Hardware Accelerated H.264 Decoding on Plex
It’s been just a few days since Apple finally released their Video Decode Acceleration Framework Reference, but Ryan has been working hard and we have some exciting news to share with you. He has managed to get Plex integrated with the framework, and for the first time, your GPU is used to decode H.264 video. The results are incredibly impressive, with 720p and 1080p video decoding smoothly with much reduced CPU utilization.
If you have a NVidia 9400M (or the new GT320/330M chipsets), and are running Snow Leopard 10.6.3, take it for a spin! As with the last post, download the binary [try the new binary below] and install it into Plex.app/Contents/MacOS. Once we get a sense of how well it’s working, we’ll spin an official release.
And yes, Al, this build does include the sleep fixes as well.
NOTE: Just to reiterate, only NVidia 9400M/GT320M/GT330M chipsets benefit from this. No support for ATI, nor for cards like the NVidia 8800 GT. This is a limitation of the framework provided by Apple (and many thanks for providing it, guys!) and may be addressed in future updates (but don’t get your hopes up). Also, Snow Leopard is required.
UPDATE: Try this new binary, which should fix the crashes. Thanks to Ryan for the quick fixes.
274 comments274 Comments so far
Leave a reply
w00t! i’ll install it as soon as i get back home from work!
I don’t have a lot of 1080 content to test with, but this one, for example, I’m not seeing a change. I’m running on a minidisplayport Mac Mini. System profiler tells me I have a Geforce 9400, but not 9400M, so perhaps that’s the issue at hand.
I ran the first test with most recent plex, then renamed the Plex binary in the application to oldPlex, copied the new binary, and tested again.
http://passionbear.com/charlesv/talk/plexhw-with.png
http://passionbear.com/charlesv/talk/plexhw-without.png
If it’s the GPU, then that’s that (since I know you guys can’t support something the API doesn’t), but was hoping my Mini would be able to play.
Scratch that, looking at the specs from my order sheet, this mini SHOULD have 9400M. Not sure if system profiler consistently reports it as such (my MBP reports its card as a GeForce 8600M GT, for instance).
I just read about this a few days ago.
Now i wanted to hit the blog and the developer forum and find out if anyone noticed it yet and (maybe) already works on it.
Then i hit the blog and it is already implemented!
This was imho the last issue holding Plex back compared to other platforms. Regarding media management and ease of use you were already way ahead (and will probably be even further with Alexandria).
Great job, thank you guys!
I will donate later today.
Awesome, that should help a lot on a mac mini!
I must say.. Impressive.. Never thought I would get HW accell on my Mini G3. Thanks a heap Ryan.
I will definitely have to speed home from work and try this
Good job Plex Team. Can’t wait to see what other surprises are in the bag for Plex 9.
/Mark
great thing, this should make my mac mini less noisy.
Holy crap that was fast! I didn’t expect this for at least a couple months, as I thought it would require work that was out of your hands. Will try it tonight and compare the before and after and post again.
I don’t get it.. did Apple really only introduce HW Acc. decoding for their laptops?!
What about ATI chipsets on the new iMacs? Or is it just Plex that doesn’t support them yet… :/?
Thanks anyway for your hard work
I definitely will have to do this once I get off work today.
wooot! can’t wait to go home and try it!
thank you very much, great job
Awesome! Keep up the great work! I am really looking forward to the full Plex release. Planning on downloading this binary as soon as I get home. THANKS!!
Ahhhh man you guys ROCK! Was so excited when I read the post about Apple exposing the API and hoped you’d pick it up. Certainly expect to see something so damn quick! Just itching to get home from work now to try it out.
oops, that should read “Certainly *DIDN’T* expect”
Incredible! Thanks for sharing and the hard work, i’ll give it a spin soon.
Fantastic work guys, this has taken others a long time to do, and you smack it together in a couple of weeks! I salute you
Wow! I’m installing now. Thanks!
This is awesome! I’ll be testing it today. Thanks for your great effort on getting this so fast!
No doubt ’bout that! – I have a Macbook late 2008 with a 9400M gfx running 10.6.3. I get 20-30% lower CPU usage (both in Plex and top cmd) on the same file.
Should I be able to see any difference in the video quality?
You rock, Ryan!
On my Mac Mini 2,53 GHz I go from ~37 % to 20 % with a 720p M4V file and from 74 to 56 % with a 1080p M4V file. Thats good; however, Quicktime X uses 8-15 % CPU, respectively…
Both clips have embedded subs.
Thanks for impressive quick response to the great H.264 news from Apple.
Hafnium
what, no love for the 8600m/9600m gt
This is an incredible difference on my Mac Mini 2.2 GHz Core Due. CPU usage on a 720p h.264 is down from an average of about 85% to 35% now. Big thanks to Ryan for the effort, you guys rock!
That’s great! Keep up the hard work!
Awesome! Thanks.
wow, what an improvement, cpu basically @ 0% even when playing 1080p mkv. Very impressive!
this is too fresh!
great work!
Love you guys!
Awesome, awesome, awesome… Thank you very much Ryan! The playback improvements are impressive on my old Mini 1.83/1Go/9400M when playing 1080p mkvs (which were lagging and skipping frames before)!
Shame apple did not include an API for the older 950 integrated video. If anything, Minis with these older chip sets could use the help.
According to the information popup in Plex I went from ~60% to ~35% on a 2.26 ghz mac mini with 2 GB of RAM. Which is fricking amazing for such a quick release. But as some of you pointed out – not as good as Quicktime X.
Thanks for the kind words guys. Regarding Quicktime comparisons, it’s not really fair currently given the rest of the Plex player code is unoptomised. That will have to wait for the player rewrite I’m working on now.
Veeeery nice.. 30mbit mkv 1080p file on my Core2Dup 2.66Ghz 9400m..
160% CPU -> 50-60%cpu
what a difference in cpu usage..
thanks.. you are the beeeeest…
Good job! Exciting news. Will this benefit ATI owners? If not, are there any plans or possibility? My iMac has an ATI X1600.
Is this supported on Mac OS X 10.5.8 as well? Or would I have to upgrade my Plex dedicated Mini to SL (tried to avoid that, frankly).
@Sascha: I’ve avoided it too, but now I have no excuses. Snow Leopard is required.
So does this mean that Plex doesn’t use FFMPEG to decode MKVs?
@Ameir: ffmpeg is used to parse and demux the MKVs, the GPU is used to decode the H.264 frames.
@elan ahh ok that makes sense, when I saw Apple post the API I was worried you guys would have to wait for FFMPEG to implement it, very glad you guys were able to do it yourselves.
Definitely kicking back some donation your way, you guys totally deserve it!
This is amazing! Smooth 24fps playback on uncompressed bluray rips! Not a skip/jump. Frame drop minimal (completely unnoticeable). All this on a 2.0GHz Mini.
Now moving completely away from Linux XBMC on mac mini. This works even better! (Was seeing frame drops in occasional film with VDPAU but not with this – maybe the superior player and some CPU usage in Plex has something to do with it?).
Can’t wait for the new Plex 9 features – that will be my ultimate media player!
Sorry to be dumb but where is the Plex.app/Contents/MacOS folder…looked everywhere!
@Phil, find the Plex application icon, right click on it, and select “Show Package Contents”.
This worked like a charm! Much lower cpu usage! Amazed that my 1 year macmini supported this. Cant wait for official release!
Phil: in finder go to /Applications right click plex.app and select show package content then you can find Contents/MacOS
Looking at Ryan’s post yesterday, does this send all H.264 video to the GPU or is it limited to “Main and some High-profile H.264 video”?
Just… amazing! Well done, you guys rock!
Although my MPB doesn not benefit from this (8600GT), it sure is great news.
Thanks!
Would this also work with Snow Leopard Server?
@Keith: Not sure, I assume so, but give it a try and let us know
This is Badass! Great work guys
Is it just me, or is the video/audio completely out of sync when adding this framework?
