Sam Flex and AmiTube

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I downloaded a few movie trailers via the brilliant AmiTube utility.

To test the playback on the Sam Flex (800 MHz), I downloaded three versions of the Jurassic Park trailer:

1) 3gp - 176x144
2) mp4 - 640x360
3) mp4 - 1280x720

Number 1 plays fine with both video and audio in sync on the different MPlayer versions and in the Emotion demo.

Number 2 works, but the audio is out of sync and the framerate is ok

Number 3 does not work, very slow video and audio is out of sync.

My Sam has a Radeon 9250 PCI 128 MB card. The CPU is clocked at 800 MHz.

Shouldn't it be able to play 2 (640x360) at a proper rate, or is the mp4 format more demanding than others?

If yes, which format do you recommend converting MP4 to?

Thanks in advance for your help.

@AmigaOldskooler

With my 733 MHz Sam440ep-flex version I had this mplayer benchmark:
Serenity-HDDVDTrailer.mp4, 1280x720 pix, codec H.264, real length 139 sec:

With fastest gfx R9270X: 311 sec.
I.e. 733 MHz Sam is 2.25x slower than needed to play HD video without framedrops.
And it means, that Sam should play your mp4 640x360 video - it has 4x lesser resolution.
I can test it next week in real.

In any case, I also interested in question which video format is best ( i.e. less cpu consuming ) for Sam.

Of course, RadeonHD v5 with Video Acceleration support will be great here.

Hi @AmigaOldskooler,

As far as I know, the resolution is not the only factor why your video might be choppy and you should take in consideration bitrate, profile and level of encoded video. If you have Handbrake on your main machine you can do couple of test runs and find out which encoded setting plays best on your SAM. The quality of your video will vary.

Try following option, load your video in Handbrake:

summary tab make sure format is mpg4
dimension don't touch
filter don't touch
video use following settings:




audio you can change from 48kHz to 44kHz if you want
subtitles, chapters and tags you can leave alone.

under save as, change extension to mp4 -- m4v is apple's proprietary mp4 format.

When done encoding, check it out how it works.

I picked pretty low encoding settings in screen print above, which I hope should play without frame droppings and should give smooth play of the trailer in question with decent quality. Let me know how it goes, I am curious about your results. If still not good enough, you can try this:.

You can try lower Bitrate (kbps) or you can switch to constant quality and try recompressing the video (using RF slider) with different values. If you do this, start with RF: 23 and go higher few numbers. Keep in mind, the higher the value, compression is greater and image quality will get worse.

Changing framerate from 60 to let's say 30 might cause audio de-syncing and frame skipping.

I also recommend using MediInfo which will give you many details on the video and how it is encoded, below is an example of what you can look for to determine how "heavy" video is:




Ok, pleas let me know if this worked for you!

Cheers!

@levellord

Hi mate,

Thanks for the instructions! Much appreciated!

I downloaded Handbrake and gave it a try.

Converted the video and transferred it to the Sam.

Unfortunately, it still does not play well, although it feels like the new version works better in the Emotion videoplayer than before. If I put frameskip on auto, it nearly plays like it should. It might be my eyes playing tricks on me, but definitely an improvement here.

On the diffent MPlayers the sound is out of sync and the video does not play like it should. It is worth mentioning that the program tells me that my computer is too slow to play the video, hehe.

I have not tried adjusting the parameters at the end of your post yet, but hopefully this will make an improvement. It will be interesting to see!

Thanks again for your help.

Btw.. which video formats would you deem the best for Sam 440? I have read about people watching Xvid on it, but have not tried that myself. AVI also works fine, as well as regular DVD.

@levellord

Hi mate,

Thanks for the instructions! Much appreciated!

I downloaded Handbrake and gave it a try.

Converted the video and transferred it to the Sam.

Unfortunately, it still does not play well, although it feels like the new version works better in the Emotion videoplayer than before. If I put frameskip on auto, it nearly plays like it should. It might be my eyes playing tricks on me, but definitely an improvement here.

On the diffent MPlayers the sound is out of sync and the video does not play like it should. It is worth mentioning that the program tells me that my computer is too slow to play the video, hehe.

I have not tried adjusting the parameters at the end of your post yet, but hopefully this will make an improvement. It will be interesting to see!

Thanks again for your help.

Btw.. which video formats would you deem the best for Sam 440? I have read about people watching Xvid on it, but have not tried that myself. AVI also works fine, as well as regular DVD.

@AmigaOldskooler

You are almost there! Try changing bitrate to ~700 on video tab and edit audio as following:




You can change Bitrate quality of MP3 to 128 if 96 is to weird to listen.

