Bug 338873 – media-video/mplayer-1.0_rc4_p20100612: video freezes at DVD scene cuts

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Matt Whitlock 2010-09-27 03:33:08 UTC]

This particular version of Mplayer exhibits a bug wherein the video playback freezes at certain scene cuts on a DVD.  Audio continues, but the video freezes for a number of seconds.  Then the video rapidly catches up to the audio, but then audio stutters for a while.  A short while later, everything is fine again — until the next problematic scene cut.

This bug does not present itself in media-video/mplayer-1.0_rc4_p20100506 (the previous version in Portage) or in media-video/mplayer-9999 (currently r32382).

It appears to make no difference whether I have KWin's OpenGL compositing enabled or whether I'm outputting raw AC3 via S/PDIF or decoding it in software and outputting PCM.  Also, it makes no difference whether I use the ffmpeg2 video codec with the xv output module or the ffmpeg12vdpau codec with the vdpau output module.

The problem is 100% reproducible at certain scene boundaries.  I am guessing there must be a VOB Cell boundary at these places because the A/V timestamps shown in Mplayer's console output reset to zero there.  There are at least two dozen of these problematic scene boundaries in a typical movie.

I have experienced this problem both on TV shows (with mixed NTSC and film framerates) and on high-budget movies (pure film transfer).  Also, it makes no difference whether I'm using the pullup video filter.

A workaround for me is simply to go back to the previous version, media-video/mplayer-1.0_rc4_p20100506, which powers through these troublesome scene cuts without missing a beat.

I know this is not a Gentoo problem, but I wanted to register my issue so that p20100612 will not be considered for stabilization.

[Comment 1 Steve Dibb (RETIRED) 2011-06-09 19:18:34 UTC]

Just for kicks, you're not using -cache are you?  -nocache needs to be enabled for DVD playback.

Thanks for the bugreport otherwise.

[Comment 2 Matt Whitlock 2011-06-09 21:57:51 UTC]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Just for kicks, you're not using -cache are you?  -nocache needs to be enabled
> for DVD playback.
> 
> Thanks for the bugreport otherwise.

Here's my ~/.mplayer/config:

ac=hwdts,hwac3,
softvol=1
stop-xscreensaver=1
vo=xv

When I play a DVD, I use the following command line:

mplayer -xy 2 -dvd-device DVDs/foobarbaz.iso dvd://1

I throw in a "-vf pullup" if the DVD suffers from hard telecine, but that's it.

[Comment 3 Alexis Ballier 2011-12-16 12:52:50 UTC]

(In reply to comment #0)
> This bug does not present itself in media-video/mplayer-1.0_rc4_p20100506 (the
> previous version in Portage) or in media-video/mplayer-9999 (currently r32382).
[...]
> I know this is not a Gentoo problem, but I wanted to register my issue so that
> p20100612 will not be considered for stabilization.


so, now, 1.0_rc4_p20110322-r1 is stable and shouldnt exhibit this problem