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#1 2011-05-06 17:46:32

jorges
Member
Registered: 2011-04-07
Posts: 29

Video playback random freezes

Hi,

I am a recent Arch Linux user, though I've been using linux for several years now. I am very happy with arch so far, its philisophy seems close to Gentoo (which I enjoyed for several years) but without the time comsuming compile times.
The thing bugging me the most is that I experience some random video playback freezes. While playing video, and some random point video freezes while audio keeps going as normal. Sometimes the video catches up with the audio, sometimes they get out of sync, and some others video refuses to continue. Sometimes, pausing and resuming solves the problem (until the next freeze). This happens with totem, mplayer and also with flash videos within firefox. I use gnome-3 and thus pulseaudio as well. I have an arrandale cpu (core i5 450m) with its integrated HD graphics, so I use xf86-video-intel driver and no xorg-conf. Is anyone experiencing simmilar issues? I can provide more specific info if requeted, I just don't know exactly where to look right now.

Cheers,

Jorges

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#2 2011-05-06 18:01:59

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,728

Re: Video playback random freezes

Any clues in mplayer logs or error output ?


Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

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#3 2011-05-06 18:41:17

jorges
Member
Registered: 2011-04-07
Posts: 29

Re: Video playback random freezes

ewaller wrote:

Any clues in mplayer logs or error output ?

No, at least nothing that I can tell. Mplayer's output (on the cli) just freezes. The only thing is that if I press 'p' (for pause), wait a moment and press it again, I get a message saying "your system is too slow to play this!".
What might be interesting is that I can't seem to reproduce the freezes if I start mplayer without audio output:

mplayer -ao null somefile.avi

Could this be the problem?

jorges

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#4 2011-05-07 01:53:53

gasparsantos
Member
From: Portugal
Registered: 2007-07-11
Posts: 11
Website

Re: Video playback random freezes

Hi all

For me also, video without audio runs fine

Shure is audio stuff

Best regards
ArchGalileu


Asus eeepc 1000HE - Archlinux/kernel-netbook/kde4
Acer Aspire 5520 - Archlinux/kde4

Best distro :-)

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#5 2011-05-09 14:00:26

jorges
Member
Registered: 2011-04-07
Posts: 29

Re: Video playback random freezes

I think I found the problem: I have an hybrid-graphics laptop, with the integrated intel hd graphics AND and ati card. The ati card controls the hdmi output, and thus appears in pulseaudio as a second audio output (the first being the internal sound card itself). I don't remember if it's there by default or I added it myself later, but I have a third option which is "simultaenous output". That output was set as deafult. Maybe because I switch off the ati card to save power (with vga_switcheroo), pulseaudio reports problems getting both sound cards in sync. I just set pulseaudio to output sound ONLY to the internal audio card, and it seems problems have disappeared. I will report back after further testing, and hopefully edit the first post with the solution.

jorges

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