[K12OSN] Pixelation with MPlayer

David Hopkins dahopkins429 at gmail.com
Mon Mar 5 18:54:42 UTC 2007


I also just noticed from the LTSP wiki that my particular mb's don't
necessarily get the correct configuration for the video chipset.  I have
min-itx based systems with VIA, so I will try adding the XSERVER = via line
and see what happens.

Of course, all the teachers want to run at full screen on the systems which
is 1024x768 and I am not sure what that is going to do to the server. :(

Thanks for all the great info.

Sincerely,
Dave Hopkins


On 3/5/07, "Terrell Prudé Jr." <microman at cmosnetworks.com> wrote:
>
>  Yes, it sure could.  I saw that 90-client-per-server figure and went,
> "WHOA!!!"  I did some server CPU tests on my own server, and here's what I
> found:
>
> 640x480 MPEG4 clip:  21% CPU/session
> 320x240 MPEG4 clip:  7% CPU/session
>
> The CPU's are 1.2GHz Athlon MP's.  This is per CPU core, BTW, so if you've
> got four such cores, you get just under 4x the capacity.
>
> --TP
> _______________________________
> Do you GNU!?
> Microsoft Free since 2003 <http://www.gnu.org/>--the ultimate antivirus
> protection!
>
>
> Petre Scheie wrote:
>
> Could this be an issue of quantity?  That is, Terrel, how many clients
> have you got simultaneously watching the videos?  If Jim's got an average of
> 90 clients per server, even though they're big boxes (I've seen 'em), might
> that number be more than the server can handle for video?
>
> Petre
>
> Terrell Prudé Jr. wrote:
>
> I've watched 640x480 videos (MPEG4) without any problems on my thin client
> with MPlayer.  The key was to swap the video board in the thin client for
> something a bit more powerful.  In my case, it was the Matrox Millenium
> G400; doing that solved all my MPlayer issues.  It also, BTW, made TuxType
> play faster.  Heck, I'm able to watch Tom's Hardware videos, in MPEG4, at
> 720x480, without any framedrops, pixelations, whatever--just nice, smooth
> video.  No, I don't have to throw the -framedrop switch, either.
>
> Folks, watching videos on thin clients WORKS FINE.  I do it all the time.
> If you can, please try swapping your video board and see what happens.
>
> --TP
> _______________________________
> Do you GNU!?
> Microsoft Free since 2003 <http://www.gnu.org/> <http://www.gnu.org/>--the
> ultimate antivirus protection!
>
>
> David Hopkins wrote:
>
> Didn't mean for this to cause problems, so to speak, but ... what I have
> observed is that the video clip is mostly watchable at the 320x240
> resolution that seems to be the 'native' resolution of the clip.  However,
> it pixelates which is where the teachers start chiming in about the inferior
> quality.  It does get worse as the clips get larger:  A 5Mb clip and an
> 'extended' version of the clip that is 13Mb do not have the same playback
> characteristics, with the larger and longer clip looking worse.
>
> My clients consist of Epia 533-based systems and donated Compaq EN SFF
> systems.  Either can play back without issues as long as they are fat
> clients. I have Gb from the server to the switch and 100Mb to the clients.
>
>  If I specify using X11-only, then MPlayer says that the Compaq does not
> have the resources to play back the video.  Using Xv, it does but is
> pixelated on fast motion scenes. :(
>
> MPlayer has alot of options for framedropping, lower fps playback, etc,
> and I will try and play with these to see if there is some magic combination
> that provides overall better quality.
>
> I really hope that the Atlanta work goes well since it will help me when I
> periodically try to the the State of Delaware DOE interested in the thin
> client approach.  I have a few Reps and Senators that know about the option,
> but getting them to commit time to really looking at it has been tough and
> little glitches like lower quality movie playback seems to 'impress' them
> more than the phenomenal uptime of the systems, ease of use, ease of
> management, etc.
>
> Slightly off-topic, but the same instuctor that is really vocal about the
> playback also was vocal about not getting sound on a video clip a few weeks
> back.  After playing it back in a pure Windows environment, it was finally
> possible to convince him that the clip in question didn't, in fact, have any
> sound and was only video.
>
> Sincerely,
> Dave Hopkins
>
>
>
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