[Mplayer-advusers] Bug? Anomalous CPU usage when playing HDTV clips.

[John Stebbins]

No joy on the users list, so I'm moving over here.  Hope someone has the
expertise to track this down.

First let me say that I have verified that xv is working for output and
have verified that X has minimal CPU utilization on more ordinary video
clips.

I have some clips I generated using a pcHDTV card.  The capture
resolution is 720p (1280x720 @ 60fps).  When playing these clips, CPU
utilization by X server jumps to 55-60%!  mplayer cpu utilization hums
along at about 35-40%.

Since I knew that more ordinary streams did not exhibit this problem, I
decided to narrow the variables by re-encoding the stream at various
resolutions and frame rates.  I eventually created a stream that I can
demonstrate a 10x increase in CPU utilization (by the X server) by
changing the playback frame rate by 30%.

e.g.
test.avi is a re-encoding to 1024x576 @ 60fps

$ mplayer -nosound test.avi > /dev/null

Causes the X server to use 20% of the CPU

$ mplayer -fps 40 test.avi > /dev/null

Causes the X server to use 2% of the CPU

$ mplayer -fps 30 test.avi > /dev/null

Causes the X server to use 1.25% of the CPU
Note that X server cpu usage runs from .5% to 1% when mplayer is NOT
running.

This could well be an X server problem. But I wanted to report
here because the behavior is so strange, I suspect the problem is some
odd interaction between mplayer and X.

System is (laptop) Pentium-M 1.4Ghz with a Radeon Mobility M9.
Note that I have run the same experiments on 2 other configurations with
very similar results.
1. P4 2.6Ghz with Radeon 9200SE
2. P4 2.6Ghz with integrated Intel chipset (865G)

Anyone out there have any theories?
Want me to run other tests?
Want access to the test clip? Its 20M. I can upload it to 
ftp://mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/ if anyone would like to 
see this firsthand.

MPlayer spam... (from P4 2.6, integrated Intel graphics)

MPlayer 1.0pre3-3.3.2 (C) 2000-2003 MPlayer Team

CPU: Intel Pentium 4/Xeon/Celeron Northwood 2594 MHz (Family: 8, Stepping: 9)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE SSE2

Reading config file /usr/local/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf: No such file or directory
Reading config file /home/jstebbins/.mplayer/config
Reading /home/jstebbins/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/home/jstebbins/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Reading /usr/local/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/usr/local/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Using built-in default codecs.conf.
font: can't open file: /home/jstebbins/.mplayer/font/font.desc
Font /usr/local/share/mplayer/font/font.desc loaded successfully! (206 chars)
Using Linux hardware RTC timing (1024Hz).
Can't open input config file /home/jstebbins/.mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory
Can't open input config file /usr/local/etc/mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory
Falling back on default (hardcoded) input config

Playing test.1024.60fps.avi.
AVI file format detected.
AVI_NI: No audio stream found -> no sound.
VIDEO:  [DIVX]  1024x576  24bpp  59.940 fps  3167.9 kbps (386.7 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
 Software: MEncoder 1.0pre3-3.3.2
vo: X11 running at 1600x1200 with depth 16 and 16 bpp (":0.0" => local display)
Disabling DPMS
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm:ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
==========================================================================
Audio: no sound
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 1024 x 576 (preferred csp: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.78:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [xv] 1024x576 => 1024x576 Planar YV12 


Successfully enabled DPMS

Exiting... (End of file)