image tearing problem

[somegraph]

Hello!

I have been using 0.9.11 Boxee without any problems. I´ve running it on an intel macbook pro with a GeForce 8600M GT card with 256megs.

after i installed boxee 0.9.14 i started getting image tearing.

has anyone else had similar problems?
any one know of solution?

Thanks in advance

Marco

[JPDeckers]

Don't know if we have the same definition of tearing, but since updating to 9.14 on my AppleTV, all video's are distorted, looks like anti-aliassing is off or so, they are kinda pixelated on edges.

[ronbo85]

Definitely experiencing video tearing now. I noticed once I updated to 0.9.12.6566.

Running on an Early 09 Mac Mini.
Neither Quicktime nor VLC show tearing.
I tried "syncing video with audio". Seemed to help for a day, but it's back.
Was hoping 0.9.14 would have fixed it :(

Patiently awaiting a fix for it....
Ronbo

[gatherlight]

Can you define what you mean by "Tearing"

I've noticed a few videos, not all, that are slow to draw the refresh on the screen and get this horizontal blinds effect in places. I have not thought much of it until reading this thread as sometimes I have handbrake running in the background sucking up processor juice. I do not recall seeing this in past Boxee versions.

[pax85]

Can you define what you mean by "Tearing"

I've noticed a few videos, not all, that are slow to draw the refresh on the screen and get this horizontal blinds effect in places. I have not thought much of it until reading this thread as sometimes I have handbrake running in the background sucking up processor juice. I do not recall seeing this in past Boxee versions.

I have the same horizontal refresh problems. Don't know how to exactly describe it. But it's definitely from a new version.
I'm just running Boxee, nothing else, on a new mac mini with 2GB and 10.5.7.

Also, I've only noticed it on my Samsung 46B650 connected to the mac mini via DVI to HDMI Cable.

[Adam7288]

Same here, just upgraded, have mac mini core duo 1.83ghz and it now has trouble smoothly playing back fast motion scenes of 720p mkv files. Hard to tell if this is post processing issue or just inefficient decoding of the file.

[hkarlsen]

same here. RUnning on a Mac Pro octocore, heavy tearing. Need to find old version I guess...

EDIT: this is hopeless. 09.11 wont start even and 09.13 has the same problem for me. Anyone?

Otherwise, great program!

[gatherlight]

to describe the problem a little better here for the developers...

About 1 inch tall of pixels across the entire screen will do a small horizontal vibration back and forth, starting at the top of the screen and move its way down to the bottom. It will take about 5 to 10 seconds for it to go from top to bottom. It is not a constant problem running all the tim, but is persisting in just about every .m4v movie I am playing on my local media. I am estimating it is happening a few times a minute.

I hope that helps. It would be nice to get some acknowledgement from the developers on this problem that they know about it.

[hkarlsen]

I know, I just switched to Plex because of this, but would love to go back because of interface and iPhone remote :)

[ronbo85]

I half-suspect it is related to Nvidia chipsets. Seems that I've seen this issue only on Macs with Nvidia. Not only video playback, but scrolling, too..
I do not see the same issue on my ATI-based macs, for the record.

The question (to the developers :)) is, what changed from 9.11 to 9.12+ in terms of video processing?

Just trying to help! :)

Update: I think I've resolved the issue! I reverted back to 10.5.6; updated everything but the OS. Video tearing is gone gone gone! Possibly a *combination* Nvidia and 10.5.7 issue... dunno.
Hope this helps others! :)

[gatherlight]

OK, as I've been watching a lot of movies on boxee lately, this problem seems to be getting worse, especially with action and fast moving frames. This is getting to the point of unwatchable.

Boxee developers... Please Help, this is getting bad. I'd rather go back to the 9.12 problems of Spaces than continue to deal with this tearing problem.

This is happening on new Mac Mini 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with the latest version of Boxee. what else do you need for info? I do not recall this happening on past builds.

[ronbo85]

Gatherlight, read my previous post. I think if you revert to 10.5.6 the problem will be resolved.

Let us know if it helps! :)

[hkarlsen]

Gatherlight, read my previous post. I think if you revert to 10.5.6 the problem will be resolved.

Let us know if it helps! :)

Im using my mac pro (with nvidia, yes) as more than a media centre, so I cant revert to 10.5.6 :/

[Adam7288]

How exactly does one revert to an earlier version of OSX?

[gatherlight]

Gatherlight, read my previous post. I think if you revert to 10.5.6 the problem will be resolved.

