Strange Issue with full HD files

**Adrianvfx** · August 1st, 2011, 09:38 PM

Hey guys. Been using Boxee for over a year now. Unfortunately this issue has become more and more of a noticeable problem for me ,and looking for some help. Not sure if I just need something as simple as hardware update or not.

Anyway... on files that are 1080p, I've noticed frame/skip's. When there are panning for example. Such as when your watching a Film, and the camera is panning across a desert and you get frame skips. As if you blinked your eyes every few seconds during the panning.
I believe its called tearing....

I've done plenty of clean installs, and even tried running the files on my main HD after copying them over and running it through Boxee. Same issue.
Looking for any suggestions!

Hardware:
Jetway HBJC231C63P-330D-B NVIDIA ION Mini
NVIDIA MCP7A-ION Chipset
Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz, dual-core)
HDMI AUDIO/VIDEO
4 Gb of OCZ Ram
30gb OCZ VERTEX SSD (for main OS and Boxee)
5 2TB Green WD Hd's. One is running directly via Sata to my mboard.(until I buy another 4bay enclosure) The other 4 are in an enclosure running through USB 2.0.

*Also will mention. I don't run a raid or anything, not to concerned about harddrive failure* I run Acronis to monitor the health and viability of each HD, so when I detect one is going bad. I simply just buy a new HD and copy pieces over before complete failure.* Only happened once too. (knock on wood, haha!)

Software:
Win 7 64bit SP1
Flash 10.3

Television:
Samsung 6500 LED LCD 46"
Samsung HW-C450 Audio SoundBar.

**judgeschambers** · August 2nd, 2011, 12:54 AM

Since most of my posts here specialize in the atom/ion units, I'll comment briefly.

The ion is barely capable while running boxee and some HD file types depending upon the encoding and such.

Most times, it's the way the video was ripped, encoding and codec. This can be due to the lower power of the atom/ion, but typically the encoding and the limitations of Boxee for Windows to play it smoothly. .

You'd need to post the video file data using MediaInfo and post the Tree view. No guarantees, but may give a hint.

**Swiper_the_Fox** · August 2nd, 2011, 08:08 AM

the mere thought of running this (or any media playing software) on a TV, using an onboard video adapter scares me

personally, i would never attemtp to run this software on any computer that doesn't have an actual video card installed.
I don't know about Nvidia ION graphics, and apparently, they claim it performs, something in side me says
onboard video = crap
but, that's just me

**darcilicious** · August 2nd, 2011, 08:10 AM

Really depends on the computer and graphics chip. Boxee runs GREAT on my 23" 1080p Intel CoreDuo TouchSmart HP computer -- with an on board nVidia GeForce 230 GT -- and hardware acceleration is my friend

**Adrianvfx** · August 2nd, 2011, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by judgeschambers

Since most of my posts here specialize in the atom/ion units, I'll comment briefly.

The ion is barely capable while running boxee and some HD file types depending upon the encoding and such.

Most times, it's the way the video was ripped, encoding and codec. This can be due to the lower power of the atom/ion, but typically the encoding and the limitations of Boxee for Windows to play it smoothly. .

You'd need to post the video file data using MediaInfo and post the Tree view. No guarantees, but may give a hint.

Thanks Judge!

If I get time tonight I'll post Mediainfo of something that I know stutters alot during pan's.

I'm pretty sure I just need to do a major upgrade overhaul. But will keep you all posted!

**Adrianvfx** · August 3rd, 2011, 11:56 AM

I've included two .txt documents. One is of the Movie Priest, that has intermittent Skips, on panning scenes... even on my i7 970 with a Quadro 4000.

Now the second one is of Episode 12 Boardwalk Empire, in which it happens towards the last 2 minutes of the episode. Doesn't happen on my i7, but on my Mediacenter ION it does. Any clarification will be thankful! Thanks Judge

**Prospero424** · August 4th, 2011, 02:05 AM

Yeah, that sounds like a CPU performance symptom. What you describe sounds a lot more like frame dropping than tearing .Even though GPU acceleration is working properly, not everything is offloaded from the CPU, and it can still bog down on low-voltage hardware at high bitrates.

When performance is marginal, you'll tend to see dropped frames in high-motion scenes like the panning you described.

All I can suggest without more info is to make sure you've got as little running in the background as possible, and that all drivers and relevant software is up-to-date.

**Adrianvfx** · August 4th, 2011, 10:32 AM

Originally Posted by Prospero424

Yeah, that sounds like a CPU performance symptom. What you describe sounds a lot more like frame dropping than tearing .Even though GPU acceleration is working properly, not everything is offloaded from the CPU, and it can still bog down on low-voltage hardware at high bitrates.

When performance is marginal, you'll tend to see dropped frames in high-motion scenes like the panning you described.

All I can suggest without more info is to make sure you've got as little running in the background as possible, and that all drivers and relevant software is up-to-date.

Thanks Prospero! Always have good insight.

For now until I can order an i7 2500 with 4gb ddr3 ram, and just a simple gt450 card for a new mediacenter. I went ahead and bought a 25ft HDMI cable to run from my desktop to my television directly to play my movies. And turned my ION(old mediacenter) into strictly a hub to hold all my connected drives too, and continuous downloads. So that'll do for the time being I suppose.

Thank you guys for all the help! Hopefully this thread can be informative to someone else who uses an ION based box.