XBMC - Hardware Accelerated Decoding - What works and what doesn't.

[ididmytime]

If you said to me "How will the example clip I have posted run?" I would of laughed and said it had no chance

That example is extremely high bit-rate. There is absolutely zero chance that a clip like that will ever be silky smooth on these devices at 1080p.... never. The GPU is not designed for it, it's around 2megs a second.... the new rom version of my device the internal read speed is only 1.3megs.

I can understand peoples aggravation over judder, some people say it's fine, others don't, but it is so subjective on the source material. So many factors in how high the bit-rate is, if it is variable bit-rate, the audio channels ect... but when you are trying to run files like that then I think you're expecting too much.

You're in a very niche group of people with these kinds of files, I know you say there are other devices that can do it better, and you're absolutely right there are, but these devices are only 5w, that's 20x less power than an Xbox 360. You will need some dedicated hardware to do that, and these sticks are anything but dedicated media players.

[CannaBioD]

If you said to me "How will the example clip I have posted run?" I would of laughed and said it had no chance

That example is extremely high bit-rate. There is absolutely zero chance that a clip like that will ever be silky smooth on these devices at 1080p.... never. The GPU is not designed for it, it's around 2megs a second.... the new rom version of my device the internal read speed is only 1.3megs.

I can understand peoples aggravation over judder, some people say it's fine, others don't, but it is so subjective on the source material. So many factors in how high the bit-rate is, if it is variable bit-rate, the audio channels ect... but when you are trying to run files like that then I think you're expecting too much.

You're in a very niche group of people with these kinds of files, I know you say there are other devices that can do it better, and you're absolutely right there are, but these devices are only 5w, that's 20x less power than an Xbox 360. You will need some dedicated hardware to do that, and these sticks are anything but dedicated media players.

So you say, it is a rk3066 hardware limitation?

I am aware of the lowcost/low power but this is something that is bugging me for a while.

[ididmytime]

So you say, it is a rk3066 hardware limitation?

I am aware of the lowcost/low power but this is something that is bugging me for a while.

Yeah, it's never going to be fixed.

There isn't a single device on the market which has a mali 400 GPU running at 1080p, the fact it can do it well enough to do moderate 1080p files is a bonus.

I'm not surprised it bugs you, it bugged me when I first saw it trying to run a movie, it was fixed by running an overclocked kernel to get some more performance out of the GPU, but it's not going to be overclocked much more than it already is to get to the point that it will play the files you are trying to run.

That's why the new quad core devices are so disappointing, it's not going to improve XBMC, infact looking at some threads it seems to have some major problems trying to play some movies.

I'm sure there will be a cheap android stick that can do it, won't be this year, or probably the next.

[Abducted]

That example is extremely high bit-rate. There is absolutely zero chance that a clip like that will ever be silky smooth on these devices at 1080p.... never. The GPU is not designed for it, it's around 2megs a second.... the new rom version of my device the internal read speed is only 1.3megs.
.

If there aren't any dropped frames, it's clearly not a bitrate problem.
Also a read speed of 1,3MB/s from the NAND???? That doesn't sound right. I download (so write) files faster than that, so read should be even higher. Maybe if it needs to read all very small files, but for a single large file it should be way higher. And if not, WIFI speed is higher and you should still be able to stream it.

[ididmytime]

If there aren't any dropped frames, it's clearly not a bitrate problem.
Also a read speed of 1,3MB/s from the NAND???? That doesn't sound right. I download (so write) files faster than that, so read should be even higher. Maybe if it needs to read all very small files, but for a single large file it should be way higher. And if not, WIFI speed is higher and you should still be able to stream it.

No i've also experianced it. You get jerky frames which look like dropped frames, yet they still don't count as dropped frames according to XBMC. I noticed it on 4.2.2 at 720p trying to run 1080p as the GPU performance has increased, and I noticed it straight away. GPU looked like it could almost do it, but it's not quiet there. Vairable bit-rate could mean a sudden jump which could be too much. so even though the video is encoded at 14mpbs it could be running at 5mpbs and shoot up to 22+, which it has no chance of playing smoothly.

And yeah 1.3megs from Nand according to Antutu, it's pretty awful, external is fine.

