4K upscaled videos lag

[joe.blough]

It might also depend on the OS version and hardware. 4K movies in my current cpu (core ultra 2 265K onboard video) on v4.2.4 are relatively smooth. But v4.3 is choppy. v4.3 also has problems rendering when zooming in non-video content like an appvm window. My prior cpu (i9-12900K), 4K video was choppy on v4.24.

[balko]

@patate

So for me the viewing in smplayer is flawless (which is I guess a subjective feeling). And not flawless is for me was related to framedrop in other players.

I am actually happy with this setup, that’s why I wanted to share it in case it helps someone else, because the other hints on this forum were not working as good as this one for me.

Yes, mpv/smplayer should be made the default media player in Qubes OS’s default templates, because Gnome/xfce players are slow and bad. I was surprised how out-of-box video-players are bad in Qubes OS, especially considering it uses only CPU to play video.

I even posted something on github or user group to offer such change. Unfortunately it did not happen, maybe because it’s Qt software and Qubes OS currently stick mostly with GTK stuff.

[balko]

@joe.blough

But v4.3 is choppy. v4.3 also has problems rendering when zooming in non-video content like an appvm window.

Why? What was changed in R4.3? If it is the case and such major regression exists, it should be reported on github issues and marked as major or even blocker.

[KitsuneNoBaka]

@balko

Yes, mpv/smplayer should be made the default media player in Qubes OS’s default templates, because Gnome/xfce players are slow and bad. I was surprised how out-of-box video-players are bad in Qubes OS, especially considering it uses only CPU to play video.

Maybe because templates are as much as possible upstream. As small changes as possible.

[patate]

@KitsuneNoBaka

Did you tried this 4k train YT video from beginning of the thread?

Ok, I missed this one, and I just tried playing it in smplayer.

If I full screen it on my FHD monitor, I get 300 Frame dropped on output over the 52s, so 5 fps are dropped.

If I repeat the test on the 4k monitor I get 1750 frames dropped, so 33fps (original video seams to give 59.4 fps ).

If I watch the same video in 2K and set my 4k monitor resolution to 2k, I have no frame drop on this video with smplayer, but still a lot with firefox.

MPV is showing 15k frame dropped on (output).

Maybe I misunderstood something, but freetube statistics shows a total of 4922 frames for the 52 seconds clip. 60FPS on 52’ would be actually 3120, but I guess there are some frames for signaliting or whatever.

But how can mpv drop 15k frames ? Are we maybe looking at different things ?

[KitsuneNoBaka]

I’ve watched it more closely and it’s around ~2048 on 2k vo=sdl (default), ~734 on 2k with vo=x11 .

Statement from before was not “precise”

[joe.blough]

Qubes isn’t really designed for multimedia right now. I think we should consider ourselves lucky to have this much already. It’ll resolve itself anyway when 4.3 is stable.

[balko]

1. I am talking about already existing solutions. People suffer with garbage Gnome/xfce players, while any user can at any moment install mpv/smplayer and have 1080p with almost no issues RIGHT NOW. Even more - for the last many years. Users just do not know.

2. How resolved in R4.3? I think allowing video hardware acceleration in qubes is not planned for R4.3, is it?

[patches]

Are you sure VLC has all the necessary codecs? I’ve noticed that when I don’t install them via plugins, video playback is terrible.

[balko]

In fedora 42 template (and prior) some codecs for some videos are missing or bad in the official main repo, and the playback issues are to be expected even in mpv/smplayer/vlc.
And ffmpeg-free, that is available in the default repo, is also not as good as full ffmpeg in many cases.

So, as of today, having decent playback experience requires using PRM Fusion, unfortunately.

[KitsuneNoBaka]

More advanced codecs are in RPM Fusion and sometimes they are behind of base repositories and update of VLC breaks.
That’s why I’ve moved from VLC to MPV - ffmpeg have every possible codecs in it’s base libraries in base repositories.

[patches]

Honestly, I can’t stand Fedora on Qubes. I used it on its own dedicated PC for a while and that was okay. But I switched to Arch and Debian for Qubes and couldn’t be happier. I don’t experience 1% the issues that I did on Fedora.

[balko]

@KitsuneNoBaka

ffmpeg have every possible codecs in it’s base libraries in base repositories.

It is not. In Fedora default repo (that you get with Qubes OS) there is only ffmpeg-free, which has issues with many video-files, including seeking issues and others. RPM Fusion has full ffmpeg.

[KitsuneNoBaka]

But MPV have libav library and that’s in fedora repo. Don’t need anything else.

[balko]

I have video files that are not playing well (e.g. audio desync when seeking, other minor problems) on the fedora repo in mpv/smplayer in Fedora 42 template. Using RPM Fusion solves it.

So, are you sure that mpv in fedora repo has all the best libs and codecs, and using RPM Fusion is not needed as it is not adding anything like that to it?

[KitsuneNoBaka]

I’ve checked it now in disposable based on pristine fedora-42-xfce.
To playback x265/hevc at least, mpv need ffmpeg from rpmfusion with it’s libavcodec library. Audio was with AAC so no problem. Maybe E-AC sound also needs that.
My bad.