[SOLVED] Karmic: video plays like "skip frame"

[spyder79]

Fresh install of Karmic on an Asus 64-bit laptop, Intel core i3 processer, 4GB RAM, Intel graphics media accelerator HD video card. All video formats play like they are skipping frames. Same in dragon player, kaffeine, and xine. Desktop effects are turned off. Everything else seems to be working okay with this installation.

Ran glxgears and got output ranging from 1500 to 1900, and it hesitates occasionally like a grain of sand in the gears. There must be some package or setting that must be changed?

UPDATE: Upgrading to Lucid solved this problem. I never did find the cause.

[Rog131]

Re: Karmic: video plays like "skip frame"

Tools & Logs

KDE

K > Applications > System > Info Center (KInfoCenter)
Package: kinfocenter

system information viewer for KDE 4

K > Applications > System > System Logs Viewer (KSystemLog)
Package: ksystemlog

system log viewer for KDE 4

K > Applications > System > System Monitor


CLI

LSHW

man lshw

NAME
lshw - list hardware

SYNOPSIS
lshw [ -version ]

lshw [ -help ]

lshw [ -X ]

lshw [ -html | -short | -xml | -businfo ] [ -class class ... ] [ -disable test ... ] [ -enable test ...
] [ -sanitize ] [ -numeric ] [ -quiet ]

DESCRIPTION
lshw is a small tool to extract detailed information on the hardware configuration of the machine. It can report exact memory configuration, firmware version, mainboard configuration, CPU version and speed, cache configuration, bus speed, etc. on DMI-capable x86 or IA-64 systems and on some PowerPC machines (PowerMac G4 is known to work).

Package: lshw

information about hardware configuration

command:

sudo lshw -html > Hardware.html

will collect the hardware info to the Hardware.html.

TOP

man top

NAME
top - display Linux tasks

SYNOPSIS
top -hv | -bcHisS -d delay -n iterations -p pid [, pid ...]

The traditional switches '-' and whitespace are optional.

DESCRIPTION
The top program provides a dynamic real-time view of a running system. It can display system summary information as well as a list of tasks currently being managed by the Linux kernel. The types of system summary information shown and the types, order and size of information displayed for tasks are all user configurable and that configuration can be made persistent across restarts.

LOGS

Xorg.0.log is log file for X Windowing Server. It is in /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

You could use the System Logs Viewer or konsole.

Just looking errors:

grep "(EE)" /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Just looking warnings:

grep "(WW)" /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Problem solving - where to start

Is your hardware detected ?
Intel graphics drivers - not vesa.

Is your Xorg log clean - no error messages.

Do you have high CPU load ?
System Monitor or top.

What codecs do you have ?
> HOWTO find Kubuntu's manual / reference / guide / documentation / help
>> Kubuntu Guide - Karmic

...Same in dragon player, kaffeine, and xine...

They are all (as default) using the Xine. Have you tried with the MPlayer or with the VLC ?


More > Top 20 Kubuntu FAQs & Answers

[spyder79]

Re: Karmic: video plays like "skip frame"

Thanks for your response Rog. Please forgive my lack of full understanding here, but I'll do my best.

First, video playback is fine when xorg.conf is set to "vesa", but the screen resolution doesn't match (1366x768 native) and of course it is horizontally distorted. Changing the driver to "intel" (in xorg.conf) gives me the right resolution option, but then there is the jerky playback with all file types, from disk drive or from file. I haven't tried VLC or others because the problem seems to be related to the driver. Running dpkg-reconfigure just sets xorg.conf to an empty file, I don't know why.

Hardware list shows the following for the video driver:

*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Arrandale Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 12
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: msi pm bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
resources: irq:36 memory:d0000000-d03fffff memory:c0000000-cfffffff

Checking Xorg for errors and warnings:

voodooman@voodooman-laptop:~$ grep "(EE)" /var/log/Xorg.0.log
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
voodooman@voodooman-laptop:~$ grep "(WW)" /var/log/Xorg.0.log
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist.
(WW) intel(0): Unknown vendor-specific block f
(WW) intel(0): Unknown vendor-specific block f
(WW) intel(0): Unknown vendor-specific block f
(WW) intel(0): Unknown vendor-specific block f

CPU load during playback is about 40% or less.

Codecs:
I've enabled all repositories except Partner, and all updates are in. But as I mentioned, video plays fine with vesa driver (wmv,mpeg,mp4,mov). From that, I'm assuming that it isn't a codec problem.

Hunch: Is i915 the best driver choice available? If not, how do I get the right driver working for me?

[Rog131]

Re: Karmic: video plays like "skip frame"

First, video playback is fine when xorg.conf is set to "vesa", but the screen resolution doesn't match (1366x768 native) and of course it is horizontally distorted.

Yes, the vesa driver doesn't support 16/9 (is this still valid ??) > Vesa FAQ:

Q: Is VESA doing any work on standards that include 16:9 and 16:10?