On my mbp Core2 Duo 3,06 GHZ.
Processor usage droppped from 50% to 30%.
Quite amazing
@Keith @elan
It works great on my 2.0Ghz mini with SL Server.
Working on SL Server.
Macmini 3,1
2.53 GHz
4GB
Thanks for the great work Ryan!
Can’t wait for Plex 9
elan, thanks!
Been waiting for this ever since I got my mini 2.0 Ghz 9400M.
The incredible birds scene from Planet Earth is now playing without a hiccup! WOW!!!
On the downside, my BD 2009 Kuro Demo (1080p .m2ts) made Plex quit after 2 seconds of playing… could be the DTS soundtrack… always had difficulties with this one…but it still play fine on XBMC.
Keep up the good work!
@subcell: Can you try the binary here: http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?/topic/12862-crashing-during-tv-show-playback/page__p__83664&#entry83664
It doesn’t have HW accel but I would like to know if it works or not for your video.
Thanks!
Videos crash with the binary installed. H.264 encoded per Handbrakes “Apple TV” setting.
Mac Mini, March 2009, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Nvidia 9400, 4GB RAM.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
@EricS: All H.264 or just those? Please send me a crash report. Thanks!
Hi,
Thanks a lot for this one, made our life much easier. CPU usage dropped a lot.
But unfortunatelly me and my friend who also tried this one has the same serious problem:
Serious audio desinc when we use this binary (every 1080p .mkv we have tried).
I did not see anyone has encountered the problem, so I have to think I made something wrong. Any ideas?
(assuming everything is accurate)
Wow! In my test video (*1080p.dtsma.x264.mkv >30000 kb/s) CPU utilization via activity monitor was reduced 60%. Amazing.
Unfortunately, the audio stuttering I have in this video, I thought was caused by peak CPU utilization, has not gone away. Must have been something else.
Macmini 3,1
2.26 GHz
2GB
NVIDIA GeForce 9400
I tried some of the Planet Earth episodes I encoded to 1080p mkv. I had three crashes trying three different files, but now I can’t get it to happen again. So after that, looking at 5 different episodes of Planet Earth, and some of the highest bitrate 1080p files I have (The Princess Bride, Godfather II), everything looks really solid. I’ve seen CPU at about 55%-75% on these files. Awesome, ya?
@subcell, which Planet Earth episode has the crazy bird scene (and at what time does it occur)?
Awesome… works on my newer mbp, no problems. Can’t wait for ATI X1600 support (if ever)…
Having crashes on h.264 encoded FLV files as well, which worked fine before the decoder update. The decoding is working amazingly well (dropped avatar from 136% to 50%) usage, but I’d hate to lose part of the library in the process.
My results:
Mac Mini 2.0 GHz
Speed Racer 720p, First Race Scene, avg 12-14 mbps, high 20
CPU Before: Avg 60-70, High 74
CPU After: Very solid 28-29
Excellent work Ryan, now we all anxiously await your CoreVideo rewrite
Damn, now it’s crashed on me several times. I can’t have these crashes happening on the Plex system I use the most, so for now I’ll just have to revert back to plain old 0.8.5.
Regarding what video is supported, even I’m not entirely sure. Most main/high profile H/264 I’ve tried has been fine. The player tries to open any H.264 with the Apple decoder. If the decoder is unsuccessful, we fall back to ffmpeg. Win-win!
I’m also getting crashing trying to play h.264 encodes from Handbrake using the “Apple (Universal)” preset. Xvid encodes play fine; it crashes consistently on my Handbrake h.264 .m4v / .mp4 encodes.
Freakin’ awesome! Seems to have solved my stuttering video issue (limited tests, but so far so good). As my mini (2.26ghz, 4gb, 80gb ssd) isn’t dedicated solely for htpc, the only way to get smooth video playback on my Samsumg 32″ was to make it the primary monitor, then switch back to my 19″ for normal computer use. Works, but kind of a pain. Been trying to solved this issue for months. Can’t tell you how happy this makes me, as I love everything else plex (cross my fingers)! Can’t do much, but will definitely be making a donation. Thanks for all the great work, looking forward to .9.
@swordsandtequila: I don’t think swords and tequila mix. At least not in large quantities.
Matt – I’m finding the same, anything either flv or encoded via handbrake is crashing straight to the finder.
@Ryan, when the decode fails, its supposed to fall back to the default player? Seems like when the decode fails on the 9400M, it just crashes straight to finder. Is there somewhere we can send crash logs?
@Pumpkin plex: Thanks for the good diagnostics, we really appreciate it! Ryan is going to look into it in the next couple of days. In the meantime he has to attend to his “real” job, which – last time I checked – involved saving people’s lives. No, really.
No problem, I’m excited about this it’s a huge feature for plex. @Ryan you can make miraculous coding and save lives? Dude, share the wealth of talent =) were lucky to have dedicated folks like you all working on this great project.
I tried playing an .MP4 (480p) and a 1080p MKV file and they both crashed Plex. I was able to play a lower quality .AVI file fine.
I have one of the latest 2.53 Ghz mac mini’s with the 9400M video card.
Paul
Volante
i bet 90% of people here don’t give a heck about quicktime X and mp4 files.It’s all about 20gb MKV 1080p files
Elan – <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
LOL
Avatar 1080p 20gb on my imac intel 2.4 GHz = 120% CPU on dynamic scenes
Avatar 1080p 20gb on my mac mini 2.26 GHz =140% CPU on dynamic scenes
Avatar 1080p 20gb mac mini with this “fix” = 55% CPU
I love u guys ,so much
@Pumpkin
It should and does fall back if the decoder fails to start. The crashes are something different. I haven’t seen a pattern in terms of hardware yet. I’ll try and collate some bug reports and samples, but it won’t be before the weekend I don’t think.
@dev
Thanks! We love you guys too. Even when I’m grumpy, which is always…
Is the 9400 the same as 9400M? My system reports 9400.
Can anyone confirms whether it is supported or not?
Thanks!
Hello,
sorry if a silly question (I am new to this…), to where should i copy the binary file? I downloaded the file, but cannot find the Plex.app/Contents/MacOS directory…
Thank much in advance.
@Lejon
Applications->Plex (View package contents)
My mini reports Nvidia 9400.Without “M”
@Ryan
Just tried Avatar Remux 37mbit/s = CPU 60% loaded.
You’re a genius!
Hi,
do I have to copy the file to “user/User_xyz/Library/Application Support/Plex”?
And thats it?
Thanks Peter
First of all, thank you for getting us H/W accelerated playback Ryan
I’ve a Mac Mini 2.26 GHz / 4GB / Nvidia 9400M connected to a LCD-TV running 1080p at 60Hz. As reported by many, there’s a huge difference in CPU usage. However, I also agree with others that the audio/video sync seams to be less stable. I mostly playback “film” content (23.97 FPS). If I press the “i” (show codec information) key, I notice that the FPS is going up and down more than previously. It was more close to 23.97 FPS before. Also, the audio/video sync value seams to be going up and down more.
Is it just me or anyone else noticing this?
peter_dpp
No,go to applications,right click on plex,show package content,go to resources>MacOS>and replace the Plex file
Works great with Mac OS 10.6.3 server! About 50% less CPU usage on a Mac Mini 2.26 GHz / 2GB / Nvidia 9400M using this “fix”.
Have the same problem with universal profile encodings from handbrake as others have reported. (works fine with high profile encoded vids)
This is absolutely awesome! looking in activity monitor in my unscientific way I have gone from around 70-80% CPU watching Avatar 17GB file to about 30%
Donation on its way…
Very nice! Good fast work. Now all I need is a new MacMini..
