Playing video in Kubuntu

dotancohen · 02-13-2006, 03:16 PM

I recently installed Kubuntu 5.10. When I play a DVD in Kaffeine the movie stutters- it is playing frame by frame. I see that the drive's LED and the computer's LED flash together, and when the movie starts stuttering, they flash more slowly. This happens in every DVD that I try after about ten seconds of playback. I can move to a different part of the film, and after a few seconds of normal playback the stuttering starts again. The same hardware worked perfectly in Windows XP Home so I don't think that the drive is bad.

Also, when playing an avi file from the local hard drive, the quality is horrible- most of the screen is squares that change slowly. The audio is fine, however. This is an avi that played perfectly in Windows XP Home. Is is located on a mounted FAT32 partition.

Thanks in advance for any troubleshooting advice that you can provide.

HappyTux · 02-13-2006, 04:52 PM

Sounds like the DMA is turned off on your hard drive. Install the program hdparm then use sudo hdparm /dev/hd? replacing the ? with the drive letter that contains the partition you should see output similar to below.

Code:

hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 IO_support   =  1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
 using_dma    =  1 (on)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    = 256 (on)
 geometry     = 16383/255/63, sectors = 234441648, start = 0

The important one is the using_dma = 1 (on) if it is not there then sudo hdparm -d1 /dev/hd? again replacing the ? then try your media files now. If this works then edit the file /etc/hdparm.conf and put a section like this in it to make sure the DMA is set each time on boot.

Code:

/dev/hd? {
       dma = on
}

Of course replacing the ?.

foolsh · 02-14-2006, 07:22 AM

http://easylinux.info/wiki/Ubuntu

dotancohen · 02-15-2006, 01:16 PM

Thanks, hdparm looked like this:

Code:

root@ety:~# hdparm /dev/hdd

/dev/hdd:
 IO_support   =  0 (default 16-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  0 (off)
 using_dma    =  0 (off)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    = 256 (on)
 HDIO_GETGEO failed: Invalid argument
root@ety:~#

I'll play with the DMA settings and see how that goes. Thank you.

dotancohen · 02-16-2006, 01:41 AM

That made a major improvment, but the movie still does not play 100% smooth. It 'jerks' about once a second, making the watching experience unenjoyable. Is there anything else that I can do?

Thank you.

HappyTux · 02-16-2006, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dotancohen

That made a major improvment, but the movie still does not play 100% smooth. It 'jerks' about once a second, making the watching experience unenjoyable. Is there anything else that I can do?

Thank you.

You do not mention what you have for a video card but have you installed the drivers for it?

dotancohen · 02-17-2006, 02:40 PM

No, I was unaware that this was nessacary...

The video card is a Nvida 32 Meg AGP unit. From where could I download the correct drivers? How can I find what is the correct model, excactly?

HappyTux · 02-17-2006, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dotancohen

No, I was unaware that this was nessacary...

The video card is a Nvida 32 Meg AGP unit. From where could I download the correct drivers? How can I find what is the correct model, excactly?

Several ways to tell really at boot the model/make along with the amount of ram is usually shown or in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file it should show the model it detects also lspci will show you. The drivers you can get from Ubuntu already packaged you should go to their wiki page and follow the instructions your most likely going to need the legacy driver.