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[6233638]

I've just switched from MPC-HC to MC18, and am experiencing some problems with Blu-ray playback.

Previously in MPC-HC, I was using ReClock, LAV Filters, and madVR.
In MC18, I have been trying the internal audio engine with VideoClock enabled (which didn't work for PAL content until I updated to 18.0.129 rather than the "stable" channel) with madVR, and I also have LAV Video manually added to ensure that it is using DXVA Copy-Back decoding. (DXVA Native performs worse, and has problems with deinterlacing in my experience)

Because the MC18 interface kicks you out of Fullscreen Exclusive mode, I have madVR set to only run in Windowed mode. (in MPC-HC, I used FSE, and I would prefer to use FSE if there was a better solution)

When watching The Incredibles Blu-ray, the film completely froze up twice - once about halfway through, and again towards the end of the film, dropping about 200 frames both times. This is not a CPU/GPU issue, as my hardware is more than powerful enough for Blu-ray playback, and the film plays correctly in MPC-HC, with zero dropped frames from start to finish.

I did notice that the film uses seamless branching (it's split over a number of files, rather than a single .m2ts) so I wondered if that had anything to do with it.

I've also tried updating LAV Filters to the latest 0.55.3, which didn't make a difference.
I have not had a chance to test whether JRMC18 still has these problems if I set the audio renderer to ReClock.

[Jong]

You should be able to use FSE. MC only drops out of exclusive if you use the mouse. If you use the arrow keys to access MC's fullscreen OSD MC will remain in exclusive mode. On the other hand, you do not mention what GPU you have. If you have an NVidia card you could try using MadVR's overlay mode and see if that behaves differently (doesn't work with AMD).

In any case you should try reverting to normal ROHQ and see if you have the same problems there and also check if the problem is limited to this one disc or if it is a wider problem.

[6233638]

Sorry, I should have mentioned. I have an overclocked 2500K and a GTX 570.
Using the same settings in MPC-HC as MC18, but with ReClock as the audio renderer I was able to play the film from start to finish without issue.

Similarly, I was just watching a PAL DVD in MC18 and it started dropping frames about halfway through. (roughly one per second, as if VideoClock broke) Switching the audio renderer to Reclock let me finish without issue, though stopping and resuming playback may have done that too.

When I have a chance, I will try using the default ROHQ settings again.

I am used to only having a wireless mouse for control (back/forward buttons set to skip through chapters in MPC-HC with the wheel for seeking) and switching to a keyboard would be difficult in my setup, which is why I had to disable FSE. Is there any way to customize the controls for MC18? I did purchase JRemote for my iPad, but still find myself reaching for the mouse during video playback. (great for music though)

[Jong]

I must say, other than the fact Videoclock wasn't working at all for DVDs until recently (maybe the thing you referred to in your OP) I have never experienced the problems you are having but I have an AMD7750 and DO use FSE.

There is a lot of control over MC18. A lot of info is here: http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/User_Defined_Global_Keyboard_Shortcuts, but I don't know of a way of disabling the "old style" popup OSD you get when you move the mouse, which causes the drop out of FSE. A regular remote does not cause this problem.

As a matter of interest, why don't you use CUVID, rather than DXVA2-CB?

[6233638]

I must say, other than the fact Videoclock wasn't working at all for DVDs until recently (maybe the thing you referred to in your OP) I have never experienced the problems you are having but I have an AMD7750 and DO use FSE.

Ah, I assumed it was an issue with PAL DVDs, not DVDs in general.

There is a lot of control over MC18. A lot of info is here: http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/User_Defined_Global_Keyboard_Shortcuts, but I don't know of a way of disabling the "old style" popup OSD you get when you move the mouse, which causes the drop out of FSE. A regular remote does not cause this problem.

Because my HTPC is in a separate room, and I have all my wiring hidden in the walls, adding an IR remote would not be an easy thing to do - and I don't want to have another remote. It's too bad there are no graphics cards that support HDMI-CEC for media control, and then I could just use my TV remote. (which is only used for volume control anyway)

That Wiki article relates to keyboard shortcuts, can you also remap the mouse controls? I really dislike back/forward kicking you out to the library views, rather than skipping chapters.

As a matter of interest, why don't you use CUVID, rather than DXVA2-CB?

DXVA2 Copy-Back performs better than CUVID, and CUVID forces the graphics card into its highest power state, which is unnecessary as my card handles all scaling with ease in the P8 state.
DXVA2 Native should perform better still, in theory, but Copy-Back works best here, and deinterlacing doesn't work well in madVR with DXVA2 Native.