Seems to work also on my MBP, September 2008 model, with the 9600M GT activated (Higher Performance activated in Energy Settings). Can anyone confirm that I am not mistaken? Does that mean that it also works for the 9600M GT or does it mean that in that case the second Graphics Card 9400M is used even when it is not activated?
Just wondering
Ive got the same problem as second poster from the top (charles)
No performance increase at all. I mean none, whatsoever.
System profiler tells me I have a Geforce 9400.
This is awesome. I just tested it and it really works!!! Keep up the great work guy’s
.
@Ryan – Nice! I knew when I saw this framework announced you’d find a way to put it to use. You busted it out in short order too. I’m hanging out at the beach this week but this is almost enough to make me want to run home to play. I guess I’ll stay here and suffer through though. Looking forward to the player re-write.
@all the Plex dudes – You guys rock. Plex completes me (notice that I was careful how I worded that)
I reinstalled plex from scratch, same problem. then i toggled the refresh rate from 60 to 50 and back to 60 hz. Voilla, Plex shaves up more than 50% of the CPU usage. 2 days after Apple released the API. How fucking amazing isnt this!!!!!
@osplo
It has to be 9400M – with M. Else it will either crash (my Mac mini early 2009 did) or fail to start the VDA (new iMac early 2010):
14:16:43 T:2958217216 M:2053570560 NOTICE: Attempting to start VDA Hardware Decoder
14:16:43 T:2958217216 M:2053537792 ERROR: VDADecoderCreate failed. err: -12470
Thank you so much!!!
Do I have to activate something in th settings?
I use Lanczos scaling on my 2,24GHz mac mini and it stills mention software scaling in the menu when playing… Or should I use bilinear scaling?
Anyway I’m testing via VNC from work on my mini at home so I’ll see tonight if it’s better.
Hi, Plex team,
I did a quick trial last night, using The Bourne Ultimatum trailer in 1080p.
CPU usage before ranged from 55-75% (mostly 60-70%)
CPU usage after remained steady around 45%
Configuration is 2009 iMac mini with 2GHz, 2Gb, 9400M using Display-to-HDMI adapter.
I hope this is useful.
Best wishes,
Paul
Sweet! Just tested with a 1080 rip with DTS, worked nice before, but now it runs really smooth! About 30% Less CPU usage on my mini dc 2.0Ghz. Thanks!
I tested a lot of 720p and 1080p mkv files and the speedup is really impressive.
Around 60% usage on a mac mini 2ghz with 9400M while watching 1080p mkv.
Nice work!
@Volante
Yes, because the *only* video files that people watch using Plex are 1080p .mkv files. =/
Crashy McCrashalot for most of my H.264 movies, but promising in the long term. Keep up the good work.
Absolutely AWESOME ! Finally stutter-free 1080p .mkv playback on my C2D Mac Mini !
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You !!!
@Clem: I don’t recommend Lanczos, too CPU intensive for HD content generally.
Thank you, finally i can watch my movies in the highest quality without stuttering.
Donation is already sendt, keep up the good work your people are doing !!
@osplo
Mine says 9400, and it works great! Thanks Elan!
I installed this on my Mac Mini C2D 2.0GHz with the 9400 (no M) GPU and I was getting the same results as everyone else, CPU usage down from roughly 115% to 65% on VC-1 1080p Blu-Ray rips, but after trying a few .mkv files I encoded myself from DVD in Handbrake, I now get crashes on those .mkv’s, and the CPU usage is back up to it’s regular values (110%-115%). Reverting back to the old Plex binary lets me play the .mkv’s I encoded myself. I’m hoping it’s a bug and it’ll get fixed in the next release as I was getting results even with my Nvidia 9400 graphics card, like @dev.
Glad to hear it works with the 9400, I guess I’ll update my Mini after all.
Ryan is aware of the crashes, and will look into then in the next few days!
@elan
Glad to hear it, you guys on the dev team are doing amazing work!
Re the comments made about handbrake encoded videos (apple universal preset) — I to am experiencing a crash straight back to finder — but stuff from off the ‘net is a bit variable. Use Visual Hub 1.33 with H.264 encoding, iTunes / high. Some stuff find, other stuff crashes straight back to finder
.
13″ 2009 Macbook Pro, 10.6.3 Nvida 9400M.
Have crash logs if interested.
Will this help do GPU acceleration in the older generation Mac Minis (with the integrated GMA 950) ?
@Kimsharma: As mentioned in the post, only certain NVidia models are helped. Sorry!
You guys rock! It’s working great with my 9400 equipped mac mini.
Better development – that’s why I stick with Plex instead of Boxee and XBMC.
Can’t find the folder to put the plex file?
Damn, i have a 9400 in my Mini… Any ideas if these models will be supported soon? Maybe in the 10.6.4 update?
Very good and fast job by the way!
@Johan, I’m in the same boat. From what I understand, if you read through the comments, come people seem to be having luck with them.
Johan
It says 9400,but obviously it’s 9400M,coz mini can’t have a desktop version inside LOL.Mine says 9400 too,and it works great with this “patch”
it says 9400 in the system info,and it says 9400M on the mac mini’s box.
The video system in all early 2009 Mac Mini is NVIDIA 9400M – this is true regardless of whether the System Profiler reports 9400 (without the ‘M’ suffix).
Please see this link
http://support.apple.com/kb/sp505
cool. It does indeed. Looks like 9400=9400M
Thanks Elan. I tried this on the second 9400 box and it works really well
I do have issues now with playing the raw m2ts files now. Without the HW acceleration they plays perfectly but with the acceleration, i get tons of dropped frames. Is there a way to “swtich off” hw acceleration with the m2ts files?
Jocke, in your application folder right click on “Plex.app”. Then click “Show Package Contents”. You’ll either get internet porn or the folder you’re looking for.
I installed this update on my Mac Mini C2D 2.0GHz with the 9400M GPU (reported in system profiler as 9400). I don’t see any difference when playing a blu-ray (1080p H.264) ripped straight to a m2ts container. Are m2ts containers supported?
Jocke….elan already answered my question on this…
“find the Plex application icon, right click on it, and select “Show Package Contents”
Worked for me…(thanks elan)
I think it’s a bit strange with the M’s and no M’s on the 9400 GPU. All references I can find to mini’s show that none are equipped with 9400 (no M) – but all have the 9400M GPU unit.. but my System Profiler still says:
Graphics/Displays:
NVIDIA GeForce 9400:
Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9400
Type: GPU
Bus: PCI
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0×0861
Revision ID: 0x00b1
ROM Revision: 3362
I have the early 2009 Mac Mini.
Anyone knows more about this?
Will be there support for eyetv h264 accelerator usb dongle?
Hey, does the hardware acceleration work on AVCHD content, where the video is encoded with H.264 high profile?
Tech specs for early 2009 Mini indicate 9400M also.
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP505
Oh, well thats great then
Will try it at home soon.
where are the logfiles that show how plex is trying to decode the files? i have a GT210 which i think is very much like a 9400M. i’m trying to figure out if plex’s hardware decoding is explicitly checking for supported GPUs, or if it’s apple’s code that determines if the video card is worthy or not.
if plex reports h264 as the decoder (using “i”), is that ffmpeg?
to be honest, quicktime player is showing the same 50-70% cpu utilization on my test file so i’m thinking that perhaps this video card is just not supported by the OS for video decoding…? the card definitely works under OpenCL…
A BIG thanks.
It is really impressive.
A 1080p video now uses max. 60% CPU (before it was around 150%)!
Latest MacMini here with 9400. Crashes to desktop for me – viewing m4v files ripped from DVD at highest quality using Handbrake. Gone back to original version.
Thanks for the update. Blu-ray rips I’ve made using the Apple TV preset in Handbrake seem to work fine (CPU usage is hovering around 50% even with Blu-ray MKV files) though some have started displaying “chapter 00″ etc when the subtitles are enabled. DVD rips made using Handbrake’s Apple Universal preset either glitch badly or crash back to the desktop
Oh, in system profiler my graphics card is listed as a 9400 without the M, the mac mini was bought just after Christmas this year.
oh, phooey the G210 is actually an 8xxx series gpu. still it would be interesting to know where to look to see what plex is doing as it starts decoding the file.
