[CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

Deemoney14 · 2011-08-10 02:48:06

So I have a feeling this has been answered before, but forum searching and Google have not given me any results that are both reproducible and work.

In VLC most notably, I can see very clear horizontal screen tearing during DVD playback (the line appears from left to right, I consider that "horizontal", if I'm mistaken about this please correct me). This also seems to show up when dragging windows across my desktop (KDE 4.7...).

From what I can gather, I think the issue is largely reserved to VLC. I tried to use mplayer + smplayer, and it was promising, except it wouldn't present the selection menu (like for "Play All", "Select Episode", "Special Features", etc.), it seemed to kick right to the "Play All" feature. I really like VLC because it skips a lot of the unskippable crap and presents you right with that menu, other players will actually play all that junk.

I've tried different display outputs than "Default", none have worked too well. X11 output was plain awful and didn't resolve the tearing, and GLX output seemed to fix the screen tearing but the playback would flicker occasionally and the fullscreen was broken. I'm not sure where I need to enable any sort of graphics options if those are what will help the issue (I saw "double buffering" somewhere during my Google search, but most of the things I found were for VLC only and didn't seem too general from an OS perspective)

This seems to be a recurring thing with me, but my graphics hardware is Intel integrated graphics on a Sandy Bridge Core i3 processor. I'm now running Mesa 7.11-1, which has largely resolved my looming issues with graphics and such, which is why I wonder if the issue here is not hardware related. Yet if I drag windows across my desktop hard/fast enough, I see tearing. Glxgears appears fine, it syncs to the refresh rate of the monitor, but if I drag the window around, the window clearly tears and yet the gears framerate never drops too much below 60.

Let me know if there's anything I can provide to help diagnose this issue. I don't believe I've tinkered too heavily with any of the graphics settings, and I've pretty much outlined all the major components: Intel integrated graphics on a Sandy Bridge Core i3, Mesa 7.11-1, latest VLC media player, KDE 4.7. Maybe something else is bugging it out, I have no clue.

Any help is appreciated.

Last edited by Deemoney14 (2011-08-12 23:13:02)

Deemoney14 · 2011-08-11 00:47:11

Bump. I've tried running glxgears at full screen to see if it's just VLC, and I see a systematic tear in the image (that is, the tear appears in the same place each time I see it, nowhere else in the image). The console output reports that it's fairly close to the vertical refresh rate, so I'm at a loss. The tearing is much less pronounced if I run VLC in windowed mode, but that kinda makes sense and is less fun. The tearing during movie playback is not systematic, I can see it crawling up the movie as it plays.

tom.yan · 2011-08-11 18:45:55

It's strange that you see tearing when using VLC but not in SMPlayer.
Have you check what output module is used by MPlayer? Maybe using the same one in VLC will do.

By the way, you can make smplayer show you the menu, though there could be some issues and it may not work well like VLC.
http://smplayer.berlios.de/forums/viewtopic.php?id=743
The MPlayer in Arch's Repo should be compiled with dvdnav already.

Select Open->URL, and type: dvdnav://

I think there is an option in SMPlayer can make its button to do this by default. You may check it out.

And are you using anything like compiz? There could be issues caused to video playback.

Last edited by tom.yan (2011-08-11 18:48:43)

Deemoney14 · 2011-08-11 19:29:49

I'm using KDE 4.7, which could be problematic in its own right (issues with it are probably my last outstanding major problems, and I might just have to sit tight until 4.7.1 comes out). I see some tearing when I drag windows quickly across the desktop. I believe I'm not using Compiz or anything like that. I just now checked and I still had compiz installed, but to my knowledge it isn't running and I just deleted it. That's a lot of what I found when I was Google searching, that and issues on Windows, which is why I decided to post here yet again.