[Jong]

Almost all my DVD viewing is PAL.

I use the Harmony 900 to relay IR to my AV cabinet, but it is expensive and there is some uncertainty hanging over the line ATM.

Can't you use your mouse software to remap it's keys when using MC?

[6233638]

I use the Harmony 900 to relay IR to my AV cabinet, but it is expensive and there is some uncertainty hanging over the line ATM.

Can't you use your mouse software to remap it's keys when using MC?

Well I have multiple mice hooked up to the system, which are all five-button mice so that I don't need to install drivers, and I'm not sure that they all offer per-application settings anyway. Seems like an oversight that there's no easy way to remap the controls.

As an update, I reset to the ROHQ settings rather than anything custom, and I ended up with about 60 repeated frames by the end of watching another DVD, which started about halfway or two-thirds through.

[Jong]

It's possible there is a way to remap mouse buttons. It's not an area I am expert in. Might be worth opening a separate thread just with that question and someone may have your answer. Not sure what to say about your 60 repeated frames. I am a long time user of Reclock, very actively involved in its evolution via the Slysoft forums when James took over and I have had no complaints with Videoclock (other than the, now fixed, DVD problem referred to earlier). It might help if you can pin down the issue:

- of course, I assume you are not bitstreaming, as that would turn off Videoclock!

- a few screenshots showing the MadVR OSD would help. We can then see what your refresh rate is, what the clock deviation is and how often MadVR thinks the repeats will be. This should tell us if Videoclock seems to be working.

- are the repeats still in bursts, as you said before, or random occasional single repeats, or periodic regular repeats, which would indicate a frame rate/refresh rate mismatch?

[6233638]

It's still happening; hung for about 15 seconds, then audio resumed and the video quickly sped up to catch up with the audio. Massive number of dropped and repeated frames, and the frame repeat estimation dropped to about 2 minutes.

This was about 90 minutes into the Pulp Fiction Blu-ray. In this case, the only thing MC18 was doing was VideoClock - decoding & downmixing were handled by LAV added as a custom filter. (because there are no options to include LFE in the mix with MC18)



I've never experienced this using ReClock, either inside MC18 or in MPC-HC.

[InflatableMouse]

Could it be that the harddisk from which you're playing is put to sleep and needs to wake up?

[6233638]

Could it be that the harddisk from which you're playing is put to sleep and needs to wake up?

No, I don't let my hard drives sleep.

EDIT: And it just happened again after about 30 minutes of playback, even though I now have MC18 set to use ReClock. So that's not it. MPC-HC has never done this.
EDIT: And another 15 minutes later, using the standard Red October HQ settings.

[InflatableMouse]

Have you tested with RO Std as well?

[glynor]

Sorry, I should have mentioned. I have an overclocked 2500K and a GTX 570.
Using the same settings in MPC-HC as MC18, but with ReClock as the audio renderer I was able to play the film from start to finish without issue.

Hmmm...

Are you sure it is really the same settings?  Just checking, but, MC does custom stuff with MadVR.  You have to check it while it is running in MC to get accurate settings, as it sets them when it loads the video.  It doesn't help to not actually be doing apples-to-apples.

I think a Sandy, with that GPU, should be more-than-sufficient for ROHQ.  As long as you're sure the OC is 100% stable, then, I'm confused.  It seems like it is a data source problem (drive or network issues).  I need to read these posts better though...

[glynor]

It's too bad there are no graphics cards that support HDMI-CEC for media control, and then I could just use my TV remote. (which is only used for volume control anyway)

You might also want to look at this thing:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5463/pulseeight-usb-cec-adapter-review

I don't know much about it, but Anandtech did a whole writeup, so read it.

[6233638]

Have you tested with RO Std as well?

I haven't. Without madVR, I wouldn't be using a HTPC at all.

Are you sure it is really the same settings?  Just checking, but, MC does custom stuff with MadVR.  You have to check it while it is running in MC to get accurate settings, as it sets them when it loads the video.  It doesn't help to not actually be doing apples-to-apples.

Positive, that's why I was adding LAV Audio & Video manually before, so that I could be certain it was using the same settings as MPC-HC, rather than the ROHQ preset (which doesn't let you check) and I've verified that madVR was using the same settings.

I think a Sandy, with that GPU, should be more-than-sufficient for ROHQ.  As long as you're sure the OC is 100% stable, then, I'm confused.  It seems like it is a data source problem (drive or network issues).  I need to read these posts better though...

