Video playback issues on Apple TV

[unisonband]

I was playing a regular DVD rip tonight of iron man that I ripped myself using Handbrake, and the video would briefly freeze every few minutes, especially during action sequences...I would describe the freeze almost like a hiccup.

I tried playing the file in boxee, as well as Xbmc and the same thing was happening. When I played the file directly from "Files" on the apple TV menu it played flawlessly with no hiccups, and also played flawlessly when I synced it to the apple tv via iTunes.

Any reason why boxee struggled playing it back while it played back fine without boxee?

P.S. the file was on a USB thumb drive, it was wrapped in a MP4 container, and the audio was 2.0 AAC.

P.S. I understand boxee is in alpha...if this is the explanation, will this be corrected soon via update?

[marcel]

this is something we need to check into

a MP4 container, and the audio was 2.0 AAC

are other people having the same problem

[griffmiester]

I'm having the same issue of H264 files freezing up on a Mac Mini.

It's a 2.0Ghz Mini with 4Gb Ram.
Movie is encoded in HandBreak 0.9.3, using H.264, Avg. Bitrate 1800, AAC 2.0 and 2-Pass Encoding.

The File is stored on an external drive attached with FW400.
While streaming from the drive, the processor is going at about 30%, and only using about 80mb of ram for Boxee.
I'm using Boxee Alpha 0.9.7.4825

Is this an ffmpeg issue?

Do I need to re-encode my DVD's into something else?

Help.

[tbentzen]

I'm having the same issue of H264 files freezing up on a Mac Mini.

It's a 2.0Ghz Mini with 4Gb Ram.
Movie is encoded in HandBreak 0.9.3, using H.264, Avg. Bitrate 1800, AAC 2.0 and 2-Pass Encoding.

The File is stored on an external drive attached with FW400.
While streaming from the drive, the processor is going at about 30%, and only using about 80mb of ram for Boxee.
I'm using Boxee Alpha 0.9.7.4825

Is this an ffmpeg issue?

Do I need to re-encode my DVD's into something else?

Help.

I have a dvd rip of Clone Wars that is encoded as an h.264 mp4 file, it played but looked like a bad stream, it would freeze or the video would lag from time to time, made it annoying to watch. I ended up backing out of boxee and using NitoTV to watch it, which played it without issue.
I find the player to be kinda buggy all around, solidifying this player, and it's usability hopefully is high on the priority list. The buginess detracts from what is otherwise a great media center.

I am on a 40 GB ATV with vs 2.3
Boxee 0.9.7.4825
XBMCLauncher 2.2
XBMC 8.10 bf1:Atlantis
NitoTV .0.6.5 ( with added osx combo packs for usb harddrive support, i have 500gb WD drive attached)
CouchSurfer0.6(2.x)
Sapphire 1.0b6.5
Software menu .741
ATVFiles 479

[skluz]

I'm seeing the same playback on ATV issue mentioned in this thread. I'm able to watch most podcasts without any problems ( except CBS which is mentioned in another thread).

When I try to play movies ripped from DVD via Handbrake it stutters and is unwatchable. I am able to play the same movies on Boxee for the Mac without any stuttering problems. I do believe that this worked prior to the AppleTV 2.3 update. I'm not sure if this was broken by that update or the corresponding Boxee/launcher updates.

[skorch]

I've got the same issues with the stuff I've encoded w/ Handbrake. My settings are:
H.264
2-pass - turbo 1st
Average Bitrate of 1500
Loose anamorphic
Detelecine
iPod 5G support
AAC 2.0

Same sort of hiccup skipping.

I've also noticed that they will not play at all via uPnP. When I try and play the files, it kicks me back to the file listing

Everything that I've downloaded works fine when streaming via SMB or using uPnP.

Now, I've tried using this Web Optimized flag. That seems to do the trick. I haven't tried the uPnP playback yet. Luckally I've kept all of the ISO's of the DVDs I've ripped on an external drive, so I queued them all up in Handbrake and am re-ripping everything with that flag set. It didn't seem to affect the quality. I'll let you know how things go.

PS This is on ATV with the latest version of Boxee

Edit: uPnP playback still didn't work for the m4v file I created in Handbrake with the Web Optimized flag turned on. It works for other videos I've downloaded.

I think quality does suffer with that flag turned on, so beware.

[tbentzen]

I have a dvd rip of Clone Wars that is encoded as an h.264 mp4 file, it played but looked like a bad stream, it would freeze or the video would lag from time to time, made it annoying to watch. I ended up backing out of boxee and using NitoTV to watch it, which played it without issue.
I find the player to be kinda buggy all around, solidifying this player, and it's usability hopefully is high on the priority list. The buginess detracts from what is otherwise a great media center.

I am on a 40 GB ATV with vs 2.3
Boxee 0.9.7.4825
XBMCLauncher 2.2
XBMC 8.10 bf1:Atlantis
NitoTV .0.6.5 ( with added osx combo packs for usb harddrive support, i have 500gb WD drive attached)
CouchSurfer0.6(2.x)
Sapphire 1.0b6.5
Software menu .741
ATVFiles 479

Guys try updating to the new Launcher 2.3 I updated to fix the screen resolution problem, but have noticed some improvement in file playback too, I am still testing before I commit, but I was wondering if any of you guys had updated and tried to play the h.264 files that were giving you problems previously. Let me know how they react for you?

[skluz]

I just updated to launcher 2.3 and the latest boxee ( 0.9.7.4825 ), hoping to resolve both this issue and the CBS feed which freezes 15 minutes in. After updating, h264 playback is actually worse than it was before. It stutters and now freezes as well. I was only seeing stutters before.

The CBS feed doesn't freeze at the 15 minute mark now, but now I'm seeing stutters which makes even the first 15 minutes unwatchable. I'm not 100% sure that this is a Boxee issue now though. It could have to do with the feed being too slow. The CBS feed can't be paused to allow it to cache video so your stuck eating off the end of the queue continually if the feed isn't fast enough.

*Note* - Don't hit the menu key, go into system->general to find the boxee version and then go straight to "Now Playing"... At least not while watching a CBS feed. The whole thing locked up on me and I had to unplug it to get out of that state. I could still hear the feed but I was stuck on the general info tab.

[unisonband]

When you say h264 files is that your own content on a hard drive or is it streaming? Also, are the files high def?

[skluz]

The movies I have tried have been normal DVDs (The Women and Handcock), ripped via Handbrake. They are stored on another machine and I'm accessing them via a network share. (I was able to watch another movie via this setup, "Grilled", so now I'm not so sure this is an H264 issue.)

In reading my comment here I see that it's also an unfair comparison viewing the same video via the AppleTV's native software as it's reading it locally.

- I was able to find the iTunes version of the movie that the Apple TV is able to play. This version worked well in Boxee as well. I did see a few issues where the video playback slows down during a camera pan. Still definitely watchable though.

- I also SCPed the file over to the AppleTV just to see if iTunes was doing anything to the file which made it play better... but this file was able to play fine on Boxee as well.

So in summary the issue here doesn't appear to be a video reading problem but rather a network/caching problem. Is this something we just have to live with on the ATV since it only has 256 MB of RAM? I notice at the start of the movie it tries to cache some of the video but it doesn't seem to be helping at all as the stuttering starts immediately when the video starts playing.

I'm sorry I posted so quickly before without further testing. ( I'm a developer myself and I HATE it when people log problems without steps to reproduce or without good descriptions. ) Keep up the great work!