[Abducted]

I know what's meant by the shutter problem. I didn't notice it at all on my monitor with both my UG007-II and my MK808 untill i connected that MK808 to a Samsung TV at my parents house. Quite heavy stuttering while no dropped frames.

However, you say the file CannaBioD used to test has a bitrate which is much too high and you give the example of 1,3MB/s like any file with a bitrate over 10,4mbit/s would be too much.
If the bitrate of a file would be too much and either the NAND, SD, WIFI or Ethernet couldn't keep up or even if it would be too much for the GPU to handle you would see dropped frames. I mean if the data doesn't reach the GPU it can't display the frame and if the GPU handle process that data fast enough to display all the frames you get dropped frames too. But like i said with some stick/TV combinations you get the stutter even if there are no dropped frames at all. So it's not a bitrate or GPU speed problem. It's more than that. It's seems to decode the video fine, i guess it's just not sending it to the TV (or certain TV's at least) with a stable 41,7ms interval (for a 23,976FPS video).

Just for fun i'll also test a couple of 20+ Mbit/s bluray trailer files which i've been using as a source for test files.

BTW, large spikes in bitrate are buffered.

[CannaBioD]

Yeah, it's never going to be fixed.

There isn't a single device on the market which has a mali 400 GPU running at 1080p, the fact it can do it well enough to do moderate 1080p files is a bonus.

I'm not surprised it bugs you, it bugged me when I first saw it trying to run a movie, it was fixed by running an overclocked kernel to get some more performance out of the GPU, but it's not going to be overclocked much more than it already is to get to the point that it will play the files you are trying to run.

That's why the new quad core devices are so disappointing, it's not going to improve XBMC, infact looking at some threads it seems to have some major problems trying to play some movies.

I'm sure there will be a cheap android stick that can do it, won't be this year, or probably the next.

I have played around little bit with a Mygica A11 with XBMC Linux ROM, and it seems not to have any problem with this content.

The Mygica A11 only has an Amlogic M3 (singlecore) and also only has a mali 400 (singlecore) GPU and it only uses 5 watt.
I know the difference is that Amlogic has open source and that team XBMC choose Amlogic as "supported" partner for the Pivos XIOS ds.

So the mali 400 is not the problem I think.

[ididmytime]

I have played around little bit with a Mygica A11 with XBMC Linux ROM, and it seems not to have any problem with this content.

The Mygica A11 only has an Amlogic M3 (singlecore) and also only has a mali 400 (singlecore) GPU and it only uses 5 watt.
I know the difference is that Amlogic has open source and that team XBMC choose Amlogic as "supported" partner for the Pivos XIOS ds.

So the mali 400 is not the problem I think.

That A11 looks like a pretty decent piece of kit.

I still think it's GPU related considering the experiences I had and you saying it's fine on 720p, but that could mean anything and include things like the drivers for HDMI out, to just broken codec support. The fact it's happening for you on MX player is probably enough to call it quits on any hope of it ever being fixed. The sources will never get released, even after all this time there hasn't been a trace of any of the android sticks getting their sources released, even the old ones they don't sell anymore, so it's not looking great. You can also forget about roms and work being done past 4.2.2. I would love to be proved wrong however.

There isn't really enough documentation out there, the old days you would have to re-encode videos to certain profiles to get the best performance, or use XVID/DIVX. I think it's possible to play 1080p video on the stock 1080p kernel in XBMC, I just have no idea what bit-rate would be required.

Could be worse, could of bought an mk908... paying that much and getting shoddy performance.

Truth be told I think we will never know what causes it, as for all we know, each of our stuttering problems could be for entirely different reasons.

[PMisYMMV]

Idle XBMC makes mk808b hot

I have noticed that leaving XBMC (Xperience 1080) on even without playing any video for 1-2 hours makes mk808b hot. Quitting that app cools the device back down.
I have Finless 1.7 with all the tweaks you listed at the beginning for HD.

Is this a problem specific to mine, how are you handling this?
Do you leave the device on? Is there a feature to put it to sleep and wake on LAN or USB or IR remote?

[CannaBioD]

I have noticed that leaving XBMC (Xperience 1080) on even without playing any video for 1-2 hours makes mk808b hot. Quitting that app cools the device back down.
I have Finless 1.7 with all the tweaks you listed at the beginning for HD.

