Kodi 14 on Pipo X7 - skipped/dropped frames

[noggin]

Hi all

I'm playing 720/50p HDTV streams (off-air recordings of Swedish TV) with Dolby 5.1 sound bitstreamed. They are approx 12Mbs H264. I'm getting lots of dropped frames - effectively they are unwatchable with the current stable Kodi Helix 14.0 build. All 4 CPU cores are hitting 80%+ when playing this content (which is odd isn't it?)

These files are perfectly normal H264 Level 4.0 broadcast recordings.

My other Kodi boxes (Chromebox with Celeron 2955U, Acer Revo N270 Atom with ION graphics etc., Raspberry Pi) all play the same files with no problem...

I have DXVA enabled and when I look at the player stats DXVA decoding is being used for replay.

I've also tried similar content from the same channel as Windows Media Centre recordings in Windows Media Player, and they stutter badly in this as well.

The content is on directly connected USB hard drives - so it isn't a network issue.

Have people who are getting fluid replay of content on the Pipo X7 altered the BIOS GPU RAM settings? If so what are people running with?

Surely standard HDTV streams should be decodable without problems ?

[Finless]

If it has that problem on a high end Windows PC then it's either going to be some issue with Windows in general. Possibly a codec issue? Maybe go get some codecs and install them. It's been a while but there use to be the "All in 1 codec packs" available.

Bob

[noggin]

If it has that problem on a high end Windows PC then it's either going to be some issue with Windows in general.

There isn't an issue on high end Windows PC - it plays fine on the Sandy Bridge Pentium box which recorded them in Win 7 Media Centre - and they also play fine in OpenElec on a Chromebox 2955U Haswell Celeron, Raspberry Pi etc.

Possibly a codec issue? Maybe go get some codecs and install them. It's been a while but there use to be the "All in 1 codec packs" available.

Bob

Hmm - standard H264 ? It is playing with DXVA in Kodi, and presumably DXVA in WMP. I'm going to give MPC-HC a go to see if that improves things. Kodi doesn't use Windows codecs anyway does it? It uses its own internal stuff I thought.

Am wondering if I need to allocate more GPU RAM in the BIOS.

The main difference to the content that other people are playing is that they are 50p rather than 24p I guess - but they aren't a particularly high H264 profile. 4.0 shouldn't be an issue should it?

This is standard DVB TV - should play on pretty much everything...

[WeK05]

Am wondering if I need to allocate more GPU RAM in the BIOS.

This thing has just 2GB RAM. If you allocate more to the GPU, don't you think it will affect the performance of Windows 8.1 in general?

50/60fps playback is processor intensive. What is the average realtime fps that you see in Kodi for 50fps?

Does this have Windows 8.1 32-bit or 64-bit?

[noggin]

This thing has just 2GB RAM. If you allocate more to the GPU, don't you think it will affect the performance of Windows 8.1 in general?

Possibly - though Windows 8.1 tablets ship with 1GB.

50/60fps playback is processor intensive. What is the average realtime fps that you see in Kodi for 50fps?

Is it? I thought this stuff was offloaded to the GPU/VPU. On my Chromebox (also 2GB RAM) it sits at less than 10% CPU on each core playing the same content. I thought that DXVA hardware acceleration meant that the processor wasn't taxed?

Does this have Windows 8.1 32-bit or 64-bit?

Windows 8.1 32 bit. (My Pentium Sandy Bridge box is running Win 7 32 bit)

[josef]

maybe it´s a heat Problem?
please check during Video plaback:

- cpu usage
- cpu temp
- cpu frequency (the cpu underclocks heavy if it´s too hot!)