Crashes in h264 mkvs a plenty for me, I can send bug report if needed. Latest available mini.
After I replace the ‘plex’ file in Contents\MacOS
Plex starts asking for firewall access every time I start it , i guess because of the signature of the application was modified.
Any way around this?
I would be interested in knowing where to check what kind of decoding Plex is using while playing a file (GPU or CPU decoding). That way I can check if things work or not…
Regarding crashes with Handbrake encoded DVD content:
I’m fairly certain all SD H.264 content will crash Plex with VDA.
I hope the Ryan and Elan see this thread: http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?/topic/9366-h264-gpu-decoding/page__st__60
Also, all Mac Minis introduced after March 2009 has hardware capable of H.264 decoding, i.e. even though it says 9400 (sans M) in the System Profiler, it is still the “right” chipset. Finally, I’m almost certain that all recent MacBooks contains the decoder hardware; however, if using the discrete graphics (Energy Saving prefs/Graphics set to “Higher performance”), the decoding hardware is not enabled. I don’t know about iMac – they may use Ati graphics which are not supported.
I have done some testing, and the Mac Mini (early 2009) with GeForce 9400 (no M in system profiler) DOES succeed in using the new VDA:
From ~Library/Logs/Plex.log:
10:25:52 T:2958749696 M:340844544 NOTICE: Attempting to start VDA Hardware Decoder
10:25:53 T:2958749696 M:337100800 NOTICE: Creating video thread
This is tested on various files, .mkv, .mp4, .iso. On some mkv’s it cannot start VDA and fails over:
From ~Library/Logs/Plex.log:
10:30:51 T:2957684736 M:330878976 NOTICE: Attempting to start VDA Hardware Decoder
10:30:51 T:2957684736 M:330739712 ERROR: VDADecoderCreate failed. err: -12473
10:30:51 T:2957684736 M:330727424 NOTICE: Creating video thread
Some mp4 files, makes Plex crash. But generally 9 out of ten files gets hardware decoded, and the CPU usage is thereby reduced. In my case to around 30% for 720p and 50% for 1080p – compared to 50-60% and 90-110% when using CPU – depending og file size etc.
I played a 1080p version of Law Abiding Citizen, and the difference was quite noticeable: CPU usage was normally around 110%, but with the new binary it was constant at 50%. That is just great stuff.
While ATI not supported – Win 7 to play HD =/
Let me tell you this. If the REFRAME option in mkv (and vc-1 i suppose) is set to more than 10 (or 8 ? correct me if i’m wrong)- HA won’t work.But hopefully all my movies are 2-6 max reframe so i’m good.You can check the reframe option in media info (vlc too ,mb). btw good rips are always 2-5 reframe .so if u have a good quality rips (u know what i mean) ,you’re cool.
oops,forget to say 1 more thing.this is valid for windows with all the players around there,like media player classic ,kmplayer and blah blah blah.installed bootcamp and tested it to be sure by myself
valid for windows TOO*
sorry for spamming,really ,i’m kinda sleepy today :/
Early 09 Mini reporting in – like other have reported 9400 (no M) works for sure.
Early on I was disappointed that it was crashing for everything including non H.264 material. I then remembered that I’d only just upgraded to Snow Leopard (specifically to try this GPU acceleration update) and hadn’t installed any updates to my copy of SL.
***Remember to upgrade your install of SL to 10.6.3 or this doesn’t have a prayer of working…
I’m experiencing the same issues with the HB ATV universal setting. What logs do you want us to submit and should we be submitting in the forums or here?
Thanks for a tremendous update – Plex is the killer app right now!
Elan, I think we have the same Mini if I am not mistaken. I have upgraded mine to SL and applied the fix. My CPU usage dropped about 70%. On Star Trek 1080P I was at 126% CPU. I am about 53 – 60% now! Wow thanks. I will test more tonight.
I have noticed something Odd about the ramerate as someone else has mentioned. When I set my TV to 24P the FPS on the MKV jumps all over the place. When I put it back to 60hz it stays constant at 23.9 – 24.0. It maybe because of the SL upgrade and have nothing to do with the Patch.
My system is the March 2009 Mini that reports “9400″. The box says 9400M.
@Hafnium – I’ve found the same issue. If there is a switch in the code to not have Hardware decoding for SD content, I think it will clear up nearly all of the crashing issues.
Hi,
I’ve got macbook pro 13/2.26/2GB/9400M/250GB. I would like to know if my macbook pro can play pure Blu-ray disk video flawlessly? I mean video with peak bitrate about 70 MB/s? Thanks
I’ve fixed the SD content crash. Note not all SD content is accelerated by the framework, but it should now fall back to the software decoder if the video is unsupported.
Ryan you rock, is the new binary at the same link as previous?
@Pumpkin: I’m spinning up a build and will post a new link shortly.
So this includes the sleep fixes, does it include the additional fix for the dimming issue?
NVidia 9400M
on 1080 movies the cpu has dropped to <43% utilization, previously <120%
huge visible difference.
Thank you Ryan.
Elan this is aaaawesome man!!!
Preliminary tests show ~7% for 720p content and ~19% for 1080p content on a Macbook Pro with 2.8ghz.
If that 20% standalone-Plex CPU footprint were magically reduced it’d be even better! But those video CPU footprints are ridiculously amazing!
I’ve been hoping for this day for a long time – and its finally here! Thank god for all you PLEX devs!
At the risk of sounding really stupid, I am going to ask for help installing this binary. I downloaded it and opened it – it opened a terminal window and i got the following…
Last login: Sat May 1 14:41:28 on ttys000
/Users/XXXXX/Library/Application\ Support/Plex/Plex ; exit;
home:~ XXXXX$ /Users/XXXXX/Library/Application\ Support/Plex/Plex ; exit;
dyld: Library not loaded: @loader_path/../Frameworks/BWToolkitFramework.framework/Versions/A/BWToolkitFramework
Referenced from: /Users/XXXXX/Library/Application Support/Plex/Plex
Reason: image not found
Trace/BPT trap
logout
[Process completed]
Mac Mini 3,1 2.53 – Snow Leopard Server 10.6.3, 4GB, 500GB RAID.
Thank you
iMac 21.5-inch, Late 2009, NVIDIA GeForce 9400 Chipset Model according to System Profiler (i.e., not 9400M). The entry-level iMac 21.5-inch has a 9400M according to:
http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html
Plex.log reports:
ERROR: VDADecoderCreate failed. err: -12470
Meaning kVDADecoderHardwareNotSupportedErr
No small white square from Flash Player “Gala” Preview Release either…
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/gala/
A bug in the Acceleration Framework perhaps? Or in the way that the NVIDIA card is being reported on this iMac?
OH MY GOD!!!
I just realised that PLEX is now the first working solution for Hardware Acceleration for Flash content on Mac OS!!!
I assumed that since HD videos on Youtube were in H264, i’d give it a try on the YouTube Plex app, and lo and behold, I was playing HD Youtube trailers with like 7% video CPU usage!!! That’s RIDICULOUS!
Guys btw, is there anyway the YouTube app can play 1080p YouTube videos, as it seems to downscale them all back to 720p..
Awesome work guys!
You can also install the new beta version of Flash Player, named Gala, that supports hardware acceleration the same way Plex does.
@Bidule200: The new Flash Player is likely not supported for viewing WebKit content inside Plex.
Guys,
I’m sorry that I couldn’t leave a bigger donation that I just did on Paypal. You’created something out of this world in terms of a media centre (Front Row – heh), and I’d just to take thank you for the hard work and dedication. You’re doing a sterling job, and you’re only be admired for what you’ve put together.
