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#1 2019-05-25 23:46:42

anselm
Member
Registered: 2017-11-21
Posts: 49

How do you play HD videos on your low end hardware?

Youtube is not problem, because one can switch to a lower resolution. However video torrents usually contain HD (720p or 1080p) videos.  Are you able to play them on your low end CPU? Which player / settings to use to play at least 720p h264 content?

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#2 2019-05-26 03:49:04

levi
Moderator
From: Yorkshire, UK
Registered: 2018-06-16
Posts: 1,197

Re: How do you play HD videos on your low end hardware?

I transcode them on a 64bit machine to the exact resolution of my eeepc (which is 1024x600) using ffmpeg.  I have a script that inspect the video file using ffprobe, works out the aspect ratio and constructs a -scale argument which is either 1024:-2 or -2:600 depending on whether the source picture is wider or taller than my target ratio.  It also strips anything that's >30fps down to something that's less but I think ffmpeg just drops frames for that.

I download all of my youtube videos, so I often get them these days in 2k or 4k and more often at 60fps.  It all needs stripping back to be playable on my eeepc.


Architecture: pentium4, Testing repos: Yes, Hardware: EeePC 901+2GB RAM+OS half on the SD card.

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#3 2019-05-26 04:13:56

anselm
Member
Registered: 2017-11-21
Posts: 49

Re: How do you play HD videos on your low end hardware?

I see. For esample when I run:

ffmpeg -i video720p.mp4 -c:v rawvideo -f null - > /dev/null

Then I get an FPS value of 40-42, which means that my current hardware is able to decode a 29.97 fps video in real time.  Problem arises when I want to display the video:

ffmpeg -i video720p.mp4 -c:v rawvideo -f matroska - | mplayer -

Then the video plays choppy, or slow-motion, audio and video get desynchronized.

I think my video output driver is too slow with the nouveau driver and my current video card which has the nv17 chip.

When I try a different video output, eg "xv"

ffmpeg -i video720p.mp4 -c:v rawvideo -f matroska - | mplayer - -vo xv

Then the video seems to play faster, but I experience the so called tearing effect.

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#4 2019-05-26 04:39:31

levi
Moderator
From: Yorkshire, UK
Registered: 2018-06-16
Posts: 1,197

Re: How do you play HD videos on your low end hardware?

Yeah, mplayer generallys gets dsynced for me too if I try to play something too complex.  Even transcoded to native resolution, if the cuts are short then mplayer's video will generally fall behind, but you can see it trying to catch up while the frame deltas are smaller.

I'm currently using cvlc since mplayer is currently suffering libcdio problems.  That never seems to lose sync it just sometimes seems to ignore key frames so you're looking at a grey screen with deltas applied until you come across a key frame it does decide to render.

I've never messed with -vo options for mplayer, or use them to transcode from one video codec to another, All the codes I regularly recieve seem to play approximately as well on my hardware.  I'm using intel graphcs (GMA300 I think I read somewhere) though.


Architecture: pentium4, Testing repos: Yes, Hardware: EeePC 901+2GB RAM+OS half on the SD card.

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