[goujam]

Is this interlaced (720i) if so the CPU will come into consideration. If its progressive (720p) it should all be put on the GPU I can play a 1080p 50hz bluray rip no problem. Just check to make sure your refresh rate is correct and its not playing back 50hz at 60hz or something like that

[WeK05]

Is this interlaced (720i) if so the CPU will come into consideration. If its progressive (720p) it should all be put on the GPU I can play a 1080p 50hz bluray rip no problem. Just check to make sure your refresh rate is correct and its not playing back 50hz at 60hz or something like that

noggin is talking about actual 50fps content. 720p50 & 1080p50 are EUB standards. Blu-ray specs only allow 1080p23.976, 1080p24, 1080i50, or 1080i59.94. Yes, Kodi struggles with de-interlacing. I have also seen reports of it struggling with 50/60fps content. I am not sure how Kodi handles 50/60fps playback.

[noggin]

Is this interlaced (720i) if so the CPU will come into consideration. If its progressive (720p) it should all be put on the GPU

720p progressive. (SVT HD)

720i doesn't exist in the real world - you have 480i, 576i, 720p, 1080i and 1080p in the broadcast world. 1080 (The BBC dynamically switch their DVB-T2 H264 encoders between 1080/25p and 1080/50i) Some people describe 576i as 720i incorrectly (as the horizontal resolution can be 720 samples - though it can also be 704 and 544 etc.)

I can play a 1080p 50hz bluray rip no problem.

1080i surely? There isn't a 1080p 50Hz mode - you can have 1080/24p, 1080/50i or 1080/59.94i on Blu-ray (the latter two will often be replayed by players at 1080/50p or 1080/59.94p - but the on-disc video is 1080i still)

I've got a couple of DIY encodes of 1080/50i Blu-ray discs made from ProRes HQ recordings (I work in the broadcast industry). They also fall over - but I thought de-interlacing could be an issue so wasn't surprised - though my Pentium and Celeron both play 1080/50i OK with half-way decent de-interlacing (The Haswell Celeron now has VAAPI Motion Compensated decoding in OpenElec - but even with CPU/Shader or VAAPI Bob things shouldn't be too bad)

Just check to make sure your refresh rate is correct and its not playing back 50hz at 60hz or something like that

Yep - 1080/50p output, and the Kodi overlay indicates the skips that I'm seeing. It isn't the normal 50Hz at 60Hz regular cadence judder. (For info - I'm new here, but a former TV Broadcast R&D engineer and a regular in the Kodi Hardware forums)

I'm bitstreaming the audio - which is either DD or DTS - so there shouldn't be any audio decoding overhead on the CPU.

[noggin]

noggin is talking about actual 50fps content. 720p50 & 1080p50 are EUB standards. Blu-ray specs only allow 1080p23.976, 1080p24, 1080i50, or 1080i59.94.

Yep - precisely what I'm talking about. H264 720/50p and 1080/50i (*) are the two broadcast HD standards in use in Europe.

(*) The UK is using dynamic encoder switching where, on a GOP by GOP basis, the encoders switch between 1080/50i and 1080/25p encoding on-the-fly, so that natively progressive 25p content is encoded in 25p rather than 50i, as 25p is slightly more efficient and thus delivers better quality at a given bitrate.

Yes, Kodi struggles with de-interlacing. I have also seen reports of it struggling with 50/60fps content. I am not sure how Kodi handles 50/60fps playback.

Kodi is fine with 720/50p (not interlaced) on the Raspberry Pi, and also works well with 1080/50i on the Haswell Chromebox (2955u Celeron) and will do a 50Hz Bob on low power devices (older Celerons like the 847 for instance). The Pipo X7 is the first recent device I've tried Kodi on that has struggled with 50Hz HD content.

I'd be a bit surprised if the Z-series really wasn't up to it - so I'm going to persevere.

MPC-HC next, and I may give DVB Viewer a go with a DVB-T2 dongle to see how Freeview HD works...

[goujam]

720p progressive. (SVT HD)

720i doesn't exist in the real world - you have 480i, 576i, 720p, 1080i and 1080p in the broadcast world. 1080 (The BBC dynamically switch their DVB-T2 H264 encoders between 1080/25p and 1080/50i) Some people describe 576i as 720i incorrectly (as the horizontal resolution can be 720 samples - though it can also be 704 and 544 etc.)


