xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

haggy · 2009-05-29 11:52:56

Unfortunately that's only true for audio which gets processed by xbmc. If you use AC3 audio via passthrough, that won't help. Lucky me i don't have any sync issues.

Tuxie · 2009-05-29 12:08:22

Not entirely true. When using passthrough it will drop and/or duplicate AC3/DTS packets to keep them in sync if necessary. This will not happen very often though and when it does, it will be completely unnoticable 99% of the time.

If you don't have any sync problems that probably means that you have your screen set to 60 Hz which instead will give you judder/stuttering pannings when watching 23.976 FPS material, or have VBlank disabled which will give you tearing. If you have a 24 Hz capable TV and have a modeline that is as close to 23.976 as technically possible (about 23.97601 Hz), it will still drift to noticeable sync loss if you watch a 2+ hour movie without pausing/seeking at least once in the middle.

With smoothvideo we FINALLY can have perfect frame rate match (no jerky pannings or tearing) AND perfect A/V sync at the same time.

haggy · 2009-05-29 12:15:53

Thanks for clearing that up. I'm running at 60Hz and yes...i do have judder sometimes, but only on very high bitrate 1080p (>30-35MBit/sec). With SD (PAL/DVD) there's neither judder nor tearing, just a perfect picture. Maybe i should add some modelines as i'm running X with xrandr atm. Seems that's not the best combination for best picture experience. My TV can handle 24p so it is just a matter of finding the right modelines i guess.

Tuxie · 2009-05-29 12:28:44

Here is a 1920x1080@23.9760981912145 modeline (as close to 23.976 as you will get):

Modeline "1920x1080@24" 74.230 1920 2560 2604 2752 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync

Many TVs send buggy EDID data so you might also need these options (I do with my Sharp 42X20S TV):
Option "UseEDIDFreqs" "False"
Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "True"
Option "ModeValidation" "NoEdidModes, NoMaxPClkCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck, AllowNon60HzDFPModes"

When watching PAL-DVDs your TV is running at 50 Hz, right? PAL DVDs have exactly 25 FPS which will give perfect frame rate match on 50 Hz, and hence no judder or sync problems. NTSC on the other hand are 29.97 FPS which means you have to have a 59.94 Hz modeline for a perfect match, or you will get A/V sync problems without smoothvideo.

Last edited by Tuxie (2009-05-29 12:32:05)

haggy · 2009-05-29 12:34:48

Thanks, will try tonight. Do you think that modeline will match my TV? (sony 40e4000). i noticed wrong edid info in my xorg.0.log but never gave something about it as it worked. however i do have issues with my nvidida 8300 igp. i have to switch xbmc to 1080i mode (which is 1080p @30hz as the tv reports) to get a smooth gui. otherwise, using any other 1080p mode available it will run at approx 20fps and you can image how that looks
There's an unofficial patch from an xbmc dev, i already incorporated it into the aur pkgbuild but it didn't change anything for me.

Tuxie · 2009-05-29 12:55:14

Yes, the modeline should work on your TV also, if it's capable of 1080p and "24 hz".

These are my modelines for 50 and 60 hz which you might need if you disable EDID:
Modeline "1920x1080@50" 148.500 1920 2448 2492 2640 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync
Modeline "1920x1080@60" 148.500 1920 2008 2056 2200 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync

I think the 60 hz modeline is 60 and not 59.94 Hz though. I never bothered with it since I almost never watch NTSC material. A 59.94 1080p modeline would be welcome.

I run the XBMC GUI with the 60 hz mode above and it's very smooth. I have a NVidia 8300 MB also.

BTW, (for completion, while we are talking xorg.conf/sync stuff) to make xrandr report correct modes with the proprietary NVidia drivers you must disable TwinView. Otherwise the automatic frame rate switching won't work. An option that helps getting rid of tearing issues is TripleBuffer:

(in the "Device" section)
Option "DynamicTwinView" "False"
Option "TripleBuffer" "True"

To make VDPAU (hardware accelerated h.264/VC1/MPEG-2 decoding) work correctly you have to disable the Composite extension:

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

Last edited by Tuxie (2009-05-29 12:55:44)

haggy · 2009-05-29 13:02:03

yeah i have all your xorg.conf suggestions already in since i started with this box. there's a good thread about this in the xbmc forums.
my xorg.conf looks like this.

