DVD playback in Intrepid 8.10 - streaming delays

[Snowhog]

First, the video chip/driver in my Toshiba isn't 'high end' and I am aware of this fact:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

But, in HH 8.04 and earlier (I still have HH and GG installed), playing DVDs through Kaffeine produced no streaming delays. This is not the case when playing DVDs in II 8.10 using Dragon Player and Kaffeine (which I just installed to compare with Dragon Player). While not extreme, the momentary delays are noticeable.

Is this a problem associated with KDE 4.1.3 or Plasma?

[noelvh]

Re: DVD playback in Intrepid 8.10 - streaming delays

You are more of a Linux guy them me but I had a the same performance on DVD play back.

The DVDs would play fine in the small screen, but if I made it bigger, or went to full screen it all went to hell.
I played with it for a few days and found if I turn off compiz it worked fine. I have compiz switcher installed and I just give that a click and play my DVDs.

Also it did not matter if it was from a retail DVD, a rip (vobfiles) I had issues till I turned off compiz.

I hope this helps you.

Noel Vh

[Snowhog]

Re: DVD playback in Intrepid 8.10 - streaming delays

Small or full screen display makes no difference - momentary streaming delay occurs. I don't have Compiz enabled, although I have enabled desktop effects. I'm not concerned about this behavior - I really don't use my laptop to watch DVDs - but I did notice the behavior.

[hern_28]

Re: DVD playback in Intrepid 8.10 - streaming delays

Do you guys have all the drivers installed for your video and did you set the players to use whatever acceleration method your card uses ( if opengl select opengl )

[Snowhog]

Re: DVD playback in Intrepid 8.10 - streaming delays

Yes, all required drivers are installed. Been doing this for a while now. This new behavior is a result of some change to either KDE or Plasma that is being used in Intrepid. I know that Plasma is a more intensive platform, placing a larger demand on the video driver than before. So, like I said, it may simply be that my Intel Express Integrated Graphics Controller isn't fully up to par when playing a DVD in this new environment. I'll eventually test by turning off desktop effects and seeing if this makes any difference.

[lmilano]

Re: DVD playback in Intrepid 8.10 - streaming delays

I use vlc, using a large cache of 5000 ms helped a lot, even when using myth over the network on a modest eee701 8)

[hern_28]

Re: DVD playback in Intrepid 8.10 - streaming delays

just out of curiosity. Goto the command prompt and type :

hdparm -d1 (your main hard drive ex. /dev/sd0)

Please post if you get errors.

[Snowhog]

Re: DVD playback in Intrepid 8.10 - streaming delays

paul@laptop:~$ sudo hdparm -d1 /dev/sda
[sudo] password for paul:

/dev/sda:
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
HDIO_GET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

[hern_28]

Re: DVD playback in Intrepid 8.10 - streaming delays

Gotta have dma enabled on the drive for clear audio and video playback.

[Snowhog]

Re: DVD playback in Intrepid 8.10 - streaming delays

"Gotta have..."

No, this is not true. As I posted, this streaming issue only presented it self on Intrepid Ibex running KDE 4.1.3. I have no such issue watching DVDs in Hardy Heron 8.04 or Gutsy Gibbon 7.10, both of which run KDE 3.5.9 and 3.5.10 respectively, both of which are installed on this laptop (I'm triple-booting).

Or is it possible that the kernels for these other two installation have dma support compiled in the kernels already? Hmm. I'll have to boot into each and check the results of sudo hdparm -d1 /dev/sdx on each.

[hern_28]

Re: DVD playback in Intrepid 8.10 - streaming delays

Actually not sure on your system, but its a must on all of mine or i get the symptoms you are describing. Guess I should have said it causes those problems on my computers and enabling dma solved these problems. Not sure which kernel release started giving the problem. But, seems like it would be best to have it enabled anyway.

edit: Could be that the other systems have dma enabled or hardware that runs ok without it. Pretty sure the problem is a kernel problem because i set the generic sata and ide to modules ( so they load last ) and the sata_nv and nv drivers to built in (so they load first ) on my drives and then i can enable dma on the drives. Get around 40% performance increases on my hard drives with dma enabled but am told the the %increase depends on hardware.

[Snowhog]

Re: DVD playback in Intrepid 8.10 - streaming delays

Not sure which kernel release started giving the problem.

Hadn't thought of that. Now that I think about it, DVD playback in Intrepid was working without streaming delays. I did have a kernel update on the 27th of November:

linux-headers-2.6.27-9 linux-headers-2.6.27-9-generic linux-image-2.6.27-9-generic linux-restricted-modules-2.6.27-9-generic

I'll just boot into the previous kernel and see if DVD playback is without any delays.

Thanks for pointing this out.