If this still doesn't work, keep the audio settings but switch from bitrate (kbps) to Constant Quality and slide RF to 27. All other settings on video tab should stay the same.

The last option you can try is to change preset to Official>Web>Gmail Medium 5 Minutes 480p30. Leave everything as is in video tab but change sound to settings above.

Regarding the AVI files, I am not aware of any other tool on Linux that can create them except Kdenlive. In Kdenlive you can do the MPEG-2 (DVD format) and XVID as well, but that's a different beast. I can guide you through it, but let's try simple with Handbreak, if okay with you.

Lol, one more thing, you are a Linux user? If not, then Kdenlive is no go, but it will be simpler for you. Just get VirtualDub and install K-Lite codecs (standard pack) for windows so you can have some options. VirtualDub only work with AVI's.

Kdenlive options:




Let me know!

Cheers!

@levellord
Quote:
Use Handbrake on a foreign OS...Blastphemy.
You can do the conversion on AmigaOS4 using ffmpeg and ffmpegGUI available on OS4Depot. Of course the conversion will take a fair bit longer on a SAM.

Ok, now to try and be helpful. In addition to the settings already menitioned, try using Mpeg-4 video codec. Save using mp4 container format. You will end up with larger files and probably a bit reduced quality but Mpeg-4 codec is much less demanding to decode than h.264. If your video has a frame rate of 60, you might be able to get away with changing it to 30 without problems since it's an even multiple. It's worth a try as that will also have a significant affect on playback speed

I don't have a SAM but I would guess you will need to convert it to 640x360.
I just downloaded a video from YouTube using AmiTube and saved in 640x360 resolution. It saved the video with a bitrate of around 200kb. So, when converting to a video codec of Mpeg-4 use a video bitrate between 200 and 300. I converted it using a video bitrate of 225kb and saw a reduced CPU usage during playback of about 15%. This was on an X1000, so your mileage may vary.

@AmigaOldskooler
When you playback the original 360p video that you download try using the following option when playing back with MPlayer.

-lavdopts=skiploopfilter=all:skipframe=nonref

This will only help with h.264 and mpeg-4 video codecs.

@ktadd

Haha, I know, I am sorry! (me covers head and face with hands, I have very large hands)

I just wanted to keep it easy and simple, but can provide explanation how to do it under the OS4, soon!

And thanks for mentioning the framerate equal division and explaining that this might not produce audio out of sync, did not know that, will definitely give it a try!

Thanks!

Thanks for the helpful tips and information, guys!

I've tried implementing the new tips. The Sam still struggles with the MP4, unfortunately.

The good news is, however, that using the MPEG 4 video codec made it run properly! The video plays smoothly in Emotion, both in a window and in fullscreen. I think playback is a bit better in Emotion than the different MPlayers, although I can not back this up with anything other than a "feeling".

So far, a combination of Levellord's settings + Ktadd's suggestions did the trick with the Jurassic Park trailer. This is definitely helpful knowledge for those out there still enjoying their Sam 440's.

I will continue testing. Possibly I can provide some FPS etc., but must learn a bit more about how to do this properly first.

Thanks again guys! You rock!

@levellord
Quote:
ffmpeg with ffmpegGUI can do all this and more.

@AmigaOldschooler @ktadd

I just did some testing with ffmpeg+GUI and results were pretty good! I said something earlier about explanation regarding ffmpegGUI, there is no need for one. The AmigaGuide within the GUI archive is professionally written and easy to follow. Good job on that!

Now, I grabbed one 60fps music video, high bitrate, 720p and this was playing badly (barely) on Emotion on my X5000. Using ffmpegGUI and in my mind targetting SAM's performance, I recompressed the video with acceptable results. The target video was ~86Mbs reduced it to 18Mbs with MP3 128k//44000 audio. I am curious how this plays on SAM:

Music video on my personal cloud storage

Here are the settings I used:

Video:





Audio:





@ktadd

I have a question, hopefully you can help with this. Is there an output window which will show 1 frame of the video which will also reflect changes that I am doing withing the ffmpegGUI. Changes such as aspect ratio or resolution change? Something similar that can be seen in Handbrake using the preview button? Let me know if you need better explanation of what am I looking for.

Thnaks!

@levellord
Quote:
Thanks, I tried to make it easy to use. Not an easy task with all the options in ffmpeg. Also, try turning on the "Hints" and hovering over the gadgets. The hints may provide enough info so that you might not even have to RTFM.

Quote:
Wow, you really went back to old school video encoding here. I'd say this should easily play back even on a SAM 440.
I'd suggest you could even bump the bitrate into the 700 - 1100 range to increase the quality and it would still play fine on a SAM. Of course, with your settings, it looks like you might also be targeting having minimal encoding time.

