How to get better performance when playing HD H.264

[jeroensky]

the sound codec is mp4a.
I can play it with sound using Dvix player but cannot play it using VLC player

i don't get it. (maybe it's more handy to make a new audio related topic)
H264 is video coding. Mp4a is audio that is supported by vlc (i have it in a avi container in a music video with h264 as video coding(made by avidemux), and in mp4 container as audio only *.m4a(made by foobar2000)).
This topic is about HD right?
In most HD (High Definition) media their is no compressed audio like mp4a/AAC. (correct me if i'm wrong)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... al_details
4 example Blu Ray-> Video is H.264 audio is 5.1 multichannel LPCM or Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master audio.

By the way, AAC is supported by VLC. My RSS2.0 feed is the evidence.
But I've to say, AAC can be encoded in many different kinda rates/values.
Bit rate/bit depth/sample rate/channels must be supported by audio hardware. For example a PSP, can go up to:"320Kbps,16bit,48KHz,2channels, (or lower).
More info about AAC can be found here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding then you discover that mp3/wma is so outdated .
(Ogg-Vorbis/Flac rules too )

[Ux64]

Problem solved. I updated to VLC 1.0 prerelease, and i works perfectly with H.264 files.

Only problems are high bitrate files, which do take up whole system memory bandwidth with Q6600 even core loads are managable. But that's hardware issue, as far as I know.

- Thanks!

[Lotesdelere]

Only problems are high bitrate files, which do take up whole system memory bandwidth with Q6600 even core loads are managable. But that's hardware issue, as far as I know.

Not only a hardware issue. VLC 1.0.0 is still having some problems with some files.

Here is a high bitrate sample which is playing fine in MPlayer but VLC has troubles to play it properly:
http://rapidshare.com/files/82525583/ki ... 4.mkv.html

[Ux64]

Not only a hardware issue. VLC 1.0.0 is still having some problems with some files.

Ok good to know. I have encountered not problems but performance issues with tasks when all cores access main memory very agressively. I'm taking about files with more than 4 gigabytes / hour and scenes with very much moving stuff toward differrent directions. Full hd 1080p. Like huge bird flock with thousands of birds and forest as background for that flock. So absolutely every pixel changes for every frame, and there are high contrast differences no "flat" surfaces and all image blocks move and change and partly to opposing directions. I know it's the worst possible scenario for compressing data.

Here is a high bitrate sample which is playing fine in MPlayer but VLC has troubles to play it properly:
http://rapidshare.com/files/82525583/ki ... 4.mkv.html

Download just finished... Btw. Laugh, it was JUST the clip what I were talking about. Ha ha...

But when it plays without problems I'm very happy.

... Michael Palins New Europe and Planet Earth 2006 ... I have been saving those for years while waiting that playback would be working. Total playback time about 19 hours and about 80 gigs of data.

[rarspace01]

Is there any link to the h264 decoder src of the VLC, or any thread where the multithreaded code is discussed?
I have some C/C++ expierence and i would like to help to improve playback on multi core cpus.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Is there any link to the h264 decoder src of the VLC, or any thread where the multithreaded code is discussed?
I have some C/C++ expierence and i would like to help to improve playback on multi core cpus.

We use ffmpeg for h264 decoding.

[Florin64x]

will vlc 1.0 support multicore? for all video formats..? or only for H264

[omodecarton]

I prefer GPU support than multi CPU!

[visagoo]

oh thanks God I tried it and my problem were solved.

[flymann]

Hi,

First thanks for developing this software, it's really a good solution for a all-in-one player.

Then, the trouble...

I'm trying to play a 1080p video that seem to be encoded with AVC1 codec.

My hardware configuration is "Core 2 Duo E8400" but running at 4Ghz, and with 4GB RAM.

The task manager says that CPU resources required for playing the video are around 20 an 30 percent (take a look on the screenshot).

But video still have some periodic latency when I play it.



I've tried your "trick" but I think it is just to "relax" the system in order to unload it from to much work (with this high bitrate), and of course, it doesn't work.


Do you have any idea to fix this "issue" ?

EDIT : Played on WMP (Windows Media Player) with Haali codec and AC3filter 1.60b, there is no lag.

[Alexsource]

Hi,

First thanks for developing this software, it's really a good solution for a all-in-one player.

Then, the trouble...

I'm trying to play a 1080p video that seem to be encoded with AVC1 codec.

My hardware configuration is "Core 2 Duo E8400" but running at 4Ghz, and with 4GB RAM.

The task manager says that CPU resources required for playing the video are around 20 an 30 percent (take a look on the screenshot).

But video still have some periodic latency when I play it.
I've tried your "trick" but I think it is just to "relax" the system in order to unload it from to much work (with this high bitrate), and of course, it doesn't work.


Do you have any idea to fix this "issue" ?

EDIT : Played on WMP (Windows Media Player) with Haali codec and AC3filter 1.60b, there is no lag.

This sounds similar to my problem -> viewtopic.php?f=14&t=59824
Do you get video freezes with audio still running and "main warning: late picture skipped " in the messages window? (verbosity set to 2)

[Lotesdelere]

I'm trying to play a 1080p video that seem to be encoded with AVC1 codec.
My hardware configuration is "Core 2 Duo E8400" but running at 4Ghz, and with 4GB RAM.

Please post a sample of the video.
Use DGsplit and read here how to do it:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=57724&p=193335#p193335

[Lotesdelere]

Will my old cpu (Pentium D 2.8ghz duel core) in my dell xps 400 work with my new computer?

