Boxee with Next Gen ION

[micko77]

So I am having issues with Boxee on my ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11. This device has the Next Generation ION discrete graphics and an Intel Pinetrail CPU. I think the issue is with the Nvidia drivers and I am going to contact their tech support as well, but here is my issue:

When using Boxee and playing a ".mp4" video or a ".m4v" file they are detected as audio only files and play with a black screen and no video. If I disable the hardware acceleration the videos play fine. If I use VLC the videos play fine. I am using Boxee 0.9.21.12594 32 bit. I am not experiencing this issue with the same files on a Mac Mini running0.9.21.12594 with NVidia 8400 graphics or on my PC running 0.9.21.12594 64 bit using an ATI 4350 GPU. I also previously had win x64 installed on my ZOTAC box with Boxee x64 and did experience the fault with next gen ION.

This seems strange to me because they were encoded by me on a mac using the Turbo.264 encoder using the simple h.264 profile with stereo AAC sound. I have many similar files encoded with Handbrake and Turbo.264 but muxed into the mkv container with the same simple h.264 profile and stereo AAC. This seems like an issue to me with Nvidia DXVA drivers. I have tried NVidia Beta driver packs 259.96, 258.69, and the last WHQL pack 257.21. I have tried both the x64 and x86 variants.

As a side note for users considering this machine, although the flash performance has been improved with the new beta drivers, I cannot recommend next gen ion with flash until a few other issues are resolved. When using the 257.21 drivers and decoding flash (ESPN3, Hulu, youtube) I experienced significant frame dropping when going to 720p. When I upgraded to 259.96 drivers, although I experience no frame loss, I now have a whitish flickering at about a 5-10 FPS rate when switching to 720p. This issue does not occur when I drop flash video back to 480p. The flickering is over the whole screen and is quite annoying. It occurs in x86 or x64 environments. It occurs in IE, Firefox, or Boxee youtube app with HD enabled. h.264 playback is quite sufficient up to 1080p over a 5GHZ wi-fi network in the house with no stutter, and crystal clear video. Is this an Nvidia driver or an Adobe issue?

[micko77]

I forgot to say that when I mux these files into an mkv container they play fine. Just not in the mp4 container.

[judgeschambers]

The Nvidia boys were supposed to have released the updated driver that fixes the flash issues on the Zotac HD. Other users here with this machine have already posted and said it's now working. You may want to get the driver from the Zotac site directly like they did and not use 257,21

The MP4 file has to be the way you are encoding them as Boxee uses the build in codecs from FFmpeg. Others have tried encoding files with hand brake as such and they won't play correctly on a windows machine. I've had similar results and could not figure it out.

When I use other mp4 rippers and use the H264 encoding and it works fine.

Without access to the actual files you're playing to dissect the file with MediaInfo and playing them...I can't really do anything but speculate.

[micko77]

With the mp4 files, if I use mkvmerge and take the exact same file and re-mux it into mkv it plays fine. I, too, am baffled. It's only with hardware deconding on that I see the issue.

With the Nvidia drivers, it is a flashing that occurs on darker colers. If it is a very bright picture you don't notice it. I usually just bring up espn3 since it has the black sidebars and it is really easy to see. I have also tried the 257.29 drivers available on the Zotac site. They have the same issues as the newest ones. Technically, I guess you could say it is working because it does decode with no frame loss, however, the white flickering is not quite right.

[judgeschambers]

With the mp4 files, if I use mkvmerge and take the exact same file and re-mux it into mkv it plays fine. I, too, am baffled. It's only with hardware deconding on that I see the issue.

Yeah, very odd on both fronts.

On the mp4 file; are they encoded with H264? Can you scan the .mp4 file with MediaInfo and post the output?

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

The reason I ask this is:
"Boxee's media player is based on ffmpeg, as such it does not support drm'd files.
Boxee's media player/codec/container support is entirely internalized, and does not use the host operating system's media framework. (i.e.: Windows' directshow, mac's quicktime, linux's gstreamer)"

And boxee's mp4 support comes in two flavors:
"MPEG-4 (SP and ASP, including DivX, XviD, 3ivx, DV, H.263), MPEG-4 AVC (H.264, including Nero Digital)"

So, the mp4 file must be encoded with something that is not supported, which is odd being boxee includes damn near everything.

For complete reference to the above info, check the First Stop link in my sig. In agentlame's post I included all things video: hardware, drivers, players, codecs, containers, etc.

[micko77]

If Boxee codec support is internalized, that makes this issue all the more baffling. The file plays fine (using boxee) on my x64 windows machine with ATI 4350 and my Mac Mini machine with NVidia 8400 (using boxee). Here is the media info:

General
Complete name : Z:\Stand-Up\Chris Rock - Bring The Pain.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42
File size : 945 MiB
Duration : 58mn 18s
Overall bit rate : 2 265 Kbps
Genre : Comedy
Encoded date : UTC 2008-12-11 06:15:48
Tagged date : UTC 2008-12-11 05:15:56
Writing library : Apple QuickTime
tvsh : Stand-Up

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 58mn 18s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 1 929 Kbps
Width : 576 pixels
Height : 432 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Original frame rate : 59.940 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.259
Stream size : 804 MiB (85%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2008-12-11 06:15:48
Tagged date : UTC 2008-12-11 06:15:48

Audio #1
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 4
Format profile : LC
Format settings, SBR : No
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 58mn 18s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Stream size : 53.5 MiB (6%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2008-12-11 06:15:48
Tagged date : UTC 2008-12-11 05:15:56

Audio #2
ID : 3
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : ac-3
Duration : 58mn 18s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 80.1 MiB (8%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2008-12-11 06:15:48
Tagged date : UTC 2008-12-11 06:15:48

[judgeschambers]

Well, It looks good except for the that Codec ID mp42. The actual codec says AVC1 not H264, so I'm a little baffled. You may want to try to encode that .mp4 as H264. The ripper I had gave both avc and H264 as separate options.

Some Windows 7 64 users cannot watch the TED and Twitt app videos. They are HD .mp4 files. They are audio only. But on XP and Vista and mac they all play fine. Very similar situation.

I've asked marcel look into it, but he cannot recreate what I and many (not all) Win-7 users have experienced.

I'll ask Marcel to swing by this thread and scope out your MediaInfo specs and setup for some input.

Clarify:
You are using Win-7 64 on that Zotac that's having this mp4 playback issue, right?
What version of boxee are you running?
Can you put that file in your dropbox account or something and share the URL via PM to me? I'd like to test it out too.

[micko77]

For clarification, I am currently on Windows 7 x86. I used to have x64 installed but I reverted to x86 to test my flash issue and this Boxee issue. The issue also occurred on my x64 install before i wiped it. I can get you the file for testing.

I have Boxee 0.9.21.12594 installed on all my machines.

[micko77]

This file was encoded with Elegato's Turbo.264 Mac encoder using the AppleTV settings. I also have a few mp4 files encoded with handbrake using the AppleTV settings that have the same fault.

[judgeschambers]

This file was encoded with Elegato's Turbo.264 Mac encoder using the AppleTV settings. I also have a few mp4 files encoded with handbrake using the AppleTV settings that have the same fault.

Yeah, same here. Handbrake rips in H264 would not work for me either.... Handbrake did something funky that I could not work around.

I had to use another program......I'll have to look it up again.