Until yesterday I was in two minds as to whether I wanted to put an SMB share on my super-secure NFS-AFP servers . It genuinely might have be a deal breaker until I realised that I could just *erm…cough* point the soruces at the Mac running the Plex sortware itself, which is of course, all. ur AFP and NFS ..Doh! Idiot.
As for an for an iphone remote – stroke of genuis,; totally and utterly awesome., utterly aweomse. It’s still a pretty box, but my Mac Mini lives in a draw, so it’s not like the Apple remote, or any other line of sight solution will work. Tried Mobile Air sharing for a while, and it t*works* but not like this.
Thanks again.
Tom
Cherers,
Tom
Hows the new iPad elan? =)
@Pumpkin: Totally awesome. BTW, can you send me an email, I tried you via pumpkin@hotmail.com but it either got spammed or wasn’t your real email
After installing this file on a brand new Mac Mini 2.66 GHz 4 GB Ram, my Avatar 32 GB .MKV file stutters. In fact, very choppy playback for all .MKV 1080P files. After going back to the original Plex file, everything is smooth again.
If you build this into the next version of Plex, make it an optional check box just in case we need to use the original CPU-based encoder.
Thanks.
Awesome, I got the wifi version on release day and haven’t regretted a single second. I’ve got the house setup with plex on three different TVs connected to a NAS. Now I’m starting to figure out this AirVideo thing to get media to the Pad =) wish I was a C guru with knowledge of ffmpeg to help with Plex. (new email on this, sorry bout spam account)
@PsychicDreamer, it’ll be a preference in the release, definitely. That having been said, I’m surprised, so the vast majority of people didn’t seem to experience that problem on MKVs. (Wow, 32GB)
I ran avatar uncompressed makemkv backup of my bluray with zero problems on the hardware decoder. If anything, my eye detected smoother transitions during heavy motion scenes, although plex has never reported a dropped frame before or after hardware decoding, so it may just be my imagination. The 129% CPU usage changing to 50% is definitely real though. The main problem I had experiences was the SD issue resulting in crashes when the hardware decoder tried to process them.
Curious when the new bin will be available for testing.
My MacBook Pro (Mid 2009) reproducably crashes when trying this version.
System Profiler claims it has the 9400M thingy installed, though.
8^(
@Atyoung, give this binary a try: http://bluemandrill.com/plex/Plex-hw-accel-decode-2.zip
Should fix the crashes, thanks to Ryan.
Thanks for the hotfix. The 2 movies that were crashing on me since the HW Accel update are now working.
The crashes on Handbrake encoded h.264 files seem to have stopped with the new fixes. Are non-HD files still being accelerated in hardware? Or will only 720p/1080p content benefit from these new changes?
Thanks! This allows me to play my 5DMKII video files whereas before they would stutter all over the place.
(On my mini BTW)
It would appear to be working on the first crashy movie, I’ll post back when I have more time to test with misc content.
No problems so far on the updated file. I’ve tested at least 7 or 8 videos and no crashes so far. Thanks!
Pumpkin,
off topic but Airvideo ‘makes’ the Ipad IMHO!!
Now we just need it to look like plex and access plex’s library……guys??
Works great now, except when the display is set to 24p. Then the video stutters and audio is out of sync.
@Johan: Known issue, been like that forever. Run @ 60Hz.
I find that audio sync on a display set at 24fps is only a problem with rips that have been through handbrake (m4v or mkv 1080p files that I have tried this on). Uncompressed rips seem to play with no sync issues at all.
This is also a problem in xbmc linux (using VDPAU) with 24fps films. The difference is that xbmc speeds up the video briefly at the beginning for the audio and video to sync up. Is this because handbrake removes a blank portion of the audio file at the beginning of the film? Is there any way for plex to do this too? Why does this only happen with displays set at 24fps and not at 60fps?
I am clearly too basic a user to understand these complexities. Hats off to you guys for this!
I’ve installed the updated Plex and everything seems to be working fine and the Handbrake encoded files are now playing back without an issue. This is brilliant. Thanks.
The updated binary works great. Much appreciated!
If anyone is interested I’ve just watched the Blu-ray rip I made of Avatar (uncompressed 1080P / DTS .m2ts in a .mkv) using the new build. It looked fantastic apart from an occasional screen tear glitch which I’ve not noticed before with the previous builds of Plex. Not sure if this connected to the new build though?
Heya,
I too have noticed a massive audio sync issue when watching anything with the display at 24Hz. Before I usually had to to adjust the offset to ~ -0.100 to -0.200ms….but now it’s considerably more out-of-sync.
At 60Hz the audio sync is fine….but then you get the shearing and judder….
Had to revert back to 0.8.5
Dear Elan,
I am having a terrible time with this on my early 2009 mac mini.
very choppy video, crashes after 5 or 6 seconds. Can I post you the crash report?
Kurios
one silly question is this method is like using cuda ?
Hi,
I’m having issues with hebrew subtitles display after updating – when plex decide to split the line to 2 (due to length), the first part is at the buttom, while the second part is on top (reversed order). I reverted back to 0.8.5 and the problem disappeared.
Anyone else had this problem?
Assaf
@Assaf: Where are the subtitles coming from? MP4 or external file? Can you post on the forums or plexapp.lighthouseapp.com with a detailed explanation? Thanks!
great work, thanks,
on my mac mini 2.53 duo core 2 with 9400m 1080p mkv goes from 97% cpu down to 46%
Élan,
My earlier post about uncompressed mkv files stuttering or choppy playback with this feature may be related to my system running at 24 Hz instead of 60?
I though Plex should always run at 24 Hz if possible otherwise choppy playback will occur?
What is your recommendation on which setting our lcds should be set at for watching 24fps movies.
Mark
@PsychicDreamer: My recommendation would be 50/60Hz, I’ve not had good luck with 24Hz. Yeah, there will be a bit of judder, but running at 24Hz gives me worse results. Of course, YMMV, and other people seem to have better luck with it.
Played with the #2 HW accelerated build for the past couple days on my 9400 equipped early 2009 Minis. Watched two Blu-Ray movies and several tv show episodes in h.264. Let me say I’m quite impressed. CPU use is way down and dare I say that it appears the video playback is much smoother. NICE! FWIW – all the encodes I do currently are run through Handbrake .94 using the High-Profile preset as a starting point and put into MKV container. These work without a hitch. Mmmmm…. buttery smooth Plex goodness.
Response from Elgato to the question: “Will be VDADecoder (http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/technotes/tn2010/tn2267.html) for EyeTV Diversity (capable of decode h264) or Turbo h264?”
Hello Rafael,
Thank you for contacting Elgato Systems.
I’m not able to comment on future product plans, but I can pass on your comments to our developers. My understanding is if VDA is implemented in the CoreAVC decoder, this should reduce the CPU usage of our H.264 decoder process on Macs equipped with NVIDIA graphic cards supported by VDA.
Regards,
Andrea Lindgren
Customer Support
Elgato Systems LLC
900 Kearny Street Suite 750 San Francisco CA 94133-5145
http://www.elgato.com – http://support.elgato.com
For news, special offers and user tips, subscribe to our newsletter:
http://www.elgato.com/subscribeNews
Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: NSO-133107
Department: Technical Support (English)
Priority: Feature Request / Feedback
Status: In Progress
hi all,
good news.
but i’m on a hackintosh. does anyone know if other geforce cards benefit from this? i’m on a geforce9600 GT, with efi strings.
any ideas?
greets
xzeroGx
I’m posting this question for a friend who has a MacBook Pro with with the dual chipsets (9400M + the higher-end model…I think 9600M GT or something like that). I don’t have the computer in front of me, but I think there is a energy setting that allows you to let the MacBook go back and forth between the 2 graphics chips depending on your energy preferences? I’m not sure if the switching happens automatically or if you have to reboot the computer to go between them. Perhaps someone who has one of these MacBook Pros could enlighten me.
