Arch Linux

Learning

Member

Registered: 2014-04-12

Posts: 22

Latest catalyst-total update seems to make vlc unhappy

Hello guys, thank you so much for taking the time off what you where doing too read this!

So as i mentioned in the subject, i updated to latest catalyst-total, seeing as this is a semi-major thing to update.
I always check the logs for potential problems, too keep my system happy. Looked fine no errors or anything.

But then i go to use VLC and i see it turns grey every second picture frame and faces are turning out like a Picasso painting but with pixels
So i go about starting too debug the problem, start out with the basics start the Vlc in the terminal too get some data.

-Data-

VLC media player 2.2.1 Terry Pratchett (Weatherwax) (revision 2.2.1-0-ga425c42)
[0000000001cb4158] core libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
[00007f3d20d88e98] dts decoder: DTS channels:6 samplerate:48000 bitrate:1536000
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Stream with high frequencies VQ coding
[00007f3d1c001918] core input error: ES_OUT_SET_(GROUP_)PCR  is called too late (pts_delay increased to 300 ms)
[00007f3d1c001918] core input error: ES_OUT_RESET_PCR called
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cb29e0] mmco: unref short failure
[00007f3d1c001918] core input error: ES_OUT_SET_(GROUP_)PCR  is called too late (pts_delay increased to 328 ms)
[00007f3d1c001918] core input error: ES_OUT_RESET_PCR called
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cb29e0] mmco: unref short failure
[00007f3d1c001918] core input error: ES_OUT_SET_(GROUP_)PCR  is called too late (pts_delay increased to 482 ms)
[00007f3d1c001918] core input error: ES_OUT_RESET_PCR called
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20c5a020] Missing reference picture, default is 0
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20c5a020] Missing reference picture, default is 0
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cb29e0] mmco: unref short failure
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cb29e0] mmco: unref short failure
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cb29e0] reference picture missing during reorder
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cb29e0] Missing reference picture, default is 65518
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20d41640] mmco: unref short failure
[00007f3d1c001918] core input error: ES_OUT_SET_(GROUP_)PCR  is called too late (pts_delay increased to 549 ms)
[00007f3d1c001918] core input error: ES_OUT_RESET_PCR called
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20c5a020] Missing reference picture, default is 0
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cb29e0] Missing reference picture, default is 0
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cfa000] reference picture missing during reorder
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cfa000] reference picture missing during reorder
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cfa000] reference picture missing during reorder
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cfa000] Missing reference picture, default is 0
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cfa000] Missing reference picture, default is 0
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cfa000] Missing reference picture, default is 0
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20d41640] Missing reference picture, default is 0
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20c5a020] mmco: unref short failure
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20c5a020] reference picture missing during reorder
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20c5a020] Missing reference picture, default is 65538
[h264 @ 0x7f3d20cfa000] mmco: unref short failure
[00007f3d20d84a08] dts decoder: DTS channels:6 samplerate:48000 bitrate:1536000
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Stream with high frequencies VQ coding
[00007f3d20d85d08] dts decoder: DTS channels:6 samplerate:48000 bitrate:1536000
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Stream with high frequencies VQ coding

So as we can see from the output while running vlc in the terminal - we now know it's crying about missing libvdpau_nvidia.so:  so
from what i know from before libvdpau-va-gl or mesa-vdpau, should have solved that problem. i did see a forum post about someone
having problems with VLC and other players so i tried it. But had no luck with it.

--Using ffmpeg or mpv works fine.
So from that we now know that the problem is only surrounding VLC.

Tried too change the video output and turning off the AVO option, also tried everything on the list on input/codec.
Without any results.

So i guess my question before moving forward might this be a bug or have i just missed something?

Thanks in advance!
--Learning

Last edited by Learning (2015-11-29 04:11:10)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,786

Re: Latest catalyst-total update seems to make vlc unhappy

You have to disable or set vlc's hardware decoder to VAAPI, mesa-vdpau will do nothing with catalyst and libvdpau-va-gl (and vaapi) will need an additional package/configuration to work properly https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VDPAU and https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VAAPI

Learning

Member

Registered: 2014-04-12

Posts: 22

Re: Latest catalyst-total update seems to make vlc unhappy

Tried this combination as it said on the wiki,
"" libvdpau-va-gl package together with the libva-xvba-driverAUR package. ""
seeing as i am using a AMD Radeon™ HD 6970 2gb Graphics card, looked to be the best solution for that.

