DVD playback: Debiann:Sarge - Ogle - Laptop

[Need4Speed]

setting up dvd playback on my laptop: toshiba P3-850, 256MB, DVD-ROM, 14"TFT, Trident 8mb Vid
The playback is rather choppy. Since ive never used nix for dvd playback I was curious if that was the norm? Winxp on the same laptop plays smooth. Here is my xfree86 config for what its worth:

# XF86Config-4 (XFree86 X server configuration file) generated by dexconf, the
# Debian X Configuration tool, using values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the XF86Config-4 manual page.
# (Type "man XF86Config-4" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xfree86 package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xfree86
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following commands as root:
#
# cp /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 /etc/X11/XF86Config-4.custom
# md5sum /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 > /var/lib/xfree86/XF86Config-4.md5sum
# dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86

Section "Files"
FontPath "unix/:7100" # local font server
# if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "GLcore"
Load "bitmap"
Load "dbe"
Load "ddc"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "record"
Load "speedo"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

#Section "InputDevice"
# Identifier "Generic Mouse"
# Driver "mouse"
# Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
# Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
# Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
# Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
# Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
#EndSection

Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "SWcursor" # [<bool>]
#Option "PciRetry" # [<bool>]
#Option "NoAccel" # [<bool>]
#Option "SetMClk" # <freq>
#Option "MUXThreshold" # <i>
#Option "ShadowFB" # [<bool>]
#Option "Rotate" # [<str>]
#Option "VideoKey" # <i>
#Option "NoMMIO" # [<bool>]
#Option "NoPciBurst" # [<bool>]
#Option "MMIOonly" # [<bool>]
#Option "CyberShadow" # [<bool>]
#Option "CyberStretch" # [<bool>]
#Option "XvHsync" # <i>
#Option "XvVsync" # <i>
#Option "XvBskew" # <i>
#Option "XvRskew" # <i>
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "trident"
VendorName "Trident"
BoardName "CyberBlade/DSTN/Ai1"
VideoRAM 8192
Option "SWcursor" "On"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
DisplaySize 290 220
Identifier "TFT"
VendorName "TOSHIBA"
ModelName "Internal 1024x768 Panel"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 31.5-57.0
VertRefresh 50.0-90.0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "TFT"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
# InputDevice "Generic Mouse"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

 

[Crusty]

What sound system are you using? I had loads of trouble with stuttering and using ALSA. Maybe OSS if you are using ALSA, or vice versa.

 

[Need4Speed]

here is the soundcard:
dmesg | grep trident
trident: ALi Audio Accelerator found at IO 0xed00, IRQ 11

I think the driver is Alim15x3

 

[Haden]

Are you using ogle-mmx?, default ogle build isn't optimized at all.
Try playing with xine or mplayer.

 

[Need4Speed]

i was using ogle-mmx. ill try xine and see what happens

 

[drag]

The first thing to check is going to be weither or not you have DMA access enabled on you dvd player.

This sets it so that you have ATA-33 vs ATA-66 vs ATA-100 or whatever.

The command to look at this stuff is hdparm. With just the most generic ATA settings your drives just won't be fast enough to enable good playback on DVD's.

Sometimes DMA access is turned off by default because if the enviroment isn't good for the drives (like using older fasion type IDE cables) your computer will still try to pump info into the drive as fast as it can and this can lead to information your drives corrupting. This sort of thing depends on the chipsets and their default behavior.

hdparm -tT /dev/hdc

will do a simple (and innacurate) benchmark, good for comparative results.

hdparm /dev/hdc

will show it's settings,

hdparm -i /dev/hdc

will show information on the drive.

hdparm -d 1 /dev/hdc

will activate dma, and

hdparm -k 1 /dev/hdc

will save the settings thru the next boot. If they don't keep then you may have to add the hdparm commands to your start up scripts.

There are plenty of other settings, some are dangerous and others are safe, "man hdparm" for details. DMA is the biggest performance increase, it's not uncommon for a drive to go from 6MB/s to 25MB/s bandwidth just with that tweak.

Needless to say this can make things speed up quite a bit.

 

[Need4Speed]

excellent information. I will look into this during lunch and report back

 

[TonyRic]

I have noticed using mplayer and ogle with all optimizations that I have choppy playback in audio and video. Never had any problem with xine. This is on a Compaq presarion 2.4Ghz desktop processor and 1GB ram and UDMA is enabled.

I would suggest that you check out xine at xine.sf.net

 

[Need4Speed]

ok...both hda and hdc are using dma according to hdparm. I will try out xine and see if the results are any better

 

[Nothinman]

I watch DVDs with mplayer all the time and I never have any studder in video or audio.