HEVC x265 playback issue

[shag00]

I have a number of UHD movies which my VLC 3.0 on Ubuntu 17.10 has been playing without problems for many months now. I went to play Jason Bourne, 2016 (retail version) the other day and experienced severe choppiness in playback. I suspected there must be some error in the file as I don't normally have any issues, so to test this I opened VLC on a networked computer and it played faultlessly. This removed any doubt that there was a disk problem or file corruption.

The other computer was a windows 10 system with a comparable CPU: http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-4 ... e-i5-2500K so that pretty much removes the CPU as an issue.

Both the linux and windows VLC are in standard configuration and are both version 3.0. Although I did experiment with different codec settings as discovered on the internet I found they did not work so I undid the changes. My linux VLC plays my other UHD movies, I have tested about a dozen. A look at syslog shows:

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Aug 28 12:12:43 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: message repeated 10 times: [ [00007fbd94c04d80] avcodec decoder error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)] Aug 28 12:12:43 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c68e60] Duplicate POC in a sequence: 16. Aug 28 12:12:48 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c68e60] Could not find ref with POC 10 Aug 28 12:12:48 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c68e60] Could not find ref with POC 12 Aug 28 12:12:48 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c68e60] Could not find ref with POC 16 Aug 28 12:12:54 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c157c0] Could not find ref with POC 20 Aug 28 12:12:54 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c157c0] Could not find ref with POC 22 Aug 28 12:12:54 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c157c0] Could not find ref with POC 23 Aug 28 12:12:59 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c68e60] Could not find ref with POC 4 Aug 28 12:12:59 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c68e60] Could not find ref with POC 2 Aug 28 12:13:16 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c157c0] Could not find ref with POC 2 Aug 28 12:13:16 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c157c0] Could not find ref with POC 0 Aug 28 12:13:16 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c157c0] Could not find ref with POC 4 Aug 28 12:13:16 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c157c0] Could not find ref with POC 8 Aug 28 12:13:16 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c79240] Duplicate POC in a sequence: 16. Aug 28 12:13:17 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c58ac0] Duplicate POC in a sequence: 22. Aug 28 12:13:28 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c157c0] Could not find ref with POC 4 Aug 28 12:13:28 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c25840] Duplicate POC in a sequence: 16. Aug 28 12:13:28 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c25840] Duplicate POC in a sequence: 14. Aug 28 12:13:28 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c58ac0] Duplicate POC in a sequence: 13. Aug 28 12:13:33 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c68e60] Could not find ref with POC 0 Aug 28 12:13:33 scottlounge org.gnome.Nautilus[1344]: [hevc @ 0x7fbd94c68e60] Could not find ref with POC 4

This of course is just a sample, not the full log. So all this leads me to ask why does a file which cannot be played properly on Ubuntu VLC (locally) be played over a LAN on Windows VLC? The fact the file can be played remotely would seem to suggest that the problem lies in the linux version of VLC.

[InTheWings]

The other computer was a windows 10 system with a comparable CPU: http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-4 ... e-i5-2500K so that pretty much removes the CPU as an issue.

Not really
https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:Video:Slow/

[shag00]

Here are some figures further supporting the usability of both processors.

Problem file: Overall bit rate: 61.2 Mbps
Other files that play fine: Overall bit rate 54.6 Mbps, 66.2 Mbps, 71.0 Mbps, 56.9 Mbps

Notwithstanding that these are overall rates some files which do play have significantly higher bit rates, almost 30% which undoubtedly has some follow through to maximum bit rates. From purely watching I would also say that bit rate is not so much an issue as one area that has has a problem (movie always freezes) is a static shot of a PC screen.

Also, regards your link, I do not have any colour problems. It is also worth mentioning that I replayed the movie with the system monitor on and CPU usage never exceeded 80%. Also please note that in the comparison in the link in my initial post the Ubuntu processor is the more powerful one, ie I5-4430.

[InTheWings]

If you're using VLC 3.0.x and have video issues.
Try:

1. Preferences -> Input/Codecs -> Disable hw decoding
2. If you are a Windows user, Preferences -> Video -> Change from direct3d11 to direct3d9

If any solution works, please tell us which one solved your case, Please also quote your video driver name and version.

[shag00]

HW decoding is disabled, problem persists.

Graphics info:

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$ sudo lshw -c video *-display description: VGA compatible controller product: Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 2 bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0 version: 06 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom configuration: driver=i915 latency=0 resources: irq:31 memory:f7400000-f77fffff memory:e0000000-efffffff ioport:f000(size=64) memory:c0000-dffff

[InTheWings]

You're sure the Other UHD movies aren't H264 ?

I don't see how a 2011 cpu can decode HEVC UHD in real time.

[shag00]

It does it easily, normally with a dozen or more applications open (though mostly at idle) and multi tabs open in the 2 browsers I always run concurrently, I do have 16GB RAM, maybe that helps. The linux machine has a later CPU and it's the problem one.

Due to size of UHD movies I have to package them in mkv containers because I cannot find software that handles them in m2ts containers so they are very easy to spot in my library. For 1080p it's very easy, just remux out all the foreign language bits and save as m2ts. I have listed below a report of 1 movie I refer to in an earlier post. I have also stripped out the audio and sub title information. I have only included 1 report to give you sense of the issue and save considerable space. If required I can provide reports (in full if necessary) for probably the 2 dozen or so movies that I have that played successfully. As you can see, they are standard UHD (3840 x 2160) movies with HDR (10bit).

===================== Video =====================
Id : 1
Format : HEVC
Format info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Formatprofile : Main 10@L5.1@High
Codec Id : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration (ms) : 1h 58mn
Bit rate : 51.9 Mbps
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 (Type 2)
Bit depth : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.261
Stream size : 42.9 GB (91%)
Language : zxx
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics : SMPTE ST 2084
Matrix coefficients : BT.2020 non-constant
Mastering display color pri: R: x=0.680000 y=0.320000, G: x=0.265000 y=0.690000, B: x=0.150000 y=0.060000, White point: x=0.312700 y=0.329000
Mastering display luminance: min: 0.0000 cd/m2, max: 1000.0000 cd/m2
Maximum Content Light Level: 1000 cd/m2
Maximum Frame-Average Light: 73 cd/m2

[EpicEntity20XX]

Hi all,

I have had this issue for awhile as well as I have many files that are 10bit/HEVC/x265. As a temporary work around I just reinstalled VLC version 2.2.0. It seems to provide more stable HEVC codec support than version 3.X.X. Hope this helps.