1080i surely? There isn't a 1080p 50Hz mode - you can have 1080/24p, 1080/50i or 1080/59.94i on Blu-ray (the latter two will often be replayed by players at 1080/50p or 1080/59.94p - but the on-disc video is 1080i still)

I've got a couple of DIY encodes of 1080/50i Blu-ray discs made from ProRes HQ recordings (I work in the broadcast industry). They also fall over - but I thought de-interlacing could be an issue so wasn't surprised - though my Pentium and Celeron both play 1080/50i OK with half-way decent de-interlacing (The Haswell Celeron now has VAAPI Motion Compensated decoding in OpenElec - but even with CPU/Shader or VAAPI Bob things shouldn't be too bad)



Yep - 1080/50p output, and the Kodi overlay indicates the skips that I'm seeing. It isn't the normal 50Hz at 60Hz regular cadence judder. (For info - I'm new here, but a former TV Broadcast R&D engineer and a regular in the Kodi Hardware forums)

I'm bitstreaming the audio - which is either DD or DTS - so there shouldn't be any audio decoding overhead on the CPU.

Your right its actually 1920*1080 at 25fps which is why it was playing at 50

[noggin]

Your right its actually 1920*1080 at 25fps which is why it was playing at 50

Yep - though because Blu-ray doesn't support 1080/25p (it only supports 1080p at 23.976/24Hz) it will be 1080/25p content carried as 1080/25psf (progressive segmented frame) which is a 1080/50i signal. (I've got a lot of 1080/25p content on 1080/50i discs. Most European TV drama is released in this format)

If it has been re-encoded it could well have been re-encoded as 1080/25p by de-interlacing.

[WeK05]

Kodi is fine with 720/50p (not interlaced) on the Raspberry Pi, and also works well with 1080/50i on the Haswell Chromebox (2955u Celeron) and will do a 50Hz Bob on low power devices (older Celerons like the 847 for instance). The Pipo X7 is the first recent device I've tried Kodi on that has struggled with 50Hz HD content.
I'd be a bit surprised if the Z-series really wasn't up to it - so I'm going to persevere.

MPC-HC next, and I may give DVB Viewer a go with a DVB-T2 dongle to see how Freeview HD works...

Personally, I haven't played much with interlaced content, but I have read many posts on de-interlace problems with Kodi.

I am looking forward to your reports on MPC-HC madVR

[noggin]

Personally, I haven't played much with interlaced content, but I have read many posts on de-interlace problems with Kodi.

It was problematic on Intel GPUs for a long time, but has got a lot better recently. nVidia has been well supported for a while. Not sure about AMD.

The Raspberry Pi has had a simple de-interlacer for ages as well. The Android builds, and many of the non-Raspberry Pi ARM solutions are the real problems these days.

I am looking forward to your reports on MPC-HC madVR

I'm sure it will play my 4320x2160/60p HEVC/H265 recordings with no problem at all...

[noggin]

So here are some stats :

720/25p 4Mbs content - ff-h264-dxva decode
Kodi reports : 25fps
All 4 CPUs sitting at between 50 and 90%
CPU speed 1329MHz
CPU Usage 80-90% (rises to 100% if in Hardware information menu on Kodi for too long)
CPU Temperature not reported by Kodi

Windows 8.1 Task Manager reports : 50% utilization and CPU speed wobbling between 1.00GHz and 1.49GHz

720/50p 8-15Mbs content - ff-h264-dxva2 decode. Frame skips like crazy (up to 1000s in a few minutes)
Kodi reports : 37-41fps
All 4 CPUs sitting at between 40 and 90%
CPU Speed drops from 1329MHz to 996MHz after a few mins of playing
CPU Usage 61-71%

Windows 8.1 Task Manager reports : 21-35% utilization and CPU speed dropping to 0.48-0.62GHz

I don't have a temperature monitor yet - but it does look as though the CPU is throttling heavily on 720p content.

I wonder if the GPU is getting warm and slowing the CPU down? The case is slightly warm to the touch after less than 10 minutes of operation...