Video Playback Split into Quarters

[jtomelevage]

When playing back video files it seems that my screen is divided into four quadrants.

In the top left quadrant the video appears to be playing normally.
In the top right quadrant the video seems to be a horizontal smear of the video.
In the lower left and right quadrants the video seems to be a vertical smear of the full screen video.

I am running the video card (ATI (Dell) X300, 128 MB) at 1920 x 1200 resolution.

I have tried to step the video resolution down to 1024 x 768 in both Ubuntu (8.04) and also in Boxee, which seems to follow the Ubuntu screen resolution settings.

Any suggestions?

[Brian]

I'm having the same issue,

ATI Radeon 9600 Pro with restricted drivers.

[Brian]

I read another post about installing the latest drivers. I removed the ubuntu provided restricted drivers and installed the binary blob from AMD/ATI.

The menus look great and navigate well. Here are my specs:

Chipset: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R)
Video: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AP [Radeon 9600]
Audio: (For now): Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller
RAM: 2GB
CPU: 3.40GHz
HDD: 8GB USB Flash
SnapStream Firefly RF remote using lirc
OS: was Fedora 9 and now Ubuntu 8.04.1 patched as of 20 minutes ago

Currently connected to an LCD panel at 1280x1024, am hoping I can use the DVI-to-component adapter.


I'm still having the same video playback issues. This exact version of boxee ran perfect on the same os but with an Intel 945 integrated video chipset.

[jtomelevage]

@Brian

You are indeed having the same issue with the video as I am. I think I am using the proprietary drivers because I had Compiz installed, or was at least using "Visual Effects" "Extra". In the mean time I have turned them off or "None", but it had no affect on the video playback.

[Brian]

I turned compiz off the first time I logged into the system :(.

[Brian]

I just tried the open-source "radeon" driver. Video playback looks correct except everything is green.

Sounds like:
http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=190&highlight=green

I'm running the latest .deb from the boxee apt repo. 2927 I think. I noticed the source tar ball is 2928. I'd rather not compile from source. I already did that with Fedora 9. It took too many hacks and would never upgrade smoothly. For Alpha testing, we should stick with the pre-built binary packages.

[vulkan]

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

and paste this in it:

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

it should take care of the "green stuff"

let me know if it helps.

thanks
-vulkan.

[jtomelevage]

Do I need to try this also for my "quadrant" issues? How do I change my video driver? Disable the "Restricted" driver?

[vulkan]

this change should be valid for most ATI cards.
you can always remove the file if it doesnt work. worths the test... let me know.

[jtomelevage]

It seems I already have a advancedsettings.xml :

<advancedsettings>
<thumbsize>256</thumbsize>
<loglevel>3</loglevel>
</advancedsettings>

Am I in the wrong directory?

[jtomelevage]

Oh. I think you meant in the .boxee folder (hidden) in my home directory? Is that correct? I put it there and in fcat the video works now, except I see a text at the top of the screen that is displaying :

Free mem : FPS and CPU information. How can I turn that off?

[vulkan]

glad it works.
the text is due to the log level. change it from 0 to 3 (in ~/.boxee/UserData/advancedsettings.xml)

[jtomelevage]

Hi Vulkan,
Sorry but I don't see a log level setting I only have these lines you said to create in a new empty advancedsettings.xml file.

Now I have two advancedsettings.xml files. One in the program folder here:
/usr/boxee/UserData/advancedsettings.xml

and a second one here:
/home/username/.boxee/UserData/advancedsettings.xml (this is the new one I created that has no log level)

[vulkan]

weird.
try adding:
<loglevel>3</loglevel>

to the one under .boxee

[jtomelevage]

Vulkan,
Now I can properly play video and the Freemem, FPS and CPU info is gone. Sweet!

Am I supposed to have two advancedsettings.xml files?

You guys are doing a great job with this project. I am a big-time Miro user because I like to get news from Germany and of course my other favorite video podcasts.
Will Boxee be able to grab those video podcasts like Miro?

[vulkan]

basically you only need the advancedsettings.xml under .boxee

you can grab most casts in boxee - online. it will not (currently) download the vidcast to your machine. but you should be able to stream it.

try adding the miro rss-s you are subscribed on as sources to boxee (settings->media sources->manual add source)

glad you enjoy boxee :)

-vulkan.

[agw]

Vulkan
Just wanted to let you know that I had the same issue with respect to the .boxee folder and advancedsettings.xml. The .boxee folder existed in my original boxee install, but when I updated to the new release I only had the /usr/boxee/UserData folder with an advancedsettings.xml file located in it.
I had to create the /home/username/.boxee folder to create the advancedsettings.xml file for the glrectanglehack fix. So I currently have two copies of the advancedsettings.xml file - in the same locations as jtomelevage has mentioned. Seems to be working though!


Hi Vulkan,
Sorry but I don't see a log level setting I only have these lines you said to create in a new empty advancedsettings.xml file.

Now I have two advancedsettings.xml files. One in the program folder here:
/usr/boxee/UserData/advancedsettings.xml

and a second one here:
/home/username/.boxee/UserData/advancedsettings.xml (this is the new one I created that has no log level)

[vulkan]

thanks agw.
anyway - the one under /usr/boxee is meaningless. it doesnt hurt to have it but boxee will not really look into it.

-vulkan.

[tsella]

Vulkan,
I am a big-time Miro user because I like to get news from Germany and of course my other favorite video podcasts.
Will Boxee be able to grab those video podcasts like Miro?

it will be in the future. what you can do right now is have miro download the content for you, and point boxee to the miro downloads directory.

cheers,
tom

[Brian]

This worked for me. Using fglrx
<advancedsettings>
<glrectanglehack>yes</glrectanglehack>
<loglevel>-1</loglevel>
</advancedsettings>

[jtomelevage]

tsella,
I tried your suggestion to configure my Miro directory as a Boxee source. That works great. Thank you for the tip.
However I noticed something that I didn't notice earlier while resolving the video "quadrant" issue and that is sound and video sync. I have started a seperate thread for this here:

http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=344

What is happening is the sound is 5-10 seconds ahead of the video when playing back.
I noticed that I may have had the wrong audio drivers installed because this computer had a motherboard swap some time ago from a Dell (Intel audio) to a Asus (Realtek audio). Although Miro has been able to play correctly all along last night I downloaded the Asus drivers and installed them. Unfortunately the results are the same.

I will continue this post in the other thread as it is more appropriate that the information be kept there so others may benefit from any solution.

[tsella]

yep, just saw that thread and requested for you to enable debug logging and provide us with the logs.

[jtomelevage]

I posted the log in the other thread.

[akaspeed24]

This worked for me. Using fglrx
<advancedsettings>
<glrectanglehack>yes</glrectanglehack>
<loglevel>-1</loglevel>
</advancedsettings>

thanks it worked for me and

i have a Emachines t3422
With a Ati Radeon X300
512 MB of ram
and a 3.06 GHz intel celeron processor