Jerky Playback on 1.0.5, smooth on 0.8.6d

[mightymulhern]

I've been Googling this on and off for awhile and have quickly scanned through past posts looking for an answer but have come up empty.

I've got a number of videos that I encoded using Handbrake in 2008 (X264 in MP4 container) that played perfectly in VLC 0.8.6d but have unwatchable jerky video in 1.0.5. Interestingly, the video is also jerky in other video players that I've recently downloaded. That has me wondering if the issue is in a library used by multiple players or if 0.6.8d was just more forgiving of a specific encoding.

I've tinkered with most of the video settings without seeing any difference in playback. I've also tried looking for messages (level 2) during playback but noting appears to be getting logged unless I skip to another area of the file.

Tonight I tried using a program called MediaInfo to find differences between videos that are jerky and those that aren't. So far I haven't come up with a pattern. I'm perplexed.

I've also verified that it's not my hardware by installing both versions on a newer (and much faster) PC. We can clearly rule out hardware. Both machines are running XP-SP3. The faster one has 2Gb of RAM , a 3GHZ Athlon II X3 CPU, and a GeForce 9600 GS graphics card. ...so it's not a matter of slow hardware.

Anyone have any wild guesses or suggestions on things to try?


Thanks in advance.

Mike

[VLC_help]

Is the playback jerky on Media Player Classic Home Cinema? Have you tried to remux the file?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Try VLC 1.1.0-pre3, it might fix it.

[mightymulhern]

Is the playback jerky on Media Player Classic Home Cinema? Have you tried to remux the file?

Downloaded and tried Media Player Classic Home Cinema. Still jerky

Used Yamb to demux the video stream into its own MP4. Still jerky.

[mightymulhern]

Try VLC 1.1.0-pre3, it might fix it.

Tried VLC1.1.0-pre3-20100502-1255. It's either the same or worse than 1.0.5.


I'm thinking about trying to compare the level 2 debug messages between clips that play well and ones that don't. Not sure if that will reveal anything interesting or not.

[VLC_help]

Is there are short sample file you could share us?

[mightymulhern]

Is there are short sample file you could share us?

Absolutely. I used Avidemux and chopped out a minute and a half clip out of Back to the Future. It's about 16Mb but clearly demonstrates the problem. With VLC 0.8.6d, it's smooth. 1.0.5 and on, it's really jerky.

I stuck the file on my personal site. For some reason MP4 files weren't downloading correctly so I zipped it.

http://www.houseofmulhern.com/videos/BTTF1.zip

Thanks in advance for taking a look at it!

[paintball9029]

ya there is definitely a compatibility problem with that file and vlc, here try these settings in handbrake instead, these are what i use and ive never seen anything like it. would you mind pointing out which one are completely different from your normal choice

Reference Frames: 6
Mixed References: [v]
B-frames: 5
Adaptive B-Frames: Optimal
Direct Prediction: Automatic
Weighted B-Frames: [ ]
Pyramidal B-Frames: [ ]
Motion Estimation Method: Uneven Multi-Hexagon
Subpixel Motion Estimation: 9
Motion Estimation Range: 24
Analysis: Default
8x8 DCT: [ ]
CABAC Entropy Coding: [v]
Trellis: 2
Psychovisual Rate Distortion: Max
Psychovisual Tellis: None
No Fast-P-Skip: [ ]
No DCT-Decimate: [ ]
Deblocking: both default

[VLC_help]

QuickTime doesn't play that file. So I would guess the used encoding settings are causing the problems.

[mightymulhern]

With respect to settings, most of these encodings are from 2008 so I'm not really sure what settings I was using. My recent encodings are fine, I've just got quite a few that used to play and no longer play. That's the part that has me perplexed.

At that point in time, there was less on the GUI and and I would have been using the advanced box and entering a string like the following:

subq=6:partitions=all:8x8dct:me=umh:frameref=5:bframes=3:b_pyramid:weight_b:qcomp=0.75:keyint:300


At this point, I think I'm going to give up. I'll just keep 0.8.6d around until I decide to bite the bullet and re-encode the DVDs.

[VLC_help]

I will open ticket for this later, but I ain't sure if this is something that can be fixed from VLC side. (libavcodec)

[mightymulhern]

Thanks. The issue was odd enough that I almost didn't post in the first place. If it can be fixed in VLC, great. If not, it's at least out there for the next person who asks the question.