Xv accelerated video scaling problems

[Porter]

By the way... I just captured a bunch of full-res screenshots (1680x1050) of the pixelation on actual video material, with a bunch of different examples of the phenomenon on different types of edges.

Would you like me to zip them up and send them to you? I can even host them on my web space and PM you a link if you'd prefer.

[Christian_L]

Hm, now that you mention it: the picture may have improved a bit - not sure if this is still pixel per pixel scaling, but it's still blocky. BTW: I get the same picture in VLC regardless of whether I am using X11 or Xv overlay for output: does that mean the scaling is done in an independent step, and that it's not Xv that's broken but rather some filter that comes afterwards?

With OpenGLOverlay I still get the same problems with VLC that I had with 8.1 - the application instantly crashes about 9 of of 10 times when opening a video (see http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showt...2943#post22943).

[sloggerKhan]

Hm, now that you mention it: the picture may have improved a bit - not sure if this is still pixel per pixel scaling, but it's still blocky. BTW: I get the same picture in VLC regardless of whether I am using X11 or Xv overlay for output: does that mean the scaling is done in an independent step, and that it's not Xv that's broken but rather some filter that comes afterwards?

With OpenGLOverlay I still get the same problems with VLC that I had with 8.1 - the application instantly crashes about 9 of of 10 times when opening a video (see http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showt...2943#post22943).

In mplayer and xine I also get the exact same output from xv and x11. The only difference is that a couple of times xv went black and only played audio but switching to x11 worked. I think those might have been some sort of odd fluke or file/player error, though. However, I am wondering if there's supposed to be a difference between the x11 and xv overlays or not? I never bothered trying x11 overlay till recently and right now they look identical to each other..

[Porter]

However, I am wondering if there's supposed to be a difference between the x11 and xv overlays or not? I never bothered trying x11 overlay till recently and right now they look identical to each other..

Same here. There appears to be zero difference between the X11 and Xv outputs. Performance is the same as well.

Please report which card you are using, btw... it may help the devs.

Mobility X1400 here (M54).

[linzerd]

i have the same bug, XVideo output is blocky and funky colored... i saw this bug with a X1300 and a X200 running Ubuntu Gutsy and Opensuse 10.3... BTW how do you test the drivers before they are released? Problems like this shouldn't go out...

[d2kx]

TexturedVideo (R500+) is still work in progess, so I am sure that there will be some nice improvements in the next releases. I am not sure about R300/R400's VideoOverlay... we'll see.

[Porter]

i have the same bug, XVideo output is blocky and funky colored... i saw this bug with a X1300 and a X200 running Ubuntu Gutsy and Opensuse 10.3... BTW how do you test the drivers before they are released? Problems like this shouldn't go out...

As has been said previously by bridgman and others, video rendering and scaling is done in the 3D core on the R5xx+ chips... so don't be too hard on them. They're working hard to get these things ironed out, let's support them and assist where we can, rather than beating them up about it.

[jchapman]

I see the same thing as Porter. It looks like an aliasing problem to me but of course it could be many things. Cranking up the anti-aliasing and texture settings in the AMD control panel will make most of it go away - that doesn't mean they are connected to the problem just that they can improve the output.

This is using the Feb 18 ATI driver on a 690 based MB with X2 5000 cpu and while it improves quality when I crank up the above settings it definitely affects the frame rate when playing back video with fairly large frames.

So far nothing I've done has eliminated the whole screen flashing pink then green then pink etc. when I start vlc... sometimes its once or twice and sometimes it goes on for many seconds.

BTW what's a reasonable number to see in glxgears? I get around 600fps which seems pretty slow for such a simple animation in a a small window.

[sloggerKhan]

GLXgears isn't really a true benchmark, but I'd think on any recent ati cards your fps should be several thousand @ the default window size.

$ glxgears 
22006 frames in 5.0 seconds = 4401.199 FPS
22043 frames in 5.0 seconds = 4408.416 FPS

is mine on an x700 mobility 128mb.

[Wojtek]

I am just wondering whether XVideo actually does work. IF all of us get very bad video quality and no difference between X11 and XVideo then maybe we're actually viewing X11 output? I can only play videos using VLC (Mplayer and Xine play only audio), which might have a fallback mechanism that reverts to X11 if there is a problem with XVideo.

In Gnome, if I go to System->Preferences->Multimedia System Selector and pick 'Video' tab and try XVideo output, I get:
'X Window System (X11/XShm/Xv): Could not initialise Xv output'. My graphics card is Mobility Radeon X1800.

Cheers,

Wojtek