Video Playback Bad (Stuttering and Jerky)

mimoLive
1

Hi There,

Is there any recommendations on the best video codec to be using with MimoLive when playing back video via the media playlist or placer?

I have tried lots of different combinations and all appear to start off smoothly but will revert to being jerky and stuttering.

I am using an iMac 2017 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 32GB RAM and 8GB Video Card. The GPU goes barely above 128mb so im guessing its nothing to do with that.

I have nothing else open on my machine when using MimoLive and have at most 5 MimoCalls simultaneously.

The video playback is that bad that we have to overlay it in the edit suite.

I have even tried via another machine using NDI but that is still the same.

Used multiple other pieces of software (QLab,VLC and Adobe Premiere) and they manage to play the video files back fine.

Thanks

Mark

2

Sorry about the trouble! Couple of questions:

  1. Can you confirm that the audio of the stuttering movies seems to have an echo? (Maybe its barely noticeable)
  2. Do you have a sample recording where I can have a look?
  3. What macOS version?
  4. What mimoLive version?
3

@Achim_Boinx
I have pretty much the same problem.
just discovered that, and tomorrow morning I’m live. I’m trying to keep calm…
any last second suggestion?

4

Hi Achim,

No there doesnt appear to be any echo at all on the audio,

  1. Sure what email address would you like me to send it to?

  2. I am on 10.15.7

  3. Running Mimo Live 5.10b2 but this has been an issue for as long as I can remember however its something I have been able to live with but its annoying me now (At least since 5.6).

Thanks

5

@Mdillon1 Thanks for your offer! I’ll send you an email.

@all: Can you try to add a filter (e.g. color correction) to the movie source in question and check if this fixes the issue? Background: If a video source gets filtered the video frames take a different code path in mimoLive. If the presence of a filter helps then this will narrow down the possibilities)

6

Hi Achim

I have sent a video file to you from my MimoLive system

Thanks

7

As you can see from the file I have sent you it is very sporadic and hard to replicate.

Also the same when I send video to it via NDI from another source for example

Mark

8

@Mdillon1 Thanks for providing the video. You mentioned that you have 5 mimoCalls also running on the machine? Please can you check the Activity Monitor app by Apple to see if your machine is just stalling because of heavy CPU usage? I recently discovered that for some reason there is a VEncoderXPCService process running aside of mimoLive causing CPU load for working with video. This process is coming from the macOS in responds of mimoLive asking it to decode or encode video frames. Usually macOS does this work in a hardware chip and didn’t show up with this heavy CPU usage.

1 Like
9

Hi Achim.

No its the same when I only have 2 mimoCalls active as well. I’ve got a top spec iMac here which I have never had any problems with other software that requires more intensive encoding etc. Its almost as if it just struggles to play the video back. But its only a 5 mbps H264. Would it improve things to use an IntraFrame codec?

I have checked and yes there is a VEncoderXPCService running and multiple VDecoderXPCService running.

CPU doesnt even go above 50% total usage

10

Hi @Achim_Boinx, this is interesting, has this only started recently? The last couple of weeks I’ve had CPU capacity issues, but nothing about the show has changed, prior to the last couple of weeks the show has performed perfectly. If it is recent i’d love to know. I’ve been pulling my hair out. Do you think you will be able to fix it in the next beta?

11

any news on this?
@Achim_Boinx does it mean that trick will help ensure a smooth playback?
should I use that as a workaround until this will be properly fixed (I hope very soon :slight_smile: )

12

Don’t know if this will help, but I run all videos through Handbrake before I play them on Mimo! Handbrake is your friend!

2 Likes
13

And i thought it was only me. have the same issue, i have a pretty good spec as well, mbp i5 16GB RAM + Razr Core X eGPU with Radeon 5700 XT video card. The livestream setup is getting hosts/participants in zoom on a separate computer in the local network, use NDI to grab the zoom screen to mimolive and send it back via NDI again so zoom viewers can see the mimolive stream, at the same time streaming it to facebook live. There is no issue when it’s using that way, issue comes up when it’s time to playback a video file, which have the generic export 720p setting/preset in premiere, the video stutters during livestream.

The fix i found is that i have to turn off the NDI upstream to the computer in the network that was running zoom, and only stream on facebook live. Problem now is that people in zoom cannot see the livestream and suggest to watch the stream on facebook but another problem is that there is a delay in facebook live. I just have to turn on the NDI upstream again to zoom once the video play back is finished.

So my guess is NDI scan converter which makes your screen an NDI source, and upstreaming it to a local computer in the network causes a 30-40% processing power. you can see this in your mac’s activity monitor. turning it off frees up extra processing resource. but it could be a different issue in your case. check activity monitor all the time and see what’s eating CPU usage while doing your livestream.

14

Is there any update on this at all? Its absolutely killing my productions this. Im even thinking of moving over to VMix or Wirecast as its that bad. that has no issues with video playback stuttering at all!

15

Hi @Mdillon1

If macOS doesn’t have enough hardware decoders for your h.264 file, it might be better to encode your video files in ProRes 422 and use the exact size and frame rate your mimoLive document has. What frame rate are you using?

I know you already send a video to Achim, but can you please send the whole document via WeTransfer or Dropbox (DM me the link here)?

16

So are you suggesting it will work ok with ProRes or any other intraframe codec?

thanks

Mark

17

Forget that, just tried ProRes now and still has the same issue. It also has the same problem when sending via NDI from another device. Completely unusable for about 40% of the time.

I have plenty of other items of software running on MacOS that dont have decoding issues so must be something within MimoLive. Its literally 2 MimoCalls and a playlist of Videos so nothing resource intensive. Do you guys have any logs within MacOS that show when it is struggling? CrashLogs, NSEvent etc?

Will send over the project asap for you guys to take a look at

Thanks

18

@Mdillon1

I will take a look as soon as I receive the file.

The “Source Performance Monitor” in the Window menu shows if there is an issue with reading the files from disk at the proper frame rate. It might give a clue. The “Render Performance Monitor” could give a clue about possible issues in the Layer stack, perhaps with a layer using more resources than wanted. The output destinations have their own reporting and give a message if there is an issue encoding the data.

Do you get the choppy video in the recorded file?

19

any news about this issue @Oliver_Boinx ?
this is incredibly important and I still have this problem on two different platforms (mac pro and mbp) with different combinations of media (prores, mp4, etc.)

20

I have the same problem.