Odroid XU4 and Debian laptop VLC problem

[amcrest]

I run security net-cams and process the rtsp streams using "motion" on a headless Odroid XU4. The mp4 files it creates used to play properly on a Debian Buster laptop using vlc, but no longer. I wonder if there is some conflicting library problem after recent updates, but not sure how to diagnose the problem.

vlc when run on the Odroid displays the mp4 files properly on the Debian laptop Xserver. The same mp4 files when using the same vlc version on the laptop display as unrecognizable garbage, regardless whether the file resides locally on the XU4 and is on an sshfs mount on the laptop, or even if a file is sftp'd across to the laptop. A "motion" mp4 file plays properly on the laptop using ffplay or lavplay, but not with vlc. Here it is from the sshfs mount on the laptop:

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$ VLC_VERBOSE=1 vlc /home/amcrest/odroid/motion/*/videos/* VLC media player 3.0.11 Vetinari (revision 3.0.11-0-gdc0c5ced72) [000055dce1c99570] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface. [00007f03c0001110] mp4 demux warning: elst box found [00007f03c0001110] mp4 demux warning: STTS table of 80 entries libva info: VA-API version 1.4.0 libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0 libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_4 libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0 [00007f03c0c091f0] avcodec decoder: Using Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) Haswell Mobile - 2.3.0 for hardware decoding [00007f03c8000c40] main input error: ES_OUT_SET_(GROUP_)PCR is called too late (pts_delay increased to 1000 ms) [00007f03c0c091f0] main decoder error: Timestamp conversion failed for 4841425: no reference clock [00007f03c0c091f0] main decoder error: Could not convert timestamp 0 for FFmpeg [00007f03c8000c40] main input error: ES_OUT_SET_(GROUP_)PCR is called too late (pts_delay increased to 1517 ms) [00007f03c0c091f0] main decoder error: Timestamp conversion failed for 7357980: no reference clock [00007f03c0c091f0] main decoder error: Could not convert timestamp 0 for FFmpeg ...

I don't know what to look for as the problem, please.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

System is too slow. This could be caused by FUSE messing up stream buffering.

[amcrest]

How to investigate your suggestion, please? "man fuser" doesn't suggest anything obvious. While the laptop's vlc is oaused while displaying the garbage:

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$ fuser -v /usr/bin/vlc USER PID ACCESS COMMAND /usr/bin/vlc: amcrest 7646 ...e. vlc

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Play locally?

[amcrest]

Play locally?

Please let me explain more succinctly.

VLC media player 3.0.11 Vetinari (revision 3.0.11-0-gdc0c5ced72) plays the file on the XU4, but not on the laptop. I would like to understand why, please.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

All that can be said from what you have provided is that the system is too slow. And as already noted, the most likely bottleneck is FUSE.

[amcrest]

... and I will ask once again what is FUSE and how to investigate its usage. Normal downloaded mp4 movies play just fine in vlc on the laptop. "top" indicates no great 1.6GHz cpu usage with 8 GB ram, so I can't agree with your "too slow" assessment.

[amcrest]

The fact that all other mp4 videos played correctly indicated a non-obvious configuration problem in the "motion" video software. The solution was suggested by one of the very helpful people in the motion-user@lists.sourceforge.net forum:
...
I would recommend you change the movie_quality setting. Putting quality at 100 invokes FFmpeg to change the H264 profile to " (High 4:4:4 Predictive)". This limits the devices/software upon which the video can be played back.
...

Changing the setting worked very well:

...
# The encoding quality of the movie. (0=use bitrate. 1=worst quality, 100=best)
;movie_quality 100
movie_quality 0
...

My thanks to those who truly tried to help.