Do I Need a graphics card?

[Bert 49]

Dumb question, I know.  I am having problems with performance with encoding media and performance of the android application.  Maybe I am missing something obvious.  I only have I believe on-board graphics processing an Intel HD Graphics 3000.  I don't game on my computer, would a graphics card help me at all?  I have 16 gigs of ram, SSD drive, Intel Core i5-2500k CPU @ 3.3GHz if that matters.  It feeds another computer and three xboxes and tablets....etc.  Not at the same time.  I thought this should be a workhorse for media center but maybe I am not seeing it because I need a graphics card?

[Tikuf 663]

We don't use gpu acceleration in any conversions, so no a gfx card wont assist.

 

Can you post a server and an ffmpeg log of one of the media files that you are having issues with on the android please.

 

Also what android device are you using it may have quirks when it comes to the media stream we are producing.

[swhitmore 781]

I wouldn't think so. What exactly are the issues you are having?

[Bert 49]

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jaypig4q088vx7l/aurfrNyING

 

Above are my logs and a sample movie I made with Xmedia Recode .  I am trying to move from using .wtv for everything (I mean movies, TV, everything) to another format.  Originally, I was trying to use MKV but could never get it to look right or operate consistently.  Some of my mkv files would throw an error that the video codec was not correct if I tried going to later in the movie by pressing 33 play for example (although they would play fine from the start).  Others were boxy and bad looking especially on dark screens.  Some of the mkv's would not work at all and some had no audio, I've played around quite a bit.  I tried MakeMKV, VideoRedo, Xmedia Recode and handbrake.  I typically view movies on an xbox 360 extender (of which I have three).  I also have three tablets, two are HP Touchpad's running CM, on is a Motorola Xoom, I have a Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD, wife has a Galaxy SIII.

 

I have four OTA tuners and they provide all my television.  DVRMSToolbox skips commercials and I use MCEBuddy to create a second copy for the pads to use that are now mp4, was making mkv.  The android ap actually worked better on the betas for me and has progressively gotten slower.  On my xoom for example, I have it set at 4 MB/sec.  If I set it to say 11 MB (which I should easily be able to pull because speetest says I can pull 16-18 mbs from the internet consistently) I press play and go black for a second and then to the episode screen.

 

Also, I added WTV files that are not processed in anyway (recorded from OTA) to see if that was causing the problem but it's not.  These still stutter and the audio and video don't sync.

 

Update, using an older file created by MCEBuddy on the tablet and it appears to be working well 99% of the time and allowed me to increase speed to 11MB.  Something is screwy with the files that are being created I think.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Bert

[Bert 49]

So any suggestions?  Did the logs help?

[Tikuf 663]

Sorry havent had the time to look. could you please post a clean log of one playback event (going thru 7 meg of log will take a long time)

to get a clean log

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/1209-getting-useful-logs-media-info/

[Bert 49]

Scenario 1:  From the resume screen select episode of Late Late Show (MP4 created by MCE Buddy) and try to resume.  Plays one second and crashes, repeating results in crash nothing happening or plays one second and crashes.

 

Scenario 2:  Select same episode after going through library, plays one second, crashes.

 

Scenario 3:  Select different episode and works perfectly (mp4 Directstream audio and video) After investigating, this file is 802,784 KB and other file was 3,766,454 I changed quality MCE was making to Medium

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jaypig4q088vx7l/aurfrNyING

 

So now I am going to investigate if this is a file issue.  I did speed test my drives and for some reason some of the usb ports on this machine are slow (35 MB vs 150-200 on other port).  I put the drives I use for MB on the faster ports until I can investigate that issue further.

[Bert 49]

Now, I select a different episode also 3,300,585 and nothing happens.....select a different episode that is 802,784......seems to play fine.  So it seems the large files causes the issue....not sure why though.  More logs, smaller files play fine, larger files crash....Also, what is a standard def Wilfred episode ripped from a dvd to .wtv stutters quite a bit audio continues without picture, etc. Added more logs for post 2.....Also, sorry for the delay, I wanted to create a bunch of different files to test with and my computer was busy with that.

 

 

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jaypig4q088vx7l/aurfrNyING

[Bert 49]

Were the logs no help?

[Tikuf 663]

Sorry Bert haven't had time to sit down and really go thru them yet. I have it one my list I will get to it  .

[Tranquil 93]

Hm I do not get the point.