Quote:
When you find setting you like, please save the settings and share the file to make it even easier on others.

Quote:
Hmm...I don't have access to my Amiga right now but did you try clicking on the "Preview" button at the bottom of the window? I know that will play the video applying the "Clip Settings" but I don't remember if I added using the Size and Aspect setting during the preview or not. I'll check on it. If not I think it's pretty easy to add. I already did that in VideoClipper. I'll check later.
See, if you use my programs you get to ask for customizations.

@levellord
Since your experimenting. Try using VideoClipper. On the "Video/Audio/File Settings" tab there is a "Profile" selection dropdown. If you select one of the lower resolution - Draft settings, they should probably work pretty well on a SAM. They should at least be good as a starting point. I did quite a bit of experimenting trying to find settings that would encode fast and give acceptable enough results. You can encode with VideoClipper or use similar settings in ffmpeg GUI. As a bonus, In VideoClipper, you can use the "Preview / Selected" to preview the video with the time/size and aspect settings applied. Of course the bitrate settings can't be previewed so the quality after encoding might not be as good as when previewed. Just set the end time to around 20 seconds though and you can then preview the resulting output without having to encode the whole file.

By the way, you can do that with ffmpegGUI as well. Set the duration setting to 15 or 20 to do a test encode, then play the output and you can see how all the setting affect the output.

@ktadd @AmigaOldskooler

Thanks for above, lots of good info. I tried the same with 360p, mp4 and mp3 and results were pretty good, just not sure how good are for SAM. Here are the settings:

360p_MPEG4_MP3

There are lots of compression artefacts flying around, if this is a movie, not sure how pleasant would be to watch it, but it would be watchable. I will definitelly play around with it to find acceptable combination. It would also help if I could use more that one core to compress, it took forever to complete 3 minute long video, average encoding speed was around 6.2 fps, that have nothing to do with the ffmpeg/GUI, of course. Hopefully Steven will release new kernel and soon!

Quote:

Don't curse me, lol, but there are some items I' like to report.

Trying to expand CON window (by pulling the bottom right with pointer) which opened as soon as I started the encoding, hanged the system and I had to reset.

It would be great if within the CON and Metadata, just after the encoder, there is another line to show the total number of frames from the source, or where the frame is counting to show like this:

frame= 152 of 48258

Just to be able to track the progres. This is cosmetical only, not really needed.

I tried the preview button but it will play the video, changing the aspect or resolution did not change the window (in real time). To see the changes, I had to close the video and preview it again. I was looking forward to 1 still frame and maybe even slider to go through the 5-6 random frames and ensure aspect is good if cropping is applied w/resolution change. I know this is complicated, just something I observed.

Will definitelly give VideoClipper a shot and if time permits, maybe even tomorrow. I do a lots of video editing and encoding of our family videos since those are saved unoptimized, taking huge amounts of space on my NAS. VideoClipper looks something that I'd like to try and use, it is more fun to do this on Amiga (will see about the dreaded long wait to finish compressing)!

Thank you!

I have to ask...

Are there any PCI based GFX cards that supports gpu acceleration for video playback?

If there are, it might be a good idea to get one of those cards and upgrade the drivers as well as buy Emotion mediaplayer?

My A1X5000 is using about 1-3% CPU when playing full HD videos since the decoding is all done on the gfx-card.

@Cageman

I am still stuck with the 7750 Radeon but planning to get something with more bang in the future. I did not do any research on other options, so I don't know if hardware encoding/decoding is possible and if someone can pitch in on this, it would be great.

@Cageman
Last PCI are HD 7350 = 5450 or 4350. All of them are real PCIe with integrated PCI-PCIe bridge.
All this are supported with driver RadeonHD v3.7, but have no VA accelaration.

Southern Island cards (HD77xx, R9xxx) is the best choice, unfortunatelly RadeonHD v5. ( with video acceleration ) is now only for X5000, X1000 and Sam460. There is no Sam440 version.
So we need a little bit resource-undemanding codec ))

Hi @sailor

Quote:

Can you confirm that cards above have hardware acelerated encoding/decoding?

I have latest RadeonHD v5 driver and X5000 w/Radeon 7750 but do not see any significant speed during the encoding process. Decoding is not that great either.

I know 7750 is not that great of the card, but was expecting better performance with video playing.

Thanks!

@levellord
yes, at least I can confirm HD 7970 + X1000. I have RadeonHD v5. for X1000, and video accelereration works ( with Emotion + DVPlayer )


I have also cards Devil R9 270X (inside Sam440ep-flex) and HD 7750 ( in the box), I can test them when next week. I am not at home now.