Is this a problem specific to mine, how are you handling this?
Do you leave the device on? Is there a feature to put it to sleep and wake on LAN or USB or IR remote?

I think it is a bug in XBMC for android.
Normaly XBMC syncs the frames with the frequenty.
In XBMC for android there seems to be no framelimit and the framerate goes up to 80+ fps.

[CannaBioD]

If you said to me "How will the example clip I have posted run?" I would of laughed and said it had no chance

That example is extremely high bit-rate. There is absolutely zero chance that a clip like that will ever be silky smooth on these devices at 1080p.... never. The GPU is not designed for it, it's around 2megs a second.....

This kind of remark shows your ignorance, you are as we say in the Netherlands : een spuit elf.

Also i find your posts lacking technical information and your tone is a little condescending.

I see that you did over 100 posts in a month.....So you are a senior.


Please leave this toppic to the people that have some real technical ARM/XBMC knowledge.

We are trying to find a solution for a problem that could be solved on rk3066 platform.

You just bardged in this toppic and talk about a GPU with 2megs a second, and how it is not designed for it.

[ididmytime]

I have noticed that leaving XBMC (Xperience 1080) on even without playing any video for 1-2 hours makes mk808b hot. Quitting that app cools the device back down.
I have Finless 1.7 with all the tweaks you listed at the beginning for HD.

Is this a problem specific to mine, how are you handling this?
Do you leave the device on? Is there a feature to put it to sleep and wake on LAN or USB or IR remote?

If you have overclocked the kernel to 1.4 performance it will increase the idle temperature.

With XBMC it wont actually ever be idle, it will always run at 30-70% load which is causing the heat, sleep will only turn the HDMI off and you will still have the issue.

You can enable Hotplug and your temperature will drop dramatically if you're using an overclocked kernel, or lower the CPU frequency as it's not really needed for XBMC. The device will never get too hot, because thermal throttling will kick in, but it's always advised not to push it to that point.

[bluesmanuk]

Having played around with many different builds of XBMC and trying all the tweaks available, I do find a lot of inconsistency with the quality of streams and ability to play different kinds of formats.

Some sites that I can stream from have the most glorious and judder free HD content and others very poor.

Whenever I use the hardware acceleration though, the results tend to be worse overall and I have come to the conclusion that many of these little TV sticks are not perhaps capable of true 1080p content and even struggle with 720p more times than I would like.

Personally, I find DVD quality is mostly very acceptable.

Ironically, with most of the UK Free to view content being in SD, the quality is still fine on my 42" TV but when playing just about any SD stream from the same sources through XBMC and other similar software, the SD quality on the screen does not match that which I get over the air so to speak.

I'm sure that as TV sticks start to develop more they will very shortly be able to deliver the general quality that I was expecting to get from the one that I did purchase.

Considering what is crammed into such a tiny space, it's pretty darned good for the price for overall functionality.

If there is one service that delivers consistent quality of it's HD content, it's that from Youtube, so I don't know if there is something that can be learned from what they do.

[narotic]

MK808 Video playback :

When using MX player(H/W) - Judder but watchable.
When using BS player - Judder but watchable.
When using standard player - Noticable judder but somewhat watchable.
When using XBMC Android (19febBuild) - massive judder/Massive framedrops(251 in 1 minute). Totaly unwatchable.

I can confirm your findings with my MK808B with Finless 1.7 rom (standard kernel). Especially during camera panning the judder/microstutters are very obvious. Although videos are still quite watchable in MX Player, this is not the case for accelerated XBMC (Gotham build of 0304). XBMC does get much better when libstagefright is disabled though. I only use SD material, so I do not believe either that the problem has anything to do with high bitrates, but rather problems in the HDMI handling. I also found that there is a video/audio missynchronization of around 200-300ms, which could similarly be caused by dodgy HDMI drivers.

[john3voltas]

You're in a very niche group of people with these kinds of files, I know you say there are other devices that can do it better, and you're absolutely right there are, but these devices are only 5w, that's 20x less power than an Xbox 360. You will need some dedicated hardware to do that, and these sticks are anything but dedicated media players.

I own a Asus HDP-R1 which consumes 8w (around 20x less power than the xbox 360) and I can easily read these video files.
Can't see a reason why rk3066 based sticks can't properly play 1080p video files.