Does my friend need to have the MacBook in a specific mode to use this? Is he better off forcing the MacBook to use the 9400M chipset and thus is taking advantage of hardware acceleration? Or is he better off using the beefier 9600M GT (and I guess not taking advantage of hardware acceleration)? Which should yield better video performance in terms of quality? And which should yield more efficient CPU usage?
Thoughts?
Had some rips of BBC Life that had a few scenes that were jittery. Now things are running great! No crashes so far.
@cyrdog: I think the acceleration is used regardless of what card is active, but that is second hand information.
Any idea if Flash Player 10.1 or Gala will work now that Plex has hardware acceleration?
@Justin: I’m nearly certain Plex still doesn’t work with Flash 10.1. Steve Jobs told me that Flash was dead, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.
We don’t all suckle from his teet, so I’m not too concerned with what NutJobs says. However, I’d like to be able to run 10.1 or Gala for my day-to-day Flash development. Unfortunately, South Park/Hulu/The Daily Show won’t work. This has been reported on the forums and the solution is to rollback, which I’ve done. Still wondering if 10.1 support will be coming to Plex soon…
@Justin: It’s on the list of things to look into, but I’m afraid it’s not in the top ten things. I wish we could just ship our own Flash 10 plug-in for Plex to use privately, but I believe the licensing restricts us from doing so.
Thanks, I appreciate the hard work, regardless.
hi there: i have mac mini core2duo 2.53 4g ram. running snow leopard 10.6.3 with my files in an external usb drive connected directly to my mac mini. i have the avatar bluray rip in mkv 264. Before installing the binary it was stutering and the cpu usage goes for almost 90% to 100%, after installing the binary it went to 50 or below, but it still stutering. Something went wrong, let me explain, i just bought the mac mini, and even before the binay, the file was playing smooth a file on a network drive over wireless n. i also have a macbook pro 17 core2duo 2.83 4gb, i play the same file,over wireless, and it plays very smooth, even without the binary. i just install on the mini, handbrake, vuze (none are running), and because i don’t like quictime X, i copy quicktime 7 to applications. now i deleted it, but the problems is the same. i know is not procesor overload. Another thing i noticed, that the file prior to playing on plex ,it showed that was buffering the file, now is not, is playing immediatly. i will appreciate any help, thank you
just forgot to say conexion minidvi to dvi input tv 1080p
Most amazing app i run in my home systems, Running snow leopard, have the sleep crash issue when drives hibernate. Hoping this file will fix as it’s my only real issue. I unzip it and it shows as an exec file, not sure what to do with it. Sorry if I am sounding stupid, can you please advise?
Thanks in advance.
Peace
“UPDATE: Try this new binary, which should fix the crashes. Thanks to Ryan for the quick fixes.”
is there anything new in this? i got the “original” h.264 decoding binary.. and no crashes so far..
should i download this updated binary anyway? or what is the difference? nothing is better with it besides fixes crashes for some people?
thankz again.. this is awesome work guys
Hi Elan!
The hebrew subtitles problem (revered order) occurs when I use srt files with either mkv or avi files. I don’t know on which forum you want me to post this, but I’ll be happy to do it if you tell me.
Thanks
Assaf
This works great on my mac mini which says it has a 9400, not a 9400M.
Testing with some 1080p, CPU usage went from around 100-120% to around 40-50%
Darn fine work lovely Plex peoples
Same Hebrew subtitles problem here.
After the change, punctuation marks go to the begining of the sentence.
I’m using SRT subtitles.
Thing get solved when i change back to to original binary fils.
….any idea?
I have a problem there…As somebody already mentioned, after installing the binary CPU usage dropped from 120%-140% to +-60% but stuttering did not went away/in some cases even increased. I tested with different .mkv files and on some for example BigBuckBunny 1080p there was no stuttering with default binary but it started to stutter with hardware decoder binary…
I have Mac Mini (early 2009) and 10.6.3 with latest Plex
@Susurs: what refresh rate are you running your display on?
Hmm…the only info I found is there:
(but system info does not give me any information about primary monitor refresh rate. How do I find it out and do i need to change something?) Thanks
SDM-HS74P:
Resolution: 1280 x 1024
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Philips 231T:
Resolution: 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Television: Yes
Looks fine to me @60Hz. Not sure why you’re seeing stuttering
I was trying with version 0.8.5, from downloads. Is that the right version for use with this binary?
@Susurs: Yes.
Here is too links that states that hardware decoding is possible on 8600M GT:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8600M_fbs.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-8600M-GT.3986.0.html
Also, when I bootcamp my MBP to Windows XP, with up to date drivers and use Media Player Classic Home Cinema to view h264 mkv 1080p mkv files, it does hardware decoding very nicely! I’ve tested myself (with GPU monitor open).
Any ideas why the 8600M GT is left behind? Is it Apple’s fault?
@Iraê: Yes, Apple.
Just for the records, my iMac 24″ (late 2009) with GeForce 9400 (not 9400M) has also being blessed by this feature. Both Flash “Gala” Preview and the Plex binary posted were able to use the GPU Video Engine (I’ve verified with OpenGL Monitor).
Many thanks for this feature!
Is there any log file or something where I can monitor and determine if gpu acceleration is enabled in Plex?
Looking at system monitor I can only see cpu usage. There is a programm atMonitor as well but is there something more advanced so I can detect/track down what kind of problem is happening with this stuttering?
Works great on “regular” h264 mkv files, but absolutely no change on raw mts files taken from the video camera. Any idea?
@elan May 7th, 2010 12:28 pm : I still have shuttering at 60Hz too
MacMini with 9400M
Ok, I found some information and settings related to stuttering and maybe my HW acceleration not working, but its too long to post it there, so there is forum thread:
http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?/topic/14164-h264-hardware-acceleration/
I had to enable true fullscreen mode to reduce stuttering but for HW acceleration OSX console is giving me:
myDecoderOutputCallback – NULL image buffer! (don’t know what it means and if that’s what’s causing problem – just guessing)…
@Susurs – If you have any Apple’s Developer SDKs you can determine if video decoding is being used with /Developer/Applications/Graphics Tools/OpenGL Driver Monitor.app – After opening the application you can choose “Video Engine Utilization” by double clicking on it. Next you run Plex and look at the graphs.
You may want to run Plex as a window to verify that. Press ⌘F to switch from window to full screen.
Thanks!
I installed atMonitor cause I did not wanted to install 2GB developer tools from Snow Leopard CD.
If OpenGL driver monitor can provide me with more details I will instal and test it as well however.
I posted screenshots from atMonitor in forum topic again:
http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?/topic/14164-h264-hardware-acceleration/
As I wrote earlier I believe GPU acceleration is ON judging already but CPU usage, but to my mind something is wrong and not working cause with HW acceleration ON I get more stuttering and worse performance. It can’t be that CPU is doing better alone…than there is no use of this technology…
Without HW acceleration it stutters in PlanetEarthBirds sample only when voice tells “5 million birds” and they actually show them on the screen.
With HW acceleration ON it stutters from the beginning to the end more or less.
Could somebody tell me what does: myDecoderOutputCallback – NULL image buffer! means?
Thank you!
Susurs
If you’re using a Tv like me (i have a sony bravia 46″) change 60hz to 50hz.with 60hz i can see some stuttering..mb coz my tv is 100hz, so 50×2 is doubling the refresh rate and with 60hz it can’t double it so it starts to skip some frames.or,mb i’m wrong (i’m not a profi) . ..anyway i solved it in this way (not for this particular fix,but in general for my 2009 mini + sony bravia tv
I just installed this on my Macbook Air (2.13ghz, 9400M, 10.6.3) and I’m having very poor performance – the video runs very slowly, has a lot of judder/stuttering and goes out of sync with the audio. I had no problems running 1080p videos before. Any thoughts?
