[mythtvnz] Frontend died - replacement?

[OpenMedia Support]

>
>>> On Sat, 21 Nov 2020 22:46:41 +1300, you wrote:
>>>
>>>>My Frontend has just died & I'm using a spare - which I can't seem to
>>>> get
>>>>smooth video on.
>>>>
>>>>The replacement is a Gigabyte Brix with a quad core J1900 Celeron
>>>> clocked
>>>>@ 2G with 4G of RAM and a 32G SSD. This should be more than enough for
>>>> a
>>>>1920x1080 display but I'm getting lots of jaggies on movement and some
>>>>videos (H264 - probably captured off Freeview) have micropauses that
>>>> makes
>>>>the sound stutter.
>>>>
>>>>Any idea on what video profile I should use? I'm still on 0.28 and its
>>>> so
>>>>long since I set up the original that I can't remember how to navigate
>>>> to
>>>>the 'in depth' setup screens.
>>>>
>>>>Failing getting the Brix working, any ideas on a decent replacement?
>>>> I'm
>>>>thinking an i5 NUC but maybe that's an overkill (and by the time RAM,
>>>> disk
>>>>etc is added it getting pricey!).
>>>>
>>>>Cheers
>>>
>>> That sounds like you are having problems with the deinterlacing.  As
>>> best I can recall, older Intel GPUs do not have the best of
>>> interlacing modes in hardware, but they should do better than that. So
>>> I think you are trying to do it all in the CPU and it is not good
>>> enough for that.  Try playing a 1080p video - it should play fine.  If
>>> so, then look at the hardware deinterlacing options in the VAAPI
>>> settings and see if you can get an acceptable picture with them.  Also
>>> see if you have the display profile set to use all cores of the CPU -
>>> it may default to using 1 core only.
>>>
>>> It might be time to upgrade also - v31 has major rendering upgrades,
>>> including better support for Intel video hardware.
>>
>> Does the hardware support vaapi?
>>
>> Try running "vainfo" on the command line.
>>
>
> This is what I get - no idea how it relates to my old 0.28 frontend
> though!!
>
> libva info: VA-API version 0.39.0
> libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
> libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so
> libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_39
> libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
> vainfo: VA-API version: 0.39 (libva 1.7.0)
> vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) Bay Trail - 1.7.0
> vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
>       VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
>       VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointEncSlice
>       VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
>       VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointEncSlice
>       VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
>       VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
>       VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointVLD
>       VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
>       VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointVLD
>       VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
>       VAProfileH264StereoHigh         : VAEntrypointVLD
>       VAProfileVC1Simple              : VAEntrypointVLD
>       VAProfileVC1Main                : VAEntrypointVLD
>       VAProfileVC1Advanced            : VAEntrypointVLD
>       VAProfileNone                   : VAEntrypointVideoProc
>       VAProfileJPEGBaseline           : VAEntrypointVLD

Looks good.

I've got a J3150 Celeron based Brix running as a frontend with MythTV 31
and vaapi2 decoding for the most part works well. I do get a bit of judder
occasionally.

One thing i've noticed is the front end will default back to 60Hz if the
screen is off and I need to force MythTV to realise it has to perform a
frame rate switch. I have a bunch of 24p/25p/50p sample videos so O play a
couple of those before playing any recorded TV so we get the correct sync.


Here is the info from my Brix

mythfe at mythfe1:~$ export DISPLAY=:0.0
mythfe at mythfe1:~$ vainfo
error: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set in the environment.
libva info: VA-API version 1.7.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_6
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.7 (libva 2.6.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) CherryView - 2.4.0
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline:	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline:	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264Main               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264High               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh      :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh      :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264StereoHigh         :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264StereoHigh         :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileVC1Simple              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileNone                   :	VAEntrypointVideoProc
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline           :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline           :	VAEntrypointEncPicture
      VAProfileVP8Version0_3          :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVP8Version0_3          :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileHEVCMain               :	VAEntrypointVLD