 

Are you having problems with re-encoding or playing videos? Your I5-2500 should be strong enough to re-encode a stream for you android device, but it needs to be also decoded by the CPU before reencoding. A graphic card won't not help here (if it not comes to CUDA or something like that).

The higher the bitrate of the movie, the higher the capacity needed to reencode the stream.

 

You should also check your bandwidth if using WLAN.

[Bert 49]

Hi Tranquil, yeah, that's kind of my point.  I would think from a hardware perspective (although I am very novice) I should have more than enough to do it.  The wireless is pulling at 20 mbs consistently so that's not the issue.  I have I think narrowed it down to for some reason it doesn't like the larger files I am producing whether it's because of the resolution or the size of the file, I am not sure.   My OP was in general because I was having issues encoding and issues using the android ap.  I think I have resolved my encoding issues.

[Tranquil 93]

I think it has something to do with the bandwidth needed. If you are saying, your wireless is consistently at 20mbs, how did you measure it?

For eg.: If windows is telling me, that my wlan connection is at 20mbs (by checking the mouseover systray icon), it often is not the correct value of real data transfer rate.

 

Which Android device are you using?

[Bert 49]

I think it has something to do with the bandwidth needed. If you are saying, your wireless is consistently at 20mbs, how did you measure it?

For eg.: If windows is telling me, that my wlan connection is at 20mbs (by checking the mouseover systray icon), it often is not the correct value of real data transfer rate.

 

Which Android device are you using?

 

I have similar results using either the Xoom or the Touchpad.  I am testing the bandwidth using the Speedtest.net ap.  If I am pulling 20MBs from the internet, I should be getting at least that from my own network.

[Tikuf 663]

If you are getting a second or so of playback it is likely not your network through put. I have some time put aside over the weekend for this. In the mean time I am not sure if CM has a hls implementation could you switch off hls in the android settings and have a shot at playback.

[Tikuf 663]

@@Bert sorry it took so long to get to i but I went thru your logs and cant see any reason why you are seeing the behavior you are seeing. Ffmpeg is converting everything that needs converting and doing it at a speed that shouldn't be an issue.

The only thing I can suggest atm  is to try disabling hls in the android settings and see if it works CM may have an odd hls implementation as i mentioned before.

 

Can you try disabling hls and get back to me please.

[Deihmos 147]

I have an i3 and it can handle encoding just fine. No need for a video card.

 

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

 

[Tikuf 663]

@@Deihmos yup we have moved on from that.

[jhoff80 87]

Disagree - while it might not be the issue in this specific case, it depends on the source file.  If you use a source file that is a remix of a Blu-ray video and audio track, there's going to be issues doing that in CPU alone.

[Tikuf 663]

Since the playback is on and android device and the video is transcoding with plenty to spare. It has nothing to do with the video card (and we are not talking about other cases we are talking about this one).

[Bert 49]

I did turn off HLS without success.  I am thinking possible causes may be that the tablets aren't capable of handling what is being thrown at them.  The transcoder is not keeping up.  I only have 5 GB available on my system drive of 55.7.  Some kind of network issue (I have a WNDR4500 which I hate).  I have ordered a new SSD that should get here any day, maybe I will try a fresh install but I am not sure I want to do that as it takes an entire day basically.

[Tikuf 663]

Your logs tell me that it is transcoding plenty fast enough and you should be able to drop the quality on the tablet if you haven't tried that yet.

 

Also have a look in this folder and delete the entire contents if there is anything in it.

 

%AppData%\MediaBrowser-Server\cache\encoded-media

 

If there is a lot there try playback after the delete if there is nothing to delete change the quality level on your tablets/phone.

 

 

I know for a fact it will work on the Galaxy SIII as Red an I did a lot of tests with that device. The motorolas I am not sure about.

[Bert 49]

Just so we are clear when you say drop the quality, what setting would you recommend I try?

[Tikuf 663]

Try it @ around 1000 (don't have my droid handy to give you the exact figures Red used) and ramp up/down see how you go.

 

I just rechecked one of your logs and we are doing a stream copy for the video which is 10483 kb/s which is pretty high so it may be that either the tablet/phone cant handle that sort of bitrate. I also noticed that the h264 profile is 'high'  if you force a transcode (by dropping the bitrate) the profile will change to baseline which will allow weaker devices to decode the stream better.