[MPlayer-users] Trouble with HD-PVR recordings

[Carl Eugen Hoyos]

Charlie Gunyon <charles.gunyon <at> gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Carl.  Sorry I didn't mean to top-post, I thought that meant
> 'replying to a post earlier in the thread', not 'putting text in the
> top of a post'.  Hopefully this one is less rude :)

Now please learn how to trim your quotes - the information that my mail was
posted on MPlayer-users is probably irrelevant for your answer.

> Anyhow yes, -mc 1 and -demuxer lavf -nocorrect-pts works for the
> sample there but it's seriously low bitrate.  I've uploaded a
> different sample in Matroska (still h264 and AC3) with a higher
> bitrate at http://www.charlieg.net/downloads/tv.mkv.

Note that the important difference between your first sample and this one is not
the bit-rate but the container.
For MPEG transport streams, the native demuxer (demuxer mpegts) and
nocorrect-pts are default (correct-pts is always default for demuxer lavf), for
matroska files, demuxer lavf is default, and correct-pts is (also) default for
the native demuxer (demuxer mkv).
You already know that correct-pts is bad for PAFF, so you always need
nocorrect-pts for PAFF in matroska. You also know that while some PAFF samples
(like the ones you uploaded) do not need mc 1 with demuxer lavf, it is often
needed and does not hurt very much.
Conclusion:
The Matroska sample you uploaded plays fine with -nocorrect-pts -mc 1, no matter
which vo or which demuxer I use (and, naturally, it also plays fine with -vc
ffh264vdpau since it is not a 60 fps sample no matter what MPlayer's output
says). It also plays fine for me with -demuxer lavf -nocorrect-pts (this is,
again, not true for all PAFF samples).
Since you did not post complete, uncut output of your mplayer command (including
your command line), I can only guess that your system _is_ too slow for software
decoding if you get this message.

> - mplayer -vo xv -mc 1 -demuxer lavf -nocorrect-pts tv.mkv (SLOW message)
> - mplayer -vo xv -mc 1 tv.mkv (A-V desync)
> - mplayer -vo xv -demuxer lavf -nocorrect-pts tv.mkv (SLOW message)

> - mplayer -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau -mc 1 -demuxer lavf -nocorrect-pts
> tv.mkv (SLOW message and A-V desync)

Are you sure? Could this be a problem with a too low refresh rate of your
screen? Did you test export VDPAU_NVIDIA_NO_OVERLAY=1?
I will test with my Pentium III 500, but that will take some time.

> - mplayer -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau -mc 1 tv.mkv (same)
> - mplayer -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau -demuxer lavf -nocorrect-pts tv.mkv (same)
> 
> Note that none of these are doing any deinterlacing.

De-interlacing of 1080 streams is always expensive, no matter if done in CPU or
GPU. It is not possible (for deint>1) on my PCI-E G98, but I will not protest:
On a range from €22,60 to €500, my card is around €26, so I cannot expect it to
de-interlace every stream (without dropping frames).

> I tried the following options:
> 
> mplayer -vo vdpau:deint=4 -vc ffh264vdpau -mc 1 -demuxer lavf
> -nocorrect-pts -lavdopts skipframe=nonref tv.mkv
> 
> And I avoided the SLOW message and A-V desyncs, but playback was quite
> choppy.  I assume this is due to 'skipframe=nonref' but if this is the
> result I don't see it as a solution.

I tried to say it before: You cannot ask the system to drop as many frames as
possible and complain about dropping frames.

Carl Eugen
(E8400, 8400 GS G98, 1920x1200 at 85)