video playback not fullscreen

[bosschops]

Howdy - new boxee user, very impressed so far.

I have Ubuntu 8.0.4 lts with an ati 9600 card.

I tried 4 different .mp4 video files and they do not display full screen - the video seems to render in the top left hand quadrant of the screen with streaking color for the rest of the screen. these files play correctly in VLC.

This occurs when connected via DVI to HDMI at 1280x720 (native res of the video) as well as over vga at any desktop resolution setting.

Ubuntu display effect are set at 'normal'

Any advice?


---- Edit - > this is just occurring for MP4 files other video content is working as expected so far.


---- Edit 2 -> confirmed the problem exists in boxee with .avi files both divx and xvid as well as x264 mp4 files and also xvid in a mkv.

[agentlame]

turn compiz off entirely... it's not compatible with boxee.

here are some more ui/opengl tips:
http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=345

[bosschops]

Thanks for the tips!

I switched the visual effects to None and rebooted, no change.

I verified that '# glxinfo | grep -i direct' = yes and that glgears runs fine.

I also ran the steps from the ubuntu doc on ati cards for 804:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh linux-restricted-modules-`uname -r`
sudo insmod /lib/modules/`uname -r`/volatile/fglrx.ko

althought the second command responded - file already exists.

After a logout/login I am getting the same results. I will try uninstalling VLC and the other video codecs to see if there might be some sort of conflict.

[marcel]

please try this:
create the following file:
~/.boxee/UserData/advancedsettings.xml

and paste this in it:

<advancedsettings>
<glrectanglehack>yes</glrectanglehack>
</advancedsettings>


let me know if it helps.

[bosschops]

Removal of Ubuntu restricted extras and vlc, boxee and a reboot, then install boxee again didnt change the behavior. I didnt mention before that I did disable vsync which provided a small improvement to the smoothness of the interface.

I created the advancedsettings.xml just as you recommended and we are cooking with gas!

Videos displaying fullscreen! All formats and type I can find are now working, thank you for the help!

I think Boxee is pulling it all together, finally something with a great interface that plays any file type (I dont care for the proprietary ones and hope they become extinct).

I would seriously build a htpc with low profile cards and make this a permanent part of my AV setup.

I have a xbox 360 and ps3 and it is incredibly frustrating the limited file support they provide. I have always had a pc by the TV to solve this problem, but the interface is not great, and Windows media center while it has a nice interface, support of common codecs is a major problem.

[ITgeek]

Thank you, this fixed the problem I was having with an ATI card under Ubuntu 8.04.

Only had this issue on a machine using an ATI video card. My main media center with a GeFerce card worked great out of the box. Is this a driver thing or a hardware goof?

[marcel]

very problematic with ATI cards...:)

[bitflung]

EDIT: might have been a permissions related problem, i rm'd the xml file and re-created it from the user account i'm running boxee in and it worked properly.
---
the advice that seemed to work for a few other ppl has no effect at all on my box. i've got a clean install of hardy heron, with only 5 things added:

boxee
b43 drivers for my wifi
ati drivers (installed through restricted drivers gui tool)
emacs (i'm a wuss, can't use vi)
jkeys (simple app translates joystick input to keystrokes: lets me control boxee from a game pad)

that's it.
i've verified that fglrx is working (fglrx gears runs at about 120fps). i'm going nuts trying to get the video playback to work properly.

my box is a 1.8GHz AMD sempron : it's too slow (apparently) to play hulu smoothly -- but this is the only video source that plays 'properly'. DVDs and other video sources (all but youtube) render as the original post described:

- top left quadrant of the screen has 'almost' correct video (scaled to fit in that quadrant).
- other 3 quadrants are filled with a combination of:
* a smear from the edge adjacent to the top-left quadrant
* some full-screen red-channel video content

youtube doesn't play at all - it spends a few seconds displaying the twirly thing (what do you call that?) then dumps me back to the screen where i selected the video to play.

so far, only flickr is usable for me. i don't have any local media to test with (i did a fresh install, formatted the drive) aside from the dvd's that don't play. all take any advice, even formatting and starting from scratch (better luck with an older ubuntu?) -- the ONLY thing that will be on this laptop is boxee (purely a test machine).

thanks for your time,
-bit



please try this:
create the following file:
~/.boxee/UserData/advancedsettings.xml

and paste this in it:

<advancedsettings>
<glrectanglehack>yes</glrectanglehack>
</advancedsettings>


let me know if it helps.

[marcel]

sorry it is working or not ..regarding youtube all platforms are not working currently..