A: We are currently discussing formats and timings for both 16:9 and 16:10.

The "jerky playback" could be this > Karmic Koala Release Notes:

No Xv support for Intel 82852/855GM video chips with KMS

When using the default kernel-mode-setting (KMS) option in Ubuntu 9.10, users with Intel 82852/855GM cards will find that they are unable to use the Xv extension for playing videos. This may show up as high CPU usage or stuttering during video playback, or a failure to play videos at all with some applications. As a workaround, users can add the option nomodeset to the kernel boot options in the grub config (for GRUB 2: edit /etc/default/grub and add nomodeset to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX, then run sudo update-grub; for GRUB 1: edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and add nomodeset to the line beginning with # kopt=, then run sudo update-grub), to disable the use of KMS. (395932)

The xv is > X video extension wiki.

Do you have the Intel 82852/855GM ?

Is the "nomodeset" helping ?

[spyder79]

Re: Karmic: video plays like "skip frame"

I'm not sure about the chipset... don't know how to find out. lspci says:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Arrandale Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 12)

I'm pretty reluctant to go digging around in Grub without very specific instructions. A wise man told me that things are never so bad that you can't make them worse. I've proven that on several occasions.

An odd, possibly related fact... when I boot into Windows 7, I get exactly the same video skipping when I try to play MP4 files, although WMV and MOV plays just fine.

VLC gives the same performance as the other players. I can't get commercial DVDs to play at all, beyond the opening copyright intro. I did install libdvdcss2.

[Rog131]

Re: Karmic: video plays like "skip frame"

I'm pretty reluctant to go digging around in Grub without very specific instructions. A wise man told me that things are never so bad that you can't make them worse. I've proven that on several occasions.

Temporary "nomodeset" for a session - next boot will be reset the situation to the normal:
Press e (edit) when in the Grub2 screen and add the nomodeset after the "quiet splash".

[spyder79]

Re: Karmic: video plays like "skip frame"

Tried nomodeset as you instructed. Booted into a black screen... eventually to a text login... then back to black and never got X running.

I had hoped KDE4 had these sort of bugs worked out by now. I have a 8-year-old laptop running Hardy that works without a hitch (grumble). Okay, I'm over that...

[Rog131]

Re: Karmic: video plays like "skip frame"

I had hoped KDE4 had these sort of bugs worked out by now...

I don't think that this is a KDE problem (top layer). I think that the problem is the bottom layer - 'buntu hardware drivers/settings.

The KMS is > KernelModeSetting:

Kernel mode-setting (KMS) shifts responsibility for selecting and setting up the graphics mode from X.org to the kernel. When X.org is started, it then detects and uses the mode without any further mode changes. This promises to make booting faster, more graphical, and less flickery.

Tried nomodeset as you instructed. Booted into a black screen... eventually to a text login... then back to black and never got X running.

Then it is not (probably) the KMS problem.


Searching with the "ubuntu intel karmic graphic xorg.conf" - few picks:

> Troubleshooting Intel graphics performance issues
> [ubuntu] Poor performance, Intel integrated graphics, Karmic
> [all variants] Post your xorg.conf graphics card tweaks

I can't say if these will help as i don't have the Intel GPU.

[spyder79]

Re: Karmic: video plays like "skip frame"[SOLVED]

I never did find the exact cause of this problem. There was another part of the puzzle also, being that Windows had similar behaviour with jerky video playback. Can't imagine how Kubuntu could affect Windows performance.

Anyway, I recently upgraded from Karmic to Lucid and all is well. Display resolution is better and performance in both Window and Kubuntu are great. My Karmic installation was direct from a factory CD and was without any problem, so I don't think the install was the problem. The jump to Lucid was done as an upgrade.

[Snowhog]

Re: Karmic: video plays like "skip frame"[SOLVED]

Can't imagine how Kubuntu could affect Windows performance.

Don't - as it can't.

Happy that it got resolved though.

[spyder79]

Re: [SOLVED] Karmic: video plays like "skip frame"

Well of course I would say that too, but evidence to the contrary is quite convincing. Videos of all formats played like crap in both Windows 7 and Linux. Then I upgrade to Lucid and the problem is instantly gone for both OS. Just like a magic wand and a puff of smoke.

I scratched my head over this for quite a long time and never found any ideas that helped a bit. I've seen some unlikely coincidences in my time, but this one doesn't seem much like coincidence.

[Snowhog]

Re: [SOLVED] Karmic: video plays like "skip frame"

I think you have to chalk it up to either coincidence, or some other factor - hardware flakiness? - because nothing installed in Linux is going to affect any other OS that is on the same HD in it's own partitions. Both OS's are isolated from each other.

I could possibly see, maybe, a driver upgrade to a video card, where the video card had an EPROM or other volitile/writable memory, causing an issue in Linux (if such an upgrade were performed in Windows). But I'm not a tech-spert in that area, so that is purely conjecture.