The system is 100% stable, and I have no such problems playing the same files through MPC-HC rather than MC18, using the exact same LAV Audio & Video, ReClock, and madVR settings. At first I thought it was Video Clock causing the problems, but as I've found out tonight, it's also happening when using ReClock in MC18. Playback is off a local hard drive, not a networked share. It's definitely not a data transfer issue.

The only thing I can think it could be, other than a general MC18 playback problem, is something relating to scanning and importing files in the background?

You might also want to look at this thing: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5463/pulseeight-usb-cec-adapter-review

Thanks, I'll have to read up on it. I seem to recall hearing something about it being designed specifically for XBMC rather than sending standardised player controls though. Really, the video card manufacturers should have built that in a long time ago.

[6233638]

Looks like this is still happening. I thought it might have been that a download had finished and been picked up by the auto-import, causing things to freeze, but I haven't had any downloads going on in the background this time and it's still freezing up on me - only 10 minutes into a film this time too.

[JimH]

Try running with the stock settings of RO Std for a while.

If that works, try the stock settings of ROHQ.

[6233638]

I'll try try standard settings next time I watch another Blu-ray - that was with the stock ROHQ settings this time however, and I then went on to watch the whole film without any troubles inside MPC-HC.
I've been using madVR for years at this point, and have only experienced these issues inside MC.

[6233638]

I think this must be something to do with hardware acceleration. Normally, I have been using LAV Video set to DXVA2 Copy-Back, as that performed best in my testing and allowed the GPU (a GTX 570) to run in the medium power state unlike CUVID which forces it to run at the highest power state.

If I run ROHQ with the built in hardware acceleration option, the video plays but MC's UI is completely unresponsive, and Windows acts as if the program has crashed.

I went back to "custom" to use LAV Video in DXVA2 Copy-Back again, but left a number of system monitors open. When it freezes (in this case, right at the start of the film) CPU usage, Disk activity etc. is normal, but VPU load jumps to 99% and stays there for 25 seconds before dropping down to zero and playing normally. GPU & MCU usage are normal.



This has never happened before when using LAV Video & madVR with the same configuration (same versions too) in MPC-HC.

[Boltron]

Hey 6233638, I know you from madVR and LAV forums...

I use MC18 with madVR and LAV for well over a year with no issues what so ever. In fact MC18 gives me the best playback I ever had. I also use Videoclock and don't use bitstreming any more. My HTPC is an I3 540 and I have ran with with both HD5770 (and older ATIs) and now with a GTX 660. Just about all my Blurays (23.976) are ripped with no compression, I have also converted about a dozen with SVP to 59.9. No problems at all. So I am pretty sure your issue may be with the setup. madVR is set for the highest quality with Jinc3 etc...

If you need more specific setup notes when I can get them when I get home tonight.

[glynor]

Smells like it could be an unstable OC to me...

Just saying.  Does it survive a 3DMark run?  How about Furmark?  Furmark is kind-of unreliable in some ways (just because Furmark kills a GPU doesn't always mean it is unstable), but if it doesn't pass, that might give you something to look at.  Another easy way to check it would be...

If your BIOS allows you to set and recall profiles easily, it would be handy to save your OC settings, drop the CPU back to defaults, and try again just to see.

I know you said the OC was stable, but... Testing OC can be fiddly.  The main CPU execution units can be all stable, but if one little fiddly widget isn't (but which isn't used in all cases), you can have bizarre problems like this.  I've also seen them slip at those high OC's over time (so, what was 100% stable two months ago, might not be anymore).  I'm wondering about PCIe stability specifically.

I know that MPC-HC doesn't exhibit the problem, but that doesn't necessarily matter.  MC and MPC-HC are very different applications, and push on different "buttons" on the hardware.  It is entirely possible that, while under load, something else that MC is doing (unrelated to playback, or related to the way, specifically it handles playback) is exposing a weakness in hardware that MPC-HC does not.

[6233638]

I've tested the system under a variety of loads now (100% CPU & GPU at the same time, when throttled to different power states etc.) and it's completely stable. I did extended testing fairly recently when trying to see if I could reduce power consumption, but that did lead to instability.

Since disabling hardware acceleration in LAV Filters, I haven't encountered this problem in MC18. I don't know why it's causing problems there though - I can see why you might think it was an overclocking issue, but I'm fairly sure that it's not.

[Jong]

Not saying you are wrong but "100%" GPU (or CPU) is a pretty meaningless term these days, although I know the sensors will report it. As we all know there are some pretty specialist bits of both all with their own sensitivity to overclock and max power draw. Most game benchmarks can show the GPU at "100%", but that doesn't mean that the dedicated AV bits are doing much if anything and they may be more (or less) sensitive to both overclock frequency and excessive power draw.

