Hello:

I just assembled a Dragon. I'm a Linux NOOB, although I used UNIX quite a bit from 1995-1999, so it's all coming back to me... slowly. (I use VI as my text editor.)

Anyway, I'm having some issues with jerky video playback - most noticeably from ripped DVDs, but also from live TV. live TV is tolerable - a hick-up here and there. Playback from ripped DVD is much worse.

My setup is a Dragon 2.0 reference hardware set, so I must just have a simple mistake in a configuration file somewhere!

LC-17 SilverStone Case
Power Supply : NEXUS NX-4090
MOBO : Intel DG965WH
CPU : Intel Core2 Duo E6300
RAM : 2 GB DDR2-667 / PC2-5300
CPU HeatSink : Stock Intel CPU HeatSink
DVD Drive : Lite-On SHM 165H6S
HDD : 500 GB Server Class - Western Digital WD5000YS
Graphics Card : GigaByte GEFORCE 7300GS
Sound Card : on board analog audio
Tuner Card : HD HomeRun
Remote Control : StreamZap
Keyboard : BTC Wireless Keyboard

Software : KnoppMyth R5F1

Thanks!

I should also add that I tried unplugging the HD HomeRun - I was suspicious that I had some sort of problem with the network traffic being generated by this little box interfering with a DVD-stream playing back from the hard drive.

That did not improve the situation.

Thinking that maybe I did something wrong, I did a complete re-install fresh from my R5F1 install CD. I still have jerky video playback.

How can I check that my system is using the GeForce video card's on-board MPEG decoder properly?

Playback directly from the optical disk is ok - I must have something wrong with the data flow from the hard drive?

I followed these instructions.

http://knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page ... diaDrivers

I still have jerky video playback.

Any suggestions on places to look for this problem would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you

I tried following the instructions here...

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... erformance

With the exception that I only enabled DMA for hda, as that was the only hd_ device in my /dev directory.

I tried using both -qd1c1u1 as my flag and -qd1c1u1m16

# enable DMA
/sbin/hdparm -qd1c1u1 /dev/hda

Both caused my system to hang at the blue screen before rendering the menu options. (Immediately after the nVidia drivers splash screen.)

Commenting out the line returned my system to normal.

sh-3.1$ df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 4828768 1800340 2783840 40% /
/dev/sda3 481486060 6101728 475384332 2% /myth
tmpfs 1027544 4 1027540 1% /dev/shm
sh-3.1$

So, I'm running with this line now...

/sbin/hdparm -qd1c1u1m16 /dev/sda

No improvement

I now suspect that the problem is traceable to configuration between Xine and MPlayer. DVDs played back with Xine off of my DVD drive look fine. Ripped .vob files played off of my hard drive stutter in MPlayer.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Based on this following link...

http://freshmeat.net/projects/hdparm/

I removed the DMA line from my bootmisc.sh

hdparm is apparently only for IDE, and SATA drives default to DMA transfer, so there's no reason to include that.

hi moose. im not confident i'll be able to help.. but youre making a big effort so ill give you my two cents. .. probably these are just words of encouragement than anything else

why did you choose to only enable DMA for hda?

other than that.. can i suggest searching for hdparm in the forum. there are lots of posts that discuss this. and they might be helpful if you havent read them already.

you could also check out humans mythic site... there are some instructions for setting up the dragon there..

goodluck

also. there shouldnt be any need to update nvidia drivers with your setup. .. it should just work

SteveTv, I see that you posted a reply 1 minute after my post, so you didn't see my explanation regarding hdparm not being compatible with SATA drives.

Yes, I was hoping to have a "no problems" out of the box experience, which is why I was methodical about ensuring I got the exact components in the reference system. But, I'm not going to complain about free advice. I probably screwed something up, although all I did "out of the box" was type "dragon2" at the KnoppMyth prompt for the install.

The nVidia drivers update, various mplayer, XvMC settings, etc. - all have had zero impact - no better, no worse.

I'm going to post the results from TOP while playing a jittery video stream.

[H^[[2J^[[m^[(Btop - 23:40:47 up 27 min, 4 users, load average: 0.45, 0.41, 0.32^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[K
Tasks:^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 105 ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mtotal,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 1 ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mrunning,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 104 ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49msleeping,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 0 ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mstopped,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 0 ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mzombie^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[K
Cpu(s):^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 3.3%^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mus,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 0.4%^[[m^[(B^[[39;49msy,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 0.0%^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mni,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 95.4%^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mid,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 0.7%^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mwa,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 0.1%^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mhi,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 0.1%^[[m^[(B^[[39;49msi,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 0.0%^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mst^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[K
Mem: ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 2055092k ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mtotal,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 1191128k ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mused,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 863964k ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mfree,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 36044k ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mbuffers^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[K
Swap:^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 1959920k ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mtotal,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 0k ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mused,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 1959920k ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mfree,^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[m^[(B 946048k ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49mcached^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[K
^[[6;1H
^[[7m PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND ^[[m^[(B^[[39;49m^[[K

Besides garbled video, I now post garbled text.

The joystick on my mouse is way too fast for me to manipulate it for X-Window cut-and-paste. (Anyone know how to slow down the mouse speed? I searched and could not find anything.)

The results of my TOP post are from doing a top > logfile - the extra characters are garbage.

Any recommendations on a better way to grab results from TOP?

Thanks.

I can play the ripped .vob files in Xine with no problems.

This means I must have a mplayer configuration issue, or am unlucky enough to have a peculiar mplayer bug showing up in my system. I'm using such standard hardware on a well-travelled road, I find this hard to believe.

Can I make xine my standard video player?