Playback freezing / major stuttering.

[tomnjerry74 97]

I am having sudden major problems with playback that have been nonexistent until now.

 

Here are a few examples of isolated incidents:

 

Video Freezing

1. I start any VC1 video on any platform. It plays fine.

2. Click fast forward to any part by clicking on the timeline.

3. Video freezes and never starts playing again.

 

Severe Stuttering

1. I started a video on either iPhone or Android tablet; in this case, iPhone.

2. The video plays but with severe stuttering and overall extremely choppy playback.

(this is not a bitrate issue)

 

I have attached the log files for each problem and they are labeled accordingly.

 

 

While I can't exactly pinpoint when these problems started happening, they are very recent issues. I tried rolling back my graphics driver and the problems persist.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by tomnjerry74

[Luke 42083]

Hi, vc1 is very costly to convert on the fly. Do you have any h264 videos to compare with? You could also try turning off hardware acceleration in server transcoding settings.

[tomnjerry74 97]

Hi, vc1 is very costly to convert on the fly. Do you have any h264 videos to compare with? You could also try turning off hardware acceleration in server transcoding settings.

The problem is that these issues never happened before. I've played the same videos perfectly fine in the past, skipping around wherever I pleased.

 

Also, the second issue of severe stuttering is about an h264 video with a bitrate of only 4,960 kbps.

[Luke 42083]

The stutter example is being direct played. The vast majority of the time if you're direct playing and there's a stutter, it means the bitrate is too high for the connection. Try lowering the in-app quality setting so that it transcodes and see how that compares.

[tomnjerry74 97]

On 12/8/2019 at 8:32 PM, Luke said:

The stutter example is being direct played. The vast majority of the time if you're direct playing and there's a stutter, it means the bitrate is too high for the connection. Try lowering the in-app quality setting so that it transcodes and see how that compares.

Okay, I disabled hardware acceleration and the issue with the VC1 video was solved. Does that mean I really just can't use hardware acceleration?

 

And as for the stuttering issue, here's an example of what I mean:

 

This video plays perfectly at 1080p 60mbps:

 

 

 

And this is the video that is stuttering at 1080p 60mbps:

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by tomnjerry74

[Luke 42083]

 

 

Does that mean I really just can't use hardware acceleration?

 

No, you could set it to advanced and try turning off the vc1 options one at a time and testing. Once you learn whether it's caused by the hwa decoding or encoding, then you can only disable that one thing for vc1.

 

And then of course re-evaluate after future server releases because we'll be periodically updating the server's ffmpeg build which does the transcoding work.

[Luke 42083]

Okay, I disabled hardware acceleration and the issue with the VC1 video was solved. Does that mean I really just can't use hardware acceleration?

 

And as for the stuttering issue, here's an example of what I mean:

 

This video plays perfectly at 1080p 60mbps:

 

 

And this is the video that is stuttering at 1080p 60mbps:

 

Strange. Where did that video come from?

[tomnjerry74 97]

Strange. Where did that video come from?

The one with the problem came from iTunes.

[tomnjerry74 97]

Strange. Where did that video come from?

 

Could it possibly be the weird framerate? I think it might be the only video I have that is 25. I have other videos from the same source that play perfectly too.

 

If you would like I can remux a small clip from the video for you.

Edited December 9, 2019 by tomnjerry74

[Luke 42083]

It could be, and yes you can do that, but make sure to test with the remux first to make sure it has the same problem. thanks.

[tomnjerry74 97]

It could be, and yes you can do that, but make sure to test with the remux first to make sure it has the same problem. thanks.

I remuxed some short clips from the video into mkvs and they direct play without any problem on the same device. I used mkvtoolnix.

Edited December 10, 2019 by tomnjerry74

[troyhough 61]

Just wanted to chime in to let you know I as well had issues with Hardware Transcoding a while back. Disabled it completely.

[tomnjerry74 97]

It could be, and yes you can do that, but make sure to test with the remux first to make sure it has the same problem. thanks.

I ended up remuxing my stuttering videos to mkvs and now they all play perfectly.

[Luke 42083]

Thanks for the feedback.

[cptlores 40]

Notice the problematic video has 25fps (PAL). This is the same experience I also have. Lot's of playback issues with PAL content. Especially if it is interlaced (50hz) video.