I didn't try SMPlayer in full screen, it's entirely possible I didn't notice any screen tearing because it was windowed or there wasn't enough action on the screen (as seems to be the case with others, I usually only notice it when the scenes are more intensive). I'm afraid I don't know how to check what output module/driver MPlayer is using, I'm guessing that's something that pops up in the massive flood of debug information you see when you start it up.

tom.yan · 2011-08-11 19:43:51

You can simply go to Options->Preferences->General->Video. After you have play something, the output driver there should be what is using.
Or to be more accurate you can go to Options->View Log->MPlayer when playing something and copy the whole stuff here.
I think you should first do tests with SMPlayer (fullscreen) to see whether the issue also occurs or not, so you can at least know if it is something to do with or at least can be solved by adjusting a player.

For the option I mentioned before to make dvdnav as the default, it is in Options->Preferences->Drives. Tick "Enable DVD menus (experimental)" and you may see if it can satisfy you.

Last edited by tom.yan (2011-08-11 19:45:09)

Deemoney14 · 2011-08-11 19:51:45

Durr, I should also note that apparently I had KWin's desktop effects turned on. I have a feeling that could cause similar issues to a compositor like compiz. I deactivated them and I can drag windows around with no visible tearing. I don't see a tear either in glxgears with the effects off.

SMPlayer's default video output is xv. I tried that in VLC and I saw tearing. I'd bet a lot it's the desktop effects. I don't have access to DVDs right now to test SMPlayer or anything (shhh, work...), I'll try it out when I get home. I'm starting to believe this issue is resolved, but I can't be sure until I watch something for real.

EDIT: So there's tearing in SMPlayer too at full screen. VLC has the tear as well. It's a very, very slow tear that moves down the image, and I found the perfect scene to test it. Still looking for the decisive fix here...

EDIT 2: I tried GLX output like I mentioned before. VLC's behavior I already described, no tearing but full screen is broken and there's a weird flickering. SMPlayer does slightly better: in fullscreen there's a consistent/systematic tear at the top of the screen, but in windowed mode no issues as far as I could tell on my test scene.

Last edited by Deemoney14 (2011-08-11 23:02:43)

tom.yan · 2011-08-12 12:12:30

So do you see tearing IN VIDEO if the desktop effects are OFF?

Deemoney14 · 2011-08-12 15:38:07

Correct, screen tearing in-video even with desktop effects off. Mainly with X-based video output, but GL-based output is screwy too.

Updating the title to reflect my new information.

tom.yan · 2011-08-12 17:31:26

This could be probably a driver problem since sandy bridge is quite new.

Deemoney14 · 2011-08-12 19:53:14

Understood. I was having some other driver-related issues, and Mesa 7.11-1 resolved those. Not sure if there's a good, definitive way to tell if that's the issue, though. Maybe I should try different kinds of movie playback or something, to see how narrow this issue is.

masteryod · 2011-08-12 22:38:00

did you heard about sandy bridge igp 24fps playback bug? (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the- … 0-tested/7)

but i don't know the details, don't use this integrated crap anyway

Last edited by masteryod (2011-08-12 22:39:11)

Deemoney14 · 2011-08-12 23:10:23

Wow, just wow. That's mildly infuriating.

Thank you for letting me know about this. I think that about does it for this laptop for me. It's a piece of junk in my mind, and I'm sick of dealing with it.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-08-10 02:48:06

[CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

#2 2011-08-11 00:47:11

Re: [CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

#3 2011-08-11 18:45:55

Re: [CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

#4 2011-08-11 19:29:49

Re: [CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

#5 2011-08-11 19:43:51

Re: [CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

#6 2011-08-11 19:51:45

Re: [CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

#7 2011-08-12 12:12:30

Re: [CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

#8 2011-08-12 15:38:07

Re: [CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

#9 2011-08-12 17:31:26

Re: [CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

#10 2011-08-12 19:53:14

Re: [CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

#11 2011-08-12 22:38:00

Re: [CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

#12 2011-08-12 23:10:23

Re: [CLOSED] Screen Tearing on DVD Playback (Intel integrated graphics)

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