Let us know if it helps! :)

No, that does not help. My Mac Mini's were never upgraded, I am still on 10.5.6 with both of them and they are both experiencing the same problem on my Sony big screens. All that has changed is upgrading Boxee to the latest version. This has to be a problem more to do with Boxee changing something than OSX.

This is the Graphics specs for the Mac Mini.

NVIDIA GeForce 9400:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9400
Type: Display
Bus: PCI
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0861
Revision ID: 0x00b1
ROM Revision: 3362
Displays:
SONY TV:
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Rotation: Supported
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected




My MacBook Pro is not experiencing the problem. This is the graphics card specs on it. It is however running 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT:

Chipset Model: GeForce 8600M GT
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x1
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0407
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3175
Displays:
Color LCD:
Resolution: 1680 x 1050
Depth: 32-Bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Built-In: Yes
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected




Any thoughts from Team Boxee developers?

[ronbo85]

Well, now I sit here with my foot in my mouth...
The tearing problem went away for a good 2-3 days, then it returned. :(
Nothing has changed. No software (to my knowledge) had been updated (though, I may have it set to "automatically download important updated in the background", but I have yet to reboot to fully install it -- referring to 10.5.7 updater).

So, once again, I am perplexed.

Is it just Mac Minis that are affected? I *don't* think this is related, but my movies are streaming from a wired connection to an Airport Base Stn with a HD hanging off it.

UPDATE: Okay, here's more fodder. I was going to re-install the OS. Before I did, I stopped Boxee, played with a few on-line shows with Safari, then went back to Boxee... no more tearing!
What I'm wondering is, do I need to *quit* Boxee every night before putting my mini to sleep, instead of utilizing it's "Supend" feature? Could this resolve (until the cool developers fix things :) ) the tearing issue? Hmmmmm.... :)

[cnr1089]

Occurs on my MacBookPro 17" (second generation Intel)

[ronbo85]

Okay, here's more data from the user experience...

I watched videos on Boxee for a while yesterday, then 'suspended' (which puts the Mini to sleep). Came back to it a few hours later and started watching another movie. I noticed the tearing effect starting to happen again :(.
So, I quit Boxee, relaunched, and the problem disappeared! Same scenes that were showing the tearing artifacts were clean and smooth.

Not sure if it is the Mini going to sleep, or Boxee, but it seems to be an easy enough work-around for now. ;)

Hope this helps!

Ron

[joachimbn]

Hi!

I just tried a restart of Boxee - and it did SOMETHING to the image tearing problem. I didn't fix it, however. It just moved the tearing from happening at a horizontal line in the middle of the screen to a horizontal line happening either at the very top of the screen or the very bottom.

If anyone has ANY idea what has started causing this, I am VERY interested in knowing. I know this question has been asked before, but did the devs make any changes to the playback two updates back? Please - if anyone has any info on this matter we would LOVE to know. Any kind of feedback would really be wonderful.

BTW: I am on a Mac Mini 2.0 gHz with Mac OS X v10.5.8 running Boxee v0.9.14.6992. The image tearing has happened at LEAST this update and the one before that for me. I am running at 1280x720 at 50 Hz with a TV as my only monitor connected to my Mac Mini.

Best regards,
/Joachim

EDIT: Changed Mac OS X version from 10.5.7 to v10.5.8

[gatherlight]

The latest update of Boxee seems to have fixed this problem of tearing on my Mac Mini.

Is anyone else still getting it after the latest Boxee update?

[joachimbn]

Yes, I am still getting screentearing.

[pax85]

The latest update of Boxee seems to have fixed this problem of tearing on my Mac Mini.

Is anyone else still getting it after the latest Boxee update?
I haven't noticed it since.

[bikram]

About 1 inch tall of pixels across the entire screen will do a small horizontal vibration back and forth, starting at the top of the screen and move its way down to the bottom. It will take about 5 to 10 seconds for it to go from top to bottom. It is not a constant problem running all the tim, but is persisting in just about every .m4v movie I am playing on my local media. I am estimating it is happening a few times a minute.

Acai Berry (http://productreviewsby.me/acai-berry/)

[gatherlight]

well, I apologize for the confusion here.. The tearing problem is still going on with my mac mini after thinking it was gone. It is not as noticeable with this update, but I am seeing it again now. Seems weird as I did this last update it seemed to have fixed the problem temporarily, but now it's back. Some people have the problem, others don't. This must be a real pain for the developers to figure this one out.

[Adam7288]

Same here - thought it went away but it didn't. Possibly related to coming out of sleep mode?

