Video Playback problems

I am using Ubuntu 8.10 UMPC with my AAO 120GB model.

I have installed medibuntu for multimedia, but am experiencing tears in all my video playback, particulary during fast motion sequences.

As well as this the video also pauses for the split second every few moments.

These issues are making video files that even a Pentium 3-550MHZ cpu could play, unplayable on the AAO.

Have any of you experienced this and what is the fix?

 

Anyone? Or is it best to format and start again?

 

can anyone confirm that video plays back perfectly fine them with no tears or stuttering?

Thanks

 

I can confirm that I haven't experienced any video playback problems on my 8GB SSD model running 8.10 UMPC though I must admit that I don't often watch high quality videos on the One. I use VLC as my video player.

 

I think you should give 9.04 beta a try. The intel video drivers in 8.10 are seriously broken (mostly 3D, but other stuff also). 9.04 is in much better shape, and 8.04 worked reasonably well, so you could try that also. I think you may have to set it to use UXA instead of EXA or vice versa, depending on your goal. I forget which, one is better for video, and the other is better for 3D. You can find details in the Ubuntu Forums (and the wiki).

If you want to "try before you buy" its trivial to install 9.04 to a USB key and boot off of that to see how well things work (particularly if you have 1gb or more of ram). Remember that striking F12 on boot allows you to select any bootable media. A word of caution: make sure you know where you are putting the boot loader when installing to USB key so it goes on the USB key and not the boot block of the internal hard disk. This is a recoverable error, but its simpler to just get it right in the first place (hint: you pick the boot loader install location by pressing the advanced button on the last screen before Ubuntu installs. Don't do the install until you understand this thoroughly.)

Regards,

Hans

 

would you recommend a fresh install of 9.04 over an upgrade from 8.10?

I guess once 9.04 is on i can always run the update when the final release comes out?

 

The short answer is: It depends.

If you have anything important on your current system, back up and do a fresh install, or back up and do the distribution upgrade. From a technical perspective, I don't believe one is superior to the other, you generally get the same result.

If it were me doing it, I'd install to an external USB hard drive until I'm satisfied with the quality of the beta (which seems high to me at this point in time).

If you don't have one of those, you can get a 4 gb USB key for $15 and use that (I also do this). They work very well for alpha and beta testing of this sort. Or you can install on a separate partition on your hard drive (the Ubuntu installer makes this very easy).

So, these are all fresh installs.

If you want, you can use the distribution upgrade option, but I forget how to do that so you'll have to look it up. I think ubuntu might just automatically offer that if you add the Jaunty Repositories to your package manager. I think this is reasonably well documented in the forums and wiki.

All that said, my answer to your question is: It doesn't really matter, as long as you don't use your computer for anything too important (or as long as you practice healthy back up habits). I generally go the fresh install route with each version starting at alpha 3 or 4 to external media until the final release. At that point I do the distribution upgrade to my mainline system.

Regards,

Hans

 

Tearing may be related to the use of the textured Intel output driver instead of the overlay driver. Try the latest version of SMPlayer along with a recent Mplayer--it allows you to easily switch between the two. Frontends to Xine usually expose this option, too, but you have to get the overlay port number with the "xvinfo" command.

 

I have the latest mplayer and smplayer. I followed a guide on ubuntu forums - and compiled from souce, no change.

I am going to install Jaunty. 8.10 UMPC doesn't use ubunu-desktop which everything in the regular version seems to depend upon for some reason. Is there a 9.04 version for UMPCs?

 

Yes. You can download Ubuntu-Netbook-Remix 9.04 here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-netbook-remix/daily-live/current/

 

Over on Launchpad, there is an extensive discussion in what is nominally a bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... mments=all

You can take a look at this and make your own determination of where you'd like to go. Please note the amount of contradictory information. In my opinion there are two options:

1) Use 8.04 with the tweaks suggested, and get somewhat reasonable results.

2) Use 9.04 and provide useful feedback to the developers.

Personally, I thing that performance is situation dependent, this would explain the wide variety of reported difficulties, and the contradictory error reports. In other words, your mileage may vary.

Hans