First off, a HUGE thanks to those involved in initiating and maintaining this project. I love it. And I'm really excited for 0.40 to come out!
I'm posting because I recently started to get 1080p content and I'm finding that it's often causing the pause/unpause routine that's been mentioned in previous posts on the subject (after playing for maybe 1-2 minutes, video pauses/unpauses every couple seconds).
(Personally, it seems like I hit the wall with my current setup, since I can't keep the cache full.)
I've updated this post to reflect what I've discovered through the generous help of the developers!
Potential Issues.
1. Network Connection Too Slow
The problem here would presumably be that the Pi can't suck up the data fast enough to keep up. You can check this by pressing "i" to see what the status of the cache is. If it keeps getting depleted, then it's a network speed issue.
Solution 1: Get a Faster Network Connection. It's often asked whether or not the connection is wired or wireless, and if wireless, whether it's a 150Mb or 300Mb adapter. The presumed solution would be to either get a better wireless adapter or plug in.
Wired Connections: The wired network connection on the PI is a 100mbit NIC that is connected via USB2, which should ideally give you a speed of 90 - 94 Mb/sec, which is plenty for 1080p. A gigabit switch/router should not be necessary
Wireless Connections: Not sure what the real-world speeds of various wireless NICs are, but it seems like even a 150Mb/s should be more than enough, provided the signal is strong?
Solution 2: Increase Your Cache Size to the maximum setting of 30%The cache is on the RAM, not the storage, so the speed and size of the storage (USB stick or SD card) shouldn't affect it. This has been my experience with the cache size after boosting it to 30%:
480p video: cache maxes out at 38MB <-- runs ok
720p video: cache maxes out at 57MB <-- runs ok
1080p video @ about 15Mb/s: cache maxes out at 65MB <-- runs ok
1080p video @ about 20Mb/s: cache maxes out at 72MB, but then empties out <-- causes pause/unpause routine
Solution 3: Check your power supply. General problems have been noted (e.g. freezing, ethernet dropouts) with bad and/or low output power supplies (e.g. 1A). As noted on the rasplex website, best to get a 2A/5V adapter.
2. Pi Is Too Slow
The problem here would be that Pi isn't powerful enough to decode the stream in real time. I don't think this causes pause/unpause, but instead causes stuttering?
Solution 1: Overclock. Overclocking is an option, although I tried both the "medium" and the "high" settings in the config file and both seemed to cause my system to become unstable (i.e. system froze intermittently).
Solution 2: Adjust settings to reduce the load on Rasplex, potentially including:
Disable DTS and AC3 decoding (uncheck System > Audio Output > AC3 capable receiver & DTS Capable receiver) Is this correct? I would have thought that unchecking them would force the Pi to decode them instead of passing this work onto the reciever?
Solution 2: Get a newer/better/different version of Rasplex.
Thanks for taking time to collect this information.
It is mainly accurate except probably 2 - Solution 2 as it shouldn't matter much, cuz pi should not use storage for playback afaik :)
Another thing which might help you diagnose what is wrong, you can popup some information while playing ('I' key on keyboard, then different key depending on your remote).
Will show you the cache status for instance. If you see following sequence - cache filling up - playback - cache empty - playback stops, it's probably an issue with network speed.
The basement of Rasplex / PHT clientside is XBMC. So technically whatever plays fine in raspbmc should theorically play fine on RasPlex.
If it plays fine on raspbmc and doesnt play properly on rasplex then we have probably messed up something. This is a good indication for us if you can test it.
If it doesn't play properly in raspbmc either, that means that either RPi is out of ressources, or that something is wrong in raspbmc / openelec stuff :)
The "I" key seems like a really useful tool. So I'll try starting there and seeing how things are going with the network speed/caching. If that's looking good, then I guess it comes down to pi speed, which could potentially be solved by overclocking. Or, (and I should have included this as a potential third solution to problem 2) it could have to do with the nuts and bolts of the software, in which case it could be version dependent (Rasplex code, base PHT code, and finally XBMC code).
I'll check it out and report back. Thanks again!:)
I won't be able to test this until after work, but I've got a quick follow up question in the meantime.
Would you mind explaining the relationship between the cache, cache percentage setting, and storage? I'm just a bit confused about how the cache works. You mentioned that " pi should not use storage for playback," but it's playing from the cache which is on the storage, isn't it? I'm wondering if growing the storage has anything to do with the size of the cache.
(I'd be happy to update my original post so that it's got all this info collected in one spot for other people who might be wondering.)
1080p playback will proably be improved quite a bunch by the proper use of the transcoding which we are working on. At this point high bitrates ( > 15mbps) , high fps ( > 30 fps) as well as some ffmpeg decoding issues can be a trouble for smooth playback.
Just wanted to reply that some Cat6 seems to have done the trick. I did a quick check and even with the high bitrate 1080p the cache is keeping up and the video's running smoothly.
So, (and sorry of this has been asked/answered... I did search) does RasPlex direct-play the files and does it play (or pass-through) multi-channel audio streams over HDMI?
So, (and sorry of this has been asked/answered... I did search) does RasPlex direct-play the files and does it play (or pass-through) multi-channel audio streams over HDMI?
yes and yes, but not HD audio like DTS master audio .
I solved most of my problems by disabling vertical blank sync. :-)
I stil have the pause/un-pause behavior with DTS, however. My TV supports DTS so Rasplex is simply passing it along. But even with moderate 1080p file (12mo/s), I get the pause/un-pause after a few minutes.
Anyone else have this behaviour, or any ideas on how to play DTS ? Thanks !
I solved most of my problems by disabling vertical blank sync. :-)
I stil have the pause/un-pause behavior with DTS, however. My TV supports DTS so Rasplex is simply passing it along. But even with moderate 1080p file (12mo/s), I get the pause/un-pause after a few minutes.
Anyone else have this behaviour, or any ideas on how to play DTS ? Thanks !
my rpi, pms, and nas are all on a gigabit wired network. the rpi can play "the matrix" with bitrate between 15mo/s and 20mo/s plus 640ko/s ac3 audio without pause. but a 12mo/s "battlestar galactica" kills it under three minutes, intro plus a scene where two people talk, not even an action scene... :-p
i am now using the 9.20 beta (fresh install) but i have had this problem since 0.3. i've tried everything i could think of, but never got close to dts working.
Seeing that the Raspberry Pi 2 has 1GB of RAM, it would be nice if any needed tweaks were included in the image. With that much memory, setting the cache, video memory split, etc could all be done ahead of time with memory to spare.