[6233638]

Not saying you are wrong but "100%" GPU (or CPU) is a pretty meaningless term these days, although I know the sensors will report it. As we all know there are some pretty specialist bits of both all with their own sensitivity to overclock and max power draw. Most game benchmarks can show the GPU at "100%", but that doesn't mean that the dedicated AV bits are doing much if anything and they may be more (or less) sensitive to both overclock frequency and excessive power draw.

GPU, VPU, and CPU all being maxed out - or near enough as I could get while still avoiding dropped frames in MPC-HC. This resulted in having to upscale 1080p60 content with Jinc 3 AR while running CPU stress tests. (Intel Burn Test) The dips you see are when the clip was looping. I can also run at 100% and drop frames to test stability only, rather than pushing the system as far as it will go while still maintaining smooth playback. This screenshot is just from a quick test, but the system is definitely 100% stable - it's something going wrong in MC18 - perhaps something to do with the way they are using the GPU to accelerate the general UI conflicting with video playback?



Unfortunately madVR was in Windowed Overlay for this test, and I didn't realise that would not capture stats in the screenshot. I expected stats to show up, but not the video. Other than a couple of frames at the start of playback as you often see, there were no drops/repeats.

You will see that even when the entire system is being stressed like this, the MCU is only hitting 14% load, however.


Whatever it is, something is causing the MCU to hit 100% for 25+ seconds at a time inside MC18 when using DXVA2 Copy-Back, at seemingly random points during playback, completely stalling video. It seems to mostly (exclusively?) happen with Blu-ray and not DVDs or (legally) downloaded content.

I guess the default ROHQ Hardware Acceleration option defaults to CUVID with Nvidia, as selecting that in LAV manually is causing the UI to freeze/crash on me as well. (no problems with CUVID in MPC-HC, and nothing out of the ordinary in the stats)

So the only option is for me to use CPU decoding rather than GPU accelerated decoding for now, which my system can handle, but it's a waste of power - that's the main reason I wanted to use DXVA2 rather than CUVID in the first place.

[jmone]

It is worth asking nevcairiel to have a look at this thread as he knows what modes are used when / how in RO with LAV and may be able to provide an insight into what is happening.  Out of interest are you running TWO installs of LAV / mad on this PC?  (eg the one in MC's "C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 18\Plugins" and ones you have installed elsewhere?  This has caused odd issues in the past with different versions and settings between these installs.

[6233638]

It is worth asking nevcairiel to have a look at this thread as he knows what modes are used when / how in RO with LAV and may be able to provide an insight into what is happening.  Out of interest are you running TWO installs of LAV / mad on this PC?  (eg the one in MC's "C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 18\Plugins" and ones you have installed elsewhere?  This has caused odd issues in the past with different versions and settings between these installs.

I was just thinking that I should probably send him a PM. I have tried updating madVR & LAV to no avail.

[Jong]

Does this happen with MC in standard mode and Theaterview because I think (someone will correct me if I'm wrong!) only Theaterview is/can be hardware accelerated and that is user configurable.

[6233638]

Does this happen with MC in standard mode and Theaterview because I think (someone will correct me if I'm wrong!) only Theaterview is/can be hardware accelerated and that is user configurable.

Oh, I'm only using the standard view, so I guess that doesn't apply.

[jmone]

Does this happen with MC in standard mode and Theaterview because I think (someone will correct me if I'm wrong!) only Theaterview is/can be hardware accelerated and that is user configurable.

I don't think is is correct for Media Playback.  If you are talking about the option Tools --> Options --> Video Card --> Hardware accelerated graphics: (mine is set to Automatic) it is how the GUI is drawn and not related to media playback.

There is something very odd happening with 6233638 as (if I summarise it correctly)
- playback work Perfectly.... then
- something causes the video stream to stall at a random interval (normally in the tens of minutes)... then
- the video will catch up &
- it only happens when use HW Acceleration (Tools --> Options --> Video)

[6233638]

Looks like this is not related to hardware acceleration after all - it's still happening even with it disabled. I guess it must be a madVR thing rather than a LAV Video thing?

[glynor]

Looks like this is not related to hardware acceleration after all - it's still happening even with it disabled. I guess it must be a madVR thing rather than a LAV Video thing?

I'm really not trying to be a broken record on this but...

1. You're experiencing a serious problem that no one else, even people with similar hardware setups, are seeing.
2. You are running the hardware wildly out of spec.  I don't know where I saw it, but I remember you posted your specific OC in some thread before, and it was pretty aggressive.
3. You seem to refuse to consider that #1 could be related to #2.

