libva + xvba crashing vlc and mplayer on F15

[5er_levart]

I have been trying unsuccessfully to establish a working libva + xvba environment on Fedora 15 / x86_64. It worked on F14. What I did on F14 was the following:

- installed ati fglrx driver 11.4 via ATI installer
- installed libva RPM package from rpmfusion
- manualy unpacked the xvba_drv_video.so and fglrx_drv_video.so symlink from splitted-desktop distribution of xvba-video_0.7.2-1_amd64.deb and put it to the appropriate folder for libva to find it.

I did the same on Fedora 15. I used the latest 11.6 fglrx driver (which works correctly on F15) and latest xvba-video_0.8.0-1_amd64.deb. Now when I issue vainfo, I get:

libva: libva version 0.32.0
Xlib: extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".
libva: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib64/dri/fglrx_drv_video.so
libva: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA API version: 0.32
vainfo: Driver version: Splitted-Desktop Systems XvBA backend for VA-API - 0.8.0
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD


...but when I try to run vlc (with hardware acceleration enabled) or specialy compiled version of mplayer (-vo vaapi), they both crash with segmentation fault. For example the mplayer:


Playing ./The.Prestige.2006.720p.BluRay.x264-ESiR.mkv.
libavformat file format detected.
[matroska,webm @ 0x16982e0] max_analyze_duration reached
[matroska,webm @ 0x16982e0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
[lavf] stream 0: video (h264), -vid 0, The Prestige
[lavf] stream 1: audio (ac3), -aid 0, -alang eng, AC3 5.1 640 kbps
[lavf] stream 2: subtitle (ass), -sid 0, -slang eng
[lavf] stream 3: subtitle (ass), -sid 1, -slang rum
VIDEO: [H264] 1280x544 0bpp 23.976 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
title: The.Prestige.2006.720p.BluRay.x264-ESiR
Load subtitles in ./
libva: libva version 0.32.0
Xlib: extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0".
libva: va_getDriverName() returns 0

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x00007ffff64e1941 in __strlen_sse2 () from /lib64/libc.so.6


Has anybody had similar problems?

Regards, Peter

[Kano]

It has something to do with the multithreading support in ffmpeg or libav. vlc git disables ffmpeg-hw support when a ffmpeg mt is detected, that's true for both current ffmpeg or libav now. The vlc 1.1 branch does not have got that detection and just crashes. So basically you can currently forget vlc as player with vaapi support. xbmc is basically working, but just like mplayer vaapi it does not decode h264 l5.1. I dont know if libva reports an error that those apps just ignore to add a fallback or if that is not possible. I also want to test the pcom mode of mplayer vaapi, but i think that part of the source is not open. Also i dont think that the xvba-video 0.8.0 binary was compiled with pcom support, no idea how to compile it on my own to try it. It is really pointless to advertise h264 support via vaapi and then it does not play certain files. vdpau is not perfect too, with mplayer 2 i had got about 10 vdpau decoder errors while watching a m2ts movie, but at least it worked for most of the time. mplayer 2 also supports m2ts subtitles now, mplayer vaapi does not.

[pchristy]

I've been having similar problems (see thread mplayer-vaapi crashing). I'm running Slackware64, and installed all the files from the splitted desktop website.

Mplayer-vaapi does actually play the HiDef mts files from my camera, but crashes as soon as I plug my TV in as a secondary display! Doesn't matter whether I use the VGA port or HDMI, as soon as I plug in the second display, mplayer-vaapi immediately crashes!

I've tried contacting the developer, but have received no reply. All the files on the splitted desktop site are now about 6 months old, so maybe they've abandoned development?

Their script for building your own mplayer-vaapi only works with an old version of mplayer, and as ffmpeg has now moved to git (from svn) you can no longer get an up-to-date ffmpeg!

I have tried bodging the script to use a recent mplayer and ffmpeg, but the patches don't apply properly when I do this.

It is all extremely frustrating!

VLC similarly crashes instantly on mts files, so that isn't an option either!

I normally use NVidia graphics because Ati Linux is so flaky (I'm able to play all these files without problems on my desktop machines), but on a laptop you are stuck with whatever the manufacturer decides to install, and I haven't found an NVidia based laptop that meets my other requirements!

This ought to work - or it ought to be able to be made to work! In this day and age, I really can't understand why hardware advertised as HiDef capable can't do what it claims!

--
Pete

[Kano]

Well you can use newer libva than from sds, thats what i use in my mplayer vaapi script. I think there might be even a newer vaapi patch in arch or so, but i dont have got the url here.

[pchristy]

A link to where you got those would be much appreciated, when you find them!



--
Pete

[Kano]

Best install mediainfo first and check your file, if it shows h264 l5.1 then you can not play it anyway using xvba-video wrapper. it would work with intel vaapi

[DanL]

VLC 1.1.x works for me, as long as it is built with the proper libva-dev from SDS.

I've tried contacting the developer, but have received no reply. All the files on the splitted desktop site are now about 6 months old, so maybe they've abandoned development?

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTU2Ng

[pchristy]

Hm! That doesn't sound good - looks like the only person doing any development work on this has quit! I wonder where this leaves the project?

Having said that, at least he seems to have uploaded the latest versions to the git repository. All I have to do now is work out how to extract them (couldn't find the url!).

--
Pete

[jaszhou]

Hm! That doesn't sound good - looks like the only person doing any development work on this has quit! I wonder where this leaves the project?

Having said that, at least he seems to have uploaded the latest versions to the git repository. All I have to do now is work out how to extract them (couldn't find the url!).

--
Pete

I use this config and it's working!

xbmc 10.1 from PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~lars-opdenkamp/+archive/xbmc-pvr

Catalyst 11.3
xvba-video_0.7.8-1_amd64.deb
libva1_0.32.0-1+sds2_amd64.deb
ubuntu 11.04

[5er_levart]

It has something to do with the multithreading support in ffmpeg or libav...

...it turns out (using valgrind to get stack trace) that I'm hitting this bug:

http://phoronix.com/forums/showthrea...etDriverName()

If I set the environment variable:

export LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=xvba

before starting mplayer, I work-around the bug. It plays now. At least for some time before it crashes with:

mplayer: xvba_image.c:453: commit_hw_image: Assertion `hw_image_hooks_glx.create' failed.

but that's another bug.