I'm afraid this CPU will be a bit short for some 1080p videos. It should be OK for 720p though.
But nowadays you need at the very least a Core2Duo at 2.6 GHz to be able to play 1080p smoothly in software mode. And also a good motherboard

[highstrung667]

Hello,

I am having the same issue with stuttering and sometimes freezing of images. The strange thing is though that on exectly the same system the movie plays out smoothly using Zoom player. Don't they use the same codecs or what can be the difference. Can somebody help me understand?

[kurkosdr]

Just do something about the multicore support, at least for H.264 vids only. You can always provide help to the ffmpeg team, so the codecs become threaded. If you are the devs that bought us x264, you could make an exellent threaded decoder if you cooperated with the ffmpeg team. After all, ffmpeg-mt is almost done.

It may look trivial, but i ve seen fairly powerfull pcs with core 2 duos been brought to their knees due to the single threaded codecs, while other threaded apps cope with less powerfull systems fairly well. Now that HD videos in open source formats like mkv's are everywhere, we need vlc to be able to handle them.

GPU decoding with openCL is also good, but people with multicores are much more, plus it's almost done project. What is preventing ffmpeg-mt going into vlc? i really hope to see threaded codecs on vlc someday soon.

[hallelujahtalon]

Will my old cpu (Pentium D 2.8ghz duel core) in my dell xps 400 work with my new computer?

I'm afraid this CPU will be a bit short for some 1080p videos. It should be OK for 720p though.
But nowadays you need at the very least a Core2Duo at 2.6 GHz to be able to play 1080p smoothly in software mode. And also a good motherboard

Thanks for your info. How about vram? How much I need to paly 1080p?

Thanks again

[kurkosdr]

Will my old cpu (Pentium D 2.8ghz duel core) in my dell xps 400 work with my new computer?

I'm afraid this CPU will be a bit short for some 1080p videos. It should be OK for 720p though.
But nowadays you need at the very least a Core2Duo at 2.6 GHz to be able to play 1080p smoothly in software mode. And also a good motherboard

So, why not make VLC's codecs multicore, so than even the old Pentium D can handle 1080p. The reason you need Core2Duo at 2.6 GHz is because only the one core is actually in use by VLC. I have seen other software perform fine in lower spec computers, because they are multicore.

We want multicore in VLC!

[lzrs21lz]

Same probs here. 1080p freezing/ unable to watch. Do something please ! It's a shame for such a great player to lag behind others

[napx]

I agree ffmpeg-mt will be VLC's performance salvation. IMHO It is even more straightforward for the user than trying to activate DXVA.
For example I have a 8400M GS and it is supposed to be able to do DXVA, but I've had no luck with other players that support that. On the other hand I am getting great results on 1080P from ffmpeg-mt through MPC-HC & ffdshow combination because I have a dual core CPU.
However I would like to have all that performance with VLC's excellent features.
Can we get ffmpeg-mt into VLC PLEASE ?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

You will ffmpeg-mt into VLC when ffmpeg-mt gets into ffmpeg?

VLC cannot have two different ffmpeg's.

[kurkosdr]

...Thats UNLTIL multicore support appears on H264 decoder

And... 2 years later, we are still in the dark about that issue.

I don't expect VLC's codecs to go multicore the next day, but a nice briefing about what needs to be done ("where are we now?") and when to expect it to come would be nice.

[napx]

It looks like it basically boils down to waiting for the relevant ffmpeg release (current version is 0.5 released on 2009-03-10).
However their plans for the next version says nothing about what happens to ffmpeg-mt or multithread... http://ffmpeg.org/changelog.html
And then we would need a new VLC release after that.
Looks like a long wait... A pity because this is pretty much THE MOST NEEDED improvement...

[kurkosdr]

It looks like it basically boils down to waiting for the relevant ffmpeg release (current version is 0.5 released on 2009-03-10).
However their plans for the next version says nothing about what happens to ffmpeg-mt or multithread... http://ffmpeg.org/changelog.html
And then we would need a new VLC release after that.
Looks like a long wait... A pity because this is pretty much THE MOST NEEDED improvement...

And why is it so goddamn difficult for the videolan team to compile the next version of VLC with ffmpeg-mt instead of ffmpeg?

Don't believe the fud people are saying on other forums, ffmpeg-mt is bug free. The guys at Mplayer have been using it for months, and with all the people using mplayer, no complaints where heard.

I 'll even go as far as to drop the idea of someone compiling VLC with ffmpeg-mt and make a fork if videolan's weird obsession with plain (non mt) ffmpeg continues...

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

It looks like it basically boils down to waiting for the relevant ffmpeg release (current version is 0.5 released on 2009-03-10).
However their plans for the next version says nothing about what happens to ffmpeg-mt or multithread... http://ffmpeg.org/changelog.html
And then we would need a new VLC release after that.
Looks like a long wait... A pity because this is pretty much THE MOST NEEDED improvement...

And why is it so goddamn difficult for the videolan team to compile the next version of VLC with ffmpeg-mt instead of ffmpeg?

Don't believe the fud people are saying on other forums, ffmpeg-mt is bug free. The guys at Mplayer have been using it for months, and with all the people using mplayer, no complaints where heard.

I 'll even go as far as to drop the idea of someone compiling VLC with ffmpeg-mt and make a fork if videolan's weird obsession with plain (non mt) ffmpeg continues...

Patches for VLC and FFmpeg-mt already exist, but it is NOT bug-free. It has many timestamps problem.

[kurkosdr]

Patches for VLC and FFmpeg-mt already exist, but it is NOT bug-free. It has many timestamps problem.

And the timestamps problem is an ffmpeg-mt bug (aka ffmpeg-mt's problem) or a VLC-specific problem?

If it is VLC's problem, why isn't there a bug for that defect in trac?