Section "Device"
  Identifier  "Device0"
  Driver      "nvidia"
  VendorName  "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
  Identifier  "Screen0"
  Device      "Device0"

  # Fixes issue with modesetting on xbmc
  Option      "TwinView"            "False"
  Option      "DynamicTwinView"     "False"
  Option      "AddARGBGLXVisuals"   "True"
  Option      "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "True" 
  Option      "FlatPanelProperties" "Scaling = Native"

  # Fixes tearing issues
  Option      "TripleBuffer"        "False"
  Option      "PixmapCacheSize"     "1000000"
  Option      "AllowSHMPixmaps"     "0"
  Option      "RenderAccel"         "True"  
  Option      "NvAGP"               "1"
  Option      "UseEvents"           "True"
  Option      "NoFlip"              "True"

  # Misc
  Option      "NoLogo"              "True"
  Option      "Coolbits"            "1"
  Option      "DamageEvents"        "True"

  DefaultDepth  24
  #Option      "metamodes" "1920x1080_50 +0+0"
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth       24
  EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
  # fixes tearing with vdpau/vsync
  Option      "Composite"           "Disable"
EndSection

EDIT: Found a nice page while hunting for modelines: http://www.linuxis.us/linux/media/howto … ation.html - rather ancient but true nonetheless.

Last edited by haggy (2009-05-29 13:11:39)

Tuxie · 2009-05-29 13:12:01

I don't have most of those options set on my HTPC anymore, only those I mentioned in the previous post. It's possible that some of the options is causing the problems you have with the GUI being slow. Try commenting out everything under the "Fixes tearing issues" and "Misc" sections and see if that helps.

haggy · 2009-05-29 13:14:38

Would you mind sharing your xorg.conf in its full glory? Might be actually useful for others on nvidia.

Tuxie · 2009-05-29 13:19:51

Thanks for the great link! I found a 1080p 59.94p mode there (still to be tested):
ModeLine "1920x1080@59.94p" 148.352 1920 1960 2016 2200 1080 1082 1088 1125

Yes, I will share my xorg.conf but first I have to clean it up and test it.

arkay · 2009-05-30 12:04:05

haggy wrote:

arkay wrote:
Just that I have a bug that apparently is fixed beyond v20738. The bug is discussed on the XBMC forums at this thread: http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=51844
Done, we're now at -r20755.
/Haggy

Legendary. thanks Haggy

Cheers,

Arkay.

naguz · 2009-05-31 23:56:51

I've been having problems with VDPAU, anyone successfully using this? Testing with the For The Birds clip, it naturally drops a lot of frame without using VSPAU, but it plays back "OK" except for all the choppiness. With rendering method set to VDPAU however, I just get weird blocks.. (looks like it just scramble whatevers on my desktop onto the screen and then freezes. Any idea as to why this happen?

I have an on-board GeForce 8300 card. This worked prevcoisly with a PPA-package on the same machine when I ran Ubuntu for a brief period (before I got too fed up with its non-archiness.) so it should work. A regression in the svn maybe? Running the PKGBUILD again now that it is updated to 20793-1, so I'll see how that works out.

By the way, what good alternatives are there out there? I don't need recording possibilities, just playing back stuff from my storage server. Thinking about trying out Moovida (former Elisa), any thoughts? VDPAU-support is a definitive must.

haggy · 2009-06-02 08:58:43

naguz: I also run a 8300 (as many do) and have no problems with vdpau. you don't mention what DE you are running xbmc on. is compiz enabled? is composite enabled? If you scroll back a few posts, there was a discussion between me and Tuxie about optimal X configuration and stuff. We both also use an 8300. As i don't see any alternatives to xbmc that are worth it, i think this question is beyond the scope of this thread

haggy · 2009-06-02 08:59:24

BTW: I updated to -r20818. This will probably be the last one until pacman 3.3 hits the repos. The problem is that with -r20820 external libraries support got merged in. Unfortunately a change in configure.in causes the build to fail within fakeroot (cannot compute size of size_t). Brave souls however can do the configure-step by hand, comment it out in the PKGBUILD and run it, which should be fine. Pacman 3.3 will introduce a split between the configure and installation step, so we can use that new feature for xbmc-svn. I think it won't be too long until 3.3 gets introduced.

