HTSP stuttering video playback

Axel Rosenthal

watching live (not HD!) with xbmc / tvheadend via htsp leads to a certain stuttering in the picture

this does not happen when watching recordings from tvheadend with xbmc

this did already happen when I had no vdpau installed so it seems not to be related with vdpau

Any ideas how I could get to the bottom of the problem?

I would very much like to see what would happen if I gave the stream "more time" by increasing some buffer (network?) or by pausing playback for some seconds but I do not know how ...

Stig Larsson

I have the same problem and I haven't found any settings in XBMC that would help.

It normally happens when just "tuned" to a new channel, but many times it will stabilize after a while. Not that often, but now and then, it also happens in the middle of a show.

When I get this disturbing stuttering, I use to hit the pause button and let it pause for about a second, then it normally will stabilize in a few seconds. Normally this "workaround" solves the problem, but it is of course boring to have to do that quite frequently.

I'm (by the way) using Ubuntu 10.04 and XBMC 10.0 on an Asrock 330 with ION an VDPAU...

/Libbe

john smith

Same problems here with an nvidia ion. Do any of you suffer sound dropouts after a while watching live tv? The AQ% usually goes down to 0 after a while and then sound dropouts start. Have this problem for over a year and posted about on the xbmc forums before but unfortunately its still the same.

Stig Larsson

I haven't noticed that kind of sound-problem in my setup (if I remember correctly)...

As far as I know, I do not even get (noticeable) sound-stutter during video-stuttering periods.

The only(?) sound-related problem I have, is that I sometimes get no sound at all after changing to a new channel. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I'll normally get the sound back again, by switch channels back and forth.

/Libbe

Stig Larsson

Just an update...

After I've rebuilt XBMC (Dharma latest) from source, the problem with stuttering video when watching live SD channels seems to have been solved (or at least improved by a factor of 10).

/Libbe

John Andrews

im having the same issue i believe, looking at the xbmc logs i get

19:02:12 T:2788600688 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(audio)::Get - asked for new data packet, with nothing available 19:03:07 T:2788600688 WARNING: Previous line repeats 346 times. 19:03:07 T:2788600688 ERROR: GetDelay - snd_pcm_delay, alsa error: -32 - Broken pipe 19:03:07 T:2788600688 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(audio)::Get - asked for new data packet, with nothing available 19:03:22 T:2788600688 WARNING: Previous line repeats 12 times. 19:03:22 T:2788600688 ERROR: GetDelay - snd_pcm_delay, alsa error: -32 - Broken pipe 19:03:22 T:2811734896 ERROR: Get - failed to get stream 19:03:41 T:3048085216 NOTICE: Samba is idle. Closing the remaining connections 19:04:19 T:2788600688 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(audio)::Get - asked for new data packet, with nothing available 19:04:42 T:2788600688 WARNING: Previous line repeats 96 times. 19:04:42 T:2788600688 ERROR: GetDelay - snd_pcm_delay, alsa error: -32 - Broken pipe 19:04:42 T:2788600688 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(audio)::Get - asked for new data packet, with nothing available 19:04:42 T:2811734896 ERROR: Get - failed to get stream 19:04:42 T:2788600688 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(audio)::Get - asked for new data packet, with nothing available

theres a small discussion (2 posts) about this issue on xbmc.org (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=123231), not getting much attention here, so posting here.

i can provide any logs needed just ask, very easy to reproduce (happens most of the time, sometimes its unwatchable).

setup:
Ubuntu TV Server
Client: Ubuntu TV Server (ie localhost) running latest xbmc from pvr branch
Client: Latest OpenELEC/Pulse from packages.pulse-eight.com (updated yesterday)
Client: Latest OpenELEC/Pulse from packages.pulse-eight.com
Client: Windows 7 running latest openelec package for windows from packages.pulse-eight.com