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Jerky video playback [solved, thanks!]

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    Jerky video playback [solved, thanks!]

    Hi folks,

    I've been using kubuntu for a little while now and, so far, am having great fun with it. I just have a couple of problems I haven't been able to track down. Here's the most annoying:

    Briefly, when I play back a video I get two problems:
    1) Every 10 seconds, the video freezes for about 0.3 seconds - one frame stays displayed for longer than it should be, then the video stream jumps forward to where it should be. The audio track plays back smoothly. The timing is a bit odd here - the first jerk happens 7 or 8 seconds after playback starts, then all further jerks are exactly 10 seconds intervals afterward (measured by watching video software's clocks).

    2) Whenever there's a lot of movement on the video (e.g. someone walking across the screen, or the shot panning around a room), the top section of the screen gets out of sync with the bottom. This is hard to describe, but the bottom section of screen seems to be lagging a few fractions of a second behind the top. There's a sharp division between the two sections (i.e. no blurring or gradual transition), but the relative size of the sections varies. It can be anywhere from the top 20% to 50%.

    Both problems happen with all dixv-encoded .avi files (e.g. EZTV's releases of Lost, BSG, Heroes), all DVDs... basically anything I can use to play a video on my laptop. The only exception I've seen are flash-based players like youtube and BBC iplayer (which I don't run fullscreen).

    Both problems happen in windowed mode, maximised window and fullscreen modes, although are most noticable in fullscreen mode.

    Both problems happen with vlc, totem, "Movie Player" (mplayer?) and kaffeine.

    I'm running kubuntu 8.10, with all the latest automatic updates applied. Turning Desktop Effects off (via System settings > Desktop) or swapping them from OpenGL to Xrender doesn't make any difference.

    My computer is an Acer Aspire 5610z. (Centrino 1.66GHz Core Duo, 1GB RAM, Intel 945GM shared graphics). In the bios my shared graphics memory is set to the highest setting, 'though I forget the actual number. So this isn't exactly a beast but it should be able to play a video file, right?

    I ran "top" through Konsole. The system looks pretty untaxed:
    Code:
    Tasks: 118 total,  2 running, 116 sleeping,  0 stopped,  0 zombie
    Cpu(s): 12.7%us, 2.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 83.4%id, 0.0%wa, 0.9%hi, 0.5%si, 0.0%st
    Mem:  1023920k total,  797880k used,  226040k free,  22724k buffers
    Swap: 3004112k total,    0k used, 3004112k free,  338600k cached
    ...so I'm pretty baffled. Can anyone help me work out why my mostly-idling system sucks at playing video files?

    #2
    Re: Jerky video playback

    Have you installed all the relevant codecs etc ? follow this guide .Make sure you use the Kubuntu 8.10 versions

    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766683

    I use this every time and everything works perfectly, running Kubuntu KDE4.2
    Hope this helps

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Jerky video playback

      Thanks for the quick reply bossa.

      I'd already been through that list when I installed, but went through it again at your suggestion. There was nothing new to be installed or updated, so it quit with no errors.

      However, I've just finished upgrading to KDE 4.2. For some reason the KDE upgrade fixed my problem . So I've no idea what the root of the problem was, only that it has gone. Yay! Another heartfelt vote of thanks to the good folks who write all this free software.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Jerky video playback

        Another thing that you may try if you have this problem again is renice. I've used it with Amarok to fix stuttering playback. Just be sure to read the man page first, so you understand how to do it properly.

        Open a Konsole and enter:

        Code:
        man renice
        Welcome newbies!
        Verify the ISO
        Kubuntu's documentation

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Jerky video playback

          Telengard - Thanks, that's a really useful tool! I don't need it for the video stuff, but I can see it coming in very handy for, say, keeping OOo running snappily while running a long calculation in the background.

          The more I learn about Linux the more I appreciate how powerful it can be. Awesome.

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Jerky video playback [solved, thanks!]

            You are welcome, of course
            Welcome newbies!
            Verify the ISO
            Kubuntu's documentation

            Comment

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