At the moment i have it set too X11 output on video and on input/codecs-> VDPAU decoder - the output in terminal is still crying about errors & the missing file.
how ever don't see this missing file too be the problem "can be ignored." but those core errors are what is making the frame grey, the cause of the grey.
Is when the frame is jumping and can not find right frame to start from so it turns grey and runs a skip.

[00007f5ffc001718] core input error: ES_OUT_SET_(GROUP_)PCR  is called too late (pts_delay increased to 755 ms)
[00007f5ffc001718] core input error: ES_OUT_RESET_PCR called

More data..
vdpauinfo returns

display: :0   screen: 0
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Error creating VDPAU device: 1

Update data output now after trying openGL GLX video output & VA-API video decoder X11.

 
libva info: VA-API version 0.38.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/fglrx_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_33
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
[00007f0cc8c08398] avcodec decoder: Using AMD MMD 1.0 for hardware decoding.

Did read up on other threads that are somewhat, close to the problems i'm having, also gave .mp4 a test and that works.
after that now we Know that the .mkv Higer res decoding, is the direct problem, not sure why.
it was working problem free before the update, so i guess the updated driver is maybe working another way that might takes up more resource,
or something along those lines.

Anyhow, will continue the search, but if someone has any ideas to add feel free to share.

Thanks!

Last edited by Learning (2015-11-29 21:10:53)

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: Latest catalyst-total update seems to make vlc unhappy

libvdpau-va-gl doesn't work with VLC anymore, possibly doesn't work elsewhere too. It wasn't very efficient even when it was working, so it'd a dead end either way. So forget VDPAU, VLC (and any other software) should be configured, as V1del says, for VAAPI.

In the past, VAAPI for Catalyst was provided by libva-xvba-driver, but this driver hasn't been maintained for years. It's not needed anymore anyway, Catalyst now has internal VAAPI support. That's what your libva info shows, "AMD MMD 1.0" is this internal VAAPI support (to be fully accurate, it's not true VAAPI, it's an internal bridge to AMD's closed XvBA acceleration library).

If things don't work... Well, Catalyst is a closed driver, so it's impossible to tell whether the problem is in the driver or in VLC. Try different outputs, Xv for starters, then the experimental OpenGL one (don't know how exactly it's called in the VLC gui, but you'll find it). Also, does mpv with "--hwdec=vaapi --vo=vaapi" work? mpv is better than VLC when it comes to VAAPI.

My advice though, drop Catalyst and use the open source driver. It has VDPAU, should work much better especially with VLC.

Last edited by Gusar (2015-11-29 21:24:29)

Learning

Member

Registered: 2014-04-12

Posts: 22

Re: Latest catalyst-total update seems to make vlc unhappy

mpv --hwdec=vaapi --vo=vaapi and just mpv, and ffmpeg all works great without any problem, so need to make VLC work as well.
Yeah i have been considering dropping catalyst, However would like too find a working solution for all the catalyst-total users like me.

So what i gather from the notes you guys have provided. i have now dropped the VDPAU angle of it, moving on.
Does vlc have a terminal option like this ""--hwdec=vaapi --vo=vaapi"" ?

Atleast now, i have moved on from the grey too only having pixel mayhem but not as often as before, so might be on the right track.
Settings at the moment are as follow:

Display: Accelerated video output (overlay) checked.
Xvideo output (XCB) Note don't seem to have any vaapi option in this output list.

Input / Codecs
Hardware-accelerated decoding set too VA-API video decoder via X11
Video quality post-processing level 6
x264 preset ultrafast - film
Also increased the buffer from 300 to 500.

-Update-
Found a similar parameter for VLC, "vlc --avcodec-hw=vaapi" we are no having no grey and a very few amounts of pixel-ed faces and shadow pixel.
Will continue trying too get this to work 110%. (not sure it will work with the catalyst-total anymore after the update). At-least it's way better than from the start.

Last edited by Learning (2015-11-30 01:11:03)

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: Latest catalyst-total update seems to make vlc unhappy

Does vlc have a terminal option like this ""--hwdec=vaapi --vo=vaapi"" ?

The Input/Codec setting in VLC, as well as the --avcodec-hw=vaapi commandline option, are equivalent to mpv's --hwdec=vaapi.

An equivalent of mpv's --vo=vaapi doesn't exist in VLC. VLC always does copy-back (decoded frames are copied back into system memory). This is less efficient than a native VAAPI output, which is zero-copy (frames are displayed directly without any copying involved).

If you switch to the open drivers and VDPAU, VLC does provide a zero-copy VDPAU output.