Is there any way you can follow this advice above:

If your BIOS allows you to set and recall profiles easily, it would be handy to save your OC settings, drop the CPU back to defaults, and try again just to see.

I've been doing this a very, very, very long time.  When something smells like hardware to me, it isn't always, but there's at least a very, very good chance that it is.

Otherwise, I'm not much help.  I'm not seeing anything similar on a wide variety of machines.  The system, as described, should absolutely be able to handle BluRay playback.  Clearly, that kind of performance isn't something that most people would just "not notice" (such as occasional single-frame drops and whatnot).

There is no big outcry, and you don't have any components that are oddball.  Therefore, it is very unlikely to be something in the program, but rather, something specific to your system.  Not impossible, but very unlikely.

[6233638]

Yeah, this is now starting to happen in MPC-HC, so I think it must have been a complete coincidence that it just started happening when I switched to MC18 - either a recent change in madVR/LAV Filters, or increasingly more likely, some unrelated hardware/software issue.

[6233638]

Well I can't say what the problem was, but I did a fresh install of Windows, and with just the latest version of MC18 installed, I have had no problems with the built in hardware acceleration option, or with Blu-ray playback. In fact, it's now smooth when I bring up the UI and a film is playing, when it would drop frames before.

I haven't tried updating madVR/LAV to the latest versions yet - but I won't be. I'll just leave MC18's installed versions alone.

The only thing I can think of that's different in this setup other than it being a fresh install, is that I haven't set up a 3DLUT in madVR yet, but that shouldn't cause any problems - and if it does, well then at least I know what the issue was.

[jmone]

Well I'm glad you have it sorted as it had us all baffled as your setup is no different to many of us!

[6233638]

I'm still confused about it, because having to wipe the system to get things working correctly is exactly what you shouldn't do to try and solve a problem, and there was nothing obvious that could have been causing it. I still have no idea what it could have been, because the only thing I had installed in months was MC18.

But it does at least seem to be working, and so far, still seems to be working correctly with the latest LAV Filters installed and set up via a custom output - but the internal plugins have been left alone.

I wish I could figure out how to use a custom downmix matrix inside MC18, because that would let me avoid using LAV Audio to do it. I'd much rather leave LAV Audio to handle decoding, and the JRiver audio engine handle mixing. I can't find any information on what JRSS is using for its downmix, and it is standard to discard LFE when doing a stereo downmix which I don't want to do, because it's assumed that if you're downmixing to stereo, you are playing back on TV speakers, rather than a high-end stereo setup. Update: JRSS does include LFE.


I haven't had a chance to play anything on Blu-ray yet since installing LAV Filters again, but general playback with DXVA2 Copy-Back seems fine now. (still not dropping frames when I bring up the UI etc.)
If I could at least see what settings were being used for LAV Filters when MC18 has auto-configured them, I might be less concerned about how it's doing things.
E.g. what the deinterlacing settings are when CUVID is used - a lot of progressive videos were being detected as interlaced when madVR was set to "if in doubt, activate deinterlacing."

[6233638]

Well, so much for that. It seems that while I have been able to play a couple of Blu-rays without any trouble since reinstalling Windows, whatever is causing this, is not random.

I had a couple of hours where I was going to be busy, but could leave the HTPC on and still monitor it, so I put on Pulp Fiction again and it hung up again at exactly the same point it did last time. Unfortunately, that point in the film is almost 90 minutes in, and it does not seem to be reproducible by skipping directly to it.

It's not the disc, because I have tried ripping it again, and AnyDVD doesn't throw up any read errors.

[madshi]

Sorry for the late reply, have been busy with other stuff...

Looking at your log file, it seems that the decoder stops working for about 6 seconds. Then it gets up to speed again. I don't know why this happens, but from what I can see I rather don't think it's madVR's fault. Were you using hardware decoding? From the logs it doesn't seem to be native DXVA decoding. If you were using DXVA copyback or CUVID decoding, you could try updating to newer/different GPU drivers. Or you could try updating LAV Video Decoder. Or you could switch to a different decoder. Or ideally, use software decoding. I've always found hardware decoding to be not as reliable as software decoding.

[6233638]

No problem. I was mainly trying to use DXVA2 Copy-Back, but it also seemed to be happening with software decoding.
I haven’t experienced this for some time now, so updating one of the suggested components has likely fixed it.

That said, I have mostly been ripping to mkv rather than playing back iso files directly now, and they always worked without any problems.