[gatherlight]

This thread was started 42 days ago. Any word from the developers yet? Might this be fixed in the next version?

[joachimbn]

Hmm, strange:

I just set the resolution to 1920x1080 instead of my usual 1280x720 - and that seemed to cure the screen tearing problem. I'll test it out some more, and see if it helps.

What resolution are you guys using?


/Joachim

[joachimbn]

Nope - I was wrong; it hasn't stopped. It has gotten better, though. The screen tearing is not as visible as it was with the lower resolution.

Can anybody else confirm this?

/Joachim

[lament]

getting the tearing as well, but not on a Mac.. running Jaunty Jackalope.

specs below:

Intel E5200 CPU
Zotac 9300-D-E mini-ITX mobo

Running 180.44 Nvidia drivers, and not having this problem with XBMC (welll. let's just say I just installed XBMC to test and it wasn't tearning, but I'll have to do more testing to see if it comes and goes).

I just jumped back into Boxee and went to my reference point (18:00 into Children of Men, a 1080p mkv) and it's fine now. So I dunno.

The tearing problem, for Windows users like me, looks like when you use the generic video driver on Windows - you move windows around and they are slow to refresh, only it's not that bad on Boxee.

[Brian]

getting the tearing as well, but not on a Mac.. running Jaunty Jackalope.

specs below:

Intel E5200 CPU
Zotac 9300-D-E mini-ITX mobo

Running 180.44 Nvidia drivers, and not having this problem with XBMC (welll. let's just say I just installed XBMC to test and it wasn't tearning, but I'll have to do more testing to see if it comes and goes).

I just jumped back into Boxee and went to my reference point (18:00 into Children of Men, a 1080p mkv) and it's fine now. So I dunno.

The tearing problem, for Windows users like me, looks like when you use the generic video driver on Windows - you move windows around and they are slow to refresh, only it's not that bad on Boxee.

I'm running the same OS and mobo and experiencing the same problem,.. The latest nVidia driver claims to have fixed a bunch of VDPAU related hsync issues. I'm running nvidia 185 now. I'll be downloading the latest 190x beta driver tonight.


-Brian

[lament]

Yeah I'll probably try the 190.32 betas tonight.

[lament]

Brian let me know how this works.

There's 2 190.xx beta drivers.. which one did you go with?

I might install the other if you don't have success with one of them.

[gatherlight]

Here is a screen shot of the problem. Notice at the top the screen does not come together. This tearing works is way down the screen over a 5-10 second period.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/5683/tearing.jpg

This is an h.264 encoded at 2000kbps under standard settings, 2 pass with turbo first pass encode.

I noticed really bad screen tearing in this flick above when the nightclub scene came on with lots of strobe light going on. I have also noticed that tearing is most present in high speed action frames.

As said before, XBMC does not do this, nor did Boxee a few updates ago. Something was changed in Boxee recently that starting causing this problem.

[lament]

Update on my end - tearing does not happen on xvid .avi files. So far it's happening on x264-encoded .mkv files, and on Revision 3's HD Nation show (which is a 720p mp4).

I still need to test more, and I have some video.

[icep]

I'm having the same issue. The problems shows only when playing mkv files, if I play the movie using VLC there are no issues. I've haven't had that issue in the earlier releases of Boxee

[thechiman]

I too am noticing massive tearing problems. This happened during one of the upgrades to Boxee in the last 6 months. I apologize that I can't be more specific than that. I'm running Boxee on a Mac Mini 2.0 GHz with the 9400M Nvidia chipset.

The tearing occurred when I was running Mac OS 10.5.6, 10.5.7 and now when I'm running 10.6.1. I only play h.264 encoded .mkv files.

The tearing usually is apparent in scenes with high-speed movement or lots of detail. I hope the Boxee team is working on a fix. Love you guys and the work you're doing!

[robotpriest]

Hi guys, I also am experiencing tearing. Running Boxee 0.9.14.6992 on a Mac Mini with Nvidia 9400M and 10.6.2. Like the others were talking about, it seems to come and go. A reboot isn't necessary, but quitting and restarting Boxee makes it go away sometimes.

Also, when the tearing is happening, it doesn't seem to be specifically related to video playback; even the interface tears while I'm, for example, scrolling through the list of Hulu shows. For me its not related to a specific video format, it can happen with anything.

[lament]

Beta in 2 days.. hope it's fixed.

[TomyLo]

Beta in 2 days.. hope it's fixed.
I can't wait for Boxee to updateeeeeeeeee :)

beta in 1 day :)