Kaffeine problems - DVD and local avi

[Dotan Cohen]

On 2/16/06, Andy Choens <gunksta at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/13/06, Dotan Cohen <dotancohen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 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.
> >
>
> First things first.  Let's get the avi file playing a bit better.
>
> sudo apt-get install kaffeine-xine
> Or, do this with Adept/Synaptic.
>
> Now start kaffeine.  Go to Settings -> Engines and select Kaffeine.
> This should fix the avi stuff, mostly.  I find that avi and wmv files
> are sometimes a little flaky under Linux.  Damned proprietary
> mishmosh.
>
> I think I know why DVD playback is so bad for you.  I'm willing to bet
> DMA isn't turned on.  Ubuntu doesn't like turning DMA on for CD-ROMS
> because it can cause problems on really old machines.  But, if you're
> running XP, you probably aren't running a 10 year old laptop.  But, we
> can check real easy.
>
> Go to your nearest friendly commandline and enter
> hdparm /dev/dvd
> At least, /dev/dvd is what my DVD drive is called.  If you've got
> weird hardware, you'll have to figure out what it's called.  Look at
> the section labeled DMA.  On is good.  Off is problematic.  Now look
> at readahead.  On is good and off is somewhat problematic.
>
> If dma is OFF, let's turn it on.
>
> sudo hdparm -d /dev/dvd
>
> Now, restart kaffeine or xine and try to watch your DVD.  It should
> look lovely now.
>
> Unfortunately, this is only a temporary fix.  When you restart your
> computer, DMA will not be on, and your DVD playback will once again be
> shit.  To make this change permanent, you need to edit the
> /etc/hdparm.conf file.  Add
>
> /dev/dvd {
>         dma = on
>         interrupt_unmask = on
>         io32_support = 0
> }
>
> to the end of the file and life will be merry and well.  Note:  you
> will need to open a text editor with sudo in order to have write
> access to /etc/*
>
> Hope this helps.
> --andy
>

Thanks, Andy. The avi playback improved 100%. The DVD playback also
improved, but it is not 100% smooth. About once a second a frame stays
too long on the screen, which makes the movie very jerky. An
improvment, but still not 100% enjoyable to watch. Is there anything
else that I can do to improve performance?

Thank you.

Dotan
http://technology-sleuth.com/technical_answer/what_is_a_firewall.html