I do have CoolBook installed but that only under-volts the CPU.
I’ve checked that the GPU is indeed being utilized using the OpenGL Driver Monitor.app – both ‘GPU Video Engine’ and ‘GPU core’ show close to 100% usage. Turning off the unnamed option under video settings seems to turn off the ‘GPU Video Engine’ while the ‘GPU core’ still shows close to 100% usage – videos run fine when that setting is turned off (but I’m assuming that the CPU is doing most of the work in that case).
seems like interlaced h464 sources isnt working. Just ripped one with makemkv and its a no go in both plex and xbmc
@May 9, 2010, 2:50 AM
Thanks!
I have two options for TV refresh rate: 60hz NTSC and 50hz PAL. I tested both and there is no change at all. But I left it at 50hz PAL for now anyway…
@Sohel I’m afraid you have miss read the OpenGL Drive Monitor. AFAIK The GPU is aways used, since you have to pass the signal trough it to see something on the screen. So in both GPU accelerated and not, you should have plenty GPU usage. But if you’re using GPU for video decoding, it should discriminate the resources used for this task with a different color. I Like to turn on ‘GPU Core Utilization’, ‘GPU Memory utilization’ and ‘GPU video engine utilization’. Only the last one means that you are having h264 decoded by the GPU.
Another thing is: OpenGL Drive Monitor uses logarithmic graph (log) by default, witch means that it will stretch the graph to show the bottom part most clearly. In my case 25% may look like 90% if you are expecting linear rendering. Try changing to linear to get a better understanding of the graphs.
@Irae
‘GPU Core Utilization’, ‘GPU Memory utilization’ and ‘GPU video engine utilization’ are indeed the options that I did turn on. Please re-read my post – I have said that ‘GPU Core Utilization’ always remained close to 100% while the ‘GPU video engine utilization’ would either be close to 100% or 0%, depending on whether the ‘blank’ or ‘unnamed’ option was turned on or off. However, I did find that ‘GPU Memory Utilization was always zero, regardless of the option chosen.
As for my understanding of the graph, I don’t think I’ve made any error – I was going both by the graph itself (which was close to 1G) and the value of the graph that is displayed as a percentage – which was close to 100%.
Anyway, if you do have an explanation for why I’m experiencing very poor video performance when the GPU is utilized – I would be most interested in that.
I’m having the same problem as Phil (posted April 29th). Handbrake files ripped using the AppleTV preset show the “Chapter #” at the bottom of the screen. Is there anything I can do to address this issue? Thanks!
Hi,
Great to see the fast adoption of this API. I would like to add that like someone above 1080p BD rips stutter a bit using the HW player but the software player is fine.
Likewise Plex is on a brand new Mac Mini 2.53Ghz 4Gb RAM 320Gb setup although I stream from a ReadyNAS NVX connected via a GB Switch rather than use local storage.
Transfer rates from the switch can sustain ~60MB per second easily and peak network utilisation is ~6MB per second when watching a stream. Copying the file to the local hard disk doesn’t change anything.
If I can help debug this then please contact me via email so I can give you diagnostic info, run tests etc.
One of my devices running Plex is a Mac Mini 2.26GHz. I haven’t had time to upgrade the RAM from 1GB yet. Since I don’t have at least 2GB, I only have half of the 256 MB of VRAM available. Everything was running quite well before I tried playing with the hardware acceleration. i was surprised, in fact, that I didn’t feel the need to upgrade earlier. I had intended to from the moment I ordered the Mac Mini, but it performed so well that I’ve been putting it off.
Anyway, I’m seeing some issues with the hardware acceleration version of Plex. Issue #1 is that videos take a long time to load (5-10 seconds delay). I can usually hear the audio, but the video takes a while to buffer (even if played from the local hard disk). Perhaps this is related to my 1GB of VRAM?
Issue #2 is that I’m seeing video and audio getting out of sync a lot more than I ever had in the past. Has anyone else seen this as well? It’s not all the time, and it’s not tied to a specific type of content (e.g. 24 fps 1080p or anything like that). I’m seeing it sporadically even with 720p and/or 1080i content that’s in 60fps. I think it might have to do with system resources, as a full OS X reboot often fixes it.
@cyrdog: Total shots in the dark here (have yet to install Snow Leopard on my Mini), but if the sync problems seem to increase over time, can you see if Plex memory usage is increasing? Does restarting Plex resolve the issue for a while?
@Iain May 11th, 2010 3:38 am
Could you and other people having problems with HW acceleration please provide more exact details about the issue in this topic:
http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?/topic/14164-h264-hardware-acceleration/
I think there are already at least four people there with this issue but developers tell they can’t replicate problem…
I have the late 2009 iMac with the 9400m (although Profiler lists it as GeForce 9400) and am running 10.6.3, and I’ve installed the binary but have not noticed any decrease in CPU usage. When I open up the binary file, this is what I get: http://i40.tinypic.com/wlsy36.png. I’ve tried to test it with multiple 720p and 1080p files, but there’s been no difference on any of them. Any help?
For me Plex idles at 24.9 % cpu on average…why is that?
Shouldn’t it be close to zero while not playing anything?
@cyrdog
I have heard the extending the RAM in the MacMini past 2Gb makes a significant different, that was coming from a developer involved with eyetv and other projects.
I would say 99% sure thats why your 2.26Ghz is struggling, I bought a 2.0Ghz from the refurb store last year and the first thing I did was up it to 4Gb RAM.
W00T! Very nice!
You can’t have more than 256Mb VRAM even if you put 4Gb RAM in MacMini vs 9400M and I have still free RAM when playing HD video with Plex even having 2Gb of system memory…
I did not tested 4Gb with Plex but before I had 4Gb in system and for general system usage did not see any difference when I took one RAM stick out.
The problem is that I don’t even have 2GB of RAM in my 2.26GHz Mac Mini. I’m running at 1GB at the moment. So my VRAM is limited to 128MB. I am looking to upgrade it shortly as soon as I find a good deal.
@elan – It is absolutely a memory-type issue. If I leave the machine running for a long period of time, the problem starts to occur. Honestly, though, I don’t remember this happening at all before I installed the most recent binary with HW acceleration. Previous to that, I could run my Mac Mini and Plex for weeks without a reboot. Now, if I leave it running for a while (can’t confirm the intervals just yet as I haven’t had time to experiment enough), I eventually get to the point where my free memory (in Activity Monitor) gets down to like 16MB, and I start seeing > 0MB values in the swap used. It could be something else I’m running as a long-standing process on the Mac Mini (i.e SABnzbd+ 0.5.2). I’ll kill that for a few days and see what happens.
I updated recently. I Have noticed that using HW Accelerated decoding makes the video quite grainy. Pre-update, this was not present. I had cleaned up roughly two hundred of my movies, to the point where they are better than their dvd source (it can be done). Now, it looks as though it is being over sharpened. To clarify, am running Mini w/2.26ghz + 2G ram. I’ve since rolled back Plex back. What sort of issues are to be expected, with x264 encoding options, and of course, HW acceleration? To be sure, to clean up my movies, they needed a decent amount of work, and i’m wondering if the HW acceleration is compensating further, after my actions at encoding time. As a side, Plex by far, is the best piece of kit for an HTPC. The library and aesthetics are brilliantly simple. Well done.
I Just gave the new binary a try, but I didn’t see any change in CPU usage…
I’m running Plex on a MBP 2.53GHz with 9400M GPU and Snow Leopard 10.6.3.
I tested it with Planet Earth Demo Mkv and with Avatar Mkv… Using Plex internal info screen, CPU Usage was pretty the same with the 2 releases…
About 150-160% in the bird scene in Planet Earth…
Any clue?
While I am not seeing the drastic changes that others are reporting, I am seeing approximately a 10% drop in CPU usage and a corresponding drop in load. However the temps are somewhat higher, but I don’t have a hard set of numbers for comparison.