haggy · 2009-06-02 09:21:15

Update: this only happens on x86_64. i686 compiles fine beyond -r20820 - i'm seriously thinking of dropping 64bit support and switch to 32 as these issues simply don't have to be and there's not much profit from 64bit on a htpc.

haggy · 2009-06-02 10:34:44

Another update: this is no 64bit bug, but a known bug of fakeroot not playing nicely with nvidia's libgl. there are quite some bugreports about similar issues. will have a look on how to solve this.

Themaister · 2009-06-02 11:07:48

I think you can try to build the package with # makepkg --asroot, as it skips fakeroot, but it's a risk though.

haggy · 2009-06-02 11:10:07

yep, i already did that and it runs. but i hate to this...and i hate it even more to recommend this to the users

haggy · 2009-06-02 13:15:38

Nice sidenote: Arch has made it to the official xbmc wiki: http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=XBMC_on_Arc … nofficial)
No support from the xbmc team of course...

Last edited by haggy (2009-06-02 13:16:14)

Purch · 2009-06-03 04:53:21

Very nice quide huggy.

Wondering if xbmc-svn is able to connect to my archvdr box to stream live tv feed as well as the recordings? If not would it be easy to add it to xbmc-svn PKGBUILD?

haggy · 2009-06-03 07:49:43

Purch, there's some patch around in the xbmc forums that integrates vdr into xbmc - it works quite well from what you can read (i don't watch tv, hence no need for vdr). xbmc-svn was originally based on a pkgbuild by Edgar Hucek that already integrates the vdr patchset. You can find his patchset over here (no support of course ): https://archvdr.svn.sourceforge.net/svn … r/PKGBUILD However, because i cannot test this i won't integrate it into xbmc-svn, but you can always check out Edgar's pbkguild or patch the sources on your own.

/Haggy

PS: Credits for the wiki page goes to jskube - i only added some notes.

EDIT: I forgot there's also a dedicated unified-pvr branch in the xbmc repository, which will someday integrate lots of tv backends directly into xbmc - but it is far from being finished.

Last edited by haggy (2009-06-03 07:52:50)

haggy · 2009-06-03 12:46:12

I updated xbmc-svn to 20896. This one has external libraries enabled, so less compile time, less wasted space and better mainline security support. Unfortunately we cannot enable external python due to a mismatch in python's configuration and we cannot use external ffmpeg as this would break VDPAU support.

Please test this pkgbuild as good as you can as it has rather new and untested features enabled (at least on non-ubuntu distros). I tested compilation on i686, but 64bit should do fine.

ONE IMPORTANT NOTE FOR NVIDIA USERS: It seems that compilation breaks if you have binary blob from nvidia installed. To circumvent this you have to run makepkg as root:

sudo makepkg --asroot

This is not beatiful but the only way of compiling these recent versions until pacman 3.3 is out. Further explanation in the CHANGELOG.

/Haggy.

jack.mitchell · 2009-06-03 15:53:09

Quick note, on the xbmc wiki you state:

yaourt -S minigetty

should it not be

yaourt -S mingetty

There is an extra 'i' present in the first one which means it wouldn't install the package. Apart from that it looks like a good guide, congratulations!

Jack.

jack.mitchell · 2009-06-03 16:09:56

Also one other thing to note, installing splashy isn't for the faint hearted so you might want to mention that it takes a bit of work to get it going. With all the conflicts and replaced files etc.

haggy · 2009-06-03 16:34:31

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll report 'upstream' and tell jskube (the maintainer of the wiki page) to have a look here.

Arch Linux

#26 2009-05-29 11:52:56

Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

#27 2009-05-29 12:08:22

Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

#28 2009-05-29 12:15:53

Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

#36 2009-05-30 12:04:05

Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

#37 2009-05-31 23:56:51

Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

#48 2009-06-03 15:53:09

Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

#50 2009-06-03 16:34:31

Re: xbmc-git AUR package: discussion in here please

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