How good is your HD video playback?

[T6]

that sounds correct to me

[horusfalcon]

Here's a silly question or two:

1.)  Have you tried raising the amount of video that is cached to memory before playback begins?  In SMPlayer this is done from Options --> Preferences --> Performance --> Cache Tab --> Cache for Local Files.  Mine is set to 4096 (up from some ridiculously small default...).

2.)  Do you have only one thread in use for decoding?  If so, you might try selecting 2.  (I've never tried higher than that...)

This is also available from SMPlayer's preferences.  (SMPlayer is a front-end to MPlayer with some nice features....)

The only other thing might be if the files you are viewing are Hi10P, but even these should play fine.  (Of course, my laptop doesn't play 1080p very well, but it's video card is a humble 32 MB Intel.  I don't really expect that.)

Hope you get it sorted out.  Try the cache settings first.  They will likely give you some relief.  (You can go even higher than 4096 if you need to... all things for a price, though.)

Later On,
D

[Just17]

The only other thing might be if the files you are viewing are Hi10P, but even these should play fine.  (Of course, my laptop doesn't play 1080p very well, but it's video card is a humble 32 MB Intel.  I don't really expect that.)

I *think* when playing such files that more than two threads will be needed to get a good solid output.
At least that is so from my VERY limited experience.

Some posts I read on line indicate that a third thread is sufficient .....

I know my latest build which has a G630 dual core CPU but no hyperthreading has problems rendering the higher quality files. The display 'stutters' slightly.

[agmg]

Here's a silly question or two:

1.)  Have you tried raising the amount of video that is cached to memory before playback begins?  In SMPlayer this is done from Options --> Preferences --> Performance --> Cache Tab --> Cache for Local Files.  Mine is set to 4096 (up from some ridiculously small default...).

2.)  Do you have only one thread in use for decoding?  If so, you might try selecting 2.  (I've never tried higher than that...)

This is also available from SMPlayer's preferences.  (SMPlayer is a front-end to MPlayer with some nice features....)

The only other thing might be if the files you are viewing are Hi10P, but even these should play fine.  (Of course, my laptop doesn't play 1080p very well, but it's video card is a humble 32 MB Intel.  I don't really expect that.)

Hope you get it sorted out.  Try the cache settings first.  They will likely give you some relief.  (You can go even higher than 4096 if you need to... all things for a price, though.)

Later On,
D

Thank you very much horusfalcon for your suggestions. I have both of them set up in mplayer (my cache is set to 8192 but I have tried many values). To tell the truth, I never tried more than 2 threads either. I thought that this number must be set according to the cores of the CPU (mine has 2 cores). I will try raising to 3 or 4 as Just17 suggests (thanks to you too ) and see if it makes any difference.

Using both my standard and testing installs to make tests to various 1080p files, I can safely say that the problem is not general; some of the files play well and some of them don't. Some play better in Smplayer and not at all in VLC and vice versa. I only use those two players as they seem to work best for me of all I have tried (XBMC also has good performance). Test system uses Catalyst 12.6 from ATI's site and no Pulseaudio and my standard system uses Catalyst 12.4 from repos and Pulseaudio. I'm not certain, but I have suspicions that Pulseaudio may have something to do with this in some cases...

[horusfalcon]

[snippage...]

Using both my standard and testing installs to make tests to various 1080p files, I can safely say that the problem is not general; some of the files play well and some of them don't. Some play better in Smplayer and not at all in VLC and vice versa. I only use those two players as they seem to work best for me of all I have tried (XBMC also has good performance). Test system uses Catalyst 12.6 from ATI's site and no Pulseaudio and my standard system uses Catalyst 12.4 from repos and Pulseaudio. I'm not certain, but I have suspicions that Pulseaudio may have something to do with this in some cases...

Hmm... you may just have some files with really bad encoding - a few rotten apples don't spoil the whole barrel in this case, though.  If there are specific files that have performance issues, it might be best to attempt to transcode them to another format, or to try to obtain them in a better encoding?

Could you point me at some of the files that are giving you trouble?  It might also be worthwhile to run Mediainfo on them and see what their CRF and color depth settings are looking like.

I use SMPlayer primarily, but I find Xine works better for some things and worse for others when compared to SMPlayer.  I toyed with VLC for a while and found it had too much overhead for my little laptop to handle well.

If your CPU supports hyperthreading, then a dual core will present as though it were four virtual processors, so try jacking up the number of threads a bit higher.  Hey, it'll either work or it won't.

Do the troublesome files originate with Youtube, by any chance?  If so, you might try the Minitube viewer, or transcode them with VideoDownloadHelper (it's a Firefox add-on).

The bit about pulse audio being part of your problem?  What would make you tend to suspect that?  I've heard folks say this before, but it usually turns out something else was actually wrong...  (I'm definitely no expert on Pulse Audio.)

I'll be curious how it turns out for you with higher cache settings and more threads.

Later On,
D