@elan May 11th, 2010 9:49 am: I still have the audio desinc problem with the new binary, but as you have mentioned here, a restart solves the problem for a while. After a few minutes the desinc is so annoying again.
MacMini w 9400M, display @60Hz
Hey I tried out the new binary and it work! I tested it with kill bill.mkv dts H264. It plays with more flow but when I connect my mac (macbook pro 13″ 2.26 cpu and 9400m) to my sony bravia 55″LCD It seems that Mplayer extended preforms more choppy but with more image quality than plex.. Any thoughts? (with plex it almost has no image delay on the lcd.)
Tried the new binary…
MacMini 2.26 2GB 10.6.3… Stuttering, audio sync, dropped frame issues galore! I am connected to my KRP-500m@ 24Hz via mini displayport to hdmi… before the update I might have dropped 3 frames in Avatar’s entirety… Now I drop 90 frames in the first minute. Should I upgrade the Ram to 4GB?
@John: I’ve heard similar problems with 24Hz refresh rate, you might want to give 60Hz a try.
Unfortunately… I tried that as well… just as bad.
Just tried the binary on a MacBook Unibody (late 2008) 2.4 4GB 10.6.3.
With a 720p movie, Plex’s CPU usage drops from 60 to 35%.
With a 1080p movie, looks like it drops from 94 to 91%, that is to say almost nothing.
I did the tests on the exact same sequence of the exact same movie in both cases.
I just tested this GPU accelerated release and it works so much better than other video players: http://i47.tinypic.com/x40ydl.png
Playback is smoother and less CPU usage.
My setup is a MacBook Unibody 3GB RAM 9400m.
The video I tested was Avatar 1080p at a screen resolution of 1920×1080.
Plex isn’t the first movie player I reach for, but thanks to HW acceleration it was the only one which played a 1080P mkv movie on my 2.8ghz C2D Macbook Pro 17, especially the water scenes which made QuickTime Player (with Perian) and VLC choke.
Pity the interface is built around the Apple remote. Navigation is a pain in the ass and I’ll probably never use Plex again once VLC supports HW acceleration. However one solution is better than none and I’m grateful or that.
I’m not sure why QuickTime Player choked so hard. One would think it could decode h264 in HW as well!
Replaced the plex file inside MacOS, and now none of my tv shows or films play.
I get the usual “error while opening file” window, however all these files play perfectly in VLC.
Any suggestions to fix this are appreciated.
Gary.
Nevermind, got it working after a few hours.
This is definitely a good update to plex.
I ran the binary and received the following message…
Last login: Sat May 29 12:58:40 on ttys000
new-host:~ jeff526$ /Users/jeff526/Downloads/Plex-2 ; exit;
dyld: Library not loaded: @loader_path/../Frameworks/BWToolkitFramework.framework/Versions/A/BWToolkitFramework
Referenced from: /Users/jeff526/Downloads/Plex-2
Reason: image not found
Trace/BPT trap
logout
[Process completed]
I assume this was not successful
I went to Applications and showed Plex contents. I saw Resources, but not resources/MacOS as other posted in previous posts.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks
Jeff
ignore my previous post – i figured it out
simply replaced the original binary with the new in MacOS
Not too found of this beta. I’m using a late 2008 MacBook Pro in 24hz mode on my HDTV via MiniDisplay Port, lots of dropped frames and ugly audio sync with 720p. The standard version of Plex runs smooth though.
Changing the 24hz is not an option because it’s the native my Samsung 100hz likes best (ultra smooth motions).
Guess I’ll wait for a more stable release.
I am not sure if I understand this.
People who have recent Macs running OS X 10.6.3 will finally be able to play AVCHD files from our HD camcorders?
And I don’t mean like having to first convert it to MPEG2 or having choppy frames like VLC, but really play it smoothly like on a PS3?
Does Steve Jobs know about this project? Are you guys safe?
It doesn’t seem to work for 1080i running at 60fps. All Sony cams use 1080i at 60fps.
The video is certainly better then VLC, which crashes, but the video is very choppy, and the alternate horizontal lines are highly visible (not de-interlaced).
Will this be corrected? I dislike having too Bootcamp (Super Loiloscope) or be at home and use the PS3 to view AVCHD files.
When I attempt to run the binary I get the error ‘No suitable image found’ (Failed with Error=13). Anyone know what the problem might be?
Dammit, now I’m going to have to buy a new Mini. And to think AT&T just “saved” me from new iPhones (subsidized pricing isn’t available until 2/2011 for me).
Awesome news, even if I am a couple months late to it.
An alternative I’ve found is using Perian with QT7 player (NOT QTX).
This works well for 1080P mkv
It will be more helpful if folks would include their Mac model/year plus the specific OS X build (10.6.X etc. There are way too many seemingly conflicting feedbacks here. I use PLEX on my late-2008 2.0 Ghz 4GB RAM 10.5.8 MacBook Unibody. I have no problem playing 1080p mkv streamed from my 1TB Time Capsule (!) with Safari open + downloading other mkv movies in the background. There are exceptions: the 1.85 aspect ratio movies like Sherlock Holmes & War of the Worlds (very grainy look), and of course some Planet Earth episodes. There are some stuttering & minor pixelations during playback of these movies but not to the point of being unwatchable. Playing 1080p mkv files straight from my MacBook HDD should yield even better results. It’s puzzling to me that many folks in this forum have more powerful gear than me with supposedly better OS X build but still have playback issues.
Nice improvement – 1080p video dropped from 32-35% to 20-22%
Tested using MBP 2.8GHz 9600GT
Thanks for this great binary! Got 1080p MKVs to finally play smoothly on my Hackintosh: ASUS G51Jx-A1. You can add this to the supported GPUs (although Apple won’t like it!): nVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M.
This is it!!!!!!!!
Using the new mac mini (2010) running OSX 10.6.4, w/2GB RAM and an external firefire800 disk drive. If I use the v2 of the plex app, I get stuttering. No other changes to plex have been made. If I go back to the original version, I have no problems. I’ve tried this with 3 videos so far.
For the record, the new HWA binary causes my audio and video to playback way out of sync. It shows a significant decrease in CPU utilization but is unwatchable. This is on a new 2010 Mac Mini 2.4GHz, 2GB RAM, with 320M running 10.6.4 using HDMI output. It plays 1080p content fine after switching back to the regular Plex binary.
I should add that I run a 24Hz refresh with 24fps source material, of course.
Same here, out of sync in 24p playback…
We’re seeing out of sync playback with the second build as well. Any chance of getting a refresh sometime soon?
I can confirm that audio is severly out of sync (Ahead with 10+ seconds) with the latest binary in combination with HDMI 24p output on the latest Mini.
Changing output to 50/60 hz resolves the sync issue but reintroduces dropped frames (As is expected with 24fps content).
Is this being looked into?
Thanks Jeff, for pointing out that you have to replace the plex binary w/ the beta one, since there is nothing obvious about that and they don’t mention it in the original post.
That griping done, I’m ready to try this bad boy out.
How is it going with the audio-sync problem?
I noticed the audio out of sync when tv is in 24hz. By putting tv on 60hz the problem is solved (but there are micros lags during videos).
24p is impossible with this. Goes completely out of sync on a 2.0Ghz mini.
It’s a shame since the computer that I run Plex on will be an old 2007 MacBook with a GMA 950.
@Jim: same thing here.. My Sony TV is at @60Hz, connected via HDMI (to Yamaha receiver and then to TV) no out-of-sync problems at all with the new binary nor with the original one. However I do have micro stuttering in the video (audio is fine) every time (with both binaries) with 1080p MKVs, MP4s as well as M2TSs. Of note: I am running a brand new 2010 Mini with SL server OS (2.66 Core Duo 2, 4GB RAM, etc).