this route hoping this will suffice for what I need to run XBMC? Should I go another route to have XMBC running on another hardware platform. I know there are tons of discussions on best platform to run XMBC but then it gets overwhelming. Just want only XMBC on a small form factor device. I bought PIVOS because I saw both XMBC and PIVOS supporting one another and developing together.

Thanks again!

[aasoror]

Hi, Thanks for responding.

So you want me to provide a short sample from the problematic MPEG-PS file ? Can you please explain (PS) ? Did you want me to use a tool to carve out like a 30 second video or something?

Please let me know about the above

Yup, I meant the file which info you posted earlier. PS (program stream) is how your MPEG file is formatted (vs. TS .. transport stream).
So basically use any tool to cut a small portion of the file (without re-encoding it).

So essentially it erases android and install linux only with XMBC.

Yup.

They provided that this will solve all my issues.

I would take with a grain of salt (at least until your specific files are tested and confirmed to run without issue), thats why I am asking for the sample. That said, the linux port is a significant improvement over the android version.

May I ask opinion should I stick with this route hoping this will suffice for what I need to run XBMC? Should I go another route to have XMBC running on another hardware platform.

I would give Pivos a little time and a little faith, (well since you already bought the hardware), XIOS already has the leverage of dedicated XBMC developers targeting it with updates, optimizations and fixes.